The Brunswick Affordable Housing Initiative began as a collaborative effort with Brunswick County Council for Women and Countywide Community Development Corporation convening Brunswick Affordable Housing Summit I (BAHS I).

This community meeting drawing over 80 participants that included housing professionals, builders, developers, architects, engineers, attorneys, elected officials, planners and concerned citizens asked a few simple questions:

• Do we have a housing problem?;
• Where is the essential workforce of this County living?
• Why can’t they live in the County they work?

The answers surprised us!  All participants agreed we did have a problem and everyone had suggestions for solving the problem, what they could not agree on was the definition of Workforce/Affordable housing and who it affected. So, the conversation continued. We immediately decided at BAHS I that a community dialogue was needed to truly understand this issue before a solution could be developed.

Throughout 2006 and 2007 there were fopur Brunswick Affordable/Workforce Housing Summits (BAHS) held

• The BAHS I launched the Brunswick Housing Initiative. The BAHS I asked the questions, opened a dialogue and raised awareness as to the existence of a housing problem. Over 80 citizens atttended the meeting.  The goals of the Housing Intiative were to raise awareness, change perceptions, identify resources and educate the community.
• The BAHS II, titled “Education and Information”, a two day event began that evening with a statewide perspective on housing from the Center for Urban and Regional Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill, Dr. William Rohe. The next day was filled with workshops covering all aspects of housing from environmental concerns, state services and federal agencies to building techniques, infrastructure and resources.  Over 130 citizens from the region attended.
• BAHS III titled “Where’s the Money” helped us achieve our goal of identifying resources. This two day workshop was filed with agencies, foundations, funders and sources of funding to build houses, support counseling services and resources to change the face of housing in Brunswick County. Oer 140 citizens from the region attended.

What began as just a conversation in March 2006, by October had engaged the citizens from all levels of the county, achieved the goals of raising awareness, opening a dialogue, changing perceptions and identifying resources. The Summits also brought out the need for two additional elements needed to realize the true mission of the Housing Initiative, to create an atmosphere that produces Workforce/Affordable Housing. Those elements are a collective voice and data.

As with most issues that affect working people it is not enough to know it to be true you must be able to prove it. The Housing Initiative needed data to support the anecdotal and empirical evidence that was quite clear to the Summit attendees but still had not convinced the elected officials. The housing crisis in Brunswick was apparent but there was no way to qualify or quantify it, no data. The need for the community to speak out in a collective voice was also apparent.

Out of the summits, October 2006, formed a group of about 50 concerned citizens, the Brunswick Housing Coalition formed to ensure the Housing Initiative to continue reaching its goals of education, raising awareness and changing perception would be achieved.  It met three times over nine months and continued to gather knowledge about all aspects of workforce/affordable housing. It became, and still is the Community Voice for the Housing Initiative in Brunswick County.

Early on in the formation of the Housing Initiative the NC Association of Community Development Corporations saw the value of what had been and could be accomplished. They offered support, technical assistance and sage advice from veteran community organizers. They made us aware that Brunswick was not the only county experiencing this crisis. The twenty coastal counties of North Carolina are in greater or lesser degrees in a housing crisis also. NC Association of CDC's aided in tailoring the Housing Initiative to have a focused impact with the objective of changing policy as a strategy to increase workforce/affordable housing in Brunswick County. They became and still are a primary supporting partner of the Housing Initiative in Brunswick County. Their statewide perspective brought a different light to our coastal community.

In an unprecedented move the NC Association of CDC’s invested $50,000 into Brunswick County by commissioning The Brunswick Workforce Housing Study (The Study). This Study was performed by national housing experts Dr.’s Rohe and Cowan at the Center for Urban and Regional Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill. The Study rendered data, trends, statistics, strategies and recommendations. The release of the The Study in July of 2007, gave a toolbox of strategies and recommendations along with the supporting data to change the face of housing in Brunswick County.

The Study can be downloaded from: 

http://curs.unc.edu/curs-pdf-downloads/recentlyreleased/Brunswick%20County%20Report.pdf

The Housing Initiative, the Summits, the Housing Coalition and The Study all brought out the need for an organization that would focus solely on infusing Workforce/Affordable housing into all areas of the county. Brunswick Housing Opportunities (BHO) was born out of the Housing Initiative, Housing Coalition and Countywide CDC. It is a non-profit community housing organization that provides advocacy, facilitation, education and development for Workforce/Affordable housing in Brunswick County.

The Brunswick Affordable Housing Summits were a call to action.  Brunswick Housing Opportunities answered that call.

Brunswick Housing Opportunities (BHO) seeks to initiate, cultivate, enhance and preserve an atmosphere in which decent, safe and innovative housing is created, acquired and maintained for all residents in Brunswick County.