It is a sunny fall afternoon in western North Carolina. In Emma, a neighborhood west of Asheville, two workers measure boards and screw posts into place to build an access ramp and a new porch at one of the area’s mobile homes.
They are part of Chispas, the repair team at PODER Emma, one of five community organizations that make up the Coalición Regional de Asheville para la Reparación de Viviendas (ARCHR, its acronym in English). The coalition’s goal is to repair storm-damaged homes belonging to low-income families at no cost.
And although two years may seem like a long time, these workers and the entire ARCHR team still have plenty to do: They continue to manage a waiting list of about 380 families whose homes need repairs related to the storm.
The work does not always involve destroyed homes or severe damage. Sometimes the hurricane made existing problems worse or caused damage that grew over time.
That is the situation at the mobile home where the Chispas team is working these weeks, and where a grandmother, her son and her grandson live. During the storm, a branch from the tree in the yard fell onto the home, causing minor damage.
“We’re replacing the porch and the ramp, since it was already quite old, and therefore the storm worsened its structural integrity,” Kelvin Bonilla, PODER Emma’s home repair program manager, told Enlace Latino NC.
They will also remove a tree right at the entrance to the home that has begun leaning dangerously.
At other homes, the damage is much more serious. But the same situation repeats itself in both: families who, 24 months after Helene, are still living with what the storm left behind.
“We still see people with holes in their roofs who have to leave their mobile homes because of the mold that has taken over the home. A lot of rotten floors and walls. We keep seeing much of the same work, the same need,” Joel Johnson, home repair program director at Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity, said in an interview with this outlet.
Joining forces to reach the same goal
In a warehouse steps away from PODER Emma’s community center, surrounded by tools, materials and work trucks, Kelvin Bonilla and Joel Johnson describe how it all began. Today, the two organizations’ repair teams work there together.
During the hurricane, Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity lost its workspace, which housed its tool and materials warehouse in the Biltmore area. Johnson recalled what they decided at the time: “We basically said, ‘We have no operations right now. Go and serve your community however you can.’”
First, they made sure their staff, volunteers and the families in their programs were safe. Then Johnson thought of PODER Emma, the organization with which they sometimes shared resources or referred cases. In the first days after the disaster, it already had a very active response center in its community.
“Thanks to that relationship, we reached out and said, ‘Hey, can we be useful? We have chainsaws, tools, tarps, vehicles,’” he recalled. “It was incredible. When I think about what happened, I get goosebumps.”
Within days, teams from both organizations were heading out together to cut down trees, clear roads, cover roofs with tarps and get water. It was during those first weeks that the idea of collaboration they had been considering since before the storm began to take shape.
Later, a building next to PODER Emma’s community center became available for rent, and the warehouse they now share was established there. That gave the organizations the final push to sign an agreement, according to Bonilla.
A relationship built on trust
The coalition formed after Helene, but it rested on something that cannot be built overnight: organizations that already knew one another, referred cases and had spent years talking about working together.
“The storm came, and we came together because we already agreed that we could work together,” Johnson said.
“We are a total of five organizations that share funds and a database where we can see where families apply, and each of our organizations can help them with our combined funds,” Bonilla explained.
In addition to PODER Emma and Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity, the coalition includes Asheville Buncombe Community Land Trust, Community Housing Coalition of Madison County and Land of Sky Regional Council.
According to coalition figures as of October 2026, ARCHR had received about 970 applications and repaired around 350 homes since the storm.
How coordination works
A few weeks after the storm, they converted their repair application into one for disaster damage and began visiting homes with tablets.
Today, a family fills out a single application. The coalition reviews the damage, prioritizes cases by urgency and assigns them to the organization best equipped to address them, whether because of the type of work or the location. Homes without roofs, families who cannot safely enter or leave, people who need oxygen and homes with severe mold come first, Johnson explained.
This also prevents something that used to happen: a family applying to several organizations at once without those organizations knowing.
“Let’s say a family applied to PODER Emma and also to Asheville Habitat, but we didn’t know. So we both took the time to qualify that family according to each organization’s requirements. Then we went to the home, reviewed the damage and prepared a work plan and a contract. We were duplicating our efforts for that family,” Johnson said.
Sometimes a team would arrive at a home and discover that another organization was already working there, Bonilla recalled.
Buncombe County sees the same advantage. “Having organizations work collaboratively benefits residents who need repairs, since they do not have to apply separately to each organization,” Matthew Cable, the county’s Community Development Division manager, responded in writing.
Shared funding
Working as a coalition also changed how they raised money. The city of Asheville was the first to fund ARCHR, according to Johnson.
“They could fund a single organization that would distribute that money among its members to be more effective in the community and use those funds for disaster repairs,” he explained.
In response to questions from Enlace Latino NC, the city of Asheville reported that it provided the coalition with $1,465,000 through two grants: $750,000 in late 2024 and $715,000 in 2025. The money came from a 2016 affordable housing bond and became available because the project for which it had been intended never materialized, according to the city’s Community and Economic Development Department.
“The city was looking to move quickly and fund home repairs as soon as possible, while also reaching a broader group of homeowners than perhaps with a single organization,” Kim Miller, a spokesperson for the city of Asheville, responded in writing. “It was very fortunate that ARCHR had already been organizing and putting systems in place to coordinate and use funds jointly.”
With that money, the city of Asheville funded completed repairs at 52 homes. In eight out of 10, household incomes were at or below half the area median income.
Other public funding and private donors followed the city of Asheville. So far, the coalition has raised more than $11.25 million from local governments, the state and private sources.
Buncombe County does not fund the coalition because ARCHR cannot apply for funding as an entity. It did provide Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity, one of its members, with $574,000 for emergency repairs in fiscal year 2025 and allocated $600,000 for 2027 through its Affordable Housing Services Program. In fiscal year 2026, the program was suspended and did not distribute funds.
According to Johnson, together they secure funding at a level they could not achieve separately, allowing each organization to concentrate its resources on the areas it serves and the type of work it does best.
Organizing to stay
While other groups arrived to make quick repairs, the coalition took time to build a system that would last. The first repairs using shared funds came a couple of months after the hurricane.
“We went out to do assessments and took the time to organize how we were going to do it. That took time while other groups were very active,” Johnson said. “But we knew we would be prepared for the long term. And here we are.”
That organization also allowed them to respond quickly when needed. Bonilla recalled a family in one of PODER Emma’s housing cooperatives: A tree fell onto their home and split open the room where the parents were sleeping, about 2 feet from their heads. The team covered the roof with a tarp and took some time to make sure there was no further damage. In less than a month, the room had a new roof, ceiling and windows, and in less than two months, the family returned home.
Damage that takes time to appear
Helene damaged more than 73,000 homes in North Carolina, according to the state Office of State Budget and Management’s damage and needs assessment. In Buncombe alone, there were more than 87,000 applications for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and more than 360 homes destroyed, according to figures from the state action plan cited by the county.
But Buncombe County does not have an updated estimate of how many homes still need repairs because of Helene damage, according to Cable.
Much of the damage, moreover, is not reflected in those figures. In many homes, water remained trapped in insulation and wood, and the damage took months to become visible.
“The entire floor assembly got wet. And now the floors, the toilets, everything is falling through because all that moisture has rotted the wood in the home,” Bonilla explained. “It’s not a tree falling on the roof, but over time you can see that the problem has grown.”
Other families arrive after waiting months for other programs. “People are on the waiting list for a very, very long time, only to sometimes be told at the end, ‘I’m sorry, you don’t qualify,’” Bonilla said. “These families have been living in their homes all this time they’ve been waiting, and the problems get worse.”
Some applied for FEMA assistance but were denied because of an error on the application and thought they no longer qualified for anything. Now they come to the coalition because a neighbor received a repair and told them about it, Bonilla explained.
Although the coalition works together only on disaster repairs, its organizations can also coordinate other repairs, depending on each organization’s funding, service area and programs, Johnson explained. In Weaverville, north of Asheville, Asheville Habitat’s repair team is working on another mobile home. Two team members move a dresser to reach the floor. In the next room, another kneels on new sheets of wood and screws them into place one by one.
Marie Carter has lived there with her family for 37 years. The floor was old and needed replacing, she said. It is not a disaster repair, but Helene’s rain badly damaged the back porch, which the team is also replacing, according to Josh Edwards, Asheville Habitat’s home repair manager. “I think they’ve done a great job. I’m glad it’s finally getting done,” Carter said.
At least five years
Almost all the groups with disaster experience that visited the region told them recovery would take at least five years, Johnson recalled.
“We’re two years in. We estimate that we’re going to be doing this work for at least five,” he said.
Of the 970 applications, about 700 met the location, income and homeownership requirements. The coalition’s goal is to make disaster repairs for 250 families between July 2026 and June 2027: 100 through Asheville Habitat and 150 through the other organizations, according to Johnson.
The wait ranges from one month to one year. It depends on when the family applied, the level of damage, the location, the type of repair, the health risk and whether the family had to leave their home, Johnson explained.
The coalition is already considering how it will continue once it has addressed most Helene cases, whether it will add more organizations and what other work it could do. Meanwhile, it is seeking funds to continue serving families with damage that was not visible at the time of the storm.
“Many groups come to try to help temporarily, which is important and necessary. But many of these groups move somewhere else. So the coalition helps us prepare not only for the moment but also for the future,” Bonilla said.
How to request help with home repairs
The coalition repairs homes belonging to low-income homeowners in Buncombe and Madison counties. Applications remain open. It does not serve rental homes or ask for Social Security numbers.
“The only requirements are that they have to be within the annual income limits, they have to be low-income and they have to own their homes,” Bonilla said. The limit is 80% of the area median income, which in this region is above the federal poverty line.
This year, the limit is $57,350 annually for one person, $66,550 for two, $73,750 for three and $81,900 for a family of four, according to Johnson.
Mobile homes also qualify, even if the family does not own the land.
Emma has many mobile home parks, Bonilla explained. “In many of these mobile home parks, people do not own their land, but they do own their homes. So we help them anyway,” he said.
Applications are available through ARCHR’s online form. They can also be completed by phone by calling Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity’s main line, (828) 251-5702, or any of the coalition’s organizations; at PODER Emma’s office; or at the family’s home if they have accessibility difficulties.
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