Latest news with #NorthCarolinaHousingCoalition
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Residents, activists challenge property tax assessments in Orange County
Photo: Screenshot from online meeting hosted by the Orange County Property Tax Justice Coalition. Four years ago, Orange County activists and homeowners successfully challenged what they believed were unfair and inequitable property revaluations in Chapel Hill's historically Black Northside community. Many of those same individuals were shocked in March when new property valuation notices showed what they saw as more of the same across the county. Last week, the recently formed Orange County Property Tax Justice Coalition, shared data from the county's largest historically Black communities that show significant 'vertical regressivity,' meaning newer larger homes in those communities are undervalued while older homes are systematically overvalued. 'Orange County is way worse than I expected,' said Hudson Vaughan, director of the Community Justice Collaborative at the North Carolina Housing Coalition. 'I thought, especially after the work that folks did with the tax office four years ago, that things would look much better this time around.' In 2021, activists in the Northside community found that property tax assessments of many new, larger student housing properties in Chapel Hill were lower than those of smaller homes owned by Black residents. According to Vaughan this is a common problem. He noted that in many established Black communities across the nation, homes are often undervalued for resale, bank loans and equity purposes, but over-assessed for property tax purposes. Speaking at a recent virtual meeting held via Zoom, Vaughan said, 'I think what you'll see is that some of the student rentals in Northside got valued a little higher [in the recent revaluation], but across the county, the historically Black communities are way overvalued compared to other wealthier, historically white neighborhoods and without market justification.' Vaughan resides in the Northside neighborhood and helped lead the effort to bring fairness to tax assessments in 2021. Northside residents' efforts in 2021 eventually resulted in about a $7 million reduction in assessed home values. Meanwhile, under-assessed rental properties saw assessment increases of $5 million to $6 million. Vaughan recently led property tax assessments examinations across the Research Triangle. He said several neighborhoods in Wake County and Durham have real problems. Throughout North Carolina, Vaughan said, many homeowners in the lowest price housing are affected. In some counties, he said, they are paying proportionally twice the property taxes of owners of the highest price housing. 'And yet, even though that's the case, over four times as many high-income owners, primarily from white census tracts, appeal their tax values for being too high,' he said. Vaughan shared an example from the current revaluation in Chapel Hill's Northside community: On one side of the street, a home owned by a Black resident for more than 50 years that is 1,200 square-feet and more than 100 years old is valued at a higher rate for property taxes than investor-owned property directly across the street. The investor's property has a duplex with a detached home behind it. Together, the investor-owned property contains at least eight bedrooms and totals 2,900 square feet. The smaller home's taxable value is $656,00 compared to $652,000 for the larger duplex and detached home across the street. 'The homeowner on the left [the Black homeowner] will end up paying higher property taxes as a result of this valuation,' Vaughan said. He projects a $2 million total increase in property taxes for the historically Black neighborhoods he and other advocates have looked at, even if the county adopts a revenue neutral tax rate. 'We've already heard Orange County and Chapel Hill and Carrboro talk about how they're going to have to raise taxes, likely this year for very good reason, and we are in support of that, but it cannot be on the backs of the historically Black neighborhoods,' Vaughan said. County tax administrator Nancy Freeman said her office explained to Vaughan and the coalition that when issues are found to be prevalent throughout several properties in appeals, that information can be taken to the Board of Equalization and Review for its consideration. 'We can show them that we see there is a problem with all of these properties, or there could be problems with all of these properties that are still under appeal, and we would like for you [the Board of Equalization and Review] to direct us to review this property or this neighborhood again,' Freeman said. 'That's how we would be able to go back and review the property and make adjustments, if needed, and make corrections to all affected properties in that neighborhood.' After a preliminary review of the information provided by Vaughan and the coalition, however, Freeman said her office isn't seeing any 'prevailing issues' with properties it has been able to identify and review. 'That's not to say there are not problems within that need some attention but at this moment we've not completed a review and at this moment, the ones that we've looked at, there's nothing that's prevalent from all of them at this point,' Freeman said. So far, Freeman said there have been 3,500 informal property valuation appeals, with more than 200 formal appeals, which are made to the Board of Equalization and Review after an informal review of a property's tax value. 'We suspect we might get another 500 [formal appeals] before the end of July [when the appeal filing deadline closes],' Freeman said. The virtual meeting at which Vaughan held forth was hosted by the Orange County Property Tax Justice Coalition. The coalition is made up of community organizers from historically Black neighborhoods across Orange County including Councilville, Mars Hill, Fairview, Rogers Road, Piney Grove, Efland-Cheeks, Cedar Grove, Northside, Pine Knolls, Tin Top, and Glosson/Davie Rd. The effort is supported by The Marian Cheek Jackson Center, the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association, Justice United, Habitat for Humanity, and The Community Justice Collaborative of the NC Housing Coalition. 'These historically Black neighborhoods are some of the most historic, culturally diverse, and, you know, are the spaces of remaining affordability within the county,' said George Barrett, a former Northside resident and executive director of the Marian Cheek Jackson Center. 'Our neighborhoods and our communities hold so much history and so much connection and love and spirit,' Barrett said. 'Our communities and our neighborhoods are…the ones who are facing an intense amount of threat by these new revaluations. In these existing hubs of the Black community within Orange County…we, as a coalition…have formed to fight back against this and really preserve the future of our neighborhoods in the midst of these current revaluations' Horace Johnson Jr., the son and namesake of Hillsborough's first and only Black mayor who recently died, warned those on the Zoom call that he would be blunt in his assessment of the revaluation. 'This is extinction level gentrification,' Johnson said. He called the assessments 'mind numbing,' a phrase he said he reserves for things that cannot be reasonably explained. Johnson said Hillsborough leaders are using high taxes to turn the town into an 'OAW' community. 'OAW represents old and white, specifically for Hillsborough, a town that's rich in tradition,' Johnson said. 'I've been here all my life. They're trying to turn this community to old and white, which brings it back to class, the have and the have nots.' Johnson said his late father would not want him to just 'weep and mourn.' He'd want him to continue to fight against injustice. Retired District Court Judge Beverly Scarlett joined the meeting and said high property taxes can make owning a home unaffordable for vulnerable populations such as the elderly, who might be forced to put off buying medication to pay bills. 'I've seen this within my own family, [where someone] will decide 'I'm not going to buy my medication because I need to put together money, put my pennies together to be able to pay these taxes' — that's going to lead to negative health outcomes,' Scarlett said. Vaughan said the good news is that tax offices can make neighborhood adjustments, and many other counties have. 'Guilford County adjusted land values in a historically Black neighborhood when they realized the land values were wrong,' he said. 'Wake County is currently looking at two neighborhoods that had much more complicated differences and yet were problematic for a lot of the long standing historically Black residents.' Durham is also looking at systematic tools, and all of the counties have access to the regressivity tools that Vaughan shared. 'Orange County decided not to use the tool this time and made huge mistakes,' Vaughan said. Barrett said more than 100 residents from across the county have signed a letter to county commissioners asking for fairness and justice on property tax assessments. 'We want to see these neighborhood wide adjustments in historically Black and Brown neighborhoods be made and we want to also have a revisitation of undervalued, wealthier neighborhoods,' Barrett said. 'Investor-owned buildings should carry their fair share of the property tax burden.'
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Housing advocates, providers see impending federal funding cuts as 'catastrophic'
(Photo: Clayton Henkel) Nonprofit housing and community development organizations face potential catastrophic funding disruptions due to the Trump administration's efforts to reshape the federal government, a coalition of North Carolina nonprofit leaders and supporters said over two recent Zoom meetings. The first weeks of Donald Trump's second presidency have been fraught with uncertainty for the nonprofits. A flurry of executive orders, mass firings and funding freezes could have a devastating impact on housing and community development in North Carolina, coalition leaders said during the meetings, which took place Friday and Monday. Samuel Gunter, executive director of the North Carolina Housing Coalition, the affordable housing advocacy group that organized the meetings, said that until recently, he's never had to call an emergency meeting of his board of directors. He's worked at the organization for 10 years. 'In the last week I've had three [meetings with the board of directors], and most of the folks that I've been talking to over the last couple of weeks, that is the case as well' Gunter said. Housing and community nonprofit leaders are struggling to figure out what they have in the bank, what's supposed to be there that isn't, what federal dollars they were relying on that may not exist a couple of weeks from now, and what it all means for staff and programs, Gunter said. 'I wish I had solid answers for you,' Gunter told the more than 100 people who attended Friday's virtual meeting. 'I do not right now, but I need us to know that we are all in the same boat. The more we can communicate with one another, the more that we're going to be able to chart a course through this.' Gunter said nonprofits housing and community development organizations must stick together and direct their energy at 'the folks that are shrinking the pie,' rather than engaging in destructive competition over the depleted resources that remain. 'We are not each other's enemies fighting over fewer and fewer resources,' he said. Friday's Zoom meeting was attended by 79 organizations from more than 50 the counties. The attendees reported serving more than 96,000 families and receiving more than $165 million in public funding. They also reported being owed $7 million in funding as of Friday. On Monday, 207 organizations from more than 80 counties were represented on the call, the organizers said. The organizations reported serving more than 80,000 families, receiving $461 million in public funding and being owed $14 million by the federal government. The Trump administration has announced plans to cut the U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by 50% as part of Trump's effort to shrink the size of the federal government. Gunter is especially concerned about a proposed 84% cut to HUD's Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD), which oversees disaster recovery, homelessness services and Community Development Block Grants and other programs. 'My guess is that the bulk of folks on this call, if you get resources that flow through HUD, they come through that CPD office,' Gunter said. '[An 84% cut to CPD would be a] catastrophic impact to the flow of resources.' NC Newsline previously reported that housing advocates across the nation are concerned about HUD Secretary Scott Turner's leadership because he supports policies that advocates believe will increase housing instability. Those policies include, for example, increasing the role of private equity in the rental market and opposing HUD's efforts to advance racial equity. Turner recently announced that he would revoke $4 million worth of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) contracts at HUD. The move is keeping with a Trump directive to stamp out such efforts in the federal government. Trump's executive order to end DEI initiatives could prove particularly troublesome for housing and community development advocates, Gunter said. The DEI backlash is responsible for recent cancellations of HUD contracts for nonprofit capacity building grants and technical assistance programs that support community groups across the nation (Section 4 Programs), he said. 'These contracts were not canceled because of performance issues. They were not canceled because of a shift in strategy,' Gunter said. 'They were canceled because it was determined that their websites and or LinkedIn Profiles contain something related to DEI.' Housing advocates say the decision to end the contracts will increase costs for families, stymie the creation of affordable housing and cost local jobs. 'Taken together, Section 4 and technical assistance programs provide a vital lifeline to communities across the country,' Shaun Donovan, president and CEO of Enterprise Community Partners, said in a statement late last month. Donovan's organization is one of the nonprofits that received notification that HUD planned to cancel its capacity building grants and funding for its technical assistance programs that support community groups and housing providers across the country. The former HUD secretary and director of the Office of Management and Budget added: 'Both [capacity building grants and technical assistance programs] provide support for building and preserving affordable homes, a particularly urgent need as we face an unprecedented housing crisis. These programs, though, aren't just about affordable homes. They allow urban, rural, and Tribal communities to assess their own needs and leverage private dollars to invest in senior housing, establish local health clinics, fund child care centers, and so much more. It's no surprise that both initiatives have long had deep, bipartisan support.' Meanwhile, Gunter said that when nonprofits receive communication from their federal counterparts that does not feel right, it's easy to 'go inward and not talk about it' and keep one's head down. 'What has been clear thus far in this administration, that's not going to be a winning strategy,' Gunter said. 'There is no keeping our heads down hoping that we don't make waves and on the other end we're going to get the resources and continue to do the work.' He warned that funding for affordable housing programs and initiatives could lose out to GOP-prized tax cuts. 'We are in an existential crisis in affordable housing and community development,' Gunter said. Gunter urged housing advocates to call their U.S. Senators and House members to let them know about their concerns. It's important, he said, to explain that the proposed cuts will cost people their homes and that waste and fraud are not the problem when it comes to affordable housing; the problem is inadequate resources. 'We are in a moment where we got to work because we're looking at some scary numbers if the federal government pulls out more, or all of the affordable housing and community development investments that they make in North Carolina and across the country,' Gunter said.
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Advocacy group calls on North Carolina's congressional delegates to fight for housing
A mixed-income housing project under construction in Durham. (Photo: Greg Childress) A North Carolina Housing Coalition petition urging the state's congressional delegation to protect federal housing funds has collected signatures more than 360 individuals and organizations opposed to President Trump's attempt to pause federal agency grants, loans and other financial assistance programs. The petition was drafted in response to a Jan. 27 Office of Management and Budget memorandum that purported halt federal funding to many housing and community development programs. A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order to stop the funding freeze. The housing coalition was scheduled to deliver the petition to North Carolina's congressional delegation Thursday. 'We really want to emphasize the importance of federal housing funds and how at risk they are,' Stephanie Watkins-Cruz, director of housing policy at the Housing Coalition, said on the organization's weekly housing call. 'The [Trump] administration, if they do not try to halt the distribution of the previously appropriated funds, we do expect there to be some drastic budget cuts once the continuing resolution ends in March.' Earlier this month, the Senate confirmed Scott Turner as secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which is responsible for national policy and programs to address the nation's housing needs. Housing advocates across the nation are concerned about Turner's leadership because he supports policies that the advocates believe will increase housing instability. Those policies include, for example, increasing the role of private equity in the rental market and opposing HUD's efforts to advance racial equity. Turner announced Thursday that he would revoke $4 million worth of diversity, equity and inclusion contacts at HUD. The move is keeping with a Trump directive to stamp out such efforts in the federal government. In its letter to the North Carolina congressional delegation, the Housing Coalition said a 'pause' in funding for housing and community development would be 'catastrophic.' 'At a time when housing seems out of reach for a growing number of North Carolinians, and as the Western part of our state recovers from the devastation of Hurricane Helene, now is the time to lean into critical housing and community development programs that allow North Carolinians to rebuild and thrive, rather than cut essential funds and services that will result in increased housing instability and homelessness,' the Housing Coalition said. The NC Chamber Foundation, NC REALTORS and the N.C. Homebuilders Association recently released a statewide report showing that North Carolina is facing a significant housing inventory gap across all income levels and geographic regions. The report predicts the gap will increase with projected job and population growth. Addressing the gap could generate $489 billion in economic activity and create nearly 2.2 million jobs, the report said. Last month, Rep. Valerie Foushee, (D-NC-4) called Trump's action to halt approved federal funding 'illegal and unprecedented' and an overreach of power. 'My district is home to leading research institutions and universities, and this sweeping freeze will harm the livelihoods of researchers, federal employees, and students throughout the Triangle region,' Foushee said in a statement. 'This extreme order will not only pause countless federally funded research projects, but will also prevent our state from accessing emergency FEMA funds that are needed to help our neighbors in Western North Carolina rebuild and recover from Helene.' Foushee said Trump's directive also threatens to withhold essential funding from first responders, schools, infrastructure improvement projects, healthcare centers, small businesses, veterans, seniors and other important projects and agencies.
