Public housing in WF and Wake County

With the Durham Housing Authority scrambling to repair decade-old problems in its public housing units, the Gazette decided to find out about the state of public housing in Wake County and in particular in Wake Forest. This is the first of what may be two or three articles, and gives readers the basics about Wake’s public housing.

First, and a relief after the news about the Durham gas leaks, we learned that all appliances in Wake County’s public housing units and the heat is provided by electricity, not gas. The authority provides a stove, refrigerator and central heat and air. It does not provide washers or dryers, but there are hookups in the units for washing machines. The authority provides clotheslines.

The Wake County Housing Authority pays most of the electric bills for tenants. Andrew Brown, the customer service manager for the Town of Wake Forest, said, “Wake County Housing sends us a check with a list of tenants that check covers. If it does not cover the full amount, the tenant is responsible for the balance.”

Second, we learned that the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development inspects the units on a three-year cycle when the inspection results are above 80. Unfortunately, some or all of the 142 units in Wake Forest scored a 79 in 2019 and will be reinspected this year. We will provide the deficiencies found in Wake Forest next week. The other units across the county were last inspected in 2017 and scored in the 90s. They are also due for inspection this year.

Third, we knew but were told again that Wake Forest has the most public housing of any Wake County town, 142 out of the 344 across the county, 41 percent.

In Wake Forest the first public housing, 27 units in brick single-family or duplex buildings, was built in 1962 between West Oak and West Chestnut Avenue. It was, of course, segregated and entirely white.

The second public housing was built along North White Street in 1968, brick duplex buildings with 25 units. Because it was adjacent to the Northeast Community, it began as all black.

The third, and the most controversial, Massey Apartments was built in 1974, 17 buildings with 90 townhouse-style units and a few one-story brick buildings on 7.6 acres. It was not segregated because of federal law. It was controversial because the town had approved and thought the Wake County Housing Authority, headed by William McLauren, who controlled most parking lots in Raleigh, was going to build 50 units. The town had also been promised 30 units on Brooks Street for low-income seniors.

It all got ugly when the head of the Greensboro HUD office told town officials they had to accept more than the 90 units the county housing authority was building because it was part of the three-year grant for community development which was upgrading the homes and streets in Mill Village and installing, for the first time, water and sewer lines. Mayor Jimmy Perry said no. As a result, the town lost $1.4 million in federal funds and the 90 units were built on the small lot.

Subsequently, the town did receive other federal housing grants which allowed it to renovate housing, upgrade and repair the streets, electric lines and water and sewer lines in the Northeast Community.

The other public housing units are 10 in Apex; 51 in Fuquay-Varina; 24 in Garner; 35 in Wendell; and 82 in Zebulon, which also houses the Wake County Housing Authority head office and staff. We will provide information about when they were built next week.

The telephone greeting at the authority’s headquarters in Zebulon announces the wait lists for housing and housing vouchers have been closed. There are currently 390 families waiting for an apartment and 33 people waiting for housing vouchers to rent free market apartments.

The Gazette does not have an approximation or a number for the total of people in the public housing units in Wake County, but the very new executive director, R. Dawn Fagan, said there would be about 2.5 people in each unit, which is 860. Most families stay in public housing for eight or nine years. There is little accommodation for large families, only three five-bedroom apartments across the county, two of them in Wake Forest. Next week we will discuss the requirements and restrictions for applying.

The housing authority was established in March 1953. There is a nine-member board of directors, and we will find out more about that board’s powers and responsibilities next week. The terms are for five years and directors can serve multiple terms.

The current chairman is Thomas Gulisano, a real estate broker with a Raleigh address. The other members are Patricia Page, John Austin, DeVone Young, Brian Clark, Doneka Reed and Tiffany Davis, and they all have Raleigh addresses except Young, who lives in Rolesville.

As we said, the new executive director is very new to this job. Fagan started work for the authority on Jan. 6, 2020. However, she has a decade plus in public housing work. She began working for public housing authorities in central Florida, moved to a consulting firm, moved back as a director at public housing, started her own consulting business and then was the head of the public housing in Lynchburg, Virginia for six and a half years before moving to the Wake County position. She and her husband were living in Wake County, though, while she worked in Lynchburg and commuted weekly. Now, she said, “I can sleep in my own bed every night.”

As she starts the job, Fagan said one of her most important jobs is to “juggle the money they (HUD, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development) give us with the needs of our families.”

HUD has stopped funding new construction for apartments for families in need and instead has a number of plans and initiatives, mostly for tearing down large public housing units and converting others to a different payment plan.

Fagan also plans to work with her staff to review the current requirements and standards and perhaps change some of those. For example, if the next open apartment is in Apex and the next family on the waiting list has ties to Wake Forest or children attending school in Wake Forest and is reluctant to move, they can turn down that apartment but remain at the top of the waiting list. However, now the requirement is that, if they turn down the next open apartment they will be dropped from the waiting list.

Fagan has begun working with the new county department, affordable housing, and its staff to see how the two can work together. The questions she is asking are how the authority fits into the affordable housing picture in Wake County and what are the impediments to fair housing.

One of her first steps will be a “true physical needs assessment” of all the Wake public housing with true costs assigned to any rehabilitation or renovation needed. After that, the questions will be whether it is better to do some repairs, do a major renovation or tear down buildings that would be too expensive to repair.

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