Western NC communities ask for more support as the General Assembly returns to Raleigh

Just under two months since Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina, legislators and community members are calling on the legislature to provide more financial support to the region.

Since it opened in Asheville’s River Arts District in 2022, Taylor Breeden’s cafe has served not only as an alcohol-free alternative to a bar, but as a gathering place for community members.

“We did poetry slams, musical jams, it kind of was just the center of creativity. We were in the middle of the Riverview Station, we had the art garden there. It was just a unique, creative little center,” she said.

But the River Arts District was decimated by Helene, forcing The Pot Stirred to shut its doors. While Breeden hopes to open her business again, she’s not sure if or when she’ll be able to. She said she and other business owners in the district are also exploring options to move to new locations given the area’s risk of flooding.

“It’s going to be years before the River Arts District can ever recover,” she said. “I personally don’t want to rebuild somewhere that the river’s going to come and just knock me out again.”

To reopen at all, Breeden said  small businesses like hers, which hasn’t been open since late September, will need more financial support from the state. And that support isn’t just crucial for the businesses to recover, Breeden said, but the entire community. 

“If we want to keep the heart of Asheville, which is the independent artists, the independent small business owners, we need the money now,” she emphasized.

Breeden is among the western North Carolina residents urging the General Assembly, which reconvened in Raleigh this week, to provide more financial support to the areas struggling to recover from Helene.

Many towns still lack running water, private roads and bridges are still either inaccessible or destroyed, and many businesses remain closed or are struggling to reopen.

In the weeks since the storm, lawmakers have passed separate $273 million and $604 million packages to aid western North Carolina, but that’s a fraction of the $3.9 billion in state funds Governor Roy Cooper has proposed.

Ultimately, the state does not have the funds to cover the full cost of the recovery, an estimated $53 billion. However, Democratic lawmakers from the region are calling on the state to do what it can as quickly as possible to support a region that needs businesses to reopen to help the tens of thousands of people who are now out of work. 

Support needed for small businesses

Helene ravaged western North Carolina, inflicting damage on people and homes, but also the state’s economy, as the 39 impacted counties account for 45% of the state’s gross domestic product (GDP). 

According to FEMA, 25% of businesses impacted by a natural disaster do not reopen, which makes the urgency of additional state support all the more acute. State Rep. Lindsey Prather of Buncombe County said grants for small businesses are needed to keep businesses afloat.

“A lot of our businesses out here still have loans from the Covid era, and are just not able to take on more loans,” she told Cardinal & Pine.

Breeden said she personally cannot take on any more loans and that grants are essential for her business getting through this difficult time.

“To give us loans on top of a loss of income, great. I now have $20,000 in my bank account that I’m going to have to pay for on top of what I’m already paying for…grant money can be the difference between us being able to go two more months to get that income coming back in, or us just being like, ‘okay, I’m out of money and now we’re bankrupt,’” she said.

Governor Cooper’s proposal calls for $475 million in recovery grants to support businesses in the region. 

State Representative Mark Pless, a Republican who represents Haywood and Madison counties, which were both impacted by Helene, was skeptical there was support for Cooper’s proposal, according to reporting from The Charlotte Observer. 

“The governor’s pushing to do a lot for these small businesses. I understand his passion. But I don’t believe we should step in under every circumstance,” Pless said.

Prather’s fellow Buncombe County Representative, Eric Ager, feels differently and emphasized the importance of providing grants to business owners. 

“It’s pretty much best practice in all recoveries that businesses need grants to get over the hump when businesses have been destroyed. And I think this is especially true here in western North Carolina. The fact that we lost October as a revenue month. That’s a good half of the year’s revenue for a lot of these small businesses like restaurants, breweries, and others that depend on that tourism revenue,” Ager said. 

Fall tourism is a vital part of the region’s economy. Mountain Xpress reports that in the fourth quarter of 2023 alone, tourism revenue brought in $2.1 billion across western NC. The impact of Helene is already being felt. In Buncombe County, tax revenue was down 45% in October compared to the same month last year.

“The fall season is when a lot of these businesses just depend on it for the entire rest of the year. On top of this being a disaster in general, the timing of it could not have been worse for our region,” Prather explained.

Breeden says losing the fall tourism season was detrimental for her business.

“October is what floats us over all of winter, into really March and April, and to not have the income come in from October is just devastating,” she said.

Rental assistance to help people stay in their homes

Gov. Cooper’s proposal also calls for $25 million to be allocated for rent, mortgage, and utility assistance.

Ager says that sort of rental assistance is needed to help keep people in their homes.

“We need to do better on rental assistance. It’s going to be crucial that we keep people in their houses. When people don’t have jobs and are dependent upon unemployment, it’s really hard to stay in their houses. Housing is really expensive here,” he said.

By mid-October, roughly three weeks after Helene devastated North Carolina, 19,200 jobless claims had been filed related to the storm statewide. 

Cooper signed an executive order on Oct. 17, which expanded unemployment benefits and the timeframe for residents in the impacted areas to receive unemployment assistance. Cooper’s order increased the cap for unemployment funds from $350 per week to $600 per week, and allows people in the impacted region to receive benefits until March 25, 2025, an extension from the state’s usual 12-week limit for unemployment benefits. 

But Breeden, whose one full-time employee and one part-time employee are currently out of work, said rental assistance would also be crucial in helping her workers stay in their homes. 

“That’s such a vital thing right now in the rebuild of Asheville, is being able to maintain our local residents and our employees because our employees are vital for our business,” she said. “I think that’s something that a lot of business owners are asking for right now. Rent relief for our employees and the residents because a lot of people are just hightailing it out of here because they’ve lost their jobs.” 

Prather is also calling for an increase in rental assistance for the region.

“We’ve given $1 million total for the entire region, which is barely a drop in the bucket. We have to provide more rental assistance so that people who are currently in housing are able to stay in that housing,” she said. 

Why help is needed now

In a recent meeting of the state Travel and Tourism Board, Republican State Sen. Bobby Hanig, a Republican representing several counties in eastern North Carolina, cautioned against spending too much as a state when the federal government could provide significant funding for recovery. 

“We want to be careful of how much we spend. Like any appropriations, we don’t want to spend too much when we can get that from the federal government,” he said, according to reporting from NC Newsline.

President Joe Biden this week asked Congress to provide a combined $100 billion to support the recovery from both Helene and Hurricane Milton, which hit Florida just weeks after Helene struck western North Carolina. The proposal from the president includes funding for farmers, rebuilding highways, and helping water systems better withstand future disasters.

Still, Prather said there are steps the state can take to support western NC as it waits for the federal government’s support.

“We have a good sense of what they’re going to pay for and what they’re not going to pay for, so there’s no reason that the state doesn’t go ahead and step in on the stuff that we know that the federal government isn’t going to assist us with” she said.

Ager agreed a faster response is needed. 

“Speed matters in this recovery, right? The longer you wait, the harder it is to recover. Waiting for the federal government is a bad idea in my mind,” he said.  “We have $4 billion dollars in the rainy day fund in North Carolina. This was certainly a rainy day.”

Breeden said that if the state doesn’t act, businesses like hers may not survive.

“We have months before people will just close. Waiting on FEMA is going to be the difference between you keeping maybe 50% of the businesses open, and maybe 20% of businesses open,” she said. “We need it now. I’m sorry that it’s going to cost them. Obviously nobody expected this and planned for this, but it is the state at hand, and we’ve got to address it, and it’s got to happen now.”