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Who Owns Durham

City Council Work Session 10/6/2022

John Killeen, DataWorks NC

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DataWorks NC

is a Durham not for profit

democratizing data to facilitate

an empowered, productive,

and equitable community.

https://www.dataworks-nc.org

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https://native-land.ca/

We begin many of our presentations taking time to illustrate how data about today, maps and charts, don’t make a full and total representation of the histories that are very present in housing statistics. Nothing in today’s data points would be what they are without the influences of history. Every one of these representations bears directly on your work in racial equity that relies on data. For us, this also gives us a chance to name a few issues we face in trying to honestly and equitably share statistical data.��We start by observing that we are on and managing land that was not ceded to white settlers by the Shakori and Tuscarora people who preceded colonial settlement. This is the best geographic representation of that presence we have right now. From Native Land Digital, an indigenous led mapping project based in Canada.

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Image © A.B. Markham

1750 - 1800

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19th Century

(~1890)

Cameron-Bennehan Plantation Lands

Not long after that, the accumulation of large areas of Durham for agricultural production using enslaved Black and Indigenous labor became the predominant characteristic of mapped land. Cameron-Bennehan plantations were approximately 32,000 acres of Durham, Wake, Granville Counties (with up to 8,000 in Person at one time as well). It’s important to keep in mind that the plantation dominated land use in antebellum times but also long after. This is the known extent of Cameron lands circa 1890. (from plantation papers.com)

The end of slavery on Cameron land led to a foundational period of migration toward and into Durham.

But there are other plantation histories in our landscape: the Massey plantation in SW Durham (said to be where Hope Valley is today), the Rone plantation in eastern Durham (where Merrick Moore is today), for examples.

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A Durham County racially restrictive deed covenant circa 1930s. Image: Hacking Into History (2022).

1920s - present

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1937

Source: Mapping Inequality

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Source: Uneven Ground, Bull City 150 (2019)

1960s - 1970s

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1980s - 2000s

The Fight to Save Crest Street
Master Tobacco Settlement
Expansion of Global Free Trade (textiles)
Demolition of Few Gardens and Fayetteville Street Projects
County Use of Eminent Domain to Build Jail and Courthouse
Southwest Central Durham Quality of Life
Northeast Central Durham
Southside Redevelopment
751 South

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1980s-2000s: Planning Durham’s Gentrification

1990: public vote against baseball stadium and “reversal” by City Council, issuing certificates of participation to fund Durham Bulls Athletic Park.

1993: creation of Downtown Durham Inc. to catalyze investment in downtown.

Late 1990s: Planning Department decommissions small area planning “to be more responsive to the needs of the developer community…we now realize that was short-sighted.” (Planning Director Steve Medlin, 2008)

Early 2000s: American Tobacco Redevelopment

2010s: Downtown Innovation District

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https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/travel/09where-to-go.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/03/the-downside-of-durhams-rebirth/476277/

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Experiments in Care and Community Control

Participatory Budgeting

Bull City United

Eviction Diversion

Forever Home

Basic Income (temporary, foundation-funded)

HEART (unarmed crisis response team)

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2010 - 2020 Demographic Changes

People identifying as...	% increase	number of people
Total population	21%	+57,246 people
Black	12%	+12,822 people
Hispanic, Latina/o or Latinx	39%	+14,027 people
Asian	46%	+6,529 people
White (and no other race)	18%	+21,071 people
More than one race	246%	+16,860 people

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How Does That Compare with NC and US?

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Who Is Moving to Durham?

Federal Poverty Levels

range from:

$12,880 for 1 person/year;
$26,500 for a family of 4; to
$44,660 for a family of 8.

(US Health and Human Services, 2021)

Source: American Community Survey (ACS)

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People buying homes make a decent bit more than people already in Durham neighborhoods. By that I’m referring to the gap between what you see here – the median income of households borrowing money to purchase homes they live in here (not to be landlords) – and the median income of Durham neighborhoods. From this chart and overall homebuyers are earning % more than median incomes. An example can illustrate how dramatic this is at the neighborhood level.

Southside: median household income in 2017 was ~$16k (ACS, Durham Compass); median homebuyer income was $100k or more in each year since (HMDA). Southside median income tripled in 2 years as a result (to $48k by 2019). The median homebuyer income in Southside in 2021 was $109k. 68% of those folks reported their race to be white, 9% Black, 4% Latinx, less than 1% Asian (15.5% do not have their race included in the published mortgage record).

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People Moving Every Day (2018-2019)

Sources: IRS County-to-County Migration tables: https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-migration-data-2018-2019;

Blog post on this topic: https://dataworks-nc.org/2021/people-leaving-every-day/

	Coming to Durham Every Day	Leaving Durham Every Day
People	57.2	58
Households	36.5	34.3

In such a period of rapid and damaging gentrification as this, our institutions have been discussing and planning a great deal for “20-30 people” coming here every day. It’s a handy number and it serves the agenda of economic growth and real estate development. We need more construction more high-wage jobs...we’ve put a lot of eggs in that basket.

But it is a very problematic number because it masks everyone our community loses on the other side of the equation. We have oriented our community planning to serve the newest person in the room, effectively, while the rest of the community is trying to deal with history and pay the rent and taxes. Or find a new home.

You can see from just the most current data that the truth about migration is much more nuanced, with a net gain over time, absolutely - but also a lot of people moving away too. For a wide variety of reasons.

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How has housing supply changed?

Durham has a lot more homes since 2010 too. Looking only at new parcels for 1-, 2-, 3-, and 4-family homes there has been a 10k unit increase since 2010 - from 66,095 to 76,682. This does not include new apartment buildings. (Durham County Tax Administration, parcel history file 2010 and current parcels time stamped May 5, 2022.)

The number of people per unit has increased, but only slightly (from 2.23 to 2.25), meaning that building hasn’t quite kept pace with population growth. But we haven’t seen a massive shift here.

What we don’t have is good local data on vacancy, which would allow us to understand to what extent there’s a shortage in housing overall vs. a shortage in affordable housing.

�To what extent is there a housing shortage and what is the nature of our housing “scarcity”

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Corporate Investment Makes Durham Less Liveable

15% of all homes sold were purchased by investors

Mostly corporations purchasing homes for use as rental properties; also flippers, iBuyers (Zillow/OpenDoor), and

Corporate investment concentrates in most predominantly Black neighborhoods near NCCU

It’s unclear to what extent limited supply actually drives lack of affordability. But what we do know is that corporate investment is a huge part of the reason why there’s so much competition for home buyers right now.
So what am I talking about when I refer to corporate real estate investment? Corporate investors include limited liability corporations, limited partnerships, trusts, and other companies that purchase homes to make money either from collecting rent or eventually selling the property at a profit.
Corporate investment has been on the rise over the past 20 years. To give some context, 4% of Durham residential properties sold in the year 2000 were purchased by investors. This year, the corporate purchase rate was 15%. This is happening all over the country, but it has really accelerated in the Triangle lately.
So to put it simply, out of all the homes purchased, about 1 in 6 is being bought by an investor. This means there are fewer homes available for regular people to purchase, especially if you don’t have access to serious wealth.
Corporate speculation doesn’t impact all of Durham’s neighborhoods in the same way. Black neighborhoods in Durham are experiencing the highest rates of corporate investment. Old East Durham and the neighborhoods surrounding Central had the highest ratio of investor purchased properties. And at the same time, white neighborhoods like Hope Valley and the subdivisions west of 15-501 saw the lowest rates of corporate investment, likely because most people there are already homeowners.
So by purchasing a lot of the available housing stock, especially “starter homes” and homes in Black neighborhoods, corporations are creating a situation in which it’s becoming more and more difficult to become a homeowner. And as we mentioned before, renters are more vulnerable to eviction and displacement. This also directly contributes to the racial wealth gap by undermining a key opportunity to build equity through homeownership.
https://compass.durhamnc.gov/en/compass/OUT-OF-STATE-RES-VALUE/blockgroup If you’re interested in learning more about this, the Durham Compass tracks out of state residential ownership.

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Source: Durham Neighborhood Compass

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From the Year 2000 to 2018:��manufacturing jobs decreased in Durham County by 39.7% (from 38,120 to 22,994) ��the number of food service and accommodation jobs increased by 69.1% (from 9,463 to 16,001)��health care positions grew in number by 41.2% in Durham� ��average weekly wages in food service jobs decreased from $390 in the year 2000 to $381 in 2018. ��average weekly wages for retail workers were $566 in the year 2000 and $573 in 2018.��Source: Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) , NC Commerce.��

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Wages Haven’t Kept Up with Rent Growth

Health Care & Social Assistance accounts for more jobs than any other sector in Durham (more than 42,000)

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Rental Costs Have Skyrocketed During COVID

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Rental Costs Have Skyrocketed During COVID

Durham’s first cases of COVID-19, March 2020.

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Federal eviction

moratorium ends

[Introduction]
So in a typical year, Durham landlords had been filing about 1,000 evictions per month until 2020.
Of course, 2020 and 2021 were anything but typical years. Federal and state eviction moratoria that were imposed due to COVID did prevent a huge number of evictions.
But it’s important to note that even though there were far fewer evictions, just a few landlords cropped up over and over in our eviction data.
During the pandemic, most of these high-eviction landlords are corporations from out of town which own many multifamily apartment complexes across several states

These each typically evict a few dozen people every month, and their mass eviction activity largely continued despite the moratoria.
Local landlords did pick right back up evicting tenants when the moratorium ended, most significantly Rick Soles but Bergman-owned business as well. DHA has begun evicting tenants again in recent months as well. The impact of the emergency rental assistance efforts of the past year and a half were significant but not as powerful as the moratorium itself. It’s important to note that the moratorium was a barring of evictions for failure to pay. We’ll come back to other important points about people who need housing but can’t afford most housing.

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What Do Affordable Rents Look Like?

When we shared slides about housing with the Affordable Housing Implementation Committee, this was a primary takeaway from the whole presentation. It has been a primary takeaway from our work with the Bragtown Community Association, and a similar table we made with Walltown residents was equally important. We think all future projects to build housing for poor and working class people should be approached with this perspective.

Highlight -- all the affordability under the bond is done around AMI.

The metro area AMI is much higher than actual median income in Durham County, so it doesn’t make sense to use metro AMI as a basis for planning affordability in Durham

Because of the legacy of segregation and racism, median income and affordability differ widely across neighborhoods within Durham as well.

And because the median household income for people differs so widely by race, setting the “affordability” threshold this high by default will exclude groups. For example, white people in Durham County have a median household income a little over $80k, while Black residents have a median income of ~ $44k.

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Public Housing in Durham

Median rents paid by DHA tenants are in the low $200s. Scores less than 80 require annual inspections. A failing inspection score is 59 or less.

We talk often about issues caused by supply not meeting demand and how this drives a shortage which keeps people from buying and renting homes here. The story of how many people move here each day relates to this - how are we going to house everyone who wants to live here? But what better expression of the demand we truly know about, though? Not a demand induced by our efforts to attract new residents and corporate headquarters, but the demand of our current, in many cases, long-time neighbors who are trying against serious challenges to stay here. There is a 3,489 person waiting list for DHA units; 8,046 for Choice vouchers. These families and individuals are Durham people who need homes with median rents in the $200s. (Source for these public housing numbers: Durham Housing Authority and Housing and Urban Development)

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02/2004

Image source: Google Earth, 2020

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05/2004

Image source: Google Earth, 2020

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It isn’t clear if the people eating cake were the same ones who were relocated. This incredibly terse news article about the demolition of Few Gardens leads with a clear suggestion of how we should be glad for this. Finally, this problem will be gone and we won’t have to face it anymore. The families have been relocated. (To where, under what conditions, are they okay?) We often see crime statistics tied to these decisions – eye sores (broken windows), prostitution, drug sales and gun violence. What are data doing in these narratives, though, if they drop the story before its full conclusion and the families are comfortable and thriving? Who was the decision made for if we don’t keep up with them, yet count the task to be completed?

So there are even contested narratives of the story of Few Gardens.

https://www.wral.com/news/local/story/106109/

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“It broke my heart, it killed me because everything we touched was destroyed, where I lived, my schools, everything that showed that I existed (the city government) got rid of it,”

-Jeffrey Harris

former Few Gardens resident

Image and quote from Autavius Smith, Durham Voice.

With the erasure of resident voices the story is cast as an intervention by public agencies and (presumably) outsiders who took control of the situation and solved the problem. A data choice could be made at that time to illustrate how effective it was to raze the community using crime incidents on the site declining precipitously over subsequent quarters and years. In fact the competing narratives of just what is being “fixed” when a public housing project is demolished are not resolved with crime stats and eyesore language reassuring agency and political leaders (and “concerned citizens”) that they did the right thing. What data are in the public realm reminding us of Jeffrey Harris and hundreds of his neighbors and how their needs got taken care of? Who is paying attention to their outcomes?

https://durhamvoice.org/?p=33680

I say this because we talk all day about affordable housing and units and buildings and so much less about about protecting and supporting people with the basics of life. In my participation in the fray of data we consume, I can’t omit the reality of our neighbors’ lives - in whatever way I can indicate it.

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Reflections

To what extent is there a housing shortage?

Who owns rental housing now? Who should own rental housing?

What are more appropriate standards for affordability than those we rely on (metro AMI, HOME rents, and federal poverty standards)?

What can Durham do to stop evictions and address the underlying issues driving unaffordability?

What would a long game to provide security of tenure to poor and working class Durhamites look like?