North Carolina Disaster Assistance for State Units on Aging and Tribal Organizations - Tropical Storm Helene devastated western North Carolina bringing unprecedented rainfall, widespread flooding, landslides, damaging winds, power outages, and tornadoes across mountainous terrain that wiped out roads, damaged homes, and upended entire communities. Over 500,000 older adults (60+) live in the impacted counties. The NC Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Aging, respectively requests $200,000 to be used to support older adults and the aging network who are recovering from the storm. The goals of the NC Division of Aging are to provide ongoing access to services and support the needs of older adults and people living with disabilities and their caregivers as they stabilize post disaster. To that end our objectives are to support the purchase of equipment and food lost due to the storm for senior centers and the provision of Title IIIB services (e.g., housing and home improvement)to meet identified needs of impacted older adults as they return their life and property to the pre-storm state or to receive services to respond to a loss of functionality due to the storm. The Division will implement this intervention in conjunction with our Area Agencies on Aging.
