A joint subcomittee of commissioners and council members listens to concerns from members of the Workforce Housing Advisory Committee. (Port City Daily photo/Alexandria Sands)
NEW HANOVER COUNTY â New Hanover County commissioners and Wilmington city councilors vowed before developers and nonprofit leaders to actually tackle the areaâs affordable housing crisis in what was largely a brainstorming session Wednesday morning.
A lack of affordable housing has been a conversation in the county for years, but at heightened levels most recently, as council member Charlie Rivenbark pointed out.
âIâm so damn frustrated,â Rivenbark said. âHere we are in 2021, and weâre still talking about the same thing . . . But when I leave here today, I want to have a plan that we are going to work on.â
A local nonprofit is buying properties to help keep housing prices down for some residents.
Using a $2.5 million investment made by Live Oak Bank, Cape Fear Collective has acquired 17 rental properties in Wilmington and three in Pender County, where the nonprofit is aiming to keep rents below the market rate.
It s part of a new initiative called Collective Ventures, which aims to funnel capital into communities with significant barriers to resources. To that end, the nonprofit looks to serve as an intermediary between its nonprofit partners and financial institutions like Live Oak Bank to direct dollars toward affordable housing solutions.
Patrick Brien: CEO of CFC is investing in staff, stuff, space and systems (â1on1 with Jon Evansâ podcast)
Cape Fear Collective seeks solutions to affordable housing By Jon Evans | March 5, 2021 at 5:45 AM EST - Updated March 12 at 4:05 PM
WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) - Patrick Brien and his team at Cape Fear Collective are working to bring about change in southeastern North Carolina. Not the âdriving-down-the-street-and-notice-a-bunch-of-trees-were-cut-down-because-a-new-development-is-going-to-be-builtâ kind of change. Brien, the CEO of the organization, calls it âgenerational changeâ. When the issues you address include poverty, affordable housing, education and healthcare, the solutions donât evolve overnight.
âTo a certain degree, weâll constantly focus on systemic change,â Brien said when explaining the effort. âSo, weâre not trying to build a program to solve this finite problem. Weâre trying to strengthen com
Cape Fear Collective acquired 20 properties to preserve as affordable housing using investment funds from Live Oak Bank. (Port City Daily photo/file)
SOUTHEASTERN N.C. – As part of its new impact investment initiative, Cape Fear Collective is buying up properties to preserve as affordable housing in the midst of a hot residential real-estate market.
Live Oak Bank has invested $2.5 million in support of the local organization’s new initiative, Cape Fear Collective Ventures. The project focuses on obtaining capital to put toward solutions for affordable housing, as well as workforce development, small business growth and transportation.
The collective will strategically deploy the funds in marginalized communities without many resources readily available.