News & Updates

This blog post was guest written by Habitat Wake Volunteer, Ava Gruchacz.

Check out this recent New York Times article around Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson’s proposals to drastically raise rents in federally subsidized housing.  Dr. Carson’s premise is that subsidized housing just promotes families staying in that housing for a lifetime and provides some sort of disincentive for work.  I think analysis will show that it is a much more complicated situation than solely that.

Last night, we dedicated Korishia’s new home near downtown Fuquay-Varina.  Korishia and her daughter were very excited, the home was beautiful, and a large cadre of volunteers from both our corporate partners John Deere Company, Bob Barker Company and a large coalition of SW Wake-area churches came to share in the celebration.

In her words of thanks and remarks, Korishia shared with us the scripture from Jeremiah 9:23-24:

On Wednesday, Harvard’s Joint Center on Housing Studies (JCHS) released its annual report on the State of the Nation’s Housing. Each year, the report gives an update on key trends in housing across the country and in select metropolitan areas.

Tomorrow and Friday, our team of 20 mission-minded folks is headed off to serve on a short-term mission with our colleagues at Habitat for Humanity Malawi, a small country of 10 million in southeast Africa.  This is our second trip to Malawi and this one is special in that we will participate in the joint work of Habitat for Humanity and Zoe, a Raleigh-based international orphan empowerment organization.

Agnes Penny, who recently retired from Cardinal Gibbons High School after 24 years of service, is responsible for cultivating thousands of teen-aged Habitat volunteers. As the school’s director of outreach, she connected students with opportunities to serve in the community. Every Cardinal Gibbons senior -- an average of 350 every year -- volunteers on Habitat Wake’s build site.

And after 24 years with the school, Penny exclaims, “That’s a lot of children!”  

The staff at the North Carolina Housing Coalition (www.nchousing.org) have put together data on the need for affordable housing in each of North Carolina’s 100 counties.  The two counties we serve—Wake and Johnston show a need of 106,126 and 19,121 families cost burdened for housing in each county, respectively.  That’s 29% of all families in Wake and 31% in Johnston.

Check out this excellent resource here:

We are pleased to share an opportunity for Habitat homeowners and supporters to learn more about our local bus system!

Gentrification is certainly a pressing topic in Wake County these days.  We like seeing investment in neighborhoods that have lacked investment for decades, but left uncontrolled, the market can quickly price out residents that have called the neighborhood home all their lives.