In September of 2018, Hurricane Florence slammed into the coast of North Carolina, leading to 52 deaths, nearly 75,000 flooded structures, and $22 billion in damages. Approximately 140,000 North Carolina residents registered for disaster assistance after the storm. While most households were able to return home or find long-term housing, people who were experiencing housing instability or homelessness when the hurricane hit had no homes to return to once the disaster shelters closed two months later. In response, North Carolina created Back@Home, a disaster rehousing program that used a rapid rehousing approach to quickly move households experiencing housing instability into stable housing.

To better understand how the program operated, we linked four administrative datasets to analyze what services were provided, who the program served, what the program participant outcomes were, and how costs were incurred in relation to program activities and participant characteristics. Our main findings are as follows:

• In total, Back@Home assessed over 1,023 households for service eligibility and provided services to 974 households (an estimated 2,134 individuals).
• Back@Home supported 798 households in finding new rental housing between October 2018 and April 2021.
• Of the households for which we have exit data, 588 households (66 percent)were living in stable housing when they stopped receiving services.
• Back@Home helped households secure stable housing within an average of 100 days after they were assessed for program eligibility, with the median household securing a lease 77 days after assessment.
• Back@Home cost $6.2 million with an average of $6,405 per household served. These costs are similar to those reported by FEMA for rental subsidies after Hurricane Florence and in prior studies of rapid rehousing.

Because the use of rapid rehousing following a disaster is still novel, it is crucial that lessons learned are documented and shared so that the model can continue to improve.