Affordable Housing

This past week, the Wake County Board of Commissioners under the leadership of Commissioner Jessica Holmes voted to establish a 32-member affordable housing commission designed to  provide input to the County Commission around the need for more affordable housing development.  I am pleased to be named to serve as part of this effort along with our Habitat Wake board member, Dr. Marvin Connelly of the Wake County Public Schools.

See this article from Indyweek.com:

Many of us are familiar with Trulia or its parent company, Zillow Group. Before moving to the Triangle, I spent countless hours combing through apartment listings on their website, reading characteristics of various neighborhoods and calculating possible commute times.

Over lunch last week, my colleague, John, told me about the challenges his community faces with transportation. John is also a Habitat Homeowner. His neighborhood is one of several off of New Hope Road in Southeast Raleigh that doesn’t have easy access to a bus line. “My neighbors –women, men, and students– walk more than a mile along roads with no sidewalks to reach the nearest bus stop,” John said. “They walk in all weather. There is an elderly gentleman that I see every day – he’s walking because he needs to catch the bus.”

The Wake County Public School System is the nation's 16th largest public school system with a 2015-16 average daily attendance of 157,780 students.

This week, the U.S. Census Bureau reported a decrease in the national poverty rate to 13.5 percent of the population with 3.5 million fewer people living below the poverty line in 2014.

Average incomes rose to $56,516 a 5.2% inflation-adjusted increase over 2014.

Some good news for a change!

Click here to view the complete article.

It’s been well documented over the years that homeownership has been the main driver of building individual wealth in the United States, especially among those in lower income ranges.

The nation’s housing recovery has been underway since 2012 and housing prices have recovered to near pre-recession peaks.  Despite this rebound, home ownership rates have continued to drop and are currently at a 51 year low.

Several presidential election cycles ago, Habitat for Humanity began hosting builds at both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions to give volunteers, sponsors and members of Congress the opportunity to meet the need for safe, healthy and affordable housing by supporting a Habitat project in convention host cities.

The housing industry is blessed with a very robust research and analysis organization called the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.  Annually, they release a very extensive data-filled report called State of the Nation’s Housing.

Here is a link to the report: http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/research/state_nations_housing

And here is a quick summary of the findings from Habitat for Humanity’s Government Relations and Advocacy Office:

The Raleigh City Council approved its Fiscal Year 2017 budget yesterday that includes an unprecedented $5.7 million for the production of an additional 125 units of affordable housing.  Many thanks to Raleigh City Council for taking leadership on the critical issue of affordable housing.  Here is an article from today’s News & Observer:

 http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/wake-county/raleigh-report-blog/article84893397.html