CATEGORY
HOUSING AFFORDABILITY
15 AWARDS | $375,000
Our goal: For everyone in our region to have a stable place to call home in a neighborhood that is safe and close to where they work, go to school, or find community. This was our inaugural grant cycle to nonprofits addressing housing affordability.
CLICK ON INDIVIDUAL LOGOS TO LEARN ABOUT THE GRANTEES
Chatham Habitat for Humanity
Service Area: Chatham County
Category: Housing Affordability
Website: chathamhabitat.org
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Our Story:
Chatham Habitat works in partnership with people to create self-help opportunities for families to own affordable homes, improve their lives, and strengthen their communities. Homes are built using staff and volunteer labor, and are sold to qualified applicants who earn between 30 and 70% of AMI through 30-year, 0% interest loans.
Our organizational values are:
Community: We build relationships and partnerships to achieve results.
Successful Homeownership: We foster homeownership that creates pride, financial stability, and a strong sense of community.
Integrity: We promote an environment of transparency and honesty that is built on respect and openness.
Effectiveness: We embody resourceful, responsible stewardship and leverage resources to maximize impact.
Results: We hold ourselves accountable for achieving excellence through thoughtful planning and measurable, meaningful outcomes.
Social Justice: We transform community by removing historic and systemic barriers to home ownership.
Chatham Habitat for Humanity
Community Empowerment Fund
Community Home Trust
Durham Community Land Trustees
Families Moving Forward
Hope Renovations
Housing for New Hope
Marian Cheek Jackson Center
North Carolina Housing Coalition
Oak City Cares
Pee Wee Homes
Preserving Home
Raleigh Area Land Trust
The Hope Center at Pullen
United Way of Chatham County
Community Empowerment Fund
Service Area: Durham, and Orange County
Category: Housing Affordability
Website: communityempowermentfund.org
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Our Story:
The mission of the Community Empowerment Fund is to cultivate opportunities, assets, and communities that sustain transitions out of homelessness and poverty. Our approach combines person-centered support with financial services that pursue equity in order to reduce the racial wealth gap.
VISION: Ending the racial wealth gap, empowering community
VALUES:
People-Centered Relationships: mutual respect, trust, non-judgmental, welcoming
Active Reflection and Co-Learning: create organizational space to critically reflect on and improve our work
Participatory Ownership: collaborative decision-making; centering lived experience
Financial Independence: financial security and economic equity for all
Community in Power: contextualize within systems of power; committed to racial and social justice and community-level change
Welcoming Connectors: cultivating an open network of values-aligned partners
Quality and Accountability: interconnected, transparent, mutual accountability
Community Home Trust
Service Area: Chatham, Durham, and Orange County
Category: Housing Affordability
Website: communityhometrust.org
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Our Story:
Community Home Trust delivers housing affordability to diverse populations in partnership with our communities. Our vision is a world in which barriers are removed for those wanting a home they can afford, where the supply of those homes keeps pace with the demand, and all individuals have long term access to a safe home where they can thrive, work, and grow. Our work is guided by these core values: We care about our homeowners, tenants, and the community we share. We seek out new and innovative opportunities and solutions to partner and serve. We want our organization to reflect our community and we hold ourselves accountable to building a diverse and inclusive organization. We promise to act on that commitment and respect each other in the process. We are committed to excellence in our work and we invest in each other and our team. Our community and our workplace are safe, encouraging, equitable spaces, and we always support each other. We are open to criticism if it makes us better.
Durham Community Land Trustees
Service Area: Durham
Category: Housing Affordability
Website: dclt.org
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Our Story:
The mission of Durham Community Land Trustees (DCLT) is to build strong communities by developing, managing, and advocating for permanently affordable housing that offers low- and moderate-income residents a stable foundation for achieving economic security. Conducting development without displacement, DCLT works at the intersection of housing and environmental justice, climate resilience, wealth-building, and accessibility.
DCLT centers the work with Three Guiding Principles:
Increase Affordable Homeownership - Since 1987, DCLT has recycled affordability and created 88 homeowners. Our goal is to create 200 new land trust homeowners.
Maximize Community Benefit - DCLT aims to improve human well-being by utilizing properties for additional uses like community gardens and green infrastructure improvements.
Sustainability & ADA Accessibility - DCLT is committed to sustainable construction and incorporating universal design practices to provide housing for users of all abilities.
Families Moving Forward
Service Area: Durham
Category: Housing Affordability
Website: fmfnc.org
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Our Story:
Mission: Families Moving Forward helps families in the crisis of homelessness find their way home. We provide temporary housing, case management, skills education, and connection to community resources to help parents and children thrive in stable homes.
Vision: Every family thriving in a safe, stable home.
Values:
• Operational Excellence • Innovation • Stewardship • Collaboration • Appropriate Governance
Hope Renovations
Service Area: Chatham, Durham, Orange, and Wake County
Category: Housing Affordability
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Our Story:
Mission: Hope Renovations builds futures and transforms lives with a dual mission: preparing underemployed women and gender-expansive individuals for construction careers and helping older adults age in place with dignity.
Vision: We envision a world of gender equity in the construction industry, where all people can access the opportunity to renovate their lives.
Values:
Passion: Work with purpose. Dedicate yourself to making a difference in your life and the lives of others.
Justice: Recognize and appreciate that all people have value, are worthy, have inherent dignity, and deserve equitable treatment.
Tenacity: Act with courage. Fully commit to your work and your team.
Curiosity: Take every chance to try something new. Find the learning opportunity in every mistake.
Integrity: Be honest. Make ethical decisions and be accountable for your choices.
Innovation: Change is inevitable and adaptability is key. We can always improve and strive to be a better version of ourselves.
Housing for New Hope
Service Area: Durham
Category: Housing Affordability
Website: housingfornewhope.org
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Our Story:
Housing for New Hope’s mission is to end homelessness one valuable person at a time. Our vision: Housing for New Hope creates and continually improves innovative, data-informed programs shaped by client feedback and responsive to evolving community needs. We encourage, motivate, and enable individuals and families experiencing homelessness to take their next best step toward long-term, stable housing with an array of supportive housing and affordable housing options. We connect our most vulnerable neighbors to housing and hope.
Our four pillars are:
We believe every person is valuable.
We believe every person has a right to housing.
We believe in the power of community.
We believe affordable housing contributes to a just society.
Marian Cheek Jackson Center
Service Area: Orange County
Category: Housing Affordability
Website: jacksoncenter.info
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Our Story:
Our mission is to honor, renew, and build community in Northside, Pine Knolls and Tin Top, historically Black neighborhoods in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, NC. Like residents in similar low-income communities across the country, Northside neighbors are facing market pressures resulting in instability, displacement, and, often, a sense of defeat. We ally with neighbors to respond with what we call community-first planning: we put community knowledge, visions, and values first in every aspect of our work. Our approach is abundance based. Beyond meeting community needs and bridging assets, we build on deep networks of care, long histories of courageous leadership, and rich traditions of creative community to revive the vibrant, diverse, affordable, and family-friendly neighborhoods our neighbors prize. Our vision is Beloved Community: a world of creative reconciliation, hard-won rights, and abiding love and respect of which we may be a means.
North Carolina Housing Coalition
Service Area: Statewide
Category: Housing Affordability
Website: nchousing.org
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Our Story:
VISION: A North Carolina with just and affordable communities.
MISSION: To lead a movement to ensure that every North Carolinian has a home in which to live with dignity and opportunity.
DESIRED LONG TERM IMPACT: North Carolina’s community-powered housing ecosystem is equipped to make just and affordable communities a reality across the state.
KEY NCHC ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGIES (that exemplify our values):
Protect, grow, and connect public and private affordable housing policies and resources through advocacy;
Convene practitioners and impacted communities to democratize housing knowledge through shared expertise;
Shift the public narrative around housing need and community transformation;
Bridge the racial wealth gap by strengthening the state's housing ecosystem; and
Support community-led efforts to prevent displacement and shape more just and affordable communities.
Oak City Cares
Service Area: Wake County
Category: Housing Affordability
Website: oakcitycares.org
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Our Story:
Oak City Cares is a public-private partnership that exists to support the self-determination of our neighbors experiencing homelessness through trusting relationships and connections to coordinated services that increase their ability to be safely and stably housed.
No person should experience homelessness alone.
Oak City Cares is a gathering space where we listen to, connect with, and serve persons at-risk or experiencing homelessness so they can quickly reestablish a home.
Our values are:
Radical hospitality
Quality services,
Collaboration
Diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Pee Wee Homes
Service Area: Orange County
Category: Housing Affordability
Website: peeweehomes.org
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Our Story:
Our mission is to create dignified, affordable, tiny homes in a caring community for and with people transitioning out of homelessness. We build and maintain deeply affordable rental homes for individuals earning 30% or less of the area median income (AMI), prioritizing those who have experienced chronic homelessness and elders. Our work goes beyond housing by connecting residents to critical community resources that support their long-term success.
We envision a community of permanently affordable housing that places residents in a supportive environment to promote independent living in safe, accessible conditions. By 2030, we aim to build 20 tiny homes, expanding our impact through small clusters and community village models. Pee Wee Homes values housing equity and sustainability to ensure that residents can access stable, safe, and accessible homes. We strive to develop innovative, replicable models that expand affordable housing options and supportive communities across the region.
Preserving Home
Service Area: Chatham, Durham, Orange, Wake County and beyond
Category: Housing Affordability
Website: preservehome.org
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Our Story:
Preserving Home, Inc. (PH), formerly Rebuilding Together of the Triangle, Inc., is dedicated to ensuring safe and healthy homes for vulnerable residents. As a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit and a licensed general contractor, we preserve the homes of seniors, individuals with disabilities, veterans, and families with children through collaborative partnerships with local communities.
Our mission is to preserve the homes of vulnerable neighbors through collaborative partnerships with local communities. We achieve this by focusing on repairing and improving existing affordable homes, recognizing that this is a cost-effective strategy for preserving vital community assets.
Preserving Home envisions stable communities with homes that support the needs of those living in them. We work towards this vision by delivering comprehensive home repair services, ensuring that these homes are not only safe and healthy but also tailored to meet the unique needs of those who live within them.
Raleigh Area Land Trust
Service Area: Wake County
Category: Housing Affordability
Website: ralt.org
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Our Story:
The Raleigh Area Land Trust (RALT) expands affordable homeownership opportunities for families with low to moderate incomes so that they are able to live or remain in the communities of their choice. Our vision is to protect neighborhoods from the affordable housing crisis by ensuring working families can afford to live in their community and by keeping homes in their community affordable for generations using the Community Land Trust (CLT) model. Our work is driven forward by our values—dedication to racial equity, commitment to community, collaboration with our homeowners, and permanent affordability.
The Hope Center at Pullen
Service Area: Wake County
Category: Housing Affordability
Website: hopecenteratpullen.org
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Our Story:
Our Mission: The Hope Center at Pullen empowers emerging adults who are transitioning out of foster care in Wake County with the support and connections needed for a safe and stable adulthood.
Our Vision: We are building a community where a person’s history in foster care does not limit their future.
Our Values:
Steadfast: dedicated to both the immediate and long-term well-being of our youth.
Trustworthy: conduct ourselves and our work with transparency, integrity, and mutual accountability, being dependable and taking initiative.
Inclusion: cultivate an environment where shared responsibility leads to meaningful contributions.
Collaboration: nurture partnerships through strong relationships, shared commitment to our youth, and respectful communication at all levels internally and externally.
Listening, Learning and Growing: committed to listening to our youth and lifelong learning and growth, promoting innovation to meet the challenges of our dynamic community.
United Way of Chatham County
Service Area: Chatham County
Category: Housing Affordability
Website: unitedwayofchathamcounty.org
Amount Awarded: $25,000
Our Story:
UWCC tackles critical challenges, focusing on poverty, housing instability, and educational inequities. We envision a community where all residents can thrive. In 2023 we launched our Bold Goal Program: to end and prevent poverty for 2,000 people in 2,000 days (2030). This transformational approach reimagines the traditional United Way model, shifting from short-term, transactional solutions, to fostering systemic change through collaboration and innovation. The Bold Goal Program strengthens our partner agencies by building capacity, facilitating collaboration, and addressing service gaps through co-created, sustainable solutions. Guided by our Theory of Change, we work toward five critical outcomes: increasing earned income for households; ensuring housing stability; supporting educational success for children in poverty; aligning partner programming for systemic change; and advocating for expanded opportunities for economic success in Chatham County.
