EmPOWERment Inc. has always strived to provide affordable housing for the Orange County community. Housing is a necessity everyone should have adequate access to. With rising prices and lack of supply, we wanted to do something to help make Orange County more affordable.

The Pine Knolls Empowerment Affordable Community Housing (PEACH) apartments began with one goal: to provide the most vulnerable populations in Chapel Hill with comfortable, quality, affordable housing.

Hundreds of essential workers in Chapel Hill, serving our community making 30-60% of the area median income, cannot afford to live in the town where they work. Many of these individuals work long hours making minimum wage ($7.25/hour in NC) and have to spend additional time of their day on the commute alone.

This has meant intense stress over housing stability, struggles with long hours commuting to and from work, and an overall sense of being left behind by the community many even grew up in. This is not fair and only further creates inequity within our own community.

This is the crisis the PEACH Apartments will directly impact and will serve as a model for future grassroots affordable housing projects to come. Making Chapel Hill and Orange County more affordable starts with efforts like this and we hope to continue to strive to provide more affordable housing.

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Delores Bailey
Executive Director, EMPOWERment, Inc.