YOUR VOICE, YOUR VOTE: Housing

ASK THE CANDIDATES

  • What will you do to ensure our community has affordable and safe housing for our neighbors who need it, especially given pressures brought on by the COVID-19 crisis?
  • How will you ensure funds are available to build affordable housing units in our community? Will you invest in the state’s affordable housing trust fund?
  • What approach will you take to the rising lack of affordability of rental and homeownership opportunities in the state?
  • What steps will you take to make sure that people aren’t displaced by rising prices in urban areas or disasters in rural ones?
  • How will you ensure public housing in the state is safe and accessible to more people?

North Carolina’s elected leaders should commit to provide affordable, safe housing to North Carolinians by investing in proven programs

FACTS YOU CAN USE

  • Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a gap of 196,231 housing units in the North Carolina that were available and affordable statewide.
  • A minimum wage worker must work 94 hours a week to afford a two-bedroom rental home.
  • Forty-five percent of renters and 19 percent of homeowners are considered housing cost burdened, spending 30 percent or more of their income on housing costs.
  • Eleven percent of the 227 public housing developments inspected by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development received a failing grade in 2019 and many of those that passed still exhibit serious health and safety concerns.