Columbia, South Carolina - The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has approved the South Carolina Office of Resilience’s Action Plan for spending over $150 million in Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds allocated following Hurricane Helene.

“This approval is a key step in getting much needed disaster recovery assistance to South Carolinians,” said Chief Resilience Officer Ben Duncan, who leads the South Carolina Office of Resilience, the state agency responsible for managing this program for the State. 

The Plan, which was posted for public review before being submitted to HUD, includes an assessment of unmet needs, and outlines how the funds will be used to address disaster-caused unmet needs. The plan identified $2.1B in unmet needs, and $1.7B in housing needs alone. Based on this assessment, eligible activities under the approved plan include single-family home rehabilitation, replacement and reconstruction, affordable rental housing rehabilitation, voluntary buyouts, and mitigation projects to lessen the impact of future disasters. A one pager about the program and eligible activities can be found here.

The following counties are included in the CDBG-DR housing program: Aiken, Anderson, Greenville, Greenwood, Laurens, Spartanburg, Abbeville, Cherokee, Edgefield, McCormick, Oconee, Orangeburg, Pickens, Saluda and Union. Eligible applicants include: (1) low to moderate income homeowners whose primary residence were impacted by Helene and (2) rental property owners whose homes were impacted. The program focuses on low to moderate income citizens, with those who earn 30% or lower of the Area Median Income for their county prioritized higher. 

The plan also outlines how the $19.6M set aside for mitigation programs will be distributed across four eligible activities: infrastructure projects, voluntary buyouts, plans and studies, and matching funds. Mitigation activities are defined as those activities that increase resilience and reduce or eliminate the long-term risk of loss of life, injury, damage to and loss of property, and suffering and hardship, by lessening the impact of future disasters. Eligible applicants are state agencies, towns, cities, counties, and councils of governments in the following HUD defined counties: Aiken, Anderson, Greenville, Greenwood, Laurens, and Spartanburg. SCOR will be conducting meetings with local governments in those counties eligible for mitigation funding, in anticipation of applications opening for the mitigation program in the fall. A one pager about the mitigation program can be found here.

Following this approval, SCOR is finalizing procurement of an implementing contractor, and plans to open the housing recovery program to applications no later than the end of September. SCOR’s Disaster Case Management (DCM) team continues to provide services at mobile intake events across the Helene-impacted counties, connecting survivors to recovery resources, and referring those with eligible unmet housing needs to the CDBG-DR program. 

The approved Action Plan can be found at scor.sc.gov/Helene. 

###

About SCOR: The South Carolina Office of Resilience (SCOR) is committed to enhancing the state's ability to anticipate, absorb, recover, and thrive when presented with environmental changes and natural hazards by planning and coordinating statewide resilience, long-term disaster recovery, and hazard mitigation. In addition to serving 3,459 homes in our previous Disaster Recovery Programs, SCOR has 81 active flood mitigation projects, including voluntary buyouts, stormwater infrastructure, and plans and studies, across the State. SCOR continues to implement and maintain the Strategic Statewide Resilience and Risk Reduction Plan, which provides a framework to guide investment in projects, programs, and policies to protect the people and property of South Carolina from the damage and destruction of extreme weather events.