Habitat of the Sandhills sets sights on workforce housing

After thirty-five years of philanthropy, Habitat for Humanity of the Sandhills is shifting gears and taking a revolutionary approach to property development.

The traditional Habitat model has previously focused specifically on families earning between 30% and 80% of the median household income. Habitat provides affordable, safe, and energy efficient housing for this demographic.

According to the organization’s May newsletter, the Sandhills affiliate has provided 300 new homes for families in Moore and Richmond Counties and completed another 300 critical home repairs over the last three and a half decades.

Recently, Habitat had an opportunity to purchase 100 acres of land in southern Moore County to address a lack of workforce housing.

Executive Director Amie Fraley says workforce housing generally refers to households earning between 60% and 120% of the median income. Although different than their traditional target, Fraley says Habitat is just as motivated to fill the workforce need.

“We do have a vested interest in our entire work force because we see the challenges with the people that we are working with, and we know that bleeds over to a slightly higher demographic. So, we said, nobody probably has the entire community’s workforce housing perspective in mind aside from us, so who better to try and make it happen than us,” Fraley said.

The workforce housing paradigm is a collaborative effort with employers throughout Moore County. “We had told ourselves that if we were ever able to be in that opportunity, we would love to figure out workforce housing because that’s what we hear a lot of our employers saying,” Fraley said. “They like the work that we are doing but they also have this need to serve some nurses and some people who are just above our wheelhouse.”

The Moore County mixed use land purchase was made possible by a surprising grant from Mackenzie Scott, formerly Mackenzie Bezos. Fraley said the organization received a “bizarre, out of the blue email that we initially thought was a scam,” but ultimately turned out to be a $3.5 million dollar donation to the Sandhills affiliate.

Despite a massive tranche of funding, They had another hurdle to overcome.

“We thought that all of our problems were solved but we quickly realized there is no land to be bought in Moore County — but we happened upon a piece of property. I think it had been under contract, and then had sort of very recently not been under contract and we wort of caught wind of it and got in and were able to negotiate with the seller, so we bought it,” Fraley said.

Fraley says her affiliate has multiple contingency plans, but Plan A is to construct around 500 units on the 100 acre plot. Ideally, she said, some of the homes will be single-family – detached dwellings, some duplex style homes, and then a series of high density apartments.

Fraley’s intent is to carve out 200 units that meet the Habitat mission, while offering 300 market rate units, allowing Habitat to recoup the cost.

In a worst case scenario, the land grab still has huge upside for Habitat. “We have a plan B and a plan C, because it’s kind of a weird idea, then we will probably go with one of those alternatives of just selling parts of it to for-profit developers, just so we can get enough money to do our mission,” Fraley said.

Fraley said that the organization will hold an informational meeting on July 11 with employers who have previously been interested in Habitat projects. She said the there are two ways local employers can get involved in the effort.

“One, they would help us invest in the infrastructure that needs to be installed before we actually build, let’s say, apartments or whatever, or two, what I think might happen, they might commit to a certain number of years, what I think are called corporate apartments,” Fraley said. “So, this multi-family builder would come in and have a guaranteed five years or ten years of eighty doors.”

Fraley says that non-profits can frequently help builders secure cheaper capital. “Sometimes as a non-profit we might be able to work with other partners who are interested in investing in workforce housing that might allow us to get capital for that builder that they wouldn’t be able to get that cheaply, so I’m kind of hoping we are the connector of all these parts to make things happen,” she said.

Fraley admits the work force housing model is a lofty goal with lots of moving parts, but there is precedent for Habitat in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“We heard the Charlottesville affiliate had done this, so we went to check it out. They took over a 125 acre trailer park called Southwood with an emphasis on not displacing anyone and moved people from the different sort of villages to new properties and then removed the old trailer park,” Fraley said.

Fraley said the Charlottesville example is a beautiful mixture of habitat housing and market rate housing. “I would say they probably have 25% Habitat housing and 75% market rate housing, and as you drive through the neighborhood, you can’t really tell the difference between the two.”

If the Habitat workforce model is successful in Moore County, Fraley says she hopes the organization can export it to other communities in the Sandhills. “I hope that what we could have happen, is this be a replicable model for ourselves and for other affiliates.”