I’m agreeing to your suggestion, my overall argument is that we need “affordable housing” developments to be mixed-income. As you suggested, developments that are dense should have affordable and market rate units.
I’m sorry for the confusion. Agreed, this should probably be moved to a different topic.
Not sure if this is the right thread for this, but earlier this week, the Durham city and county (some of their functions and departments are shared across the jurisdictions) reviewed the results of a pilot program on how different parts of local governments could rapidly share information to provide comprehensive social services for “friendly faces” (i.e. chronically homeless people who are ‘friendly faces’ to the police, hospital emergency departments, and/or local shelters) - and how they could pull this off in a way that leads to lasting changes. This is a nationwide series of attempts that Wake County is trying to be a part of, too, though it’s much less mature here.
Durham successfully won a grant to launch a temporary fulltime “familiar neighbors care team”, created protocols to thoroughly pull the “friendly faces” out of their feedback loops, and trained people to do this. This turns out to put us on the cutting edge of research in this field, since:
This is a relatively new strategy that’s shown to be effective but slow to expand
Local government agencies and big hospitals like Duke Health’s have historically been in the business of protecting data instead of sharing 'em - especially if it’s across multiple agencies at once
Best practices are yet to be solidified beyond a few case studies - and it’s not like Wake County is any farther ahead in being innovative in this field
This initial progress report shows what kinds of resources and people are needed (with anecdotes that this could even save taxpayer money in the long term, too, by being more efficient with how social services are directed). And more importantly, it also shows an example of the timeline of one “familiar face” who successfully achieved several milestones to get their life back on track (i.e. hit several “stabilization markers”) over the course of a year by getting this sort of dedicated assistance:
If Durham funds a full, successful test run of this approach, this could also inform how downtown Raleigh could deal with its own homelessness challenges - not just by putting a band aid on it by driving homeless people away, but by getting to the root of the problem and dealing with challenges once and for all. (Plus, industrial design 101 tells us that solving challenges for particularly disadvantaged people should make things easier for everyone else, too!)
The full slide deck is fascinating, if y’all have the time to go through the whole thing:
There was a masterful op-ed in the Indy today:
Here are some key quotes (I hope its okay that I am excerpting this much text…)
Durham City Council member Nate Baker is absolutely right to spotlight Durham’s affordability crisis—one of the defining challenges of our time. But the policies he promotes—rent control, resistance to housing supply reforms he dismisses as “neoliberal,” demanding steep developer concessions and additional discretionary review—may inadvertently worsen the very problem he’s trying to solve. …
When we build at scale, landlords and developers compete for tenants and buyers. When we don’t, residents do—and those with fewer resources lose. That’s why Baker’s frequent “no” votes on new housing matter: however well intentioned, they deepen scarcity and intensify the competition that advantages the wealthy. Want to see what happens when a community chooses that path? Look 30 minutes down the road.
When we build at scale, landlords and developers compete for tenants and buyers. When we don’t, residents do—and those with fewer resources lose. That’s why Baker’s frequent “no” votes on new housing matter: however well intentioned, they deepen scarcity and intensify the competition that advantages the wealthy. Want to see what happens when a community chooses that path? Look 30 minutes down the road. Baker advocates the same approach that helped transform Chapel Hill from an affordable college town into an exclusive enclave.
This afternoon’s council session is going deep on affordable housing, and the presentations so far are telling council that building more housing drives prices down. I know, shock of the century.
Just keep repeating it so that it sticks.
What’s crazy is that the city is now trying to figure out why more developers aren’t delivering housing in the affordable range, and I’m here explaining to them that the process itself makes it nearly impossible. It’s like saying you’re on a strict diet but ordering half the menu and three desserts. If the city made the urban construction process quick, straightforward, and consistent, people would build. But when it feels more like jumping through hula hoops while riding a unicycle in a rainstorm with strong winds, it’s no surprise nothing is really getting built!
Not to mention all the nimbys with pitchforks and fear of shadows anytime a project asks for rezoning to add more housing.
not to be fuddy duddy…but many that i saw speak at council meetings werent oppesed to west st development, Z (i forget teh rest)….just the scale and certain rule-bendings, transitions, come to mind???
We need to start calling these NIMBYs who they really are.
This seems like a pretty big deal. Not much detail in the article though. I’m curious about the financing and timing.
artificially forcing developers to include affordable units does nothing except hamstring development. The cost side of the equation is the same for affordable or expensive housing but the math doesn’t paper by forcing developers to take a haircut when their costs are the same. Increase the supply side overall & you will see the market create its own segmented housing options.
Are these structures built by the wealthy for low paying jobs? Stop being dishonest.
How is the cost of living for these workers? In my honest opinion it sounds like you would like a society more like Dubai.
Raleigh can do better for the working class. I believe we still have citizens here who don’t have a problem with helping their neighbor.
Why do you always write like a bad opinion columnist writing a subheading?
Livable Raleigh pushing for a larger affordable housing bond.
While I agree that more needs to be done for affordable housing, they are very misguided by pushing for this larger bond, while at the same time fighting every dense development in the city tooth and nail, and suing the city over many of them. They think more money will just solve it, as long as the city does Not build this affordable housing In Their Back Yard!
They are all in on the virtue signaling by joining One Wake in a push for public housing. It’s election season after all and they want to be seen as the “good guys”.
If the cynic in me is reading this story, he’d question what they mean by transit corridor. It sounds to me like they want to push affordable housing away from their “livable” neighborhoods by getting a larger bond to do so, and for their own benefit.
One Wake advocates for a toolbox of housing efforts, including zoning reform and support for affordable housing. They invited City Council to tour a housing development in NY that was a mix of housing types and income levels, including generational living and multifamily. LR does the opposite. For example, near Western Blvd in District D there’s an entirely affordable senior housing development allowed by right due to transit corridor. LR is opposed. In my nearly 7 years on Council I’ve never seen LR show up FOR any housing policy or proposal, even the affordable ones. They literally campaigned against the 2020 housing bond. I wish N&O would stop giving them a platform.
Your voice will be terribly missed from the Raleigh City Council. Thank you for a tremendous job. I look forward to seeing where the future takes you.
Thanks Jonathan.
So the cynic in my is right? This is a virtue signal?
This x1000000.
Thank you for your work on City Council - and for providing some firsthand anecdotes on some of these recent rezonings and dealings with local advocacy groups. Very insightful.
