Ensuring Housing Accessibility and Affordability

[Note: This is the last in a series of four position papers that outline Carl’s policy platform for change in Durham. Other papers in this series address shared economic prosperity, environmental/climate justice, and community safety.]

Summary:

Housing is a basic human need and also the single largest expense for most households. To ensure that all residents in Durham can access safe and affordable housing, the City of Durham should:

• Dedicate additional resources for eviction diversion
• Continue to work aggressively to meet the goals of the city’s “Forever Home” investment in affordable housing
• Invest more in downpayment assistance for first-time, low-income homeowners
• Consider a downpayment assistance program that specifically serves first responders and teachers
• Continue to modernize the zoning code to remove barriers to the private development of affordable housing
• Plan for a possible new affordable housing bond in the coming years

Affordable Housing

Housing is a basic human need, and every Durham resident should have access to safe and affordable housing. Achieving this goal means having a thriving local housing market that provides a range of housing options that are affordable and accessible to households at different income levels. This includes permanent, supportive housing; public housing; affordable rental housing; market-rate rental housing, and for-sale homes at varying price levels. Local government can play a key role by making strategic investments where the need for safe and affordable housing is greatest.

Why is affordable housing so important for Durham?

Nationwide, housing costs rose dramatically during the Covid pandemic and the recovery period that followed, driven by record low interest rates and a slowdown in housing construction*. Durham’s housing market has followed these trends, with the average rental cost for a studio apartment, for example, increasing 35% between 2019 and 2021**. According to Zillow, average home values in Durham have increased 65% over the last five years***. What’s more, the pressure on the local housing market has been exacerbated by national demographic trends following the pandemic in which smaller metro areas like Durham have benefitted from the in-migration of remote workers and other educated workers from larger metro areas like New York City, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.****

With the rapid increase in housing prices, many households in Durham struggle to find affordable housing. In fact, in Durham County more than 50% of renter households pay more than 30% of their income on rent, thus making these households “cost-burdened.” Durham is among the 20 counties in North Carolina with the highest share of cost-burdened renter households*****. Moreover, 17% of these cost-burdened renters (over 4,700 families) faced an eviction filing in the past year******. Even homeowners are facing challenges, with 18% of homeowners in Durham County reporting difficulty affording their homes*******.

What can be done to ensure safe and affordable housing for all in Durham?

Housing is a basic human need and also the single largest expense for most households. For households that own their own home, housing can also be a source of generational wealth. To ensure that all residents in Durham can access safe and affordable housing, the City of Durham should:

• Dedicate additional resources for eviction diversion. The City currently provides roughly $500,000 annually to Legal Aid to represent tenants in eviction cases, but that only serves about 25% of cases per week on the small claims docket. To reach the full scale of need, the city must invest more in eviction diversion.
• Continue to work aggressively to meet the goals of Forever Home. Durham’s $160 million investment in affordable housing, known as Forever Home, has made a significant impact on affordable housing options in Durham. This includes moving more than 800 formerly unhoused individuals into permanent, supportive housing and helping over 1600 low-income renters and homeowners to remain in or improve their homes. Over the next two years, the city must continue to work hard to reach Forever Home’s aggressive goals. The city must also work diligently to be an excellent partner to its housing partners and be decisive and nimble in deploying committed funds.
• Invest more in downpayment assistance for first-time, low-income homeowners. The largest source of wealth for most Americans is a home, so enabling more Durham residents to become homeowners is a way to build generational wealth. Making a house payment is also a way to control housing costs in a market experiencing rapid price increases. Durham’s recently re-launched downpayment assistance program (part of Forever Home) will provide qualified homeowners up to $80,000 in the form of a 0% interest second mortgage, but that means serving less than the 400 homeowners expected to be served as part of Forever Home. More funds for downpayment assistance will be needed to allow more low-income households to become homeowners.
• Consider a downpayment assistance program that specifically serves first responders and teachers as cities like Charlotte have already done.
• Continue to modernize the zoning code to remove barriers to the private development of affordable housing. The city needs more tools, rather than fewer, in addressing the housing shortage and affordability crisis. Reforming the city’s zoning code, as started with the passage of Expanding Housing Choices (EHC) in 2019, is certainly one of many tools. Importantly, EHC effectively ended single-family zoning in Durham. Single-family zoning is a racialized zoning tool that has been used for decades to effectively exclude African-American families from traditionally white neighborhoods. The process of modernizing Durham’s zoning code should and will continue with the planned approval of the new comprehensive plan. The City of Minneapolis is a promising model for Durham to consider. Its 2040 plan instituted a number of zoning reforms, including eliminating parking minimums, upzoning transit corridors and allowing triplexes to be built on most blocks. The early returns are promised, with data from the Minneapolis Fed indicating that the growth in rents has been slower than income growth and that the share of cost-burdened renter households has declined********.
• Plan for a possible new affordable housing bond. The current housing bond funds are being spent and showing results. When more results are available in the next few years, it will be time for the city to consider another bond issue, with additional resources dedicated to redeveloping public housing, creating more permanent supportive housing, building dedicated units for senior residents, and financing private and nonprofit affordable development.

* Katherine Schaeffer, “Key Facts About Housing Affordability in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center, March 23, 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/23/key-facts-about-housing-affordability-in-the-u-s/
** John Killeen, “Who Owns Durham,” presentation to City Council work session (10/6/2022), DataWorks NC.
*** Zillow Home Values Index, https://www.zillow.com/home-values/24457/durham-nc/
**** Emily Badger, Rober Gebeloff and Josh Katz, “The Places Most Affected by Remote Workers’ Moves Around the Country,” New York Times, June 17, 2023.
***** Data provided by NC Budget and Tax Center.
****** “The 2023 Housing Need in Durham County,” North Carolina Housing Coalition, www.nchousing.org.
******* Ibid.
******** Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, Regional Housing Affordability Dashboard, https://minneapolisfed.shinyapps.io/Itasca-Housing-Dashboard/