PITTSBORO — The Chatham County Affordable Housing Advisory Committee said this week that it has had “a really busy and very productive year,” with some positive steps taken to try to alleviate a problem present in the county and the towns of Pittsboro and Siler City.
Committee Chairman Susan Levy presented the AHAC’s annual report to the Chatham County Board of Commissioners Monday afternoon. Levy said that any changes that have taken place are minimal, whether up or down, but some more programs and ideas are set to be enacted over the coming year.
“The movement is fairly small and progress fairly small,” Levy said. “We’re pretty much in the same place this year as we were last year, and some of the changes have to do with better data collection or different data collection. We were able to quantify the change better.”
The AHAC stated that the county is in need of 2,304 affordable rental units, citing the most recent number of low-income rental households defined as cost-burdened — meaning that those individuals or families are paying more than 30 percent of their income in housing.
To assist these households, the county has introduced both a Housing Trust Fund and Emergency Housing Funds. Both will be used at least in part to support those low-income renters — the former by helping establish affordable housing developments and the latter by providing support in case of mass displacement, homelessness or for individuals or families in need of immediate shelter.
Levy said the AHAC is on the verge of picking recipients for Housing Trust Fund dollars, with recommendations to the county commissioners scheduled for December.
“They were some good applications to actually increase the supply of affordable housing in Chatham County and preserve some,” she said.
Statistically, the number of legally-binding affordable rental units went up by 8 percent between 2017 and 2019, a total of 42 units. On the other hand, there was a decrease in households which received assistance from organizations such as the Chatham County Housing Authority and Salvation Army.
“We don’t really know why that is,” Levy said. “It’s possible that there was less need. It’s possible that there were fewer applicants. It’s a big unknown, but it’s also not a huge difference.”
The committee is planning to “move forward in a significant way,” Levy said, particularly in education and incentivizing efforts.
Levy discussed a potential plan to provide funds to landlords who rent to low-income renters, saying there were “programs that other jurisdictions have tried that we have become aware of and we will be looking at them more closely.” She added that the committee wanted to create more awareness of what affordable housing really was and “debunk myths,” particularly about how more affordable housing stock would affect property values.
Levy described the year as one of “activities and action” and praised the committee for its work and goals.
“I feel like our committee is extremely strong right now,” she said. “We’ve filled out open positions and have a very committed and very engaged group of folks. I think you can feel very confident that you’ve got a great committee working on a very important and very tough issue.”
The county commissioners have made the efforts toward affordable housing one of the potential recipients of funds from a yet-to-be-approved local options sales tax extension, so there might be more funds coming in the future.
Reporter Zachary Horner can be reached at zhorner@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @ZachHornerCNR.