As many parts of North Carolina remain struggling to recover from historic natural disasters, Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Roy Cooper campaigns across a state still searching for answers about when relief will finally arrive. The former governor’s disaster record is drawing renewed scrutiny after a report found his administration allocated more than $100 million to low-income housing projects while hurricane survivors waited years for home repairs.
The New York Post reported the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR) supported income-restricted rental developments that did not require tenants to have personally survived Hurricane Matthew or Hurricane Florence.
An analysis by the John Locke Foundation identified $107.9 million allocated to affordable rental housing, including $64.2 million in disaster recovery funds and $43.7 million in mitigation funds. The foundation argued the agency should have prioritized rebuilding homes for families already enrolled in its homeowner program.
One project was Starway Village in Wilmington, a 278-unit development awarded $9 million by NCORR in 2022. State officials said the apartments would serve households earning up to 60% of the area's median income. The $9 million was the agency’s contribution, not the development’s total construction cost. Wilmington and New Hanover County approved $3.5 million and $1.89 million, respectively, in American Rescue Plan funding for the development.
The affordable housing effort extended across several communities. By July 2024, NCORR had committed more than $171.5 million toward 2,182 units. At that point, $51.2 million had been spent to build 752 units, with another 1,430 planned, according to state records.
Cooper publicly supported the strategy when the Starway award was announced. “Rebuilding smarter and stronger includes providing safe, affordable housing to meet the needs of North Carolina families,” he said.
NCORR defended the investments to the New York Post, saying it worked with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to assess needs and comply with federal requirements. The agency said hurricanes damaged rental housing as well as owner-occupied homes, making housing availability part of community recovery.
Those investments have drawn criticism against the backdrop of failures in the separate Homeowner Recovery Program. A November 2025 state audit found the program had received 11,654 applications and completed 3,522 projects as of April 2025. Grant determinations averaged 936 days, and some families spent more than 1,400 days in temporary housing.
Auditors found poor budgeting, unreliable data, and inadequate vendor oversight. Those failures required $297 million in additional state funding to keep recovery work moving. Only one of six program administration contracts included key performance indicators, and some payments were made without full verification of completed work.
The agency spent more than $25.4 million developing its Salesforce tracking system, yet incomplete and inconsistent records still hampered operations, auditors found.
The delays had consequences beyond the state’s balance sheet. WHQR reported in February 2025 that more than 500 families were still waiting for repairs or reconstruction to begin, while roughly 500 others remained in temporary housing awaiting completed homes. Its reporting described residents living with damaged ceilings, deteriorating floors, and persistent leaks.
Rebuild NC now says it helped 4,242 eastern North Carolina families return to safer homes before closing operations Sept. 30, 2026.
Cooper did not comment on the Post’s affordable housing inquiries, the newspaper reported.
The available records do not establish that the rental developments violated federal rules or that those allocations caused the homeowner program’s entire shortfall. HUD-approved state recovery plans included affordable rental construction.
Questions remain about the priorities of Cooper’s administration in doling out funds for subsidized housing developments over delivering promised repairs to identified disaster survivors.