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Housing Opportunities for All
A perspective from Jackie Jenks and Kimberly Sanchez
The Orange County Affordable Housing Coalition (OCAHC) unites individuals and organizations to provide housing opportunities for all here in Orange County.
In this year’s local elections, affordable housing is one of the most frequently debated topics. This is why OCAHC sent a questionnaire to all Mayoral and Town Council candidates in Chapel Hill and Carrboro to see where they stand on the issues that matter most for affordable housing locally.
Why should Orange County residents care about candidates’ perspectives on housing? For those of us who can afford to own or rent a home, why do we need to worry about housing affordability? Let’s consider these questions when we think about our community:
- Do we care about our unhoused neighbors we run into when walking downtown? Are we concerned about the increasing challenges with homelessness our communities are facing?
- Do we worry about our kids and their academic success?
- Are we concerned about traffic and pollution in our community as we see more and more cars on the roads?
- Do we love the depth and variety of resources and amenities we enjoy in our town?
- Do we choose to live in Orange County because we appreciate a vibrant, diverse, welcoming, growing community?
If we answer “yes” to any of these questions, we understand why we should care what the candidates think about affordable housing. Many of us are comfortable and settled in our own homes, and our loved ones are, too. This is good – AND we understand that many of our neighbors are not as housing secure.
- Many of our neighbors find themselves suddenly or persistently unhoused because their income is not high enough to afford rent in our community.
- In families who pay more than they can afford for their housing, kids often don’t have other things they need to succeed in school as a result: a sense of true housing stability, access to nutritious food, quality sleep, and reliable transportation.
- According to the Chamber of Commerce for a Greater Chapel Hill-Carrboro, 73% of jobs in Orange County are filled by people who commute in from somewhere else, adding to pollution and climate change, because they don’t earn enough to live here.
- It is becoming more and more difficult to recruit people who make up the workforce we depend upon for services and amenities – healthcare providers, restaurant staff, public transportation workers, teachers, and childcare workers – due to long, costly commutes and the impact that has on the quality of their lives.
- Without more diverse housing options at more varied price points, we will not have space for neighbors from all sorts of places and backgrounds who call Orange County home and make this a diverse and vibrant place to live.
Your vote matters. We invite you to read what the candidates for Mayor and Town Council in Chapel Hill and Carrboro had to say about housing in their own words on our candidate questionnaire. Their responses are available on our website, and we encourage you to read their complete responses to each question: https://www.orangehousing.org/2023-candidate-questionnaire.
When we head to the polls, let’s remember how the cost and availability of housing impacts each one of us — and let’s vote with all our neighbors in mind. The soul of our community depends on it.
Jackie Jenks and Kimberly Sanchez are co-chairs of the Orange County Affordable Housing Coalition. OCAHC membership includes nonprofit housing developers, service providers, advocacy groups, and local government partners.
“Viewpoints” on Chapelboro is a recurring series of community-submitted opinion columns. All thoughts, ideas, opinions and expressions in this series are those of the author, and do not reflect the work or reporting of 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com.
