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Eric Church Has Purchased 2 Other Properties To Build Neighborhoods For Hurricane Helene Victims: “We’ll End Up Doing About 200 Homes”
What started out as a novel idea is going to change so many lives for generations.
Last fall, Eric Church and Luke Combs hosted their Concert For Carolina benefit show, which ended up raising over $24.5 million for residents in western North Carolina that were devastated by historic flooding from Hurricane Helene. Of course, both Eric and Luke have very personal ties to the area, as Luke grew up in Asheville from the time he was eight years old. Eric grew up in Granite Falls, which sits in the foothills of the mountains, and both are Appalachian State University alumni.
They split the money in half for their respective causes, and Church used his portion, which went to his Chief Cares foundation, to purchase land in Avery county where a new community of homes will be built. He recently broke ground on the Blue Haven community, which should be ready this summer for families to start moving in.
Eric appeared on Bobby Bones’ podcast to talk about his new album, Evangeline vs. The Machine, as well as his early days in Nashville, but it was his explanation of how he came up with the whole concept of Blue Print for the Blue Ridge, which is the umbrella that his Blue Haven community is under, that was particularly interesting. He explained that none of the charities he spoke with had a plan for long term housing, which he felt was most important:
“When the concert was over with, we were able to raise a substantial amount of money. When we had raised the money, immediately it was like, what are we gonna do with it? And there were four or five charities that were lined up, that are great charities, they do great work, and they said, why don’t you give it to us? And my next question was, okay, what are you doing? And a lot of them were doing immediate stuff, keeping people alive, water, diapers, just temporary housing.
But none of that did anything to change the trajectory of the lives that the people who had lost homes, none of that was going on. So I asked about housing, and nobody had an answer for me on housing. So as opposed to what the government does, where they come in and they provide temporary hosing, in a different location to have a roof over their head… so basically, it’s little small communities. and there’s not a lot of people in these communities, some of these communities are 300 or 400 people.
And you’re taking a majority people and you’re moving them, you’re gonna lose the community because you lost the people. So we started trying to see, and we do this ourselves, I start working my rolodex, and my phone, and calling people. And I got to Kevin Clayton of Clayton homes, and I said, ‘Can we do this?’ And I called a buddy of mine, he runs Cisco, and I said, ‘Can we do this?’ And they sad, if you want to do it, we’ll do it.”
Those conversations led to Eric and his team coming up with an entirely new concept, which had shockingly never been done before anywhere else in the country, that would put these people on a path to owning their homes, in addition to providing a blueprint for other states and communities to use in disaster relief going forward.
He also revealed that they just closed on two other properties, so the project totals about 200 homes now for people in and around Avery county:
“So we really came up with a novel idea of building permanent housing, not temporary. And not only allowing them to live there for a period of time cost free, we call it Blueprint For the Blue Ridge, the whole key is, we want to give them a path to ownership for that home. So a lot of these people are people that could have never maybe owned a home in their life because of their financial situation, but now, with our help, and with the people who gave help, you can change that entire family in a generational way. Not just theirs, but their kids.
So for those 45 families, the idea would be, they’ll end up owning those homes. We just closed on two other properties, we’re doing two other properties. We’ll end up doing about, as of right now, about 200 homes. The best thing is, as I looked around the country, nobody has done this, which is shocking by the way. That in the United States of America, this is not done, but it wasn’t done during Katrina, it wasn’t done during any other disaster we’ve had.
And affordable housing is a major problem in the U.S. and when a disaster happens, it just shines a spotlight on that problem. So we’re trying to solve that the best we can, in something that is blue printable for other states when a disaster happens.”
Eric explained that this approach is obviously vastly different from how the government does things, but it was extremely important for him to make sure these people, who lost everything, got to keep their community:
“From a government standpoint, the way they would look at it, you’re probably not affecting as many people in a minor way, where you take a big sum of money and you put more people in something for a year, but you’re not changing those peoples’ lives. Then you have problem #2, which is year two, year three.
So what we looked at was, you can effect a smaller number and change their entire life, and their families life, it provides a pillar for the foundation of that community. It’s completely different from what’s been done, it’s what we’re doing, and so far, it’s going well. We’ll see where we go from here.”
It’s extremely impressive what he’s done, it’s obviously above and beyond what anyone could’ve ever expected, and he continues to go above and beyond for the people and place that he loves so dearly.
It’s going to do more good than you can imagine for the local people who have been suffering for months now, and the fact that Eric continues to champion this place and people shows his true character and love for helping his community. He clearly understands how important home is to anyone from western North Carolina, as he feels that way himself, and it’s probably going to end up helping people from states and places across the country, too, which is absolutely incredible on top of everything else.
Eric also put out “Darkest Hour” in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene, of which the money made from the song will forever go towards helping with Hurricane Helene recovery efforts.
The post Eric Church Has Purchased 2 Other Properties To Build Neighborhoods For Hurricane Helene Victims: “We’ll End Up Doing About 200 Homes” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.
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