On January 26, housing providers across the state got a very concerning email that upended a program meant to give stability to people at risk of homelessness.
The subject line read, “Immediate Corrective Action Required,” and the contents explained a need to suddenly cancel housing assistance for incoming clients and stop providing assistance to others already placed in rental homes. The clients would still receive the expected rental help in February, but some would lose their assistance the very next month — giving them just over a month of notice. Some had no income, or had incomes that were half the cost of their rent.
In some cases, clients who expected to move into housing suddenly lost the financial support that would have made that possible — and the change was set to affect more than 600 households across the state already placed in housing.
Many of these sudden changes, which were communicated to hundreds of clients through housing providers, were reversed within a few weeks after the Governor’s office stepped in with emergency bridge funding.
In the words of one administrator, Kim Crawford, responding to a provider offering condolences and concern: “I don’t even know. This is bad.”
What is Back@Home?
The program originally came together after Hurricane Florence under the Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR). It started under then-Governor Roy Cooper with $12 million in seed money, and aimed to assist those impacted by storms with Rapid Rehousing funding (RRH).
A lot of housing experts felt it was a good idea: rural areas are underserved by most affordable housing development, so offering this kind of short-term assistance could help those without housing “self-resolve” — meaning they could get to a place in their lives where they could afford their own rent.
And RRH is a research-backed strategy that can help communities reduce the prevalence of homelessness. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH), RRH is effective at “preventing households from returning to homelessness: 77 percent of families that enrolled in rapid re-housing did not return to shelter.” It also has better outcomes for employment and income than traditional shelter models.
In 2018, it promised to provide “Short-term financial assistance to move into a new home.” The program served residents who were displaced by Hurricane Florence. It expanded in 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, with a second program that offered rehousing services and rental assistance statewide. That iteration also sunset in 2022. Over those years, it served hundreds of families, helping them avoid displacement and homelessness.
In late 2023, a new tranche of funding shifted the program once again. HUD invested $22 million into the program, and Back@Home went from storm recovery to serving residents in the Balance of State Continuum of Care — a region encompassing 79 rural counties in every part of North Carolina.
At the time, according to a request for applications from the agency, the three-year project was expected to “serve as many as 1,400 households through a combination of housing stabilization services, financial assistance, and connection to other resources. All services offered through the project will follow the three key best practices outlined in the Continuum of Care’s plan: Housing First, Harm Reduction, and Trauma-Informed Care.”
The Back@Home program was intended to sunset in September of 2026 and offer stability to the homeless and those at risk of becoming homeless. While it was initialized under NCORR, the embattled hurricane recovery agency, its management transferred to NCDHHS in July of 2025. And by all accounts, it has done a lot of good.
According to NCDHHS Spokesperson Summer Tonizzo, “Since implementation of Back@Home on 10/1/2023, the program has supported 1,125 households in obtaining permanent housing across North Carolina, and 1,019 are currently being served today across our program.”
While the program can keep tenants on RRH funding for up to 24 months, it seems unlikely that initial planning under NCORR expected so many of the tenants to require that support for so long. And rents in many rural areas have increased alongside those in metros, according to the state Department of Commerce. Some counties, like Bladen County, have limited options for smaller rentals, like apartments. And single-family homes often rent for more than $1,400, far more than low-income tenants on SSI or Social Security can afford.
Based on internal documents acquired through a public records request, 65% of housed tenants under this RRH program earn less than the cost of their rent. Of those who had been in the program for at least a year and were expected to lose support on March 1, 62% still made less than the cost of their rent each month. The montly rents ran the gamut from $100 to $2,795. That tenant at the top of the spectrum has a listed income of $0/month, and moved into their place in December.
That deficit means many of these tenants are wholly unprepared to take on their own rent without assistance. NAEH does write that RRH can be effective even for tenants with limited financial resources: “households that had zero income at entry to a rapid re-housing program are able to maintain housing once program involvement ends.” While allowing up to 24 months of assistance is common, “programs typically provide financial assistance for six months or less.”
However, “ensuring a household is placed in a unit that meets its financial situation and lifestyle needs, such as school, work, family, and support networks, will increase the likelihood that households will remain stably housed once program assistance ends.” The key is that the tenants can afford the property at the end of their assistance period. That may be particularly challenging in rural areas, where smaller rentals, like apartments, are less common than more expensive single-family home rentals.
Tonizzo did say that, moving forward, "assistance periods are expected to be shorter and more consistent with typical Rapid rehousing program design." It remains unclear how many tenants can be moved from RRH to Permanent Supportive Housing, which covers their rent indefinitely.
If that solution isn’t available, they’ll need to get them into more affordable housing, or increase their incomes. Representatives of Partners Health Management did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
A sudden realization
According to Tonizzo, the Back@Home program relies on multiple funding sources, including temporary federal COVID-ERA (Emergency Rental Assistance) relief funding and HUD Rapid Rehousing grants.
Because of that, DHHS started reassessing its enrollment and funding projections last fall, with a plan for exits in 2026.
But on January 22, 2026, NCDHHS was notified by the program’s financial assistance administrator — Charlotte-based organization The Housing Collaborative — that available Rapid Rehousing financial assistance funds would be exhausted earlier than previously estimated.
One example of the financial troubles: on January 30, Budget Services Coordinator Amanda Alston wrote, “While we are waiting to be able to move forward, I incorporated these numbers into our process. This makes the total contract go from $1382102.28 to $1726292.14. Was this what the original contract number should have been? I’ll enter it either way but wanted to confirm.”
That’s a difference of more than $344,000, just for one contractor: Sixth Ave Psychiatric Rehabilitation Partners Inc.
While it was always the plan to sunset this program later in 2026, the apparent discovery of substantial cost overruns led staff at NCDHHS to send a directive to their contractors: basically, your clients are about to lose their housing subsidy, so plan accordingly.
The directive to “right-size” the program came on Monday, January 26. Households receiving Rapid Rehousing dollars would experience a “More Aggressive RRH Exit Strategy” — as one email put it — meaning more than half would exit the program by March 1. Households that had been in the program the longest were kicked out first, and many of them would be moved to Support Services Only (SSO).
The email, signed by Jackie Lucas and Kim Crawford from the Back@Home team, said “While we recognize that these actions impact real households and require careful, compassionate communication, this approach allows us to implement an orderly, predictable transition plan—rather than a reactive process driven by a funding cliff.”
What followed was a lot of scrambling by service providers, and efforts to try to make the transition as painless as possible. But because of how the program was being run, it was set to be painful for a lot of those clients.
Clients unable to move into housing
Many different providers began emailing with DHHS staff, trying to determine the futures for each of their clients. It’s a lot of paperwork to move a client from RRH to SSO, and the case workers were often working to move them to other assistance programs, like Permanent Supportive Housing, that would help them stay in their units.
As a result of the right-sizing, some clients who were meant to move into new apartments may have lost their chance at stable housing.
On January 27, Kisha Darden, the housing manager at Trillium, a major quasi-governmental service provider that handles mental and behavioral health projects across much of Eastern North Carolina, wrote to Back@Home administrator Kim Crawford.
In the midst of moving several clients to SSO, she asked, “what do we do if ... about 3 of them are in the process of leasing up?”
Crawford responded, “ Honestly Kisha — its bad. I am not so sure I’d even have them lease up if they can’t afford it themselves.”
Rapid Rehousing is typically intended to be a short-term solution. In Back@Home’s planning documents, recipients can receive either short-term (1-3 months) or medium-term (4-24 months) support. The aim is to take a person who’s at risk of homelessness or who just recently fell into it, support them in leasing a property and getting on their feet, then step down the assistance and allow them to take over their own rent payments.
But in the case of Back@Home, many residents stayed on for very long periods, often with no income. More than a third of the clients had an income of zero dollars. Others had incomes below the monthly rent of the unit they had moved into. One tenant, for instance, had an apartment that cost $1650/month, but only made $1440 in income. It’s unclear what planning was in place to get these clients more income, or to get them placed where they’d pay lower rents.
According to Spokesperson Summer Tonizzo, “Rapid Rehousing assistance varies by household and location. For households scheduled for June 30, 2026 transition, average monthly rental and utility assistance ranged from approximately $1,000 to $1,650 per household, depending on local housing costs.”
Without an ongoing subsidy, that client will need to move out at the end of their lease term, and may even be evicted for nonpayment, making any future housing stability even more challenging.
In the midst of the chaos, on February 3, administrator Crawford forwarded a newsletter to her team. The newsletter, from the NC Coalition to End Homelessness, discussed an upcoming conference in May, entitled “Bringing It Home: Ending Homelessness in NC.”
Crawford wrote:
“If possible I think it would be great for the team to attend this conference!” She tagged another top administrator and added: “I no longer think presenting at the conference would be a good idea, given current circumstances. ; - (“
Some tenants appear to believe they might be able to take legal action against the department. One provider wrote to Crawford, “One of my Back at Home clients has asked me for copies of documents related to her participation with B@H because she stated she sought legal advice to take action against B@H and her attorney needs the documents. I don’ t see any reason why I couldn’t give her what I have that she signed but going forward, does the Back at Home team have a plan to handle possible litigation?”
Crawford replied that the department “has a legal team and they are fully aware of the circumstances surrounding the termination of financial assistance for RRH households.”
How did this happen?
According to NCDHHS spokesperson Summer Tonizzo, the cause of the more rapid “resizing” plan rolled out at the end of January actually had its roots in the end of covid-ERA funding, which expired on Sept. 30, 2025. That was just four months after NCDHHS took over management of the program from NCORR.
“Beginning in October 2025, NCDHHS worked with service providers to reassess enrollment levels and funding projections in preparation for 2026 exits,” Tonizzo wrote. The program stopped taking in new enrollments in the fall, and encouraged providers to move their clients onto the Permanent Supportive Housing program.
But, she added, “On January 22, 2026, NCDHHS was notified by the program’s financial assistance administrator that available Rapid Rehousing financial assistance funds were projected to be exhausted earlier than previously estimated. Following that notification, NCDHHS immediately initiated a structured transition plan and began working with state leadership and partners to identify solutions.”
The financial assistance administrator — The Housing Collaborative — provided updated projections that available Rapid rehousing financial assistance funds would be exhausted sooner than anticipated, Tonizzo said. That included updated figures on the average monthly rental and utility costs, the number of households enrolled, and the expected expenditures through the end of the grant period. "The updated projections showed that financial assistance would be exhausted earlier in 2026 without adjustments to the program." she wrote. "NCDHHS immediately began working with partners and state leadership to develop a structured transition plan and explore additional funding options."
That solution ultimately came from the Governor’s office, which provided bridge funding to support a “structured transition” in February of 2026 (less than a month after the email went out pressing for a fast transition). That support came from intense advocacy by the North Carolina Coalition to End Homelessness, which operates as the lead agency for the Balance of State CoC.
According to Executive Director Latonya Agard, “We have actively pressed for a swift and comprehensive solution and have worked collaboratively with the Office of the Governor, HUD, and NCDHHS leadership over the past two weeks as we advocated for the potentially impacted households. Our top priority is to preserve the hard-won housing stability of these households, and we commend the Office of the Governor for delivering a solution.”
On January 28, when Crawford was engaged in planning the exits, there were 681 households enrolled in rapid rehousing — 391 were facing an exit from the program no later than March 1.
Tonizzo said Back@Home is not aware of households that have lost housing as a “direct result” of the Rapid Rehousing transition plan.
“There are currently 659 households enrolled in Rapid Rehousing who remain in housing and continue to receive support and transition planning,” Tonizzo said, and they’ll be able to continue with rental assistance through June 30, 2026.
Some tenants did get pushback from landlords immediately after the notices went out. On Feb. 2, One provider, Tenna Willis from Partners Health Management, wrote, “we have also had some instances where landlords are already giving tenants notice to vacate. Can the Housing Collaborative be sure to communicate with landlords that termination of the HAP does not terminate the lease.”
These experiences of sudden housing volatility must have been stressful and frightening for tenants — but because of confidentiality rules, the names of impacted tenants were redacted in the public records provided to WHQR. (Any tenants interested in sharing their stories can reach out to kkenoyer@whqr.org.)
Moving forward, Tonizzo said the assistance periods for tenants will be shorter, and enrollment will be aligned with available funding. The households with the highest needs will be moved onto Permanent Supportive Housing programs.
“Back@Home has consistently operated within federal program requirements, and the current transition reflects the conclusion of temporary COVID-ERA relief funding rather than a failure of program administration,” she wrote.
