Raleigh staff outline anti‑displacement tools, vulnerability index and preservation programs
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Summary
City housing staff told council the city already uses many anti‑displacement strategies—supply expansion, preservation, targeted investment and eviction prevention—and presented a housing vulnerability index and examples from peer cities to guide a potential formal anti‑displacement plan.
Emily Sutton, Raleigh’s director of Housing and Community Development, told the City Council in a work session briefing that the city’s anti‑displacement work rests on four core strategies: increase supply and choice, preserve existing affordable housing, target public investments to neighborhoods facing development pressure, and strengthen stability and prevention programs.
Sutton said the department produced a housing vulnerability index using American Community Survey and HUD data that groups census tracts into high, moderate and low vulnerability. She said the index is intended as a planning and coordination tool to help target preservation, eviction prevention and other stability investments.
On preservation, Sutton highlighted the Wake Affordable Housing Preservation Fund—established in 2022 with county and nonprofit partners—as a tool for nonprofit and mission‑oriented developers to acquire and rehabilitate at‑risk affordable multifamily properties. She cited Grosvenor Gardens and Biltmore Hills as examples where the fund helped preserve affordability in 108 units.
Sutton described targeted investments including land acquisition along the Bus Rapid Transit corridor and the Public Project Community Support Fund (PPCSF), a $1.5 million FY23 cross‑departmental fund aimed at mitigating construction impacts and supporting small businesses and residents in Southeast Raleigh.
On stability and prevention, staff reported the city has invested more than $1,000,000 since 2024 in homelessness prevention and diversion work, noting 167 households received homelessness prevention services and 128 households received diversion support to date.
Councilmembers asked staff to incorporate additional local factors into the vulnerability index—specifically whether Neighborhood Conservation Overlays should be considered—and to provide follow‑up benchmarking that compares production to homelessness metrics. Sutton said staff can add NCOD overlays to future analysis and that benchmarking could be done but would require careful methodology and time series analysis.
Sutton also reported peer city outreach (Boston, Louisville, Denton) and warned of state legal constraints: unlike some peer cities, North Carolina municipalities cannot compel added affordability from projects receiving city subsidy, which limits one policy option used elsewhere.
The briefing concluded with staff asking council to consider these existing tools as the foundation for any future formal anti‑displacement plan directed by council.