Raleigh bond will boost affordable housing though partnerships. Vote Yes.
Raleigh voters should find one item on this year’s ballot on which they can all agree – the affordable housing bond.
The city wants to borrow $80 million to provide more affordable housing in a market where the cost of a home is rising at almost twice the rate of incomes. The gap was a concern before the COVID-19 pandemic slowed the economy and caused a spike in unemployment. Now the need is even more intense.
“It was critical beforehand, but since Covid it’s even more critical,” says Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin. Approving this bond, she adds, “is the single most important thing we can do as a city over the next five years.”
Housing is considered affordable if a household is paying no more than 30 percent of its income for housing costs, including utilities.
Yolanda C. Winstead, president of DHIC, a Triangle nonprofit that develops affordable housing, estimates that Wake County needs 55,000 more units of affordable housing, with most of that need in Raleigh. The portion of the bond that will support construction will produce 1,700 more units over the next five years. She says the new housing will be a “drop in the bucket,” but it is progress.
Overall, the bond money will provide help in several ways, some immediate and some long-term.
• $28 million will support public-private partnerships, part of it going to organizations that help move homeless families into permanent housing and assist people with substance abuse problems to find jobs and housing.
• $24 million will boost the percentage of affordable housing units in developments supported by low-income housing tax credits.
• $16 million will go to city land purchases along transit routes where developers will be encouraged to build affordable rental units.
• $6 million will assist low-income homeowners with home repair loans – forgivable after five years –so they can stay in their homes.
• $6 million for down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers who earn 80% or less of the average median income.
The strategy behind this bond is to leverage public dollars to help nonprofits build more housing and charitable groups to serve more of the needy. This approach also responds to the needs of essential workers – such as firefighters, police and school staff – who are struggling to find affordable housing in the city they serve.
Some have objected to the bond’s spending plan on grounds that more of the money should be providing direct assistance to the poor. Certainly the need is there, but the bond money will go furthest through partnerships with groups and developers.
In the end, a city alone can’t solve the problem of housing costs that are rising out of reach for so many. It will take a national effort. Baldwin says, “We can’t buy our way out of this. We need to look to the federal government about how we are providing housing. Those rules haven’t changed in years.”
Meanwhile, Raleigh should do what it can. Be a good neighbor: Vote “Yes” on the affordable housing bond.
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Editor’s note: N.C. Court of Appeals candidate Judge April Wood disputes the Editorial Board’s Oct. 15 characterization of her view that systemic racism does not exist in the courts. In an Oct. 18 email, she said:
“Systemic racism implies that the entire system is infested with racism as opposed to isolated acts of racism. Racial disparities exist in many aspects of our society; however, judges should strive to ensure that the law is applied equally to everyone that comes before them, and to be aware of their own implicit biases and work to overcome them. In the 18 years I have served as a trial judge, I have strived to ensure that everyone is treated fairly and equally regardless of race, religion, gender, social status, or any other status. In order to address unjust laws from the Jim Crow era as well as inequitable or widely varying sentencing by different judges, the Fair Sentencing Act and then the Structured Sentencing Act were enacted by the legislature. It was a good start.”
This story was originally published October 21, 2020 at 12:00 AM.