September 15, 2026

Our State, Our Homes wrapped up at the end of June, and while the 14 community teams still have work to do, we are already learning about the local impact they are having on housing in their communities. 

Carolina Across 100's collaborative programs employ a Shared Measurement System (SMS) to help teams track meaningful indicators of progress during their programs. These figures help teams assess what is working, promote accountability, and celebrate success as they progress in their work. From the beginning of the Our State, Our Homes program in January 2025 to its conclusion in June 2026, participating teams were regularly asked to report on a variety of indicators related to their development as a collaborative and their substantive accomplishments in housing. 

The numbers are in, and the teams have much to celebrate. 

Engaging with Community

One of the most important parts of teams' work in a program like Our State, Our Homes is to expand and strengthen partnerships within their communities.  

The reason is simple: teams accomplish more when more collaborative partners bring their knowledge and resources to the work. This especially true for an issue like housing. Any single housing project inevitably touches local government, financial partners, builders, developers, and residents. At a larger scale, housing has impacts on – and is impacted by – health, education, economic development, and many other community conditions. Through this lens, practically any community stakeholder can and should see themselves in their community's housing landscape. 

The teams took this insight to heart. The Our State, Our Homes Shared Measurement System asked teams to track how many new partnerships they established over the course of the program. The result? 715, or an average of more than 50 per participating team.  

Another common theme of Our State, Our Homes was work to broadly engage community members. Housing is a complex issue, and the teams found that residents, local leaders, and partners often brought different knowledge, understandings, or narratives about housing to their work. Nearly every team identified local community outreach and education as a key strategy to communicate the need for housing options, explore local attitudes and preferences, and build support for their work. From planning meetings to Facebook conversations to creative events like "Gingerbread Houses for Housing," teams creatively engaged residents and partners in a variety of ways. Collectively, they held 978 community events with total estimated attendance of 53,181. Through their communications activities, teams also distributed 7,404 informational and educational resources and generated 72,642 web, social, or other virtual interactions. 

Meeting the Current Moment

The housing crisis in North Carolina has produced acute needs for current residents who face affordability pressures. These needs can occur across the spectrum of housing, from homelessness diversion and emergency shelter for those who are housing unstable to downpayment assistance for homebuyers and everything in between. 

Teams' work to expand housing supply will be carried out in the long-term, but many North Carolinians have active needs for support. Many of the organizations involved in Our State, Our Homes teams – especially housing nonprofits and local government agencies – are making sure people can access stable, affordable housing now by providing direct housing services or financial support.  

Collectively, the teams provided 23,397 direct housing services including housing inspections, weatherization and rehabilitation, eviction prevention, emergency shelter, and more. Teams also helped connect people to financial assistance for utilities, rent, downpayments, and housing vouchers, providing 41,008 financial housing services totaling $41,152,084. 

Building the Future

Throughout the program, teams recognized that in the long term, their communities must add more housing stock to address the state's current affordability pressures. As we previously shared in March, teams committed to a collective housing supply goal at the final Our State, Our Homes forum, aiming to preserve or add 9,975 housing units over the next five years. 

Perhaps most encouraging of all the Shared Measurement System datapoints are the signs that teams are already progressing toward this goal. Between January 2025 and June 2026, teams reported 777 affordable units initiated and 31 affordable units completed.  

Some of these projects were already in the works before teams began Our State, Our Homes, but the program also helped the teams establish conditions for future success. To that end, teams have implemented 27 policy or zoning changes, developed or updated 47 new strategic plans or tools related to housing, launched or updated 29 new housing service programs, and implemented 20 new funding mechanisms or financial tools with $16,506,648 in funding committed. Together, these sorts of actions will help accelerate community-wide efforts to add stock and connect more residents to secure, affordable housing. 

What's Next

The Our State Our Homes cohort's early successes point to the promise and potential of the collaborative approach for meeting housing challenges. In the months ahead, the Carolina Across 100 team is planning to distill insights and lessons learned from these communities to offer guidance for others interested in this model. We recently began meeting with the teams to discuss what they took away from this experience, how they are positioned for the future, and what they would advise to other communities traveling the same path. We look forward to sharing their insights in a full report later this fall and continuing to tell the story of Our State, Our Homes more widely. 

Carolina Across 100 is a five-year initiative whose goal is to aid community-driven recovery and build sustainable efforts in all 100 counties by providing human resources, data insights, coaching, facilitation, coordination efforts, and program design.