affordable housing
In our semi-regular Question & Answer series, we have featured Meg McGurk, Executive Director of the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership and Brian Litchfield, Director of Chapel Hill Transit. The latest installment is with Robert Dowling, Executive Director of the Community Home Trust. As affordable housing discussions have been gaining prominence lately, we thought it was appropriate to learn more about the Community Home Trust.
What is the Community Home Trust?
I signed a new housing lease about a month ago in mid-October – a lease that won’t start until June of next year. This is how competitive student off-campus housing is in Chapel Hill, and the ever-high demand for student housing in Chapel Hill continues to negatively affect non-student renters.
Niche.com estimates that 90 percent of houses near campus fill up by October. From my experience, students looking to rent an affordable house (as opposed to a townhouse or apartment) begin the search as early as September. Every year this fight to find the closest, nicest and most affordable home puts additional stress on UNC students, and our desperation to sign a lease as soon as possible pits students against each other, increasing competition and driving prices up.
According to a 2010 report prepared by Development Concepts Inc., students make up about a third of all rented units in Chapel Hill (and rented housing comprises over half of all housing in Chapel Hill). We are a huge market for property owners and developers – on-campus housing can only accommodate 9,700 students, so the remaining 9,000 or so undergrads must find off-campus places.
Coldwell Banker is out with their annual home price comparisons, as reported by the Triangle Business Journal, and the news isn't so great for anyone living in Orange County concerned with affordability.
Chapel Hill ranks as the most expensive housing community in North Carolina. A typical four-bedroom, two-bathroom home will cost you an average of $401,765 here, compared with a state average of only $229,112. Hillsborough ranks 9th at $276,816.
For comparison, the average price for a four-bedroom, two-bath home in Durham is only $250,129. In Raleigh, it's $272,305.
The metric isn't perfect - looking only at relatively large houses - but the comparison still paints a pretty clear picture of what's happening in Orange County compared with the rest of the state.
Extensive mold and other serious maintenance issues, unannounced inspections, living with no water, play equipment removed, violence, disrepect by management, inability to use shared resources, children not allowed to play outside.....
Would you be surprised to know that these are just some of the complaints coming from our neighbors who live in affordable housing complexes throughout Orange County (Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Hillsborough)?
Orange County Justice United is partnering with residents in all of these complexes to organize the community, conduct neighborhood audits to acertain the extend of the issues, present these findings to management, and have the issues addressed.
The Gateway Village Apartments in Hillsborough is one such housing complex. A story about our work together can be found here.
We know that there is a shortage of affordable housing in our communities. We must work to ensure that the affordable housing that is available, is welcoming unless we want to be a community of the wealthy.
Please join us to learn more about the Housing Choice Voucher Program. This briefing will provide an overview of the program, its goals and objectives, landlord & tenant requirements and inspections as well as its significant benefits to participating property owners wishing to rent affordable homes to responsible tenants. Whether you are a current participant of the program or are interested in participating in the future, we invite you to attend. Please bring your questions and experiences which will help us to build a stronger and more responsive program.
WHEN:
Friday, October 17th at 3:00 PM
WHERE:
The Orange County Main Library in Hillsborough (137 West Margaret Ln.)
WHO:
This session is free & open to the public and is especially important for non-profit housing advocates, landlords and property managers who are considering participation in the Housing Choice Voucher Program.
Questions? Call James Davis at (919) 245-2488
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