Since our last check-in on the Our State, Our Homes program, the teams have been making steady progress in their work to alleviate North Carolina's housing challenges. In just over a year, teams have already advanced critical efforts to engage stakeholders, identify opportunities, and create conditions to expand housing supply.  

In our last update, we shared how the teams had set a foundation by bringing together cross-sector collaboratives, analyzing local housing data, and setting a collective vision and high-level goals for housing in their communities. In this post, we will share how Carolina Across 100 (CX100) has been supporting the teams by deepening their subject matter knowledge, helping them overcome challenges, and orienting them toward long-term goals and action. 

Growing the Toolbox for Affordable Housing

As Our State, Our Homes has progressed, we have given teams more tools to turn their visions into community-level action. Below are some of the topics we have explored through our forums and webinars: 

• Legal tools: Forum 3 focused on local government authority regarding housing, with presentations by Tyler Mulligan and Adam Lovelady at the UNC School of Government. Because many of the OSOH team members come from the public sector, we felt it important to explore what local government organizations can do both legally and financially to support community-wide housing priorities. 

• Financing tools: Addressing housing affordability challenges at scale requires significant financial commitments. At Forum 4, we did a deep dive into basics of development finance and hosted panel discussions with partners in philanthropy and banking to explore their roles. We have supplemented this with other finance-related webinars focused on the NC Housing Finance Agency, housing bonds, and pro forma analyses. 

• Strategies for affordability: Our programming has also highlighted other promising models to promote affordability and meet residents' needs. A webinar in July discussed resident ownership of manufactured housing communities, and one in September provided insights on community land trust models in North Carolina. A field trip to the Tiny Homes Village in Pittsboro at Forum 4 highlighted a project that provides affordable homes for those with mental health conditions living on fixed incomes, including veterans. 

• Partnerships: Throughout the program, we have stressed the importance of identifying partnerships to leverage a variety of resources and expertise. A panel at Forum 3 showcased innovative housing projects that emerged from cross-sector partnerships, and other panels and webinars have brought in speakers from local government, nonprofits, developers, banks, philanthropies, and more. 

Equipped with this subject matter knowledge, we also invited teams to spend time at Forums 3 and 4 developing plans for action and considering what resources they will need for long-term sustainability. Not every tool or strategy we have highlighted will be relevant or feasible for every community, so we have encouraged teams to choose those that make sense based on their unique housing challenges and the collection of resources and partners they have available. 

Overcoming Obstacles

In any cross-sector collaborative effort, teams inevitably run into challenges when they dig into the work. The same has been true in Our State, Our Homes. 

At a discussion at Forum 4, we heard many of these challenges directly from the teams. Capacity is a struggle as team members balance this work with other professional responsibilities. The conditions that made housing unaffordable in the first place feel intractable. It can be hard to know what approaches to prioritize when resources are limited and the challenge is large. Building will among the public and community leaders requires sustained engagement and education. 

To help understand and address these challenges, Carolina Across 100 has offered a variety of supports to the teams: 

• Regional Liaison: In August, Carolina Across 100 welcomed Benji Flanagan to partner with teams on the ground, helping them conduct research, develop partnerships, and advance specific projects at the local level.  

• Midpoint Check-ins: In the fall, the Carolina Across 100 team met individually with each participating community to check in on their teams, understand their priorities, and identify additional subject matter and resources they wanted to see in the program. 

• Implementation Awards: Following Forum 3, we provided mini-grants to each team to support projects related to their action plans. Stakeholder engagement and communications work were common uses, but teams also put funds toward data collection and analysis, consultants for local housing plans, and even the creation of a nonprofit to lead local housing work. 

• UNC Resource Fair: At Forum 4, we highlighted more than a dozen campus units with relevant knowledge in housing, community engagement, organizational development, and more to help advance teams' work. 

In keeping with Carolina Across 100's mission, each of these efforts has been designed to help communities sustain their efforts to take on complex challenges and to leverage the resources and knowledge present at UNC to support them.  

In Part 2 of this update, learn where the teams are now following the final forum in March, with a focus on how they have set long-term goals for housing in their communities. 

Carolina Across 100 is a five-year initiative, led by the ncIMPACT Initiative, seeking to support community-driven recovery and build sustainable efforts in all 100 counties by providing human resources, data insights, coaching, facilitation, coordination efforts, and program design. “Our State, Our Homes” is the fifth program in this larger initiative. Carolina Across 100 is funded by the Office of the Chancellor and private foundations.

The ncIMPACT Initiative coordinates Carolina Across 100. ncIMPACT is a statewide initiative launched by the UNC School of Government in 2017 to help local communities use data and evidence to improve conditions and inform decision making. Visit ncimpact.org.

Stay connected with Carolina Across 100 by subscribing to our e-mail updates and by following #CarolinaAcross100 on social media. Do you have questions or need more information? Contact the Carolina Across 100 team.