The city of Charlotte’s regular $50 million allocations for affordable housing may be the wrong approach as construction prices and Charlotte’s population have grown.
That question emerged from City Council members during a two-day housing and jobs summit to discuss solutions and policy changes for a worsening affordable housing crisis.
The summit, hosted by the city of Charlotte, invited stakeholders and the public to discuss the state of housing and the economy in Charlotte and pave the best path forward. Attendees heard from panels of people working in the industry. Council members worked the next day to develop best practices and, eventually, policy.
The city has put $50 million bond referendums on the ballot in even-numbered years from 2016 through 2022 to fill the city’s affordable housing trust fund. When voters approve them, money is allocated by the council to different housing projects requesting city subsidies.
After looking at needs, some City Council members asked Tuesday if the existing bond structure is the best path forward.
In the past two years, average rents grew $320 and median home prices have doubled to $420,000, according to the 2022 State of Housing in Charlotte report by University of North Carolina Charlotte.
To afford a median-priced home in the 2022 Charlotte market, a family must earn $163,750 a year. In 2019, a $75,000 yearly salary could afford a media-price Charlotte home.
“While I was highly supportive of these $50 million bonds at the beginning, I have moved away from that,” District 6 Councilman Tariq Bokhari said. “I do not believe that’s the best use of our time and money to achieve scale and sustainability which we all should be thinking about.”
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As housing costs continued to grow through 2022, other council members wondered if $50 million is enough.
Through low income housing tax credits, $50 million can fund about 300 housing units a year, said District 7 Councilman Ed Driggs. However, 32,000 units are needed to meet the needs of more than 50,000 Charlotteans who don’t have an affordable place to live, according to Charlotte’s Housing and Neighborhood Services department.
“I would like to see us be more targeted in terms of identifying people with the greatest hardship with the greatest needs and making sure that our efforts are available to them and not have a kind of random benefit to certain people who happen to get the affordable housing that we create,” Driggs said.
Here are four other takeaways from the two-day summit:
SURVEY SHOWS WHAT GOVERNMENT SHOULD FOCUS ON
The city shared results from a survey of 250 housing and economic stakeholders that ranked affordable housing development and job creation ideas.
Survey respondents found the following to be most important to them, with No. 1 being the most important.
Affordable housing development
- Support production and/or preservation of affordable housing units
- Reduce the homeless population
- Reduce the number of people with unstable housing
- Accelerate the creation of good-paying jobs in low-opportunity areas
- Develop strategies to help hard-to-house people
- Enhance access to services and amenities essential to economic mobility
- Increase the inventory of for-sale, single-family homes affordable for households with 60%-80% of the area median income
- Advance strategies to find gentrifying neighborhoods and prevent displacement
- Enhance access to affordable education and skills programs
- Increase home ownership assistance programs
Job creation
- Provide access to training and technical certifications for Charlotte’s main industries
- Partner with employers to train for the jobs of tomorrow
- Create job skills training programs to help with resume building, conflict resolution and manager relationships
- Provide better access to child care
- Offer more public transit routes to Charlotte’s main employment centers
- Develop website with local job listings, college and university programs and resources for the unemployed
- Focus on developing future talent for targeted industries such as manufacturing, health care and finance.
GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATIONS NEED HELP
Members of the public, including community advocacy groups, asked Tuesday about additional funding. Panelists who responded represented larger and legacy nonprofit organizations such as Atrium Health, the United Way, Habitat for Humanity and Goodwill Industries.
Tiffany Fant, executive director of climate justice organization Sol Nation, and Apryl Lewis, community organizer with housing justice organization Action NC, both asked when money would be directed to grassroots organizations that directly help Charlotteans get jobs and housing.
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Laura Clark, president and CEO of United Way of Central Carolinas, announced that going forward the majority of her organization’s funding would go to grassroots, neighborhood-based organizations. Dionne Nelson, president and CEO real estate development group Laurel Street, said her organization is open to including more neighborhood organizations in conversations.
“I will admit that these last couple of years, it’s been hard to do what we always used to do,” Nelson said. “So we’ve been buried in, trying to dig out of what we committed to deliver to the city in 2019 and 2020, has been difficult to action.
SUBSIDIZING EXISTING APARTMENTS?
Council members on Tuesday looked at their investment into Peppertree Apartments to determine whether to subsidize more developments called naturally occurring affordable housing.
The city voted in September to give $8 million to Central NOAH LLC to buy and renovate Peppertree Apartments on Central Avenue and provide rental subsidies for 20 years to occupants of 44 units. The total costs for buying and rehabbing the buildings exceed $55 million. The complex has a total of 292 units.
Mecklenburg County voted to allocate about $7 million to the same project.
Some council members showed hesitation about proceeding with similar projects in the next fiscal year — but enthusiasm for the idea in general.
“The fact that we actually have the county, for example, willing to partner with us in this says a lot,” Councilwoman Marjorie Molina said. “The partners that we have at the table are partners that are already making an impact in our community.”
LABOR AS WE KNOW IT HAS CHANGED
An economic report from Laura Ullrich, an economist in the Charlotte branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, showed it’s a misconception that fewer people are working, and that the labor force has changed drastically.
From February to November in Charlotte, 300 people left local government jobs while 30,700 began a trade, transportation or utility job, Ullrich’s report shows.
Low-skill jobs are increasing faster than higher-skilled occupations, resulting in employees shuffling around the workforce.
COVID-19 also created a higher demand for remote jobs, she said. According to LinkedIn, people are 2.5 times more likely to apply for a job if it’s remote.
As the labor force continues to change, Ullrich said employers will have to rethink who and how they recruit.
Read more of this story at The Charlotte Observer
