Governor surveys hurricane recovery efforts in Robeson, Columbus counties

Aug. 14--On his third and final stop in Robeson County on Monday, Gov. Roy Cooper met with Benjamin Phillips, the first person in North Carolina to use federal Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery money to fix his hurricane-ravaged home.

Phillips, who teaches exceptional children at Lumberton High School, said the money is being used to replace the roof and ceilings and do other work on his home on Old Whiteville Road.

Phillips said the work began late last month, nearly two years after Hurricane Matthew swamped Robeson County, ending a journey that had taken him to one disaster-relief program after another. The only help he said he received before now was through Baptist Men's/Men on a Mission, a group of volunteers who cleared fallen trees from his yard.

Phillips said the Federal Emergency Management Agency had turned down his request for assistance because he had homeowners' insurance. The insurance company refused to pay for much of the damage, he said.

Thousands of other people in eastern North Carolina are in a similar predicament; they don't qualify for FEMA money and they don't have the means to make the repairs on their own. Others have made the repairs and are awaiting reimbursement.

While the state's division of Emergency Management has doled out an estimated $739 million in disaster relief money since the hurricane on Oct. 8, 2016, more than $236 million in Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery money remains all but untapped.

Cooper's administration has taken heat for failing to disburse the money before now. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development made the money available to the state three months after the hurricane. Another $168 million will become available later.

Cooper said the state is ahead of schedule disbursing another source of federal money -- called the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program -- but he acknowledged that the process has been too slow for the Community Development Block Grant program.

"It needs to move faster with the community development grant funds," Cooper said.

In late July, state House Speaker Tim Moore reauthorized the House Select Committee on Disaster Relief to investigate the delays, and in May members of North Carolina's congressional delegation sent Cooper a letter asking why the state still controls most of the block grant funding.

Cooper said part of the problem was that the federal government initially would work only with the state Department of Commerce. The General Assembly had switched oversight of disaster recovery from the Commerce Department to Emergency Management.

"Washington will only deal with Commerce, so they have had to build up from the ground up in Emergency Management, and I think they are working very hard and I think that there will be help to a lot of people coming soon."

The block grant money is expected to begin flowing into Cumberland and other hard-hit counties in coming days, if it hasn't already.

Block grant money is just one of many funding streams available to help hurricane victims. Cooper urged people to call 2-1-1 for information about any funding that may be available to them.

Brenda Jacobs was able to get funding through the N.C. Housing Finance Agency to repair her home's roof, ceilings, kitchen cabinets and the heating and cooling system. Those repairs were finished in November.

Cooper made Jacobs' home, on Mount Olive Church Road, his first stop on a tour that also included the hard-hit city of Fair Bluff in Columbus County. Cooper spoke with Jacobs as she led him through her tidy home.

"It's nothing fancy, but it's home," Jacobs told the governor. She has lived there for 40 years.

Cooper talked to the media after the tour.

"One thing we know is there is a lot more work to do and people can never get help fast enough," Cooper said. "We want to continue to work hard to make sure that people get the help they need."

Scott Farmer, executive director of the N.C. Housing Finance Agency, said the General Assembly allocated $20 million in hurricane relief money for people who didn't qualify for FEMA or other assistance. Of that money, $5 million has gone to Robeson, the county that suffered the most hurricane damage.

Farmer said 200 homes are undergoing repairs with money allocated through his agency, and 60 have been completed. The agency expects to have more than 500 homes repaired, he said, using local governments to oversee the assistance needed. In Jacobs' case, the Lumbee tribe played a key role in helping her. Tribal members stood alongside the governor as he toured Jacobs' home.

On his second stop in Robeson County, Cooper toured Griffin Park Apartments, an affordable-housing complex under construction off Roberts Avenue. The private venture was planned before the hurricane but got delayed six months because of the devastation left by the hurricane, said Mark Morgan, a Robeson County native who is building and will own the more than $9 million, 72-unit complex for low-income people.

The N.C. Community Development Initiative provided $300,000 for the project with an agreement that anyone displaced by the hurricane will be allowed to live there. Morgan said he hopes to finish the complex in November.

Wearing a hard hat and walking inside the unfinished complex, Cooper said the hurricane reemphasized North Carolina's need for more affordable housing.

"We're going to do more of this, more affordable housing, throughout the state," Cooper told Morgan.

Staff writer Greg Barnes can be reached at [email protected] or 910-486-3525.

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