Raleigh presents five-year affordable-housing roadmap, pairs production targets with unsheltered response plan

At a Raleigh City Council work session, Emily Sutton, the city’s housing and neighborhoods director, presented “A Home for Every Neighbor,” a five-year roadmap to increase affordable housing supply and pursue a functional zero target for unsheltered homelessness.

The plan sets measurable objectives and links housing production to homelessness prevention, Sutton told council. ‘‘Homelessness is a housing problem,’’ she said, arguing that housing-focused interventions with ongoing supports can be less costly than repeated emergency responses.

A nut graf: The presentation combined production and preservation targets, existing programs funded by the 2020 housing bond and proposals for flexible funding and landlord incentives. Staff said the city has spent or committed about 75% of the $80 million bond and will need new resources after the bond’s final budget year to keep planned work on track.

Sutton opened with the city’s recent housing and homelessness counts and the policy framing staff used to design the plan. She cited an annual point-in-time count used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and said the county’s current unsheltered count is about 1,400 to 1,500 people with more than 80 camps in Wake County, most inside Raleigh’s limits. Sutton also said 27,000 low-income Wake County households pay more than 30% of income for housing and that Wake County has an estimated 60,000-unit shortage of affordable housing for households under about 80% of area median income.

To address those gaps, staff described three primary goals: increase legally binding affordable housing supply; improve overall market affordability; and end and prevent homelessness. Under supply, staff said the city will continue gap financing and…