Despite high unemployment and a severe Helene-induced economic tailspin in Western North Carolina, the number of people facing eviction in recent months has declined.
A new analysis of court data shows evictions fell drastically (by about 33% regionally) in the area’s most populous counties in the aftermath of the storm.
However, some housing and legal advocates say the numbers may mask a brewing crisis as the initial influx of financial assistance recedes.
It’s also unclear how many – of the thousands of people displaced — lost the homes they rented due to flooding and landslides instead of being evicted. Recently, most of the WNC residents who have lived in hotel rooms — paid for by FEMA over the last five months — have moved out as they’re no longer considered eligible for the temporary housing program.
Pisgah Legal housing attorney David Bartholomew says the relatively low number of evictions in late 2024 and early 2025 is not what he expected. Usually, he said, the biggest month for evictions is January — but not in 2025 in the mountains.
As was seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, increased funding for rental assistance programs after Helene appears to have created a disaster safety net – which Bartholomew hopes will last long enough for renters and the economy to recover.
“Evictions and homelessness that result from disasters are in many ways preventable and rental assistance is how that works,’ Bartholomew said. “We can keep people here. We really give ourselves a chance to recover, to not lose population and get our economy going again and rebuild.”
But with limited public or charitable funding to help residents pay rent each month – combined with the long-standing affordability crisis in Asheville and beyond — the temporary lull in local evictions may not last long.
Evictions – where a landlord takes a tenant to court if they’re behind on payments or break their lease terms – slowed considerably in October, November, and December across much of Western North Carolina, according to BPR’s analysis of data gathered by the NC Housing Coalition.
More recent data, from January and February, suggests landlord evictions may be returning to closer-to-normal levels but overall, court actions taken against tenants are considerably down compared to pre-Helene.
For example, in Buncombe County, in the three months before the disaster, a total of 863 eviction actions were filed. Post-Helene eviction data show that figure dropped to a total of 520 in the three months after the storm. That’s a nearly 40% slowdown in Buncombe County evictions in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
In Henderson County — the region’s second most populous — the change was less stark, with around 12% fewer evictions in the aftermath of the storm compared to the three months prior.
The populations of Buncombe and Henderson counties make up around a quarter of the total number of people living in Helene-impacted counties.
The drop-off in evictions in some smaller counties was even more apparent than in more urban areas. In Clay and Polk counties, for instance, evictions fell by close to 57% and 71%, respectively, in the first 90 days after Helene. In Transylvania, there was a 21% drop; in Swain, 44% fewer evictions; and in Haywood, a 29% drop.
However, not all Helene-impacted counties are included in this analysis of eviction data. Statistics are only included from those counties that make court records available online to the public. So the analysis of eviction trends does not include places like Madison, Mitchell, and Yancey counties.
Of the 10 court systems BPR accessed evictions data for, only in three counties — Graham, Jackson and Macon, with a combined population of less than 100,000 — was the number of evictions after Helene relatively flat.
Displacement after Helene
While the stats show a general reprieve from evictions after Helene, looking outside court records tells a very different story of displacement in the region.
For thousands — like Swannanoa resident Zoe Lauenstein — she could no longer live in her apartment due to damage, not being kicked out by a landlord.
In an interview with BPR, Lauenstein recalled how she and her neighbors at the Swannanoa Bend Apartments debated on taking shelter in late September on the roof of the building as water reached the second floor of the apartments.
“We ended up watching the water submerge all of our cars, and then it got up to the second floor,” Lauenstein said. “And so we all were like, are we climbing up on the roof? And then rescue boats appeared on our horizon.”
Emergency personnel arrived by boat to rescue the group.
Residents from Swannanoa Bend Apartments were among the first at the WNC Ag Center, which was a shelter and disaster recovery center during Helene.
There, Lauenstein applied for FEMA assistance and was eventually approved to stay long-term at a hotel through the federal government’s transitional sheltering assistance program.
She’s unsure if her old apartment will be liveable in the future. She’s also facing several medical concerns, including an upcoming surgery and injuries that occurred as she evacuated during the flood.
“ I’m on two lists for an RV or trailer with nonprofits Savage Freedom and Beloved,” Lauenstein said. “But I need to go back to them with an RV park or a lease from land. There’s a shortage for that right now. So that was kind of our ideal plan because it would be really nice to have our own space.”
She’s one of countless renters in the area who aren’t sure where they’ll live next — beyond a FEMA hotel room or an RV. Her story partly illustrates the ongoing housing crisis post-Helene that isn’t told through the slowdown of evictions.
How tenants fall through the cracks
As previously reported by BPR, Hurricane Helene damaged an estimated 126,000 homes throughout Western North Carolina. Around 5,700 households lived, for some stretch of time, in FEMA hotels.
Legal aid workers say people can fall through the cracks in a number of ways – and eviction isn’t always the reason a tenant could lose their home. For example, tenants living on a month-to-month lease could be kicked out – whether for lack of paying rent or another reason – without a landlord taking them to court.
Christiana Johnson, managing attorney of the High Country Office of Legal Aid of North Carolina, said some landlords have tried to avoid going to court to file eviction paperwork in recent months.
Johnson feels some landlords are “trying to take advantage of the situation.” For example, she explains, landlords could be subject to lawsuits or code enforcement violations over lingering storm damage or water damage that makes a rental unsafe or inhabitable. But if the property owner can’t or won’t make immediate building repairs, they may want tenants to sign a liability waiver and move out. This, in essence, is an eviction-less eviction.
For landlords, this lessens the time and risk associated with relocating tenants, making repairs, or going to evictions court. For some tenants, if they can’t pay rent and would otherwise face eviction, this situation at least keeps court actions off their rental history – which would likely affect their ability to get another lease.
Still, Johnson points out, asking renters to turn in their keys and sign a liability waiver negates possible legal protections from residents who need it most.
Meanwhile, landlords in Western North Carolina may face their own difficult recovery as FEMA individual housing grants apply only for a primary residence. That means a property owner with a second home they use as a rental, for example, is considered a business owner. Instead of a grant for rebuilding, a landlord could be eligible for a federal small business loan.
It’s unclear exactly how many rental properties in the region were destroyed by Helene. If low inventory plagues an already high-priced market, urban areas of WNC, especially, may face not only a looming eviction crisis but also sustained market-rent increases.
Amid all these factors, advocates point to the ongoing need for post-Helene rental assistance.
The NC Housing Coalition, which is tracking evictions each week in WNC, says the availability of cash help through charities and public funds has likely helped renters avoid getting behind in payments – at least so far.
“Rental assistance is a big deal,” said Tanner Bornemann, a volunteer who helped compile the data used in BPR’s analysis.
Already, some of the largest local rental assistance programs have run out of money.
“Now that’s starting to run out,” Bornemann said. “I’m very curious what’s going to happen next.”
Gerard Albert III contributed to this report.
