Where did April go? Here we are in the last week of the month and the start of the legislative short session is right upon us. While housing's profile has never been higher, the budget news is far from encouraging. In a meeting with the State Fiscal Research director, we heard that revenues appear to be fairly flat with no real certainty about the numbers until the second week in May. 

What it means for us and others concerned with issues of low and moderate income North Carolinians is that there will be no new money available to respond to increasing needs of the state. In fact, it is expected that there will be cuts to many budgets in order to pay for things like increased school enrollment, Medicaid, and pay increases for state employees.

We have also heard that there will be a premium on ending the session by the beginning of July, so many issues will not get heard if there is much disagreement about policy solutions.  One of the most important questions: how do we modernize the state’s revenue system – the key for allowing revenues to grow when the new economy grows and for having more resources when times are hard and investment is critically needed – won’t get talked about at all. Hopefully, all the talk that this election year will bring about NC’s future will push the next General Assembly to tackle this important issue and help improve the state’s ability to adequately respond to the challenges we face.

North Carolina Housing News
Congratulations and thanks to Wanda Allen-Abraha and the staff and Board of the Winston-Salem Human Relations Department for their successful Fair and Affordable Housing Summit last week. We had a great discussion on the many issues faced by low and moderate income residents including discrimination, lack of affordable rental housing, neighborhood opposition to affordable development, substandard housing, and potential cuts in federal funding for key housing programs. I have already begun talking to Wanda about how to increase the scope of the event next year to include the full affordable housing community that includes more about ending homelessness, persons with disabilities, and other issues.

Efforts on Foreclosure Prevention and Fair Lending continue in our state. Last week CRA-NC held an important shareholder rally to focus attention on Countrywide’s lending practices and ACORN and Rep. Brad Miller both held foreclosure prevention information fairs. ACORN had several subprime lenders present at their event to assist with refinancing loans. We hope to work with them and the NC Justice Center on future events to increase turnout and impact going forward.

Over 50 people attended a Fair Housing and Reasonable Accommodations Training on Friday, April 18th that we hosted at the Anita Stroud Senior Complex in Charlotte. Special thanks to Andrew Cogdell, Ted Fillette, and Linda Johnson from NC Legal Aid for presenting, and Jeanette Delvalle, The Housing Partnership, and Debbie Walker, Anita Stroud Senior Complex, for their assistance in helping host the event. Stay tuned for information about upcoming trainings.

Finally I had the great pleasure of joining the Community Advisory Board of KB Homes this year and participated in their spring meeting last week in Chapel Hill. It was great to see a company so committed to quality and energy efficiency at below market-rate price points. They held a panel discussion with four local elected officials where the issues of housing affordability, growth management, transportation and local revenue generation were discussed. Thanks to Diane Rupprecht and Trish Hanchette at KB for their work and support of the NC Housing Coalition.

Campaign for Housing Carolina
As we move to the start of the short session, it is time for you to contact your legislator in support of increased funding for the NC Housing Trust Fund. Next week, we will send out a specific Campaign call to action but want you to be thinking about the Housing Trust Fund in any conversations you have with legislators in the coming week. 

We will also present our legislative agenda for the Short Session in that email. Find out who your legislators are and how to contact them here.

Finally, we have posted a Legislative Scorecard on our website to help you see how your state legislator voted on important legislation related to affordable housing. Click here to visit our website and see the scorecard. 

Federal Housing News
We recently advocated for two important pieces of federal legislation in the House Financial Services Committee with our two representatives on that committee, Rep. Mel Watt and Rep. Brad Miller.
 
HR 5830 would provide more resources for housing counseling, but is not designed in a way that will allow agencies to hire more staff. HR 3221 would provide $30 million in aid for funding for legal service providers, however, it was amended to prevent these attorneys from being involved in civil litigation.

To see the exact comments we submitted in our advocacy and the changes we recommended, click here to visit our website and read them in full.

Other Federal Housing News is available here from NLIHC and HAC on rural housing issues.

Thanks again for being a member of the NC Housing Coalition,

Chris Estes
Executive Director