3 days ago
How many Helene refugees temporarily called Haywood home?
May 28—The Federal Emergency Management Agency program that housed displaced Helene victims in hotel rooms has drawn to a close. As of May, there were no FEMA hotel vouchers being used in Haywood County — following a January peak of 7,669 hotel room nights in Haywood County being filled by homeless flood victims.
A family staying in a hotel all month would count as 30 room nights. Another family may stay in a hotel for only a week, say if their temporary living arrangements with a relative wore thin. That would count as seven room nights.
So the 7,669 room nights during the month of January could account for as few as 300 to 400 individual families staying in hotel rooms for various durations.
One thing is clear, however: the flood victims filling hotel rooms here weren't all from Haywood. Many came from other ravaged counties, seeking shelter in Haywood.
Nor were displaced flood victims the only ones filling Haywood hotel rooms after Helene. Some hotels were so full of the recovery workers who poured in, they had no space or limited space for flood victims initially, let alone room for tourists.
"As much as we are a tourism-based economy, we were doing the right thing in housing construction workers, linemen and folks who were here to help rebuild Haywood County — plus sheltering families in need," said Patrik Shaw, a long-time hotelier in Haywood County and owner of Days Inn. "That is the benefit of having multiple hotels be able to open their doors in time of need."
The Haywood County Tourism Development Authority was a key player in getting hotels enlisted to house flood victims. The TDA put out the call to its database of lodging owners that FEMA needed hotels willing to participate and created a spread sheet of interested hotels for FEMA.
"They answered a lot of questions about how FEMA transitional housing worked. It helped us figure out if it was something we wanted to participate in and what this process would look like," Shaw said.
Interestingly, the presence of the Helene refugees in Haywood's hotels and motels artificially inflated the key tourism metric of overnight stays, suggesting tourism was up after Helene when in fact the bump was attributed to flood victims staying in hotels — not tourists.
The numbers
Hotel stays in October got off to a slow start, then rose dramatically in November, stayed roughly level in December, and rose sharply again in January. February saw a huge fall-off, followed by a more gradual decline in March.
This curve reflects a combination of factors: weather, the availability of other housing solutions and news that the program would be ending chief among them.
—In October, 1,679 total room-nights were rented for flood victims.
—In November, that number jumped to 5,000.
—December saw another bump, up to 5,461.
—Another large increase came with January and the new year, with 7,669 room-nights recorded.
—In February, the number dropped to 2,712.
—In March it dropped again to 1,216.
By the end of April, there were no flood victims staying in Haywood County hotel rooms, at least not on FEMA's tab.
The large jump between October and November is due in part to displaced flood victims staying with friends and relatives immediately following the storm before turning to hotel rooms. Numbers continued to climb as more people quit couch surfing or could no longer stay in tents and campers as temperatures dropped.
Meanwhile, the drop-off after January is likely due to displaced flood victims finding more permanent housing solutions. Others victims lost their eligibility for the hotel housing program.
How it worked
The FEMA program that housed flood victims in hotels is called the Transitional Shelter Assistance program, also referred to as TSA. Participation by Haywood's lodging businesses was voluntary, and not every business participated for the entire six-month stretch. Some didn't participate at all.
It was up to flood victims to call participating hotels and find if any had room. FEMA then paid the hotels directly. The program was extended twice, once to Jan. 11, 2025, and again to May 26.
The TSA program did not cover short-term vacation rentals, providing payments only to hotels and motels.
Complicating an analysis of how many flood victims were using hotels, FEMA only knows total room nights for the month — not individual families. Because of the migratory nature of families involved in the program, obtaining an average nightly number was also impossible.
Similarly, FEMA had no record of which hotels and motels within the county had TSA-booked rooms on any given date.
It's difficult to say how many were from outside Haywood County — places like Chimney Rock or Spruce Pine where there wasn't nearly as much hotel inventory for flood victims to tap.
During their time here, the county's hotel and motel proprietors did the best they could to make the storm victims feel comfortable in a less-than-ideal situation.
At the Days Inn, the hotel staff held a Christmas party for flood victims, complete with presents brought in by a charity that had conducted a toy drive down east for Helene victims.
"There were multiple kids that had a wonderful Christmas even away from their traditional homes," Shaw said.
Shaw also reached out to First United Methodist Church, which was a clearinghouse for flood relief, to get supplies brought directly to the hotel.
"Twice a week, they went to hotels and stocked water and snacks and dry food. It was really neat, because I would tell them what the need was for our guests, and they would leave a stack of it in the lobby," Shaw said.
