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:
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.
Would you be willing to pay an additional $40 in property taxes to ensure affordable housing in Raleigh?
Raleigh City Council held a budget work session this week and spent a considerable amount of time discussing the need for affordable housing in the city and some potential sources of local funding to add to the amount of affordable housing being produced. Here is good recap from this morning’s N&O:
Check out this excellent piece written by Habitat for Humanity International CEO, Jonathan Reckford, for the World Economic Forum. Urbanization is occurring rapidly across the globe and adequate housing is at the center of the crisis. How will cities across the world respond to the housing needs in their cities with rapidly growing populations?
Never in a million years would I have thought that we would ever own our own home. As a young girl I thought owning homes were for rich, well to do people, but I have come to find out that anyone can own a home. Regardless of their current or past situation owning a home is a reality with perseverance and hard work. Owning a home has impacted my family in a positive way! We now have ample private and shared space, we are safe, and we have set an example for the rest of our family.