Latest / ChangeMakers with Katie Goar / Episode 121: Kevin Campbell, Executive Director, Raleigh Area Land Trust

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Episode 121: Kevin Campbell, Executive Director, Raleigh Area Land Trust · ChangeMakers with Katie Goar

0:05
Speaker 1: This is change Makers with Katie Gore finding the right
0:09
Speaker 1: solutions for the affordable housing community.
0:13
Speaker 2: This week's change maker is Kevin Campbell, the executive director
0:16
Speaker 2: of the Raleigh Area Land Trust. Kevin is a visionary
0:20
Speaker 2: leader who has dedicated his entire career to transforming communities
0:25
Speaker 2: through affordable home ownership. With decades of experience, Kevin has
0:30
Speaker 2: worked from real estate to finance and nonprofit sectors. He
0:34
Speaker 2: brings proven strategies to ensure families in Wake County have
0:38
Speaker 2: access to stable, affordable houses. Kevin, welcome to the show.
0:43
Speaker 3: Thank you. It's great to be here with you. It's
0:45
Speaker 3: one of my favorite topics, so you go to jump
0:47
Speaker 3: into it.
0:48
Speaker 2: It's an honor to have you here. I'm so excited.
0:50
Speaker 2: We were kind of briefly talking in the beginning here
0:53
Speaker 2: before we went live about the dynamics of Raleigh with it.
0:57
Speaker 2: I think you guys call it the tech triangle, research triangle.
1:02
Speaker 2: There's always been that growth dynamic, So you guys, I
1:06
Speaker 2: guess you know, have been experiencing this for a longer
1:10
Speaker 2: duration than a lot of these other cities. So tell
1:13
Speaker 2: us the research triangle. With lots of growth, rising housing costs,
1:18
Speaker 2: what's going on in this market since we're we're talking
1:22
Speaker 2: in the analytics portion of this conversation here.
1:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I personally have lived in in Raley since
1:31
Speaker 3: two thousand and four, so a little over twenty years,
1:34
Speaker 3: and the growth has been really constant, you know, over
1:38
Speaker 3: that time. And it's a very diverse economy. You mentioned
1:42
Speaker 3: the technology sectors and so forth, a really diverse and
1:46
Speaker 3: strong economy. And you know, I think looking back, you know,
1:49
Speaker 3: when you look at the crash of the economy in
1:52
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight two thousand and nine, Raley didn't
1:55
Speaker 3: experience that to the extreme. You know, there was some
1:58
Speaker 3: drop in property values. I was at Habitat for Humanity
2:01
Speaker 3: at the time, and we actually did take advantage of
2:05
Speaker 3: making some good land purchases at that time at a
2:08
Speaker 3: lower rate that then helps sustain us towards the future
2:11
Speaker 3: with some affordable sites. But what you have, you know now,
2:16
Speaker 3: I would call it a perfect storm of unaffordability, whether
2:20
Speaker 3: you know, with the shortage of supply against the demand,
2:23
Speaker 3: and you're really seeing it in almost every part of
2:26
Speaker 3: the country, and Rally would be one of the leaders,
2:29
Speaker 3: I guess in that lack of supply you have that
2:34
Speaker 3: you have high interest rates, higher interest rates than we
2:38
Speaker 3: were used to for several decades, and then you just
2:41
Speaker 3: have a natural, well strong population growth. So we have
2:46
Speaker 3: a really high loss of affordable units. Either they're being
2:53
Speaker 3: demolished and replaced with a higher cost unit, or else
2:57
Speaker 3: they are just able to fetch higher rents. And that's
3:00
Speaker 3: so not only are we not adding a level of
3:05
Speaker 3: affordable units for the population growth, but we're also looking
3:08
Speaker 3: at that loss of affordable units. And that's that's where
3:11
Speaker 3: the community land trust model of Raleigh Area land Trust
3:15
Speaker 3: really appeals to me, because we're not just thinking about
3:19
Speaker 3: home ownership for that current buyer, that that family that
3:23
Speaker 3: you're working with right now that wants to buy the home,
3:25
Speaker 3: but you're thinking down the road and how do we
3:28
Speaker 3: keep affordable units in place, you know, in Raleigh in
3:32
Speaker 3: the county and not have people to feel like they
3:36
Speaker 3: have to to go further out, you know, away from
3:39
Speaker 3: their work and so forth, and away from the good
3:41
Speaker 3: schools the Wake County to you know, to afford housing
3:45
Speaker 3: and all of that means. So it's the numbers are
3:50
Speaker 3: are big, and I think I think in Raleigh right now,
3:53
Speaker 3: just in the city of Raleigh, they're saying that we're
3:55
Speaker 3: thirty seven thousand affordable units short and that that could
4:00
Speaker 3: grow to I think one hundred and ten thousand over
4:02
Speaker 3: the next few years if that's not addressed. And you know,
4:06
Speaker 3: there are a lot of great organizations, I think great
4:10
Speaker 3: elected officials and municipal leaders that are on board, but
4:18
Speaker 3: I'm not seeing anything yet to address numbers like that.
4:22
Speaker 3: Spille something that needs to come.
4:24
Speaker 2: You are our first community land trust on the podcast,
4:29
Speaker 2: So I want to talk about that model specifically too,
4:33
Speaker 2: just start us real basic what is it, how it works,
4:38
Speaker 2: and why it's so unique to do what you're doing
4:44
Speaker 2: in Raleigh, Like why that model is so unique.
4:47
Speaker 3: You know, the model community land trust model actually started
4:51
Speaker 3: in the nineteen sixties and just learning this history as well.
4:55
Speaker 3: Also it's in out of the civil rights movement in
4:59
Speaker 3: all Benny George, where what was happening there was a
5:04
Speaker 3: group in a rural community of farm community that there
5:10
Speaker 3: were organizers there, civil rights organizers there. They were getting
5:13
Speaker 3: people registered to vote, and certain other people didn't like
5:17
Speaker 3: the fact that they were registering to vote, and so
5:20
Speaker 3: they were evicting them from their charecropping land. And so
5:25
Speaker 3: I've seen the video where this organizer was like, here,
5:28
Speaker 3: I am trying to get people empowered through you know, voting,
5:33
Speaker 3: but they're losing their land and their livelihoods. So he
5:36
Speaker 3: went out and organized and they bought some thousands of
5:39
Speaker 3: acres to and created the first community land trust and
5:46
Speaker 3: it was rural land, but it was to do housing
5:48
Speaker 3: and to do farming. And I won't go into their
5:52
Speaker 3: long story, but they had a lot of resistance to that.
5:55
Speaker 3: But that was the birth of the movement in nineteen
5:58
Speaker 3: sixty eight. And then you will see community land trust
6:03
Speaker 3: even in our area in Durham, North Carolina and Chapel Hill,
6:06
Speaker 3: North Carolina that have had land trust around since the nineties,
6:11
Speaker 3: but a lot of growth lately, like us at the
6:15
Speaker 3: Raleigh area of land trust, a lot of growth in
6:18
Speaker 3: the last decade, so that they're now I think three
6:20
Speaker 3: hundred and fifteen community land trust organizations in the country.
6:23
Speaker 3: In North Carolina we have twelve, and like I said,
6:26
Speaker 3: most of them are new like us. And then now
6:30
Speaker 3: over sixteen thousand homes in the land trust portfolio. So
6:37
Speaker 3: I always say here, this is a new model to Raleigh,
6:39
Speaker 3: but it's not a new model. It really has some
6:41
Speaker 3: data behind it. And one thing that really excites me
6:45
Speaker 3: about the model is it's a way to get people
6:48
Speaker 3: entry into home ownership. A lot of those people might
6:52
Speaker 3: want to stay in that home and we'll stay in
6:54
Speaker 3: that home for the rest of their lives, but some
6:57
Speaker 3: might see it as a stepping stone to mark rate
7:00
Speaker 3: home ownership. And through the model, which is that a
7:05
Speaker 3: home buyer is buying the home, the trust is retaining
7:08
Speaker 3: ownership of the land. It gives them a lower price
7:12
Speaker 3: point to get into this market. Then we have a
7:15
Speaker 3: shared equity agreement with them so that they're not earning
7:19
Speaker 3: the full equity that a market rate home buyer would have,
7:21
Speaker 3: but they are earning equity. And then the track record
7:25
Speaker 3: of land trust is that sixty percent of community land
7:28
Speaker 3: trust buyers move on to market rate home ownership. So
7:34
Speaker 3: that's all about choice, you know, letting people you know,
7:37
Speaker 3: choose what works for them. And if they want to
7:40
Speaker 3: and are able to move into market rate home ownership
7:42
Speaker 3: and increase the equity that they can build generationally, they're
7:46
Speaker 3: able to do that. If not, if they just want
7:48
Speaker 3: to stay in their community that and then the other
7:51
Speaker 3: benefit is, like I said earlier, the we're really thinking
7:55
Speaker 3: about the subsequent buyers. So the mathematical model is designed
7:59
Speaker 3: in a way so that even after some years and
8:02
Speaker 3: we pay and we share some equity, that that house
8:06
Speaker 3: will still be affordable to the next buyer without additional subsidy.
8:11
Speaker 3: And that's where, especially with local governments, we're seeing a
8:14
Speaker 3: lot of interest for that because they're investing pretty high
8:17
Speaker 3: subsidies in making this home ownership possible. And if they
8:20
Speaker 3: know that that unit and our land leases are ninety
8:24
Speaker 3: nine years are going to stay affordable for many generations,
8:28
Speaker 3: that's really appealing to them for their investment.
8:31
Speaker 2: I wasn't familiar with how that particular land trust model
8:36
Speaker 2: was originated. I was actually more familiar with a model
8:40
Speaker 2: that's outside of Detroit, where you had so much disinvestment
8:46
Speaker 2: from the major employers that there was just huge tracts
8:51
Speaker 2: of land just Citty and so they used the land
8:55
Speaker 2: bank or land trust to kind of pull that into
9:00
Speaker 2: a potential development area. So I guess, you know, whatever
9:03
Speaker 2: the reason is behind how land trusts are created or
9:10
Speaker 2: it doesn't change the fact that why they're needed, right,
9:14
Speaker 2: So that's.
9:14
Speaker 3: Right, And I'll think if you can get you know,
9:17
Speaker 3: land trust properties in land trusts while you still have
9:19
Speaker 3: some affordability that makes it so much easier. Yeah, that's
9:24
Speaker 3: one wish I would have in Raleigh. I wish we
9:26
Speaker 3: were ten or twenty years earlier, you know, getting started
9:29
Speaker 3: and preserving that affordability. Yeah.
9:32
Speaker 2: So I'm curious as to what is the guiding decision
9:36
Speaker 2: making when you go to acquire that land. In the
9:41
Speaker 2: example I used outside of Detroit, you know, they just
9:44
Speaker 2: had tons of land and so they could pretty much
9:47
Speaker 2: pick whatever whenever. But in your case, yeah, you've got
9:51
Speaker 2: a different dynamic. So what are some of those guiding
9:53
Speaker 2: decisions when you go out to either purposely try to
9:57
Speaker 2: get one or an opportunities brought to you.
10:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, opportunity is a great word. I always think of
10:03
Speaker 3: it that way. We have I think as an organization,
10:05
Speaker 3: we have to be poised to jump on any opportunities
10:08
Speaker 3: that come because they're kind of few and far between.
10:11
Speaker 3: And then it's really just do the numbers work? Can
10:15
Speaker 3: we make the numbers work through you know, the cost
10:18
Speaker 3: of development, acquisition of land, costs of development subsidies that
10:24
Speaker 3: are available we do, you know, we do call on
10:28
Speaker 3: down payment assistance subsidies that help address the gap between
10:33
Speaker 3: the the market cost of the house and the affordable
10:36
Speaker 3: price point. We have those at the city, county, and
10:40
Speaker 3: state level, those down payment assistance programs, they're critical in that.
10:46
Speaker 3: So it's I always feel like almost that if if
10:52
Speaker 3: site becomes available, it's almost to me like somebody needs
10:56
Speaker 3: to talk me out of it because they're just aren't
10:59
Speaker 3: that many opportunity unity yeah, to make work. So you know,
11:04
Speaker 3: that's really kind of how I look at it. I
11:06
Speaker 3: don't think we need to get too nuanced about it.
11:10
Speaker 3: We also forgh Raleigh's in the center of Wake County,
11:14
Speaker 3: and employment is really scattered around the county and also
11:20
Speaker 3: into other counties with the Research Triangle Park, so there's
11:23
Speaker 3: not yours traditional like employment in the center and residence
11:30
Speaker 3: is outside, so we're also interested. We've started with our
11:35
Speaker 3: first few homes in Raleigh, but we're also branching out
11:38
Speaker 3: two other municipalities. We have ten other municipalities in the
11:41
Speaker 3: county and we seek to really work with all of
11:45
Speaker 3: them and provide housing, you know, throughout the county. And
11:50
Speaker 3: I'm sure we'll have you know, interest in buyers and
11:54
Speaker 3: all its places.
11:56
Speaker 2: So are you only taking shovel ready lowations or have
12:01
Speaker 2: you guys started dabbling in some of those brown and
12:06
Speaker 2: type of tracks of lane.
12:09
Speaker 3: You know, I think it's a mix for sure. So
12:11
Speaker 3: our first four units, though we have purchased, well, two
12:18
Speaker 3: were existing homes. So we just bought two existing homes
12:22
Speaker 3: that were on the market. It was a friendly seller
12:24
Speaker 3: who liked our mission and we invested probably thirty thousand
12:29
Speaker 3: dollars of upgrade to those hums. They were probably built
12:33
Speaker 3: in the seventies and they were our first two homes
12:36
Speaker 3: in the land Trust and now and that's in Raleigh.
12:39
Speaker 3: And then we just bought two brand new town homes
12:45
Speaker 3: that were built by a for profit builder with a
12:49
Speaker 3: commitment to about a quarter of them being sold to
12:53
Speaker 3: affordable buyers. And we were able to put together some
12:57
Speaker 3: funds to buy two of those, also in Raleigh. And
13:01
Speaker 3: then we've been working for a couple of years. We
13:05
Speaker 3: were awarded a little over one acre piece of land
13:10
Speaker 3: near downtown Raleigh by the City of Raleigh that used
13:13
Speaker 3: to be housing. It used to be affordable housing. The
13:19
Speaker 3: site's been vacant, buildings demolished for at least twenty years.
13:24
Speaker 3: I've never seen it with building on it. And we
13:27
Speaker 3: were awarded that to develop eighteen new homes, so that
13:31
Speaker 3: that's a raw land development. You know, we will be
13:35
Speaker 3: doing all of the site development, all of the infrastructure,
13:38
Speaker 3: and building the eighteen homes there, and that's really significant.
13:44
Speaker 3: It's in a neighborhood that traditionally a neighborhood for African
13:48
Speaker 3: American homeowners and over time experienced some disinvestment, but then
13:56
Speaker 3: lately rapid gentrification. Just it's like you wouldn't recognize the
14:01
Speaker 3: neighborhood from five years ago with units being torn down
14:05
Speaker 3: replaced by modern architecture homes, larger homes and so forth.
14:11
Speaker 3: So to be able to carve out and acre here
14:14
Speaker 3: and you know, be able to develop eighteen houses. We
14:18
Speaker 3: have a great partnership there with with a man named
14:22
Speaker 3: Lavelle Moten. He actually grew up on this piece of land,
14:26
Speaker 3: oh wow, in his grandmother's house. He now the head
14:29
Speaker 3: men's basketball coach at North Carolina Central University, and we're
14:34
Speaker 3: working with him and some of his friends from growing
14:39
Speaker 3: up in developing this working together. So we're just super
14:43
Speaker 3: pleased to have them as partners and helping hold on
14:47
Speaker 3: to that, you know, legacy of what that neighborhood you know,
14:50
Speaker 3: meant to them and be able to continue that.
14:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great when you can get local developers. I
14:56
Speaker 2: think some communities have positioned very very well because they
14:59
Speaker 2: have that local flavor, design, heritage imprinting, and you know,
15:04
Speaker 2: quite frankly, they have a lot of buy in. It's
15:07
Speaker 2: more than just the bottom line.
15:09
Speaker 3: Isn't it It is, you know, and I think you know,
15:12
Speaker 3: with that gentrification, you find you know, longtime generational residents
15:17
Speaker 3: that almost now don't feel at home, you know, and
15:20
Speaker 3: their community it's changed so much. And so we're engaging.
15:23
Speaker 3: We're engaging a neighborhood committee on an art installation for
15:26
Speaker 3: the development that will the art will reflect on the history,
15:30
Speaker 3: and we're having that process informed by those long time residents.
15:35
Speaker 3: So it's nice, nice to have those components. It's not
15:38
Speaker 3: just sticks and bricks or numbers.
15:40
Speaker 2: Right right, I mean, it's a book of business. It's
15:43
Speaker 2: a real estate transaction. You know, you're dealing with the
15:48
Speaker 2: market of what the pricing is, how much it's going
15:50
Speaker 2: to cost you to do what you have to do.
15:52
Speaker 2: But it's great when the community can have so much
15:55
Speaker 2: of a voice into how that happens. Speaking of how
16:01
Speaker 2: that happens, how are people I mean, I can assume
16:05
Speaker 2: that your list of people wanting to come into the
16:08
Speaker 2: program obviously is much longer than the amount of inventory
16:13
Speaker 2: you have. But how are people coming in to the
16:17
Speaker 2: organization that just speak to some of that about them?
16:21
Speaker 3: Mom, Yeah, it's you're right, and it's really word of
16:25
Speaker 3: mouth and travels quickly, and I'm used to that even
16:29
Speaker 3: with my time too with Habitat for Humanity. Very soon,
16:32
Speaker 3: so we've actually we've not aggressively pursued home ownership candidates
16:39
Speaker 3: because of our volume is so small, right, but we
16:42
Speaker 3: are building and getting ready for that. You know, when
16:45
Speaker 3: as soon as we I think start construction hopefully this
16:48
Speaker 3: summer on those eighteen units, you know, will be more
16:51
Speaker 3: aggressive pushing that out. In your right, the demand will
16:55
Speaker 3: be far beyond the supply there. And you know, we've
17:00
Speaker 3: developed we want our process to be a fair one
17:03
Speaker 3: and we want to give neighborhood residents some preference, so
17:07
Speaker 3: we've built that into our evaluation scoring process so that
17:12
Speaker 3: you get some credit for being neighborhood residents there and
17:16
Speaker 3: then you know, it's a then it's really a financial
17:19
Speaker 3: qualification process, and we have a group of lenders that
17:23
Speaker 3: we work with that you know, have community land trust
17:27
Speaker 3: lending mortgage lending products, so it becomes that eventually, you know,
17:32
Speaker 3: it's getting qualified for a mortgage and being under certain
17:35
Speaker 3: income levels. In that development, the city of Raleigh didn't
17:38
Speaker 3: require they wanted home They wanted to extend home ownership
17:43
Speaker 3: to as low of an income group as they could.
17:46
Speaker 3: So usually we would serve families that are earning eighty
17:50
Speaker 3: percent or less area meeting income, but in that development,
17:54
Speaker 3: the city wanted half of the units to go to
17:58
Speaker 3: families under fifty percent of the meeting and half to
18:01
Speaker 3: under sixty percent. And you know, thats just it requires
18:04
Speaker 3: more subsidy. But there are you know, a lot of
18:07
Speaker 3: people in that group that really never get a home
18:11
Speaker 3: ownership opportunity.
18:12
Speaker 2: So that's citing and for rallie, give us an idea
18:16
Speaker 2: of how much what is the salary that you're talking about.
18:21
Speaker 3: That Yeah, you know, we use this area median income
18:24
Speaker 3: and they're figures established by hood each year and that
18:28
Speaker 3: area meeting income, and it varies based on family size.
18:31
Speaker 3: But for a family for the area meeting income, the
18:35
Speaker 3: one hundred percent is about one hundred and twenty thousand,
18:39
Speaker 3: so eighty percent is one hundred thousand and sixty percent
18:43
Speaker 3: about sixty thousand. So we're talking about families earning under
18:48
Speaker 3: one hundred thousand for our general product, but in that
18:52
Speaker 3: specific development, half earning under sixty thousand and half earning
18:57
Speaker 3: under fifty thousand for that family size. So does you
19:00
Speaker 3: know that area mean income has just exploded since COVID,
19:05
Speaker 3: I would say, I mean I was before I went
19:08
Speaker 3: to Puerto Rico, it was maybe eighty five thousand. Now
19:11
Speaker 3: it's one hundred and twenty thousand. So and you see,
19:15
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of income gains in certain segments,
19:19
Speaker 3: but not a lot of income gain in the lower
19:22
Speaker 3: like in the lower income you know, minimum wage kind
19:26
Speaker 3: of jobs and so forth. Had an experience and.
19:30
Speaker 2: We're talking about you know, the salary compared to the
19:34
Speaker 2: rent too, because the buying power has changed with all
19:37
Speaker 2: the rents going up. I mean, it's a tension that
19:39
Speaker 2: a lot of people know. But I think when you
19:41
Speaker 2: work through it and you say, okay, you know, if
19:43
Speaker 2: you have a single mom teacher, you know making X,
19:49
Speaker 2: you know fifty percent of the salary is going to rent,
19:55
Speaker 2: and so you know, can you get them positioned into
19:58
Speaker 2: a home ownership product where it's not you know, every
20:02
Speaker 2: two page, you know every two weeks. They're paying everything
20:06
Speaker 2: to go to rent, and so I think, you know,
20:08
Speaker 2: what you're offering here is a way to get them
20:12
Speaker 2: out of that higher really unsustainable. I mean, you can't
20:16
Speaker 2: make car repairs, right, you can't. You're on a payment
20:20
Speaker 2: plan at the doctor's office if you're paying fifty percent
20:25
Speaker 2: of your income in rent. And so what you're offering
20:27
Speaker 2: is is a solution to be able to get them
20:30
Speaker 2: into home ownership with down payment assistance, because you can't
20:34
Speaker 2: say for a down payment if everything's going to rent.
20:37
Speaker 3: So it's really one you know, one thing I always hear,
20:41
Speaker 3: I mean, over all the years talking with lots of
20:44
Speaker 3: hundreds of families that are seeking from ownership, you know
20:48
Speaker 3: there are two things they always say. One is they're
20:50
Speaker 3: looking for stability in that monthly payment. Yeah. And you know,
20:54
Speaker 3: even we used this one of our first to one
20:57
Speaker 3: of our first two home buyers. She have a renting
21:00
Speaker 3: her townhouse for seventeen years, same townhouse, and she was
21:03
Speaker 3: used to an annual increase maybe twenty dollars, yeah, but
21:07
Speaker 3: then recently, you know it's three hundred dollars yeah, yeah,
21:10
Speaker 3: with one month's notice. And she even tried to buy
21:14
Speaker 3: that unit and couldn't and so it just was great
21:19
Speaker 3: timing that we came along and connected with her and
21:22
Speaker 3: you know, she was that. But that's that's stability. It's
21:25
Speaker 3: one thing. The other thing that people always say is
21:26
Speaker 3: I want some I want an asset to leave to
21:28
Speaker 3: my kids. Yep, so important a lot of us, me
21:32
Speaker 3: and clear take that for granted, but it's so important.
21:35
Speaker 3: In the land lease, you know, allows for that, It
21:39
Speaker 3: has transferability to the estate.
21:43
Speaker 2: Plus it allows the transferability, it allows the lower costs
21:47
Speaker 2: we mentioned, but you're also allowed to package the down
21:50
Speaker 2: payment assistance, which I think is what's so missing for people,
21:54
Speaker 2: you know, who are in this you know scenario that
21:58
Speaker 2: we just discussed, because you know, people do like to
22:01
Speaker 2: save money, but you know, there are certain dynamics when
22:04
Speaker 2: you're paying that much in rent, you just can't save money.
22:07
Speaker 2: So I saw or I read about in recent moving.
22:13
Speaker 2: We're talking about the people who are meeting the housing
22:16
Speaker 2: and the people who are moving in, and I want
22:18
Speaker 2: to put a little bit of flavor around that in context.
22:22
Speaker 2: There was a particular Army veteran that purchased his first
22:27
Speaker 2: home through you guys, Okay, you know exactly who I'm
22:32
Speaker 2: talking about. Tell us about the success of that moment
22:37
Speaker 2: and what it was like.
22:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, he you know, the actual process. It was before
22:43
Speaker 3: I joined in this role, but I had served on
22:46
Speaker 3: the board previously, and I've talked to him numerous times since,
22:50
Speaker 3: and you know, I just wish I could introduce you
22:52
Speaker 3: to him and you could see his house. He is
22:54
Speaker 3: so proud of this house, you know, of all things,
22:59
Speaker 3: it's in the neighbor he grew up in, and he
23:02
Speaker 3: had moved around Raleigh, he'd always been in Raleigh, but
23:05
Speaker 3: he actually he was able to become a homeowner in
23:07
Speaker 3: the neighborhood he grew up in. And he's just so
23:11
Speaker 3: proud to show everyone. He built with his own hands
23:16
Speaker 3: an amazing deck. It has a beautiful backyard, and he
23:21
Speaker 3: always is saying to us, let us know, let me
23:24
Speaker 3: know how I can help you in any way. I'm
23:27
Speaker 3: happy to speak of that he was our very first
23:29
Speaker 3: buyer and that he's very proud to be the first one.
23:32
Speaker 3: And you know what he always says. When he bought
23:36
Speaker 3: the house two years ago, he was sixty two, and
23:39
Speaker 3: he said, I thought it would never happen. I thought
23:42
Speaker 3: I was too old. And he was doing property management
23:47
Speaker 3: work for another affordable housing organization that had a homeownership center,
23:53
Speaker 3: and they kept encouraging him, and they their homeownership center
23:57
Speaker 3: is our partner in getting people call a thought for
24:00
Speaker 3: our hones. And so again it was just a providential
24:05
Speaker 3: kind of timing, you know, for him. And he's now
24:10
Speaker 3: he was single when he bought the house. He's getting
24:12
Speaker 3: married anytime now, and he's you know, he manages his
24:18
Speaker 3: money so well because it means so much to him.
24:21
Speaker 3: And I don't know, bore Dad, I just wish everybody
24:24
Speaker 3: could meet him. And he's so delightful and and really expresses,
24:30
Speaker 3: you know, in a humble way, the difference that's making,
24:32
Speaker 3: even even late in life.
24:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's something about becoming a first time home buyer
24:40
Speaker 2: that you you hear a lot of people say that
24:42
Speaker 2: they've they've arrived, right, and it's a you know, it
24:46
Speaker 2: could be the perception of stability, it could be the
24:49
Speaker 2: perception of just an attainable financial step, but there is
24:55
Speaker 2: there is definitely a settling within the community with than
25:00
Speaker 2: themselves and within their spheres of influence, and so it's
25:04
Speaker 2: a it's a unique you know, home ownership has kind
25:08
Speaker 2: of gotten a different twist as far as you know
25:13
Speaker 2: who has access to it, or where it is, what
25:17
Speaker 2: the price points are, or you know, the tension, you know,
25:20
Speaker 2: if you need a new roof, some of those things.
25:23
Speaker 2: But you know, it doesn't take away from what it
25:26
Speaker 2: has the potential to be for the individual who becomes
25:31
Speaker 2: the first time home buyer.
25:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I think it's so much more than transactional.
25:35
Speaker 3: It's easy to kind of reduce it to that. Yeah, true,
25:38
Speaker 3: a financial transaction, but I think you hit the nail
25:40
Speaker 3: on the head. I remember one in my first few
25:43
Speaker 3: years working in Virginia in affordable housing. You know, I
25:47
Speaker 3: remember having the closing on a house and the the
25:50
Speaker 3: home buyer was maybe a thirty year old single mom,
25:53
Speaker 3: and her mother was there, and I still remember her
25:56
Speaker 3: mother's saying, I always knew Cheryl would make it. And
26:01
Speaker 3: that was you said that, you know that attainment. Uh
26:05
Speaker 3: probably was the first person in her extended family to
26:08
Speaker 3: get to that point. Yeah, how important that is, How
26:11
Speaker 3: empowering that is?
26:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, you know, just a side tangent here. When
26:19
Speaker 2: my husband and I bought our first home, it was
26:23
Speaker 2: all we could afford, tiny, like falling apart kind of
26:28
Speaker 2: a house. Plumbing wasn't working, all these kinds of things.
26:32
Speaker 2: But we bought it in a rough neighborhood where you know,
26:35
Speaker 2: swat teams and dogs and you know, all of this
26:39
Speaker 2: was going on right across the street from us. And
26:42
Speaker 2: you know, i'd look back on that, you know, it's
26:44
Speaker 2: been over thirty years ago or so ish, and you know,
26:49
Speaker 2: it was not a great investment. It was not a
26:52
Speaker 2: great neighborhood. It was really rough, and we just bought.
26:58
Speaker 2: You know, we didn't know any better. We were young,
27:00
Speaker 2: and we just bought what we could afford. But you know,
27:04
Speaker 2: we were young and without kids too, so you know,
27:07
Speaker 2: we weren't looking at how bad this school was. We
27:10
Speaker 2: weren't looking about how you know, the drug dogs were
27:13
Speaker 2: scoping through the neighborhood. And but swap out the single
27:18
Speaker 2: mother with kids and all she can afford concept, and
27:21
Speaker 2: it's it's there's a lot more societal implications to that,
27:25
Speaker 2: isn't there There is?
27:27
Speaker 3: You know, you made me think about another thing that
27:29
Speaker 3: we're working on now. We're working with a for profit
27:32
Speaker 3: builder and they are in North Carolina. Inclusionary zoning is
27:38
Speaker 3: not allowed in the state, so it has to be voluntary.
27:43
Speaker 3: But this builder is offering some affordable units in their
27:47
Speaker 3: market rate development, and it's just that integration, you know.
27:53
Speaker 3: You know, our first one with them will have two
27:55
Speaker 3: units out of about fifty, and then we have another
27:59
Speaker 3: one with them coming up ten units out of two hundred.
28:02
Speaker 3: In that well, you know, they're in a market rate
28:04
Speaker 3: community where the suddenly price will be probably five hundred thousand,
28:09
Speaker 3: but that builder is going to sell the units to
28:11
Speaker 3: us at the same price that our affordable buyer can
28:14
Speaker 3: buy it, so we don't have to invest in any capital
28:17
Speaker 3: in it. And then these families are getting access to
28:21
Speaker 3: great locations, some amenities also create some of the best
28:25
Speaker 3: schools in the county, and you know, going forward, I
28:28
Speaker 3: just think that's a such a model of not segregating
28:33
Speaker 3: affordable housing often to certain places, really integrating it, and
28:37
Speaker 3: I think to the benefit of everyone to create those
28:40
Speaker 3: kinds of communities.
28:41
Speaker 2: If another community or housing authority wanted to start a
28:48
Speaker 2: land trust, what do you think would be some of
28:52
Speaker 2: the ways that they should start exploring that are or
28:56
Speaker 2: what do you point to some of the ingredients that
28:59
Speaker 2: helped you get be so successful with us?
29:03
Speaker 3: You know, we had too you know, two things come
29:06
Speaker 3: to mind, we had an individual, his name is Rhett
29:09
Speaker 3: and he's still with us. He's an individual who just
29:12
Speaker 3: got interested in this idea. He's a he's a transportation
29:15
Speaker 3: engineer in Raleigh, and he just you know, felt the
29:19
Speaker 3: need for affordable housing and loved this model and he
29:21
Speaker 3: just started socializing it as to everybody. And so he
29:25
Speaker 3: gets a lot of credit in that. And then I
29:30
Speaker 3: was going to also say, there's the there's a national
29:33
Speaker 3: network of community land trusts that we belong to. It
29:36
Speaker 3: called the Grounded Solutions Network, and they have collected over
29:40
Speaker 3: the years a lot of data from the network and
29:42
Speaker 3: they can really help build the case and also do
29:47
Speaker 3: some consulting around startups, so kind of like you don't
29:51
Speaker 3: need to reinvent the wheel. We don't work for. And
29:54
Speaker 3: we called on them. The largest land trust by number
29:58
Speaker 3: of units in the country, tree is then Burlington, Vermont,
30:01
Speaker 3: of all places, and they have I think over three
30:05
Speaker 3: thousand units and they have spun off a consulting group
30:09
Speaker 3: and we actually worked with them. They came to rally
30:12
Speaker 3: and helped us through, you know, really all the considerations
30:15
Speaker 3: that you need to consider. The third thing I would
30:19
Speaker 3: add there is investment, you know, to be well invested
30:25
Speaker 3: or capitalized to start with. Just enables you to take
30:29
Speaker 3: advantage of opportunities and move quicker. And I wouldn't say
30:34
Speaker 3: that we were well capitalized. So it's you know, it
30:37
Speaker 3: just creates, it just makes things slower. And it also
30:40
Speaker 3: it's in a hot market. It's hard to compete, you
30:44
Speaker 3: know with cash buyers and so forth. You know, if
30:48
Speaker 3: we're using like government funds to purchase land often where
30:52
Speaker 3: we will get reimbursed for that, so we have to
30:54
Speaker 3: have some bridge funding to make it work. All that.
30:58
Speaker 3: So those things I've for important and you know we're
31:01
Speaker 3: seeing that now in North Carolina. The city of Greensboro,
31:05
Speaker 3: I think it's the third largest city in the state.
31:07
Speaker 3: Their actual city staff is forming a land trust that
31:11
Speaker 3: they intend to spin off to it to be independent
31:14
Speaker 3: at some point. But the city, you know, stepped up
31:17
Speaker 3: and said we need this mechanism here and they have
31:21
Speaker 3: a little more affordable environment, but they know they're affordability quickly.
31:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, hopefully they're in front of the dynamics here
31:30
Speaker 2: because you know, that's that's the key for what you're doing. Well,
31:34
Speaker 2: I really appreciate you being on the podcast here. You know,
31:39
Speaker 2: housing and solving this affordable housing crunch isn't going to
31:42
Speaker 2: take a one size fits all and we're going to
31:44
Speaker 2: have to look at lots of different formats and forums
31:49
Speaker 2: and models. So what you're bringing to the table and
31:51
Speaker 2: what you're doing there in Raleigh is crucial. So hopefully
31:56
Speaker 2: these other communities like Greensboro and that they will jump
32:01
Speaker 2: in jump in as well. So I've been talking with
32:04
Speaker 2: Kevin Campbell, the executive director of the Raleigh Area Land Trust. Kevin,
32:10
Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining us.
32:12
Speaker 3: No, thank you for connecting. We appreciate it.
32:14
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to change makers with Katie Gore. To
32:17
Speaker 1: find out more about Katie, go to quad L dot com.
32:21
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32:26
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