Cost guides
SC Safe Home: How a State Grant Can Help Pay for a Stronger Roof
South Carolina will put money toward hurricane upgrades on owner-occupied homes. Who qualifies, what it covers, and how the contractor part works.
Wind is what tears houses up down here, and it usually starts at the edges: the roof deck, the gable ends, a garage door that folds in and lets the pressure in behind it. Fixing those things isn’t cheap. South Carolina has a program that helps.
What SC Safe Home Is
SC Safe Home is run by the South Carolina Department of Insurance. It gives grants to homeowners for wind mitigation, meaning work that makes a house hold together better in a storm. The program reopened for applications on February 10, 2026, with expanded funding. (WRDW, February 11, 2026)
Under the program guidelines, grants are capped at $5,000, though the guidelines’ own table lists $4,000 for matching grants. There are two kinds:
- Nonmatching grants for households at or below 80 percent of the county’s median income.
- Matching grants for households above that, where you match the state’s money dollar for dollar.
The guidelines say the amounts can be adjusted, so check the current numbers at the SC Safe Home page before you plan around them. (SC Safe Home Program Guidelines)
Who Qualifies
From the guidelines, the short version:
- You own the house and live in it. It’s your primary legal residence and you get the 4 percent primary residence tax assessment.
- It’s a single-family home: site-built, modular or manufactured.
- You carry a current homeowner’s policy that covers at least the home’s fair market value.
- One grant per house.
That rules out a lot of what we have around here. Second homes and rentals on Hilton Head and Daufuskie don’t qualify. A house in Bluffton or Okatie that somebody lives in year round may.
What It Pays For
The work the guidelines list is the work I’d want on my own house:
- Roof deck attachment and a secondary water barrier under the roof covering
- A new roof covering
- Gable end bracing
- Stronger roof-to-wall connections
- Protection for every window and exterior door, including the garage door. Plywood shutters don’t count.
Roof projects can also work with the FORTIFIED Roof program from the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, which may earn an insurance discount. (WRDW) Ask your agent what a FORTIFIED designation is worth on your policy before you start.
The Contractor Part
This is where people get tripped up. The contractor has to be certified for the program, not just licensed. Per the guidelines, that means an active South Carolina general contractor or residential builder license, the FLASH Blueprint for Safety course with a passing exam, and annual continuing education. They can’t charge you for the bid, and they have to read the wind inspection report on your house before they price the job.
So the order goes: apply, get the wind inspection, then get bids from certified contractors. If a roofer tells you they can “get you the grant” before any of that has happened, ask them to show you their program certification.
What It Won’t Do
It’s for wind mitigation, not routine repairs, and it won’t cover a second home. And with a $5,000 cap, it won’t pay for a whole roof. What it can do is cover the part of the job that makes the roof stay on, which is the part I’d least want anybody to skip.