Durham Confronts Public Housing Crisis and Change
The Durham City Council hears a sweeping update from the Durham Housing Authority on decades of federal underfunding, RAD conversions, housing bond investments, and efforts to pull a troubled public housing and voucher system back toward stability. Residents, legal advocates, and council members press for greater accountability, better living conditions, and more deeply affordable homes even as new developments rise across the city. 45mins
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Original Meeting
Thursday, October 22nd, 2026
17879.202
Durham City Council Work Session October 22, 2026
Video Notes
Welcome to the City Council Work Session for October 22, 2026.
Agenda: https://www.durhamnc.gov/AgendaCenter/City-Council-4
How to participate: https://www.durhamnc.gov/1345
Contact the City Council: https://www.durhamnc.gov/1323
NOTE: Comments left on this livestream will not be read or entered into the meeting record
In This Video
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Director Gunn emphasized that relocating the department closer to businesses would reduce barriers to engagement while maintaining collaboration with other city departments, and Mayor Leonardo Williams endorsed the move as a cost-saving step that embedded economic and workforce development within Durham’s historic private-sector ecosystem.
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Resident Leo Cruz voiced opposition to the proposed sanitary sewer easement acquisition, questioning the need for eminent domain, the lack of documented alternative routes or engineering studies, the potential costs to Grand Oaks residents, and whether the existing sewer system had sufficient capacity.
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A representative from Environmental and Stormwater Services explained that alternative sewer routes within the community were rejected due to greater environmental impacts and gravity-flow limitations, prompting questions from Council Member Chelsea Cook about the feasibility studies behind the chosen alignment.
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Council Member Cook asked about legal requirements for studying alternate routes before using eminent domain, and the city attorney and City Manager Ferguson explained that while state law imposed few such mandates, the city aimed to minimize private property impacts and treated eminent domain as a last resort when design options were extremely limited.
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Director Gunn described how state workforce performance standards relied on low, output-focused metrics such as numbers served, while Council Member Carl Rist noted that under Director Gunn’s leadership the workforce board was pursuing clearer, outcomes-based measures to better leverage federal funds for meaningful workforce impacts.
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Deputy City Manager Bertha Winbush outlined ongoing coordination between city and Durham Housing Authority leadership through regular financial reporting meetings and explained that the joint presentation was organized to brief Council and the public on major topics such as DHA loans and bond-funded projects.
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Ashanti Brown, interim executive officer at DHA, explained that housing authority residents generally paid no more than 30% of their income toward rent and outlined how HUD operating and capital funds, based on occupied units and high rent-collection expectations, financed day-to-day costs and major property improvements.
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Ashanti Brown explained that decades of federal underfunding—covering only about half of true operating needs, not adjusting for inflation, and driving a 37% cost increase—had made traditional public housing financially unsustainable, prompting housing authorities to shift units into the Housing Choice Voucher program through the Rental Assistance Demonstration initiative.
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Ashanti Brown detailed how decades of underfunding left a national $169 billion backlog in public housing capital repairs, explained that Durham Housing Authority’s aging properties received less than 20% of needed capital funds, and noted that the 2020 McDougald Terrace crisis and pandemic-era rent declines depleted DHA’s operating reserves.
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Ashanti Brown explained that residents could have rent reduced to as low as zero during verified hardships, noted that DHA had reduced the number of voucher households to stay within its budget authority, and reported that roughly 28,000 people remained on combined voucher and public housing waiting lists.
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Ashanti Brown described how Durham Housing Authority had been shifting all properties out of traditional public housing through Rental Assistance Demonstration conversions and transfers of assistance, using partnerships with private and nonprofit developers and city-supported projects to reduce its public housing portfolio from 1,800 to 894 units and catalyze over $700 million in local real estate development.
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Ashanti Brown outlined the DHA Downtown Neighborhood Plan footprint, describing how Forever Home Durham bond funds and a $40 million Choice Neighborhoods grant supported redevelopment at multiple sites and enabled the replacement of roughly 583 public housing units, including some off-site at Forest Hill Heights.
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Ashanti Brown reported that the Villages of Hayti project had broken ground with an $80 million first phase supported by $17 million in bond funds to replace 30 McDougald Terrace units on-site and add a second phase with 68 affordable homes for seniors, with construction already rising above ground.
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Ashanti Brown highlighted that roughly $40 million in city-supported bond and RAD investments had leveraged about $800 million in Durham real estate development, significantly expanded deeply affordable housing in the downtown footprint, and prevented hundreds of primarily elderly households from remaining in substandard conditions, while thanking the City of Durham for its critical role in making these projects possible.
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Ashanti Brown previewed the upcoming Tribute Rising transaction that would use the remaining bond funds to redevelop the 55-unit Forest Hill Heights site into more than 900 units over three phases with replacement RAD and Choice Neighborhoods units, and also highlighted additional RAD transfer-of-assistance units being created at several other properties across the city.
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Ashanti Brown explained that Durham Housing Authority was planning for its remaining public housing units while operating as a HUD-designated troubled agency, citing decades of underfunding, unmet performance metrics, and the need to work with HUD cure monitors to address property conditions and program compliance.
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Ashanti Brown reported that Durham Housing Authority was focused on recovering its troubled public housing program by deploying millions in capital funds, working with HUD-assigned cure monitors, and strengthening strategies such as lease enforcement, resident engagement, and portfolio repositioning after HUD acknowledged missed targets but allowed more time for improvement.
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Ashanti Brown reported that Durham Housing Authority had invested at least $12 million in capital improvements, including $1.3 million planned to repair the Cornwallis sinkhole, fully deployed participatory budgeting funds for lighting and camera upgrades at Cornwallis and another site, and was finishing a remaining power-related elevator issue.
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Ashanti Brown reported that Durham Housing Authority was pursuing overdue rent collections while preparing camera upgrades at Oxford Manor, had completed six audits in two years, and had moved its previously troubled Housing Choice Voucher program back to standard performer status after rebuilding staff capacity.
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Ashanti Brown acknowledged systemic federal failures in public housing, emphasized using RAD conversions and the Housing Choice Voucher platform to reintegrate formerly isolated communities into Durham, and asked for continued bond support and grace as Durham Housing Authority worked through long-term challenges with community partners.
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Council Member Nate Baker questioned whether alternatives to RAD conversions and shifting public housing units to vouchers had existed, and Ms. Brown responded that while options may have been limited, Durham Housing Authority had retained its affordable units by moving them to what was described as a more stable Housing Choice Voucher platform rather than eliminating them.
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Council Member Baker confirmed with Ashanti Brown that Durham Housing Authority retained land ownership and long-term affordability restrictions under RAD conversions while preserving residents’ right to return, and DHA staff member Karen Lado reported on household attrition and efforts to prepare remaining residents for the shift to privately managed housing so they could remain stably housed.
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Responding to a question about Durham’s aging public housing, Ashanti Brown acknowledged that DHA had unusually old housing stock over 50 years old, described this as part of a national issue, and explained that around 2016 the agency shifted from patching failing infrastructure to a strategy of tearing down and replacing obsolete units.
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Council Member Carl Rist acknowledged the difficulty of serving Durham’s lowest‑income residents with constrained resources, described how RAD conversions were replacing aging units under private management while Durham Housing Authority retained land ownership and potential management rights, noted that DHA had been developing new housing and relocating families despite limited federal and local funding, and urged consideration of a future affordable housing bond to support full renovation and redevelopment of McDougald Terrace.
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Ashanti Brown noted that Durham’s tenant-based voucher waitlist had remained closed since 2018 while some project-based lists opened as needed, and a Housing Choice Voucher Program representative explained that units failing two consecutive inspections triggered abatements that withheld the subsidy payment.
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Mayor Pro Tem Javiera Caballero reflected on the frustration of council members lacking direct control over Durham Housing Authority decisions while still facing residents’ needs, and celebrated that thousands of residents were being housed in high‑quality units made possible by voter-approved affordable housing bonds.
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Mayor Williams framed public housing shortfalls as a federal policy failure, affirmed partnership and shared humanity between the city, legal aid, and the housing authority in supporting residents through flexible payment options, and urged building more affordable housing after citing local workers and a family struggling to afford a hotel room.
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Attorney Hornes Downing, co-director of the city‑funded eviction diversion program, reported widespread problems with inaccurate records, delayed and incomplete tenant files, and roughly $24,000 in identified improper rent charges at Durham Housing Authority, urging better safeguards to prevent households from being pushed out, while Mayor Williams noted that the city was heavily funding both Legal Aid and DHA to improve staffing and tenant protections.
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A resident who had lived for many years in Durham public housing shared appreciation for the stability it provided while living with an invisible disability, but questioned the need for a planned 900-unit redevelopment at the former Forest Hill Heights site where only 55 apartments currently existed.
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City Manager Bo Ferguson outlined a plan to return to Council with a proposal in early 2027 aligned with the new strategic plan unless Council provided earlier direction, and a council member noted that a draft policy was available but would be set aside in favor of a future staff draft if it lacked sufficient support.
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Mayor Williams emphasized that any encampment policy needed to holistically address impacts on surrounding areas, align with broader efforts like the violent crime reduction summit, avoid duplicating work, and allow time for all stakeholders to provide feedback, while remaining open to an accelerated staff timeline if that input was secured.
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