NEVER ENOUGH BY JOHANNA F. STILL
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RESIDENTS, NONPROFITS, LEADERS CHIP AWAY AT AFFORDABLE HOUSING CRISIS
hen Kathy King moved to Wilmington, she had no intention of becoming a landlord. A retired Army veteran, King came across a ranch-style stucco home listed in a public auction that was in rough shape, located next door to her parents’ old home on Wilmington’s east side. Though she’d visited the area growing up, she was new in town and picked up a flyer on the city’s rental housing rehabilitation loan program as she was trying to get to know the city. “Wilmington is a beautiful place to live. But the housing, just say it: sucks in terms of its availability,” King said. “Wilmington is getting further and further behind because people are coming here to live and there’s just not enough.” The city program mostly attracts developers, King was told when she first got involved. It grants homeowners up to a $125,000 interest-free loan to rehabilitate their properties,
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Kathy King sits on the front porch of a home she is preparing to rent out at an affordable rate on Wilmington’s east side. PHOTO BY JOHANNA F. STILL
if they rent units to those making 80% or less of the Area Median Income (AMI); in Wilmington, that’s $42,700 for a single person, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). B
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“I just figured that it’s an opportunity, and I’m not looking to get rich off of this – at all,” King said. “The need is so great. And this is just a little bit that I can do, and I’m happy that I’m able to do it.”
King was awarded a roughly $67,000 loan in 2019, which she used to help fix and convert the dilapidated home into two one-bedroom units she rents to veterans for about $870 each. Behind the now-rehabbed home, she also acquired two units she will begin renting in March. Collectively, King owns over a half-acre within her growing mini-compound and dreams of building another house to provide more affordable housing to veterans. Her soon-to-be four affordable housing units represent just a sliver of the area’s overall need. A local governmentcommissioned housing needs assessment released in March 2021 projected a rental housing gap of roughly 7,400 units by 2030 in New Hanover County for rentals less than $1,575 a month. There’ll be another nearly 8,400-unit housing gap of for-sale stock over the next decade for under $300,000, the report estimates. As of Feb. 22, the N.C. Regional Multiple Listing
