Time is running out for residential property owners to respond to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s call to make rental housing available for Hurricane Helene survivors through the agency’s Direct Lease program.

Approximately 2,000 North Carolina households that survived Hurricane Helene will have to move out of their FEMA-expensed hotel rooms on Saturday amid a winter storm.

Hotel vouchers provided to those displaced by Hurricane Helene were set to expire for 3,500 families this weekend -- just as a winter storm was set to hit the Carolinas. In December, FEMA extended the voucher program -- which it calls “Transitional Sheltering Assistance” program -- until Saturday,