Nine years ago, the City of Raleigh set an “aspirational goal” of creating 5,700 affordable housing units by 2026. Today, with less than a year to go before the deadline, the city is about two-thirds of the way there with 3,848 units.
Creating and preserving affordable housing in Raleigh has gotten harder since 2016 thanks to a steep rise in both property values and the cost of building. Despite an $80 million affordable housing bond passed in 2020 and missing middle zoning reforms codified in 2021, demand for affordable units continues to far outpace supply: today, the city estimates that more than a third of Raleigh households are “cost burdened,” meaning they spend 30 percent or more of their income on housing every month. Countywide, about 1,400 people are experiencing unsheltered homelessness, and there’s a staggering shortage of 60,000 affordable units.
Against this backdrop of acute need, city staff are drafting an affordable housing plan for the next five years. The new plan sets a goal of creating or preserving 1,345 affordable housing units by 2030 and reducing unsheltered homelessness to “functional zero” so that instances are “rare, brief, and non-recurring.”…