By most accounts, the need for affordable housing across North Carolina is massive. According to 2019 census data, over a million North Carolina households are “cost burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing. Almost half of those are “severely cost burdened,” meaning the … Read more

The School of Government’s Development Finance Initiative (DFI) was founded in part to provide specialized assistance to help small towns in North Carolina attract private investment and spur revitalization efforts. A key part of DFI’s process is to evaluate the type and scale of development that th … Read more

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) is a wide-ranging law that provides federal funding in areas ranging from child care to higher education to community service to relief for shuttered venues to a restaurant revitalization fund. Separate from those programs, one component of ARPA distribute … Read more

UPDATE: In July 2022, U.S. Treasury and HUD jointly released an “Affordable Housing How-To Guide” here: https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/Affordable-Housing-How-To-Guide.pdf. Please consult that document in conjunction with the state law information provided below and in charts here and her … Read more

On March 11, 2021, the federal American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARP) became law. There is still a lot to be deciphered in this $1.9 trillion stimulus package; the third such major relief act since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We do know that the law includes substantial aid for state and loc … Read more

Translation: Tourism Development Authorities Now Authorized to Borrow Money Through the Federal Paycheck Protection Program A Tourism Development Authority (TDA) is a local government entity that is typically created by a county or municipality to administer and expend local occupancy tax proceeds t … Read more

Tax administration is obviously not at the top of any local government’s list of pandemic concerns.   But social distancing and other remedial measures made necessary by this public health crisis are creating some unusual challenges for tax offices, and some of those challenges relate to community a … Read more

On May 6, 2020, the North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management delivered a letter to counties with the amount of federal funds that will be distributed to each county from the “Coronavirus Relief Fund” (CRF) pursuant to the federal CARES Act. Guidance from the U.S. Department of Treasury D … Read more

As of April 2020, the full economic impacts of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) are still unknown. Millions of Americans have filed for unemployment compensation, and non-essential businesses have been forced to close. In the process, small business owners have been left wondering how to meet debt a … Read more

This post is Part 2 of a two-part series explaining how Community Development Block Grants for Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) are administered in North Carolina and how they’ve been used to help rebuild communities affected by Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Florence. In October 2016, Hurricane Matthew … Read more