Let’s think long-term regarding housing affordability

I watched yesterday’s budget work session and would like to reiterate my support for firefighter separation allowance, and I agree with Councilor Lambert-Melton that other city employees that perform dangerous and physically demanding tasks should be considered for separation allowance as well.

I was blown away by how successful the Bringing Neighbors Home pilot initiative has been in such a short amount of time.

As a resident of Raleigh, I’d like to thank Emila Sutton and her team in Housing and Neighborhoods for highlighting the fact that it is fiscally responsible to address homelessness with housing instead of criminalizing the unhoused, as well as external partners like Oak City Cares and the Wake Continuum of Care.

I would like to see this Pilot program expanded upon and continue to be funded to hopefully see the day when nobody in Raleigh is unhoused. That being said, I’d like to think even more long-term with regards to housing availability.

Given that housing is subject to market forces and North Carolina state law precludes enactment of rent control, the potential for private landlords to drive up the price of fair market rents through various means remains intact. Ways to address this include increasing the supply of market-rate housing, which has been a primary focus of the city. I would argue a major downside of this tool is that it is primarily reactive instead of proactive. Implementation of rent control would be a more proactive tool for maintaining housing affordability but requires approval of the general assembly.

Three members of this Council have already expressed public support for rent control (thank you councilors Jones, Patton, and Harrison), I would like to see all council members similarly express public support for rent control, as well as direct the city’s lobbyist to the General Assembly to aggressively push for rent control.

Another tool for maintaining overall housing affordability is to expand public housing up to the maximum number of units allowed by the Faircloth Amendment (which I believe in Raleigh is 70,000 units compared to the ~7,000 current public units in Raleigh, if I recall correctly). While it is true that 70,000 units does not meet the estimated need, using a rolling window of 70,000 public units to construct multi-family housing would help house our most vulnerable residents and provide an avenue to establish housing cooperatives throughout the city to provide home ownership opportunities that are currently being lost to real estate investment corporations.

Granted, this is an incredibly ambitious course of action that would require years as well as federal, state, and county funds for support. But I think this is a long-term goal and strategy that should be pursued by the city, which is why we can’t afford to have our elected officials sitting idly by on shorter-term issues like rent control. Rent control is not the only short-term issue that could be lobbied for at the General Assembly.

This past November, the Wake County Commission discussed lobbying the General Assembly for authorization to develop affordable housing specifically for teachers. I think low hanging fruit for the city would be to seek authorization to develop affordable housing specifically for city employees, and to combine efforts with the county at the General Assembly.

Finally, I’d like to express my excitement in anticipation of another pilot program in the city, that being the non-law enforcement response unit of the Raleigh CARES initiative. My understanding is that the city is leading the collaboration with the county to implement a non-law enforcement unit, and I’d like to see this implemented as soon as possible.

Thank you!

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