I am writing you from the last leg of our long journey to Malawi. Our flights through Washington DC, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia were uneventful. I’ve never been on a plane with more children than the long flight to Addis.

I figured I would take this time to introduce you to our partner families.

Anne is a widow who lost her husband some years back. She currently takes care of her six children, ranging in age from 4 – 16. Anne engages in farming to earn a living and support her family.

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

Malawi, a country located in southeast Africa and about the size of Pennsylvania, is currently home to a rapidly growing population of about 13.1 million people. As one of the top ten poorest countries in the world, over 55% of the population live below the poverty line of $1 a day.

That statement is taken from a 2009 research paper by a Furman University student focused on causes of poverty in Malawi.

Raleigh City Manager Ruffin Hall recently took a bold and much needed step to allocate $5.7 million dollars in the City’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget to support the production of an additional 125 units of affordable housing.  We applaud the Manager for taking this action to support City Council’s stated strategic priority to expand affordable housing production.

I was recently listening to some music from one of my favorite bands, an Irish group called Rend Collective.  Here is the lyric that caught my attention:

Increase in us we pray

Unveil why we’re made

After building more than 500 homes over the past 30 years, Habitat for Humanity of Wake County is taking a major step in order to build more safe, affordable homes with Wake County families in need. Beginning in June, Coastal Federal Credit Union will become the non-profit’s first mortgage lending partner, with a commitment of $3 million in new mortgage loans for 2016-2017.

BUILDER Magazine just released its annual rankings of homebuilders in the United States for 2015 and we are pleased to share that Habitat for Humanity ranked as the #1 private (non-publicly traded) homebuilding organization with 3,237 homes built!

Forty-two of those homes were built in Wake County and we thank everyone for the part you played in making it possible. It is a great testimony in our country that those on the margins of the market are cared about in such a major way by making homeownership possible through the Habitat model.

We’ve had more than 2,000 families complete a pre-application to buy a home through Habitat Wake in the past two years.  Only about 10% of those families will eventually be approved for homeownership through Habitat and the biggest culprit in preventing approval is a poor credit history.

Predatory lending products are a big part of that debt trap that many families find themselves in and that trap prevents families from taking advantage of the wealth-building that homeownership provides.

Thanks, Raleigh City Councilor, Mary-Ann Baldwin for stepping out to support local action on affordable housing.  She asks a great question, “Why do we keep talking about what we can’t do?”  Check out this article from the Raleigh Public Record:

http://raleighpublicrecord.org/news/on-the-record-news/2016/04/15/baldwin-on-affordable-housing-why-do-we-keep-talking-about-what-we-cant-do/

Posts written by Graham Johnson, Eastern NC executive director of Duncan-Parnell. Duncan-Parnell specializes in  providing high quality hardware, innovative software and services to construction contractors, engineers, surveyors, architects and designers. Duncan-Parnell is committed as a $65,000 Platinum Hammer Sponsor, providing financial and volunteer support for the materials and construction of Brandy's future home in Raleigh.