NewsChannel 12 Investigates: Years later, still no help for some from RebuildNC

NEW BERN, Craven County — Hurricanes Matthew in 2016 and Florence in 2018 devastated thousands of Eastern Carolina families.

The intense flooding from rivers and streams adversely affected many low-income and minority communities. That's why North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper established the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency to manage nearly $1 billion dollars in federal funds to rebuild.

But, years later as we discovered in our months long investigation, hundreds if not thousands, of families like the Zerbys and Eva Lawrence, are still waiting.

"You told us you had the money to help us. Where's our home?," Lawrence said.

"So we've been asking, asking, asking what's been the hold up? We really don't get straight answers from any part of the program," Bill Zerby said.

Hurricane survivors from all across Eastern Carolina have had similar complaints.

"My opinion is they can't be this dumb. This has got to be an outright scam or fraud," Donald Speight said.

Speight, of Stokes, is one of them. He entered the program back in 2019 after signing his contract. It forced him to pay RebuildNC $1,300 in FEMA money he was awarded to fix his trailer before it was condemned, money he didn't have and had to borrow. RebuildNC also forced Speight, who lives on disability, to spend hundreds of dollars in rental payments every month on a vacant lot to accept the home they promised him, but still, almost four years later, has never received.

"So far, as to this date right now, as we standing here talking, It's been a lie. One after another, after another, you see what I got. Y'all come into the house," Speight said standing on a vacant lot.

We've also received numerous emails from people.

Terry Garner writes "I signed up for RebuildNC about 3 or 4 years ago..."I can't believe RebuildNC is making my last days of life as miserable as they can. It's been three-and a-half years since I lost my home and RebuildNC is always full of excuses. Glad to know someone is publicizing this deceptive program."

"We have about 300 to 350 clients who are at some stage of the process for Rebuild NC," Lesley Wiseman Albritton with Legal Aid of NC said.

Legal Aid of North Carolina has heard from many of those people who feel they've been deceived. They believe the program designed to help low-income families - has deep flaws, harming the poor, primarily minorities.

Wiseman Albritton said many have been involuntarily withdrawn or kicked out of the program for failing to meet RebuildNC's seemingly impossible requirements.

"I think the question is what is there process for determining when a person is involuntarily withdrawn and is it a fair process that's being applied evenly?" Wiseman Albritton said.

Ashley Skaff is the supervising attorney for disaster relief at Legal Aid and has seen the difficulties for applicants first-hand.

"There's a high amount of accountability for the applicant to meet all of these stages constantly. But, it seems like there's not as much accountability for the program as far as their responsibility towards the applicants in which they were created to serve," Skaff said.

The attorneys at Legal Aid were able to obtain this document revealing thousands of applicants, mostly African-American, in various steps or stages of the grant process while RebuildNC has successfully completed just 711 homes. They fear RebuildNC will simply run out money for the thousands of hurricane survivors who've applied for help.

"That the Rebuild program will run out of funding to make grants before we shepherd those clients through to their grant agreement or before we get them back into the program, if they've been involuntarily withdrawn, definitely a concern,"

A concern also shared by Speight.

"I've got 21 or 22 names in my telephone right now for RebuildNC, case manager after case manager," Speight said. "They're supporting their own paycheck for their own purpose for their own reasons and they have done nothing but harmed me. Nothing but harm. No benefit whatsoever anywhere."