Housing

Jesse Hamilton McCoy II was raised by a single mother in low-income neighborhoods in Vance and Durham Counties. Growing up in the late 1980s and 1990s, he witnessed the drug epidemic firsthand and remembers not being able to trust some adults in the community because of their addiction. 

A new investigation by the BBC has uncovered scores of cases where women allegedly endured sexual harassment or may have been forced to do sexual favors to avoid eviction or secure housing.

Real estate agent Jessica Wood opens the door to an apartment in the Cotton Mill condo development and leads a prospective tenant inside.

Triad City Beat Senior Editor Jordan Green spent a year investigating housing ownership in lower income neighborhoods of High Point, North Carolina.

Host Frank Stasio speaks with Green about the racial lines of poverty in lower income neighborhoods, and how nearly more than 80 years of racial economic housing policies has limited access to loans and squashed opportunities for upward mobility for many African-Americans in High Point. 

In the popular teenage movie Mean Girls, there’s a scene where a few high school students spot someone unexpected at the mall.

“Oh my god, that’s Mrs. Norbury,” one student exclaims.  

“I love seeing teachers outside of school, it’s like seeing a dog walk on its hinds legs,” a second student adds.   

It’s their math teacher, played by Tina Fey. But she’s not shopping.

“No, actually I’m just here because I bar-tend a couple of nights a week,” she says.

Taking On A Retail Job

The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates today but experts say that’s unlikely to slow down the real estate boom in the Triangle. Most of the action is in Wake County, especially in Fuquay-Varina and Morrisville. 

The U.S. Supreme Court says housing discrimination does not have to be intentional to be illegal.

Last week's ruling in the case of Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project held that while the state did not intend to create racially discriminatory housing policies, the negative outcomes for minority communities in Dallas meant a violation of the Fair Housing Act.

The decision could affect the way states across the country assign affordable housing projects, including in North Carolina.

  In North Carolina, two million families live without adequate housing. 

The Carolina Population Center at UNC is debuting a new unit this week that will focus on translating complicated Census data for businesses and the public.

The new unit is called Carolina Demography.  And the first project by Director Rebecca Tippett is dissecting current and future North Carolina housing units for a span covering 110 years.

UNC Board of Governors members voted unanimously to cancel a policy allowing men and women to live together on the Chapel Hill campus.  The vote nullified the UNC Chapel Hill trustee board's endorsement of gender neutral housing.

Some male and female students were going to live together in 32 living spaces set aside in two dorms starting this month.  But the board of governors said that arrangement would be inappropriate.  Chairman Peter Hans says their consideration of the policy included the unfavorable opinions of some state lawmakers.

Section 8 is a federal subsidy program that bridges the gap between people with low-income and market rentals. But this summer, Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Raleigh, all face cuts to their Section 8 Voucher Program.

There are neighborhoods in many urban areas across the country with empty, dilapidated houses. Chances are the down economy got the best of the owner resulting in foreclosure.  But in thousands of cases foreclosures have gone wrong like at a house on East Geer (gear) Street in Durham.   For years no one took responsibility for the defaulted mortgage.  That means, the foreclosure was not completed, the structure could not be sold, resulting in blight.  It’s called a “bank walk away.”

The current state of the economy has shaken up countless careers, especially if you were in the housing construction business. But in a neighborhood outside High Point, one woman who used to build homes now uses her own home as a bakery. She said it was time to do the one thing she knew best and Big Boss Baking Company was born. Leoneda Inge has this report for our series, “Breaking into the Food Biz.”

Lavinia Hensley:  Hey come on in, how are you. You found us. See you weren’t too far.
Leoneda Inge: I know. I found it.

Rosemary Thornton may have driven by your house a few times. She may have even slowed down, whipped out her camera and snapped a few pictures. But, she’s not casing the place. Thornton is documenting history. If she’s interested in your dwelling, it’s likely you live in a kit home, a mail-order house that could be purchased out of a catalog in the early 20th century.