The following is a speech from Habitat Wake founder Rick Beech, delivered to the Apex Town Council on February 10, 2026
I have lived in Apex since 1998. I love living at the “Peak of Good Living”. I was fortunate to move here when families with modest incomes, including many public servants, could afford to live here. I passionately speak tonight with the hope that Apex could again be a place where public servants can live and serve here. I plead for the Town’s help so that the dream of serving and living in Apex does not stop with my generation.
I am a lifelong public servant. I helped to start Habitat for Humanity of Wake County 40 years ago as a seminary intern. Wake County enthusiastically supported the dream of quality affordable housing for everyone, with Habitat Wake quickly becoming a top national producer of homes in the Habitat network as it remains today.
I was fortunate also to personally enter the housing market when there was a lot more assistance for first time homebuyers of modest means. With the help of the NC Housing Finance Agency, I was able to get significant assistance in purchasing a quality, affordable home.
When our children came along, my family settled in Apex, where my wife grew up. I served two churches here and eventually returned to Habitat Wake. My wife helped open Olive Chapel Elementary, where she served until she retired.
This is where the dream of serving and living in Apex ends. My daughter, following her mother’s footsteps, became an elementary school teacher. She obtained a teaching position in Apex but could not afford a one-bedroom apartment on a first-year teacher’s salary. She lived at home until we could put together a plan.
Even though I spent most of my career with Habitat seeking to create a world where everyone could have a quality affordable home, my own daughter was shut out of my own community. How could that be?
The federal and state funding which enabled my wife and I to become homeowners 40 years ago, now barely exists. Amidst our area’s rapid growth, the cost of housing became out of reach for my daughter and others like her.
Our family did some soul searching and decided to intervene. Because we were able to get in Apex early enough, our house had significant equity. We took out a second mortgage and made a very significant downpayment on a one-bedroom condo for her. She now has generational equity and is now thriving and building wealth, like those with quality affordable housing often do.
While my wife and I were able to intervene, that is not the case for others.
So, what are we to do to make Apex again the “peak of good living” for public servants as well as everyone else? Succinctly, we have to be bold. It is not hyperbole – we are in a crisis. Perhaps the housing crisis is not affecting your family yet. However, it will likely do so without serious intervention. Who is going to teach our children to teach others put out the fires, and serve as medical assistants if we do not intervene?
Let me briefly share what Habitat Wake is doing. Then I will close with some suggestions for the Town.
Habitat Wake has evolved to meet this crisis. We have become developers who are building neighborhoods with many housing types including townhomes and condos. We are using land leases at places like Friendship Station on Tingen Road in Apex. We are selling the structure to families, while holding on to the land to allow long-term affordability for homebuyers. We just announced our first “Yes, in God’s Back Yard” project, repurposing underutilized faith properties to create 28 affordable units.
We are also raising millions of dollars from major donors to create a Revolving Loan Fund to purchase land on which to build new properties, create a perpetual fund for site acquisition and development.
These innovations have the potential to increase our production by as much as 60%. We have already built 1,000 homes. We are desperately trying to do our part. We plead for the Town to do the same.
Here are three suggestions:
- Just as I accessed 40 years ago in Wake County, let’s recreate and expand subsidies to help households with modest incomes to be able to live here. Our county has a shortage of 28,000 affordable housing units for households earning $50,000 or less. These 28,000 families, many in Apex, desperately need our help. The Town of Apex already has a Housing Investment Fund. The Town’s consultant has suggested increasing it from $2M to $14M to subsidize affordable housing. There is no time like the present.
- Do everything you can to preserve existing affordable housing. Habitat Wake mobilized the faith community to speak to you earlier about preserving Apex’s manufactured home communities. While we know this is complicated, we must find a solution to keep these residents, most of whom are in the service sector, in our community.
- Habitat Wake has increased its home preservation program from serving 40 families in 2024 to nearly 100 families in 2025. We urge the Town to equally grow its investment into its home preservation program.
My beautiful daughters attended Olive Chapel Elementary, Apex Middle, and Apex High Schools. These great schools and our wonderful faith community helped to produce a very loving pastor and a very loving teacher. As Habitat Wake has done, I ask the Town to do everything it can to enable them and other public servants to be able to call Apex home. Let’s not let the dream of serving and living in the “Peak of Good Living” die with my generation.