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Damage from Hurricane Helene near Asheville, N.C., is seen Oct. 2, 2024, during an aerial tour. (AP) Damage from Hurricane Helene near Asheville, N.C., is seen Oct. 2, 2024, during an aerial tour. (AP)

Damage from Hurricane Helene near Asheville, N.C., is seen Oct. 2, 2024, during an aerial tour. (AP)

Amy Sherman
By Amy Sherman January 29, 2025
Paul Specht
By Paul Specht January 29, 2025

Fact-check: Trump misleads about North Carolina storm victims and FEMA housing

If Your Time is short

  • The Federal Emergency Management Agency provided hotel or motel rooms to North Carolinians who needed temporary housing after Hurricane Helene. FEMA reviews participants’ eligibility every two weeks. 

  • As of Jan. 28, more than 2,600 North Carolina families remain in hotels. Of those, approximately 740 were notified the weekend of Jan. 18 that they have three weeks to leave because they no longer met the program’s criteria.

  • Periodically reviewing eligibility and removing some people from the program is standard procedure and also happened during Donald Trump’s first presidency.

     

President Donald Trump told North Carolina hurricane victims that under former President Joe Biden, the Federal Emergency Management Agency failed them in a time of crisis.

Trump visited North Carolina on Jan. 24, four months after Hurricane Helene made landfall and damaged more than 73,000 homes.

"Earlier this month, the Biden administration kicked 2,000 displaced North Carolinians out of their temporary housing into freezing 20-degree weather," Trump said in Swannanoa. He promised that "under the Trump administration, the days of betrayal and neglect are over."

The White House did not respond to our request seeking evidence. The number Trump cited matches a Jan. 11 Fox News report that said 2,000 North Carolina residents no longer met FEMA’s temporary housing eligibility requirements, and housing would continue for 3,600 households. 

Trump has a point in that several hundred North Carolina storm victims were told in January they had to leave their FEMA-funded hotels or motels because they no longer met the criteria for the stays. He misleads by overstating the number who lost eligibility, by omitting that they received three weeks’ notice to find new housing and by saying they were ejected into the cold.

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Reviewing temporary housing eligibility after a disaster and removing some people from the program is a standard FEMA procedure that also happened during his presidency.

Trump has floated the idea of eliminating FEMA, which would require congressional action. On Jan. 24, Trump ordered the formation of a council to review FEMA. 

FEMA announced extensions of transitional housing program

FEMA’s Transitional Sheltering Assistance program provides free hotel and motel rooms for disaster victims as they repair their homes or find other housing.

On Dec. 5, a FEMA news release said the temporary housing program in North Carolina was extended to Jan. 11. Of the 10,000 households that had used the program, about half had found longer-term housing. 

The agency reviews the participants’ cases every two weeks to see whether the participants still meet eligibility criteria. 

In January, multiple news reports said the Jan. 11 deadline would leave 2,000 to 3,500 households unsheltered during a snowstorm. (FEMA announced a 24-hour extension because of the storm.) 

About 3,600 households would remain eligible after Jan. 11, Fox reported.

On the night of Jan. 11, FEMA extended the transitional sheltering hotel stays deadline until Jan. 14 and then extended it again until Jan. 25.

North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein wrote a Jan. 16 letter to FEMA asking for an extension until Sept. 30 for eligible households as residents "are experiencing chaos and uncertainty regarding temporary housing that is untenable."

FEMA replied Jan. 19 — the Biden administration’s last full day — extending the temporary shelter program until May 26. 

A FEMA spokesperson told PolitiFact that as of Jan. 28, more than 2,600 families remain temporarily housed in hotels or motels. Of those, approximately 740 were notified the weekend of Jan. 18 that they had 21 days to find new housing because they no longer met the criteria for the temporary housing. 

The most common reason people lost eligibility was that an inspector had called three times and received no response, FEMA said. Some people were no longer eligible because they missed an inspection or had checked out of their hotels.

In Buncombe County, home to Asheville and one of the counties hardest hit by the hurricane, 407 households were no longer eligible for temporary housing as of Jan. 11 because FEMA had inspected their homes and deemed them safe to occupy, county spokesperson Lillian M. Govus said. An additional 143 households withdrew from the program and 49 households were homeless before the storm, making them ineligible. As of Jan. 28, 701 Buncombe households remain in the program.

In a Jan. 16 interview with Fox News, Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., called on FEMA for better communication with its recipients, saying he had heard from some who believed they were wrongly evicted.

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Previous administrations, including Trump’s first administration, also had eligibility criteria for remaining in temporary housing.

During Trump’s first term, a Feb. 16, 2018, FEMA news release about Texas hurricane victims said "criteria review" would determine who no longer qualified.

"Any sheltering option is, by design, a temporary, short-term solution, designed to be a bridge to middle- and longer-term solutions," Brock Long, then the FEMA administrator, said at a March 2018 House Homeland Security Committee hearing.

North Carolina politicians said people were losing their temporary housing

PolitiFact North Carolina partner WRAL reported Jan. 15 that "dozens" of people had been removed from hotels despite FEMA’s extension. That information was based on social media posts by North Carolina’s Republican senators, Budd and Thom Tillis. 

Budd wrote Jan. 14 on X that his office was "hearing from dozens in (West North Carolina) who have been kicked out of their hotels tonight" despite the extension. In an X post, Tillis said dozens of people were "told their hotel vouchers expired despite not having a safe and livable home to go back to."

The same night, Budd wrote on X that his office had spoken with FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell and "we are working through the list of those in need of lodging." 

Our ruling

Trump said, "The Biden administration kicked 2,000 displaced North Carolinians out of their temporary housing into freezing 20-degree weather," earlier in January. 

We received no information from FEMA that 2,000 people were removed in January. FEMA said on the weekend of Jan. 18, about 740 families were notified that they had three weeks to move out of the agency’s transitional sheltering assistance program because they no longer met eligibility criteria.

Trump omitted the context about why they were removed — because they no longer met eligibility requirements — and that the removals are standard procedure that also happened during other disasters during his first administration. 

FEMA reviews temporary housing participants’ eligibility every two weeks, and households whose homes are deemed habitable or who can’t be reached lose eligibility. 

We rate this statement Mostly False.

RELATED: How much temporary housing has FEMA provided to NC-based Helene victims?

Our Sources

Factbase, Remarks: Donald Trump Tours Hurricane Damage in Swannanoa, North Carolina, Jan. 24, 2025

White House, Order about FEMA, Jan. 24, 2025

FEMA, FEMA Extends Transitional Sheltering Assistance Program, Dec. 5, 2024

FEMA Region 4, X post, Jan. 11, 2025

FEMA Region 4, X post, Jan. 14, 2025

FEMA, Letter to North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, Jan. 19, 2025

FEMA, North Carolina: FEMA Continues to Work with Helene Survivors for Transitional Sheltering Assistance Eligibility, Jan. 20, 2025

FEMA, Individuals and Households Program Unified Guidance (IHPUG), Sept. 30, 2016

FEMA, Hotel Stays Extended Through Jan. 6 for Eligible Irma Survivors, Dec. 1, 2017

FEMA, Transitional Sheltering Assistance Delivery under Hurricane Florence, Sept. 17, 2018

Sen. Thom Tillis, X post, Jan. 14, 2025.

Sen. Ted Budd, X post, Jan. 14, 2025.

North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management, Hurricane Helene Recovery, Dec. 13, 2024 

WRAL, Dozens in western NC kicked out of hotels Tuesday despite FEMA extending deadline, officials say, Jan. 15, 2025

WBTV, 3K families to be kicked out of FEMA hotels in Carolinas amid snow storm, Jan. 10, 2025

Asheville Citizen Times, 3,500 WNC households deemed ineligible for Helene FEMA hotels; residents rush for housing, Jan. 10, 2025

Fox News, FEMA kicks hurricane survivors out of temporary housing into snowstorm and freezing temperatures, Jan. 11, 2025

Fox News, FEMA extends transitional housing program for North Carolina residents displaced by Hurricane Helene, Jan. 14, 2025

Fox News, FEMA leaving thousands of Helene victims without shelter, Jan. 16, 2025

Charlotte Observer, Helene victims were unfairly ousted from hotels, senators claim. Was FEMA at fault? Jan. 17, 2025

Washington Post, White House pauses all federal grants, sparking confusion, Jan. 28, 2025

AP, FACT FOCUS: A look at false and misleading claims made by Trump during his first week, Jan. 24, 2025

Email interview, Morgan Hopkins, spokesperson for North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, Jan. 28, 2025.

Email interview, Curtis Kalin, spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Ted Budd, R-NC, Jan. 28, 2025.

Email statement, Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer, Jan. 28, 2025.

FEMA, Statement to PolitiFact, Jan. 29, 2025

Email interview,  Lillian M. Govus, Buncombe County spokesperson, Jan. 28, 2025

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Fact-check: Trump misleads about North Carolina storm victims and FEMA housing

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