Seventy-one percent of Durham residents who were surveyed during the 2017 Community Health Assessment identified affordable housing as a top issue, making it the number one cited priority area. Affordable housing affects homeowners and renters in Durham due to the increasing housing prices.

Since 2010, the median listing price for homes sold in Durham has increased by more than 40%. However, renters are being hit the hardest with increasing prices. The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) defines affordable housing as spending 30% or less of your income on housing costs. In 2017, an estimated 23% of homeowners in Durham were spending a third or more of their income on housing costs compared to 48% of renters.

 Why are there inequities?

In 1934 the Federal Housing Administration began a practice known as redlining, which assigned risk categories to neighborhoods based on racial demographics. Neighborhoods with a majority of people of color were deemed risky, which resulted in lower levels of access to mortgages for people of color compared to whites. Redlining was outlawed in 1968, but the effects can still be seen. Research shows that the history of redlining contributes to as much as 30% of the homeownership gap between people of color and whites in recent years. Given that renters are most impacted by rising housing prices in Durham, there is a clear link between home ownership and lack of affordable housing.