I am in NC and right now they are really locking down out of home placements. Not knowing where you are located I am going to tell you what the procedure is to get help. You need to contact the LME for your district. If your child gets medicaid that will be on his medicaid card, if not, call social services and ask who the LME is for your county. Actually unless you have received a medicaid card recently the LME may not be on it because they just started putting them on there however, that is who you have to work through.
Another thought is...and you dont say how old your son is...working with NC Baptist Children's Homes. They have an awesome wilderness program in Cameron NC. They work on income based. If he under 15, they will consider him. We also have Eckards. Talk to the school system about them or do a google search and contact them yourself. I am trying to think of the other one we got Cory into down here in whiteville. It was a boys and girls home but I cant remember how we got him in. I think it was called NC Boys and girls home.
I may have just been in a very good time when I was able to access a ton of group homes because my son was out of my home more than he was in it during his teen years. They were all through mental health back then, actually a program stemming from a program called Willie M. I have no idea if that program is even still in effect here though I think it should be considering it was a court case ordering the state of NC to offer services to kids who were falling through the cracks. Now that program was renamed several times even while we were involved with it so who knows what it is called now. I would ask for help under any program that was formerly known as Willie M or Youth Enrichment Services. Those are the two that I can remember as names.