Helene worsened homelessness in Western North Carolina
Helene worsened homelessness in Western North Carolina The remnants of Hurricane Helene destroyed thousands of homes during its catastrophic sweep through western North Carolina in September, leaving many people without a fixed residence in a region where homelessness was already on the rise. The storm displaced residents like Bonnie Goggins Jones, whose mobile home in Buncombe County was rendered uninhabitable by waist-high floodwaters. She and her two teenage grandchildren now stay in a donated camper that Jones keeps parked on the property of a local church. “Being in a closed-in little spot and it’s something you’re not used to and never stayed in, and not having the clothing or the space to put the stuff that you have, and having kids — it’s just a hard thing,” Jones said of their living situation, adding that she misses the “little yard” and shade-casting trees of her old address in Black Mountain. “I mean, it’s not your home. It’s not like a home. You don’t have your own yard. I can’t even explain it.” Jones knows she does not fit the stereotypical profile of a person experiencing homelessness. She “makes good money” in her full-time job as a transportation worker for the Asheville City Schools District, she said. Still, the loss of her home and nearly all of her possessions is a setback that will take more than a few paychecks to recover from. Between keeping her grandchildren fed and filling her camper’s generator with fuel to stay warm during the frigid mountain nights, Jones has little opportunity to save up enough money for a new place. “It’s a struggle, no matter if you’re working or not,” she said. WNC housing woes intensify after Helene Two primary housing-related concerns are driving the problem in the mountains post-Helene: increased homelessness and substantial population loss. Emergency shelters are closing. Much-needed relief money is stuck in the folds of state and federal bureaucracy. Many affordable housing units were destroyed. Some houses are just now becoming unlivable due to harmful mold growth. Western North Carolinians are increasingly anxious about where they can afford to live. Some 4,900 families are still living in hotels through FEMA’s temporary shelter assistance program. Another 59 families are being put up in FEMA’s temporary trailer housing. Though the agency has extended these options through the holiday season, the key word is temporary. The question of where people will go when assistance runs out remains open. Asheville already had a significant homeless population before the storm, which is now expected to grow significantly in coming months and years. Already, tents and campers dot riverfronts and roads. FEMA is not designed to help people who were unhoused prior to the storm. D.C. Council recommends expelling Trayon White The D.C. Council moved one step closer to booting one of its own. On Monday, the council unanimously voted to support a recommendation that Councilmember Trayon White (D-Ward 8) be expelled over allegations that he took thousands of dollars in bribes from a government contractor who was seeking to keep doing business with the city. The actual vote on White’s possible expulsion from the city legislature is expected to happen in February, and would require a supermajority of 11 of the 13 members to succeed. Should that come to pass, White would become the first-ever D.C. legislator to be expelled by their colleagues. But it could also spark further political uncertainty in Ward 8, which White has represented since 2017 and recently re-elected him to a third term. Even if the council does expel White from office, there’s nothing stopping him from running again in the special election that would be called to fill the seat. The process against White – known for his strong advocacy for Ward 8 communities – started with a federal indictment in August on bribery charges, which sparked an internal council investigation. The results of that investigation – a 48-page report made public last week – found “substantial evidence” that White had taken bribes from a businessman who held city contracts for violence interruption work, and that White had pressed his case with government officials. Under rules approved more than a decade ago during a spate of government scandals, the council can reprimand, censure, or expel members for violating its rules and code of conduct. During a debate on Monday, White’s colleagues repeatedly argued that the allegations against him merited the most severe sanction they could hand down. Tennessee governor appears ready to mobilize national guard for deportation The Republican governor issued a statement on the social media platform X Monday evening saying, “I have asked key state agencies to begin making preparations & stand ready on Day 1 to support President Trump’s efforts to secure our Nation’s borders & keep communities safe.” The statement marked the governor’s first confirmation that he is willing to use Tennessee personnel, which could include troops and state officers, to remove undocumented immigrants as part of a national effort by Trump to deport millions of people. Lee sent the message on the heels of a statement from the Republican Governors Association saying it stands “united” in supporting Trump’s commitment to deal with the “illegal immigration crisis and deporting illegal immigrants who pose a threat to our communities and national security.” |
EPA grants California waiver to phase out gas-powered car sales
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday granted a waiver for California to fully implement its rule to phase out sales of new gas-powered cars by 2035, a decision likely to be rescinded by President-elect Trump.
Under the federal Clean Air Act, California is permitted to enact air pollution regulations that are stricter than federal rules if it receives a waiver from the EPA.
The agency also granted a second waiver to set stricter standards for truck engine emissions to reduce nitrogen oxides, a form of pollution associated with respiratory health issues. In California, trucks account for about a third of nitrogen oxide emissions, according to the California Air Resources Board.
“California has longstanding authority to request waivers from EPA to protect its residents from dangerous air pollution coming from mobile sources like cars and trucks,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement. “Today’s actions follow through on EPA’s commitment to partner with states to reduce emissions and act on the threat of climate change.”
Trump has threatened to block California’s new gas-powered car sales policy. His transition team said he stands by that promise.
Richmond, Va. cut its poverty rate by more than a third
Editor's Note: This article appears in Governing's Winter 2025 magazine. You can subscribe here.
Back in 2014, Dwight C. Jones set a goal some believed would be impossible to achieve. The poverty rate in Richmond, Va., was twice the national average. Nearly 27 percent of Richmond residents lived below the poverty line. Jones, then the mayor, set a goal to cut the rate nearly in half, to 15 percent, by 2030.
Five years ahead of that deadline, Richmond is not just on track to hit that mark but ahead of schedule. The most recent American Community Survey put Richmond’s poverty rate at 17.1 percent. Richmond is on a better trendline than nearly every comparable city in the Southeast.
How did Richmond do it? That’s a story every city leader can learn from.
Jones got it going in 2011 by pulling together a commission of community leaders to study poverty in the city and develop recommendations for how to address it. That process then gave birth to the nation’s first municipal Office of Community Wealth Building. The new office consolidated existing anti-poverty programs into a more holistic approach focused on both youth and adults. It also created a flywheel for hatching and sustaining the necessary partnerships in and out of City Hall to get things done.
New structures like this often fail to survive mayoral transitions. However, when Levar Stoney became mayor in 2017, he not only kept the Office of Community Wealth Building intact but added new funding, staffing and energy. The organization has now touched more than 50,000 residents with job training, financial literacy and other services. “They started an idea to reduce the poverty rate in Richmond,” Stoney says of Jones, “and we were able to expand and add value to it.”
Workforce development is a core pillar of Richmond’s approach. The city offers hundreds of residents each year robust job training, partnering with companies who are ready to hire them. For its own workforce, Richmond bumped the minimum wage for city employees to $20 an hour, well above the state minimum of $12.
Maryland MVA develops an app for organizations to verify people’s digital licenses
Businesses in Maryland can now use a state-developed app to check mobile driver’s licenses for age verification. The app, one official says, looks to innovate and streamline how residents interact with businesses and government organizations in the state.
Mobile IDs have been available for Maryland residents through Apple Wallet since 2022 and through Google Wallet since last year, making the state the first in the nation to do so. Earlier this year, Maryland made mobile IDs downloadable in Samsung Wallet.
Nationwide, at least 14 states have adopted the use of mobile IDs to make age and identity verification more convenient for certain in-person and online processes.
As of Dec. 2, Maryland has seen 259,729 active customers enrolled in the mobile ID option, with 286,762 digital identifications downloaded. Residents have been able to present their digital licenses, accompanied by their physical IDs, at TSA security checkpoints at certain airports, since the initial launch of mobile IDs.
The new Mobile ID Check by MD app looks to expand where residents can use their digital IDs to “make processes not only more secure, but also easier for people,” said Chrissy Nizer, administrator of the Maryland Department of Transportation’s Motor Vehicle Administration.
Analysts predict Maryland’s state budget shortfall to be nearly $3 billion
Everyone is setting high bars, but no one has proposed a comprehensive solution yet
The Maryland state government’s budget problem was already bad and it got a little worse on Tuesday, with analysts now predicting a nearly $3 billion shortfall.
That’s the gap between how much money is coming into state accounts and how much is planned to be spent, on programs ranging from providing health insurance for the poor to supporting public schools to policing the state’s highways.
The shortfall is the worst that the state has seen in two decades, David Romans, the legislature’s top nonpartisan fiscal adviser, told a group of lawmakers on Tuesday. He cautioned them to be mindful and work to limit spending while keeping savings accounts full.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike responded, through public meetings and press conferences, with warnings of tough decisions ahead and vague ideas about how to close the gap. Here’s what we learned — and what we didn’t learn — from an afternoon of money talk in Annapolis.
Why did the deficit grow?
Just last week, the state’s economic experts weighed in with an updated forecast of how much money is expected to go to the state’s general fund, which makes up about 40% of the state’s budget. Over the current budget year and the next, they bumped up their estimate by about $260 million — not enough to make a dent in the gap, which was estimated at $2.7 billion for next year.
