AFFORDABLE HOUSING

In North Carolina, the affordable housing crisis is worsening. Almost 560,000 households with incomes less than 50% of the median income can’t find rental housing that fits their income. Housing insecurity and risk of homelessness directly impact health, academic performance and economic productivity. 

We call on our elected representatives to:

• Expand the supply of quality housing for low-wage workers and people with disabilities through substantially greater state investment.
• Allow creative local government policies that can create an adequate supply of safe housing for all incomes.

These actions would significantly assist hundreds of families across this state in securing or retaining decent and stable housing, which is essential to any individual or family being able to contribute to the State’s attractiveness and economic growth and is our response to God’s call to love our neighbor.
We know that housing insecurity and homelessness impact health, academic performance, and economic productivity. However, fulltime workers earning minimum wage can afford rents no more than $377 per month; $19.18 hourly wage is needed to pay for a typical 2-bedroom apartment at market rate. Without public investment for housing below-market rent, children and their parents live constantly on the edge.*
We join with housing advocates across the state to urge a significant expansion of dedicated recurring public resources for affordable housing. Unpredictable funding leaves housing developers without reliable financing for planning new projects. Major state investments will expand urgent home repairs, prevent displacement, build supportive housing for people with special needs, and leverage multifamily construction and private financing. This will support a substantial boost in the production and preservation of homes, addressing the “shortage of decent, safe, and sanitary housing available at affordable prices” that is crucial to economic development and health.

The state also largely controls the policies that cities can adopt to ensure an adequate supply of housing that is accessible across the community’s income range and to preserve housing in safe and healthy condition. Local governments badly need more tools to address these problems; one size does not fit all in our rapidly growing and diverse state.

• Local governments need authority to inspect housing for conditions that put occupants at risk when the owner fails to correct safety violations at its other properties. Government barriers to building affordable housing need to be reduced.
• To make it possible for more families who have owned their affordable homes to stay in their homes, especially in gentrifying areas where property taxes are rising, the Homestead Exclusion Program should be expanded by making those 55 and older eligible, and by tying eligibility to a percentage of the Area Median Income (AMI).

We are telling our elected representatives the changes we need for all God’s children to have homes.