RALEIGH, N.C. — A mother of three said it will be extremely difficult to find alternative housing while the Raleigh Housing Authority replaces one of its complexes.
What You Need To Know
Heritage Park has 122 apartments for people making 30% or less of the area median income
The Raleigh Housing Authority plans to tear down and rebuild the apartments sometime next year
Residents have the option to use Section 8 vouchers or move to other public housing
One resident says it's hard to find someone to accept a voucher
Iesha Cobb lives in a three-bedroom apartment in Heritage Park with her three daughters and her mother, who has diabetes and mobility issues. She said she has had problems with mold in her apartment, and she's not thrilled to be living in a building that has asbestos in it, but the building itself is in good shape.
“They redid my whole bathroom, gave me a whole new tub. They didn't give me a new toilet, but they redid the flooring around it,” she said.
Beginning in mid-to-late 2022, the Raleigh Housing Authority plans to replace the current Heritage Park apartment buildings. Laura McCann, a spokesperson for the RHA, said the existing apartments were built in the 1970s and have become too costly to maintain.
Right now, Heritage Park contains 122 apartment units, all of which are reserved for people earning no more than 30% of the area median income. McCann said the redevelopment project will add more housing units to the complex. She said developers haven't decided how many it will have, but there will be at least 122 units available at the same income level the complex caters to currently.
McCann said crews will tear down and rebuild apartment buildings in stages. Affected residents will be able to apply for federal Section 8 housing vouchers, move to other units within the complex or move elsewhere in the Raleigh Housing Authority system. But Cobb said it's hard to find anyone who will accept Section 8 vouchers. In addition, she said moving elsewhere in the city poses challenges that are especially hard to overcome for people with low incomes. She said Heritage Park's location puts her within walking distance of doctors and other services.
“It's better for my children to be in the school district close by them, versus way out in Apex,” she said.
Moreover, Cobb said public housing in Raleigh already is in short supply, something McCann acknowledged. Cobb said a better idea would be to remodel the existing buildings. She said this would displace fewer people.
“We're already in housing, where are they going to place us?” she said. “That's my biggest issue, is you are displacing us, we don't know where we're going to go, they're not giving us any funds that I know of to move us.”
Above all, Cobb said she wants the RHA to do a better job of maintaining the properties it already has. As an example, she said crews have cleaned mold out of her cabinets, but she would rather they replace them entirely.
McCann said developers have yet to finalize their plans for Heritage Park. Once that's done and crews have a firm construction start date, residents will be given 90 days to find other accommodations.