September 24, 2024

North Carolina communities grappling with affordable housing challenges often face tough decisions about how to allocate resources, such as funding, land or organizational capacity. Setting clear housing priorities is one way community leaders can make better decisions about how to deploy resources that meet their goals. At the Development Finance Initiative at the School of Government, help community leaders understand data on local housing needs is one input to set those priorities. This blog post explores some examples of how to quantify housing needs and challenges at the local level.

The Housing Cost Burden

What is the scale of housing needs in your community? At the state level, over one million households in North Carolina are spending at least a third of their income on housing costs, with four out of five of these households earning less than 80% of their local area median income.

After paying for housing and utilities, the average North Carolina resident earning less than $30,000 is left with less than $450 per month to cover essential household expenses such as food, healthcare, transportation, and childcare. Faced with the rising cost of housing, renters and homeowners grapple with the challenges of finding homes that suit their needs, such as having access to family-oriented amenities like schools or living within a reasonable distance to their jobs. According to the Center for Neighborhood Technology, North Carolina households earning 80% of the local area median income spend 64% on average of their monthly budget on housing and transportation, compared to 46% nationally.

How Local Conditions Impact Housing Needs

Data can also highlight challenges that are unique at the local level. Communities in North Carolina each face different combinations of factors that affect housing markets at the local level. Here are just a few examples:

• Tourism and Short-Term Rentals: In popular tourism areas like the coast or the mountains, demand for short-term rentals is reducing the availability of housing for year-round residents. In many heavy tourism communities, Census data shows that at least 1 in 4 housing units are reserved for short-term rentals.
• Aging and Poor-Quality Housing: In distressed neighborhoods and rural counties, renters and homeowners grapple with the challenges of living in aging, poor-quality housing, such as covering the costs of repairs or risking the negative health effects of unsafe living conditions. According to the Census, one-fifth of the state’s housing units were built over 50 years ago, prior to the 1978 federal ban on the use of lead materials in residential construction. Additionally, an estimated 230,000 housing units in North Carolina are vacant due to needed repairs or abandonment. Of these, 80% are in suburban and rural counties, and over half have been vacant for over two years.

• Environmental Hazards: The quality and availability of housing in many North Carolina communities is also threatened by environmental hazards. In 2018, the NC Office of Recovery and Resiliency estimated that Hurricane Florence damaged at least 434,000 homes, resulting in $4.8 billion in repair costs. Just two years earlier, Hurricane Matthew damaged thousands more homes in many of the same eastern North Carolina communities.
• Urban Growth: In urban counties, rapid population growth has limited the availability of low-cost housing despite a surge in new residential construction. According to Census data, the state’s largest counties have seen a 28% increase in new rental units over the past decade. However, the number of units with rents below $700 a month has decreased by more than 50%. For example, more than 30,000 new rental units have been added to the market in Wake County, however, the number of low-cost units with rents less than $700 have declined by about the same amount.

Acting on the Data

These are just some examples of how local leaders can look at the data to better understand and quantify housing challenges in their community, and  can be better prepared to address the conditions behind the state’s housing needs.

Carolina Across 100’s new program Our State, Our Homes will give you an opportunity to explore these kinds  of questions in your community. Learn more about this program at our October 9 information session. The deadline to apply by October 18, and remember to stay connected with Carolina Across 100 to continue learning about strategies to address affordable housing needs in North Carolina.

Carolina Across 100 is a five-year Carolina initiative housed at the School of Government’s ncIMPACT Initiative. This pan-University effort, guided by the Carolina Engagement Council, will form meaningful partnerships with communities in all 100 North Carolina counties to respond to challenges stemming from or exacerbated by COVID-19. “Our State, Our Work” is the first program of Carolina Across 100, connecting young adults to living wage employment opportunities. “Our State, Our Wellbeing” is the second program, focused on improving mental health and reducing suicide in North Carolina. The Rural Pharmacy Health Initiative is the fourth program of Carolina Across 100. Our State, Our Homes is the fifth program, partnering to address affordable housing issues in North Carolina.