NC will launch Helene housing programs for multi-family, workforce units in 2026

A home damaged by Hurricane Helene under construction in Mitchell County, North Carolina on Sept. 11, 2025. (Photo: Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline)

North Carolina’s programs to repair and rebuild multi-family and workforce housing in western counties will begin accepting applications in early 2026, Gov. Josh Stein said this week.

“Multi-family housing applications will be in the first part of the year,” Stein told reporters Wednesday. “And workforce [housing] will follow.”

The housing initiatives are part of a larger, federally-funded effort to rebuild housing after Hurricane Helene in fall 2024. State officials have been accepting applications for single-family housing since June; that program’s applications close Dec. 31.

That single-family program uses the largest chunk of $1.4 billion in federal grant money, just over $800 million. The multi-family program will spend around $191 million, according to the state’s federally-approved plan, and the workforce program will spend around $53 million.

The state’s decision to stagger the timing of the programs is due to “limited staff,” Stein said Wednesday, as state officials and contractors have pushed to get as many people enrolled in the single-family program as possible. State officials had initially estimated that the multi-family and workforce programs would open in late 2025.

As of Dec, 4, there are just under 5,000 active applications for single-family housing, according to state data.

Multi-family housing repairs and rebuilds will focus on rentals that are separated into two categories: small projects with four or fewer units, and large projects with five or more units. Those projects can include those that are mixed-use, and large project applicants can include both for-profit developers, nonprofits and local governments.

Small projects will receive anywhere from $250,000 to $1.5 million, according to the state plan. Large projects can receive up to $15 million.

If projects under the program have received or could receive low-income housing tax credits, state officials will consult with the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency. The state plan calls for priority to be given to projects developed in areas with “high costs … relative to area median gross income” and higher rates of poverty.

The N.C. Department of Commerce, which is overseeing the housing programs, expects multiple rounds of applications “over the next several years” for large multi-family projects, the plan says.

Workforce housing, meanwhile, will likely have just one application round.

The program aims “to incentivize (workers) to remain in western NC following Helene and to partially remedy inadequate housing production in past years across western NC,” according to the state plan.

Housing developed under the workforce program will be for ownership, available to households who make up to 80% of an area’s median income. Local governments, public and private companies and nonprofits are all eligible to apply to develop projects under the program.

NC will launch Helene housing programs for multi-family, workforce units in 2026

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