On October 10, ONE Wake secured public commitments from Raleigh City Council candidates to support Nehemiah housing development in Wake County, increase local affordable housing funding from $30 million to $70 million, and identify and designate 100 acres of land for affordable housing. Moving forward, ONE Wake will maintain consistent pressure on elected officials to uphold these commitments, and will also seek opportunities to partner on affordable housing development on both publicly and privately owned land.

One potential opportunity has emerged with Saint Augustine’s University (SAU), which recently entered into a preliminary agreement with the City of Raleigh to buy or lease some of the University's unused land for affordable housing development, as part of an effort to help stabilize the struggling university. However, SAU faces significant challenges, which have been exacerbated by a recent, high interest loan which could potentially result in a foreclosure and loss of the University’s land.

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Over the last two weeks, ONE Wake leaders have met with the Save SAU Coalition and the leadership of Self-Help Credit Union to explore the possibility of buying and modifying the loan to help SAU. This would require organizing public pressure on the current lender, who would have to voluntarily agree to either reduce the interest rate or waive the pre-payment penalty associated with the loan so that another lender can assume the debt at terms more favorable to the University. ONE Wake’s sister organizations Durham CAN and the NC Congress of Latino Organizations are also ready to support this effort.

On Thursday night, 42 ONE Wake clergy and core team leaders convened to discuss the situation. The consensus from the discussion was that: 

• supporting SAU is important and consistent with our ongoing work to prevent the displacement of long time residents and the loss of Black land and wealth in Southeast Raleigh;
  
  
• partnering with Self-Help and the Save SAU Coalition opens the door to potential future win/win opportunities to build affordable housing on unused campus land;
  
  
• ONE Wake could also measure success in this particular effort by our ability to be relevant to the interests of our institutional members, in particular, our Black-led institutions that are connected to SAU, and our ability to respond quickly to an emerging situation. 

ONE Wake leaders will meet with our colleagues at Durham CAN and the NC Congress of Latino Organizations to plan an initial action in the form of a press conference, in coordination with Self-Help and the Save SAU Coalition.