Can Raleigh’s Housing Bond Fix Raleigh’s Housing Crisis?
Everything you need to know for Wednesday, Oct. 21: NC’s dead heat + Durham County’s hazard payday + the Supreme Court’s bad omen
Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2020
13 days until the election.
6 days until the deadline for absentee ballot requests.
11 days until early voting ends (you can register when you vote at EV sites). Find your EV site here. Find out how long you’ll have to vote early in Wake County here and Durham County here.
54 days until Electoral College slates send their votes to Congress.
77 days until Congress counts Electoral College votes.
91 days until the inauguration.
Today’s Number: 1
Percentage points separating Joe Biden and Donald Trump in North Carolina, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Tuesday.
Biden leads 49-48 among likely voters (third-party candidates get 1 percent).
Biden leads 48-46 among registered voters.
What it means: Based on public data, at least, Trump advisers’ reported fears that the state has slipped away seem overblown.
By the way: Cal Cunningham leads Thom Tillis 49-47. Guess what issue voters don’t care about.
Then again: ECU’s new poll has Biden up 50-47. It also shows:
Senate: Cunningham 48, Tillis 47
Governor: Cooper 53, Forest 44
LG: Robinson** 47, Holley 42
Treasurer: Folwell 47, Chatterji 43
AG: Stein 49, O’Neill 44
**This state needs to have a looooooooong conversation about the fact that Mark Robinson is nuttier than a damn fruitcake.
ABOVE THE FOLD
—> Surprise! Raleigh Housing Prices Are Outpacing Wages.
The N&O writes up a study that confirms what everyone knows: Housing prices are rising faster than wages, which is helping produce our affordability crisis.
Housing prices rose 1.7 times as much as median wages from 2014 to 2019. Housing ⬆️ 30%. Wages ⬆️ 17%.
This is better than the national average: Nationwide, housing prices ⬆️ 2.6 times more than median wages.
The study concluded before the pandemic, which has been hell on wages but (surprisingly) not terrible for the housing market. The median sales price in Wake County is up 8% year-over-year, thanks to low interest rates and fewer homes for sale. So it’s safe to assume the wage-versus-housing-price disparity has grown over the last year.
That brings us to the last question on Raleigh voters’ ballots: the $80 million affordable housing bond referendum.
Here’s how the city wants to spend the money:
$16 million for transit-oriented site acquisition, or land on which to buy (or preserve) affordable housing near transit lines.
$28 million on public-private partnerships, including for nonprofits that help the homeless.
$24 million in Low-Income Housing Tax Credit gap financing—in other words, money given to nonprofits and affordable housing developers to offset the costs of building housing for those who earn 30% of the area median income or less, or $28,250 for a family of four.
$6 million in down-payment support for first-time homebuyers who earn 80% or less of the AMI.
$6 million to help people rehab their homes so they can continue to live in them.
A lot of this seems modeled on what Durham passed last year. Of course, Durham, despite being a smaller city, overwhelmingly approved a larger bond.
Asking people to tax themselves during a recession isn’t easy, which is why some folks argued the council should have held off a year to give the economy time to bounce back. Then there are groups like Livable Raleigh—allies of the previous council’s defeated NIMBYs (and enemies of Mayor MAB)—that say the city’s plan won’t help poor people, while the Wake County Housing Justice Coalition believes it will lead to more gentrification.
I’m unpersuaded that funding housing for low-income people instead of the very poor will a) be a developers’ windfall and b) further gentrification, but the suspicion is understandable. To my mind, the bond’s biggest shortcoming is that it’s not ambitious enough. The proposed tax hike is embarrassingly modest. The owner of a $300,000 home would pay about $2 a month in additional property taxes.
The city believes the bond will fund 3,261 units over five years. To get a sense of scale, there are currently 77,990 households in Raleigh below 80% of the AMI and 24,685 households at or below 30% of the AMI.
During last year’s campaign, every member of the city council called affordable housing the city’s most important issue. Granted, the world has changed. But I think a city-defining crisis is worth more than two bucks a month.
LOCAL & STATE
—> Durham County’s Manager Gave Everyone Hazard Pay
Durham County manager Wendell Davis already has a rocky relationship with most county commissioners. This probably won’t help.
Durham County is spending millions on hazard pay for almost every county employee working during the pandemic. Paramedics, jail staff, and social workers can receive it. So, too, can clerks, accountants, attorneys, computer programmers, and librarians.
It has cost the county more than $3.1 million. Now, county commissioners worry the county may not receive the federal reimbursement it is banking on to cover it.
Here’s how Davis explained it:
“Because of the fact that Durham County government employees are essential employees during emergency situations, all employees are, in fact, considered an arm of our emergency operations center.”
He never informed the board, he says, because he didn’t need to.
Small problem: “Ultimately, there is no definitive answer as to how FEMA will respond to Durham County Government’s application for reimbursement,” wrote human resources director Kathy Everett-Perry in an email to the N&O.
—> Judge Adds 18 Months to COVID Escapee’s Sentence
In April, Richard Cephas briefly became notorious when he escaped from the Butner federal prison, a COVID hotspot. He surrendered three weeks later after telling the N&O that he’d run to avoid a “death sentence.”
A federal judge was not in a merciful mood. U.S. District Court Judge James C. Dever III added 18 months to Cephas’s sentence—two months more than federal prosecutors requested—saying, “You decided, essentially, to engage in self-help.”
By May, 208 inmates and 13 staff members had tested positive for COVID. Six people had died. By July, the prison had 25 deaths, more than any other federal prison.
For context, in late May, a source inside Butner described the situation to me thusly:
It’s just a shortage of custody staff and medical as well. Inmates were falling out and having to be taking to the outside hospital. Every housing unit [in low-security] has multiple cases in it. It’s an open-dormitory setting so it’s spreading at an astounding rate. Everyone has been exposed and there is no way to social distance.
—> The North Carolina Roundup
A federal appeals court ruled late Tuesday that the state can continue accepting absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day until Nov. 12.
Climate change is bringing a dangerous strain of flesh-eating bacteria called vibrio to rivers, creeks, and sounds along the Carolina coast.
Kevin Bunn, the Clayton entrepreneur behind the “sock laundry helper” SockDock, has been slapped with a patent infringement lawsuit by Laundry Loops, a Montana company that’s been in the sock-retention business since 2000.
North Carolina’s COVID hospitalizations increase to their second-highest number since March, as 53 more people die.
Despite increasing COVID cases, 80% of North Carolina high schools are participating in sports.
—> Weather
Partly cloudy, high of 80 ⛅️
—> Tweet Du Jour
NATION & WORLD
—> The Supreme Court’s Bad Omen
On Monday, the Supreme Court deadlocked on an absentee ballot case out of Pennsylvania.
On the surface, this was good news for voting rights advocates. The 4-4 split left intact a state Supreme Court decision that allows elections officials to count mail-in ballots received up to three days after Election Day.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the three-day extension was required by the coronavirus pandemic and delays in mail service, and it ordered the counting of ballots clearly mailed on or before Election Day and of those with missing or illegible postmarks “unless a preponderance of the evidence demonstrates that it was mailed after Election Day.”
Scratch that surface, and this should bring into stark relief the stakes of Amy Coney Barrett’s upcoming confirmation.
Writes law professor and elections expert Joshua A. Douglas:
The US Supreme Court's 4-4 decision rejected the appeal, but if the Court had accepted the Pennsylvania Republicans' argument, we would have been in for a whole new wave of federal judicial oversight over election rules. That would spell bad news for state constitutional protection for the right to vote, which is broader than the safeguards afforded under the US Constitution. It could have also thrown Election Day and any post-election disputes into further chaos. …
The new conservative Court could have full power to rule on all election cases—under not only the US Constitution but also all 50 state constitutions—to ensure conservative rulings on all election law cases for this year and beyond.
If you were wondering why there’s such a hellfire rush to get Barrett on the Court before the election, here you go.
RELATED: Choose your own adventure.
According to Yahoo/YouGov, voters oppose Barrett’s confirmation 44-40.
According to Gallup, they support her 51-46.
If she’s confirmed, voters oppose enlarging the Supreme Court in retaliation 58-31, according to a New York Times/Sienna College poll.
Democrats, however, favor expanding the court 57-28.
ALSO RELATED: A majority of Americans think President Trump will try to cheat.
They also think he’ll try to stop absentee ballots from being counted.
Forty-five percent believe he’ll succeed.
—> 3 Stories to Read Today
The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit accusing Google of monopolistic practices. “The Justice Department accused Google on Tuesday of illegally protecting its monopoly over search and search advertising, the government’s most significant challenge to a tech company’s market power in a generation and one that could reshape the way consumers use the internet.”
On Fox, Trump demands that AG William Barr investigate Hunter Biden. “President Trump early Tuesday pressured Attorney General William Barr to investigate the son of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and demanded that information be released before Election Day. ‘We have got to get the attorney general to act. He’s got to act and he’s got to act fast,’ Trump said on Fox & Friends, citing a New York Post report about Hunter Biden’s business dealings. Trump called on Barr to ‘appoint somebody’ to handle the matter.”
The CIA believes Russia was behind attacked American diplomats and spies with a mystery weapon. The Trump administration sat on its hands. “Marc Polymeropoulos awoke with a start. The feeling of nausea was overwhelming. Food poisoning, he thought, and decided to head for the bathroom. But when he tried to get out of bed, he fell over. He tried to stand up and fell again. It was the early morning hours of December 5, 2017, and his Moscow hotel room was spinning around him.”
—> Polling Update
National
Biden 46-39 (Ipsos)
Biden 49-46 (IBD)
Biden 50-41 (Leger)
Biden 51-40 (Yahoo/YouGov)
Biden 54-42 (USC)
Biden 50-41 (NYT/Sienna)
Arizona
President: Biden 47-42 (Data Orbital)
Senate: Kelly (D) 48-42 (Data Orbital)
Colorado
Biden 51-43 (RMG)
Florida
President: Biden 48-47 (UNF)
Georgia
President: Tied 45-45 (NYT/Sienna)
Senate: Tied 43-43 (NYT/Sienna)
Senate (special): Warnock (D) 32, Loeffler (R, inc.) 23, Collins (R) 17 (NYT/Sienna)
Senate (special runoff): Warnock (D) 45, Loeffler (R, inc.) 41 / Warnock (D) 45, Collins (R) 41 (NYT/Sienna)
Kentucky
President: Trump 56-39 (Mason-Dixon)
Minnesota
President: Biden 49-44 (Change Research)
Ohio
President: Biden 48-47 (Rasmussen)
Pennsylvania
President: Biden 50-47 (Rasmussen)
—> The Roundup
The CDC has attributed 285,000 excess American deaths this year to COVID-19.
Mitch McConnell told the White House not to make a stimulus deal with the House before the election because it could interfere with the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett.
Jamal Khashoggi’s fiancee has sued the Saudi crown prince over his murder.
Though an educated man, Jeffrey Toobin apparently missed the lesson on not masturbating during company Zoom meetings.
Fox News says it passed on the New York Post’s Hunter Biden “scoop” because of credibility concerns—then it hyped the hell out of it anyway.
The Biden team is eyeing conservatives for Cabinet posts.
Lawyers say they can’t find the parents of 545 migrant children separated by the Trump administration.
The Debate Commission’s new rules will allow the moderator of Thursday night’s debate to silence mics during the first two minutes of each segment.
According to God (via Pat Robertson), Trump will win, ushering in the End Times.
Also:
—> Quote of the Day
Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.