Inside Watauga Housing Council with Kellie Reed Ashcraft

Kellie Reed Ashcraft (Right) and Sophia Da Camara (Left) at the Town of Boone’s Fair Housing Summit. Photo Credits: Watauga Housing Council

Brayden Howard, Staff Writer for The Powderhorn

Homelessness and housing insecurity is often regarded as one of the greatest challenges to organized society, and most governments dedicate substantial resources and time towards decreasing the cost of housing and increasing its accessibility. But governments aren’t the only groups capable of making significant systematic changes to local areas. The Watauga Housing Council works as a non-profit organization in the High Country to increase availability of safe and affordable housing for all Watauga residents.

“In terms of what makes our area unique, it’s kind of being compounded, not only by having our long term residents who have been here historically, but we also have people who are second home owners, who have vacation homes and Airbnbs on top of having student housing and having tourists come through the area” said Sophia Da Camara, an Appalachian State student currently interning with the WHC. “So I feel like we have a very unique situation being a rural area, and have such a small geographical region that we’re dealing with, and it's just all the compounding issues that make it really unique, specifically in Watauga County.”

Those short term rentals and Airbnbs are often blamed in vacation towns like Boone for driving up housing prices. Controlling these types of rentals and vacation homes is a bit of a difficult subject for local policy-makers since they bring in a considerable amount of economic activity. However, they also increase housing scarcity, ultimately contributing to 38% of Watauga residents being classified as cost-burdened.

“We in the high country don’t really focus on single family housing, or starter houses, or anything like that. It’s mostly just apartments, and, even with houses, it’s not super uncommon that a lot of houses can be rented out,” said Da Camara. “Then when people come in and buy second homes, that takes those homes off the markets, and also raises the general price of things, just because there’s a lack of availability now. Since we’ve already had a housing shortage, it just makes it even harder to provide for everyone in the area.”

Recently, the Boone Town Council passed a resolution to limit new Airbnbs to only those where the owner also lives on the property, cutting down on out-of-town owners who only rent out their property. However, due to state law, the town of Boone is prevented from having rent-controlled housing which has been used for several years in New York City. Rent control policies place a limit on how much residential spaces can be rented for, and have historically served as a way for policy-makers to limit price gouging on low-income housing. In Watauga, 66% of renters reportedly struggle to pay for their housing. The necessary salary to pay a two bedroom median rent in Watauga county is $47,080, substantially exceeding the minimum wage.

“What we do have available is called income-restricted housing. It’s a specific housing program called Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program. You’ll hear people call it LIHTC, and that is funding available from Housing and Urban Development at the federal level, and the state agency that administers it for North Carolina Housing Finance Agency,” said Kellie Reed Ashcraft, Executive Director of the Watauga Housing Council. “Every year, the housing financing agency has a competition for developments, income restricted developments, for anyone in the state to compete. And we in Watauga County, and I can even say for the region, often, we aren’t very competitive. Because you get so many points in scoring, and there are things like you have to be close to a grocery store, you have to be close to public transportation, you have to be close to a pharmacy, you have to be close to a doctor. And you can imagine, for our region, which is mainly rural, we aren’t going to score many points in some of those areas.”

Historically, Watauga county has had few LIHTC developments, with the last one being Meadow Hill, built in 2023. However, due to damage from Hurricane Helene, the state government is currently in talks to construct two more LIHTC developments in Boone. These developments would be contracted to private developers.

“Winfield Properties is a LIHTC developer, proposing Senior 55+ housing that will be income restricted to those at 60% of median area income. Their location they were trying to get rezoned was right across from or right behind Pinnacle Storage,” said Reed Ashcraft. “The other LIHTC developer is Taft Mills Group, and they are proposing a non-student, multi-family housing development, again for people who are at 60% or less of the median area income. And that would be located over by the Oil Lube that’s on 421. So it’s exciting for us to actually have a couple of developers who are trying to get some land rezoned within the Boone town limit, so that we could have some income restricted housing that would be open to seniors and families.”

Due to LIHTC funds being unfortunately limited, local legislators and lawmakers have to find unique and innovative ways to solve this problem here in Boone. The WHC has a branch dedicated to government relations, who has recently been engaged in a series of meetings with local legislators to help facilitate public-private partnerships.

“They also have expressed interest in learning more about manufactured and modular housing, which also has a lot of stigma attached to it, and, a year ago, became a manufactured housing dealer so that we could work with other nonprofits to get more affordable housing out there,” said Reed Ashcraft. “I also just learned from a community member about House Bill 369, called the Parking Lot Bill. [Currently] any development has to have a mandated number of parking spaces that they have to create. That not only means you have to have a lot more land available, but it also raises costs in our area because of geography. It also just doesn’t make much sense because you usually don’t have everybody in the parking lot at one time. So that is a bill that would change that rule, and actually would have a positive impact when it comes to housing development.”

Changing laws isn't the only way to free up housing, of course. Constructing more and cheaper housing with “Manufactured Housing” methods is an increasingly popular and effective way to provide affordable housing. Manufactured homes are constructed in a factory in parts, before being assembled on site, and can decrease the cost of construction by anywhere from $6 to $20 per square foot, which may not sound like much money, but can total to thousands of dollars upon completion. Due to this cost advantage, many believe manufactured housing will be the ideal way to construct affordable homes in the near future.

“It’s much more cost-effective, and the Habitat for Humanity, we learned, went from doing one or two stick-built homes a year, to being able to have 19 homes a year available for families,” said Reed Ashcraft. “So a year ago, we got our dealer’s license. We have a volunteer salesperson who got tested and is our licensed salesperson. We are now ready to work with Habitats. If they want to purchase a home, they will do all the making of the foundation and then we, as the dealer, can place the order for them with any manufacturer in the region.”