North Carolina Residents Ask Trump To Intervene After Officials Prioritize Hurricane Relief By Race

A North Carolina citizen group is asking the Trump administration to intervene after local leaders prioritized Hurricane Helene small business relief grants on the basis of race and sex. 

Western North Carolina Citizens for Equality filed a complaint with the Treasury Department last month after Buncombe County announced that it would “focus” on supporting small businesses damaged by Helene that were “BIPOC” and “women” owned. Buncombe County, home to liberal Asheville, funded the program by using repurposed federal COVID relief funds. 

“In this situation, there is no doubt that Buncombe County intended to discriminate against white business owners in its Helene Relief Project. The County directed that the funds be used in manner that prioritizes one group of business owners over another based solely on skin color,” WNC for Equality President Carl Mumpower wrote in a civil rights complaint filed with the Treasury Department. 

The Buncombe County Board of Commissioners, all Democrats, rolled out its small business relief grant program in November, announcing it would prioritize helping businesses not owned by white men. The program would make business owners eligible for tens of thousands of dollars in repurposed American Rescue Plan funds.

The county said that the “focus” area of the small business support program would be “BIPOC-owned businesses,” “women-owned businesses,” and “sole proprietorships.” 

From November 13-17, the county partnered with non-profit Mountain Bizworks to administer $1.5 million in funds appropriated for the program. The non-profit, which says that it focuses on working with  “people of color, women, and immigrant entrepreneurs” and works to promote “racial equity,” was also targeted in the complaint from WNC for Equality. 

“Further, Mountain Bizworks used the repurposed federal ARPA funds and furthered the County’s objective: culling applicants and awarding grant money based, in part, on the skin color of applicants. These actions are clearly illegal,” the complaint says. 

To evaluate businesses for relief, Mountain Bizworks developed “scoring” criteria that included “underserved entrepreneurs,” which were defined as “women-owned businesses,” “businesses owned by people of color,” “veteran-owned businesses,” and lower-income individuals. 

The non-profit added that it would “prioritize independent small business owners who lack access to traditional funding resources” and that the application would be “equity focused.” A screenshot included in the complaint showed that both race and sex were required fields for the application through Mountain Bizworks. 

Statistics shared by the county showed that grants were disproportionately awarded to women and minorities. Of the 137 awards given out, 28.5% were given to “minority owned businesses,” and 60.6 were given to “women-owned businesses.” The county is nearly 90% white, according to Census Data. 

The county did not respond to questions about how many applications were sent in and the demographics of the applicants 

Mumpower believes that the process not only violates federal law, but also Buncombe County’s own anti-discrimination law. That ordinance describes discrimination as treating people differently for a number of different factors, including race and sex. 

He told The Daily Wire that he was “optimistic” that the complaint, filed on January 22, will get a fair hearing under the Trump administration.

“We want our local government to follow the law and not use color as a consideration for application for public dollars. And that’s all we want,” Mumpower told The Daily Wire. 

Because Buncombe County and Asheville are completely controlled by Democrats, Mumpower said they were “ruthless in their willingness to ignore the law” and believed they could get away with anything. He also said that his group has mainly seen a negative response from the broader Asheville community, an area that backed Kamala Harris by over 60%. 

“It’s very disappointing that a society has worked so hard to get color off the table as to how we measure one another that we would have so many misguided local leaders who are willing to ignore the progress we’ve made and even try to set us back,” he said. “It’s very ironic.”

President Donald Trump has been critical of the federal and local response to Hurricane Helene, saying that North Carolinians “were treated very badly by Democrats.” Most of his criticism has been aimed at FEMA, which he has floated getting rid of completely in favor of more state responsibility over natural disasters.