Greensboro, High Point, Guilford County and many other areas across the state have a noted shortage of affordable housing, and, while that affects just about everyone, it has an especially dramatic effect on people with disabilities.  However, a new housing program developed by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NC DHHS) is looking to help solve that problem.

The department has launched the “North Carolina Strategic Housing Plan,” which is a statewide program meant to help maintain and increase “affordable supportive housing” for those in North Carolina with disabilities.

The new program is meant to help the homeless who currently live in congregate settings or who are at risk of entering these settings.

On Friday, Aug. 23, NC DHHS announced the plan and stated the following about it: “Access to stable housing and other social determinants of health play an important role in a person’s overall well-being. Safe, quality, affordable housing and the supports necessary to maintain it are essential to whole-person health. This plan serves as a strategic guide over the next five years to focus policy efforts and decision-making toward creating and maximizing community-based housing options and supports for people with disabilities. These efforts build upon NC DHHS’s Olmstead Plan (now available in Spanish) and Transitions to Community Living and Money Follows the Person initiatives.”

The state’s new Strategic Housing Plan has five main strategies meant to improve overall access to housing in North Carolina – especially for those with disabilities.

  • Increasing access to “supportive housing.” Some of these plans include assisting in the creation of roughly 3,400 permanent supportive housing opportunities by building new units and rehabilitating existing properties in order to turn them into livable housing units.
  • Increasing the stability of households to affordable supportive housing in other ways. Some of the strategies include “identifying and securing additional funds for rental assistance, leveraging and streamlining existing resources, lowering barriers to housing access and improving the quality of existing housing.”
  • Offering quality housing support services statewide – and supporting the development of the training related to these services. These plans include finding public and private money to support transition and rental support services, as well as increasing provider capacities.
  • Enhancing coordination among state agencies administering housing funding and programs. NC DHHS intends to create a structure that will implement accountability and will create a “statewide strategy alignment” across all state agencies.
  • Increasing partnerships across North Carolina to bolster affordable housing. This part of the plan is meant to increase coordination and partnerships at both state and local levels, as well as to leverage funding – and also identify housing-related needs and system gaps across North Carolina.

NC DHHS Deputy Secretary for Health Equity and Chief Health Equity Officer Debra Farrington said in a prepared statement on Friday that the department is thankful for all those groups working with it to address the problem.

“Improving equitable access to housing opportunities empowers people with disabilities to choose their own path for their life,” Farrington said. “We appreciate the partners across North Carolina who contributed their expertise and perspectives to creating this plan, and we look forward to continuing to work together to improve choice and inclusion in our communities.”

NC DHHS has been working on the new plan for a long time: Starting in May of 2021, the department called together a diverse group of those addressing the problem of homelessness, as well as NC DHHS leaders, and the department formed the “Housing Leadership Committee.”

The group worked together to develop the state’s new housing plan that has a goal of “increasing access to a broad spectrum of community housing options while simplifying pathways to community-based care for individuals within their chosen community.”

Last week, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that nearly $8 million in grant money would be awarded to the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency to create 225 additional affordable housing units in the state for people with disabilities.

 NC DHHS is continuing to partner with other organizations to implement strategies meant to improve affordable housing options for those with disabilities and to meet the goals of the NC Strategic Housing Plan.

If you’d like to know more about the NC Strategic Housing Plan, you can visit ncdhhs.gov.

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