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CV NEWS FEED // The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced Jan. 19 that they are extending hotel vouchers until May 25 for families and residents who qualify for transitional housing assistance, but thousands of North Carolina residents still face homelessness.
North Carolina outlet Citizen Times reports that Gov. Josh Stein announced the hotel voucher extension. However, the program’s increasingly strict qualifications have disqualified 3,000 people who initially qualified, leaving them with nowhere to go.
The temporary housing program also began eliminating those who were homeless before the hurricane, FEMA told Citizen Times. The outlet spoke with Kenny Meade, who was homeless before the hurricane and camped behind a Walmart near Swannanoa River.
“I lost everything I had,” Meade stated. “Me and my dog barely got out of there.”
FEMA has now stopped paying for Meade’s hotel voucher.
“It’s a terrible thing, man. We got nowhere else to go,” he said. “I was homeless already.”
The outlet also interviewed Beth Williams, another resident affected by the increasingly stringent eligibility rules. She had been living with her boyfriend before the storm and they had an argument when the hurricane hit. His house was damaged by the storm, and when he moved in with his parents, Williams had already broken up with him.
She paid for a hotel out-of-pocket for a month and was told she qualified for FEMA aid in October. However, since she explained recently to FEMA that her ex-boyfriend’s home is no longer her primary address, she is no longer qualified to participate in the housing assistance program because participants must have a primary address in order to qualify for the program. She began paying out of pocket again on Jan. 9.
“I’m broke now,” Williams told the Citizen Times. “I don’t have any more money, so I got to make a decision.”
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