Affordable Housing

A recent News and Observer article profiles a woman named Vanezza, who is experiencing homelessness in Raleigh and struggling to find an affordable home for her family. The challenges facing Vanezza are her daughter are not unique. As Wake County grows, thousands of families struggle to find an affordable place to live.

Happy New Year! With your help, we'll have a year that we can look back on and say we turned the tide on the need for affordable housing. In this Strong Towns article, Spencer Gardner provides five laws of affordable housing and three strategies for achieving housing affordability.

Last month, lawmakers in the Senate and the House of Representatives each passed respective versions of a tax reform plan. Now Congress is working to reconcile the differences between the two bills and hopes to hold a final vote by the end of the week.

During negotiations, Habitat Wake is advocating for Congress to protect the value of the charitable giving deduction in the final tax plan.

Wake County has experienced considerable growth over the last ten years, but one in four families are still spending more than they can afford for housing. NC Policy Watch recently interviewed Wake County Commissioner Matt Calabria on the state of affordable housing in the local community.

This December 1 New York Times article discusses how the supply of affordable housing is constrained not only by land use policy, but also by neighborhood opposition. According to Conor Dougherty, "building more housing, more densely, could help address a widespread economic challenge."

Check out this very encouraging story from Indiana where a local city council has made the proactive decision to build affordable housing over building a jail. More of this! Smart move, Bloomington City Council!

Check out this article by Alan Durning, written from a Seattle perspective on Sightline Institute's website, addressing the simple fact that lack of affordability is, at its root, caused by an excess of demand over supply. Raleigh gets relatively good marks in this article, but I'm concerned we are headed down a path that cities like Seattle are already experiencing.

U.S. Representative David Price visited Habitat Wake at our Crosstowne neighborhood in Raleigh this afternoon. His visit was one stop on a day-long tour of organizations that partner with AmeriCorps members to serve the local community.

On Monday, the Wake County Commissioners voted unanimously to adopt a 20-year comprehensive plan to address the growing need for affordable housing in our community.