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“Just a waiting game:” Nonprofits fill the void for some as they wait for FEMA help

Lucretia Richards stands outside her trailer where she lives with her partner and two children.
Gerard Albert III
/
BPR News
Lucretia Richards stands outside her trailer where she lives with her partner and two children.

This story is part of Living in Limbo, a special package of stories exploring housing after Helene through four unique angles. Read the rest of the stories.

While FEMA has helped thousands find respite while they repair or relocate, some are still waiting on federal relief or insurance payouts.

For these folks, informal housing arrangements set up by nonprofits and churches can be a good solution. In Transylvania County, private residents offered their land for nine trailers from a nonprofit to house families displaced by the storm.

Lucretia Richards and her two children moved in last month.

She and her partner had tried to stay in their home in Pisgah Forest after Helene but eventually left when mold started to grow on the windows and in the vents.

Before the disaster, Richards had built the life she always dreamed of. Her children had a safe home with eight acres of land to explore and camp on. They played with ducks, chickens and Great Pyrenees that the family rescued.

“It's our little farmhouse cottage. And it might be a trailer to some people. It might be a shack. But our kids have made very many memories since they were little. It's our very first home we bought. And I want to spend many more years up there if I can,“ she said.

Damage from Hurricane Helene is threatening that dream.

Rain from the storm came through the windows and into the garage of her home. The trailer shifted off its foundation. Contractors have told her the structure might be beyond repair and that the home may need to be bulldozed and built from scratch.

Richards and her family tried to stay in their home as long as they could, but eventually moved into an RV set up by the Housing Assistance Corporation of WNC in early December.

The campers are set up on land owned by John and Heather Blythe. The couple partnered with the Housing Assistance Corporation and Platt Architecture, who fundraised money for the RVs. They’ll now host eight families on their land.

John Blythe installs trailers on his property in November 2024.
Gerard Albert III
/
BPR News
John Blythe installs trailers on his property in November 2024.

Plumbing and electric infrastructure was already in place from two former structures that sat on the land. Blythe graded the land and added water and electric infrastructure to each RV site. He also installed an additional septic tank.

“This is our community. We love our community and we just felt in our heart that that was the right thing to do,” Heather Blythe told BPR News while the trailers were being installed in November. “There have been so many people that have come together for the greater good. So we're just, we're just glad to be a part of it. I hope it'll be a nice place for them to live, whether it's six months or a year or however long it takes them to get back on their feet. I can't wait to see the family's faces.”

For Richards, the temporary housing is bittersweet. The location – in Penrose, a rural area of Transylvania County – is closer to her children’s school. But it is also tucked into a lot roughly the size of a football field and parked next to seven other trailers. A stark contrast to her eight acres.

“We bought this place because of what we saw our kids would grow up to have: a safe haven, a safe place to bring their friends,” she said. “And it's like we can't even stay in our house because it's become just this massive problem of, is it going to be here?“

The cost of rebuilding worries Richards who works cleaning vacation rentals and other properties. She said she lost about 50 appointments because of the storm, which came during the busiest season for cleaning work. Her partner runs an automotive shop that was severely damaged in the storm as well.

“Our goal is to rebuild, to fix what we can, but it seems like a very daunting task because of just all the hoops you have to go through to get the assistance,” she said, adding that her dealings with FEMA and her insurance company have been strenuous.

“FEMA has made it really difficult to help the little guys. We send paperwork and it's just a waiting game. And it's very much you have to figure it out yourself. And that's the scary part because people that depend on the community, people that depend on that next paycheck, they don't have the legroom to just wait around.”

Gerard Albert is the Western North Carolina rural communities reporter for BPR News.
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