♪ Thelisha Eaddy> Is owning a home just a dream?

For many in South Carolina, that dream is slipping further and further away from becoming a reality.

Three major challenges right now for those in the market for a house, number one, high prices.

The average home cost in the state almost $300 thousand dollars Number two, stiff competition.

And three, a shrinking supply of attainable housing, but also happening in South Carolina, creative housing programs helping residents in the Lowcountry, the Upstate and Upper Midlands secure the keys that will unlock their housing future.

So how are these programs working and can they be duplicated in other areas to help remedy our affordable housing crisis?

The conversation begins now.

"Palmetto Perspectives: Let's be neighbors."

♪ Good evening and welcome to " Palmetto Perspectives : Let's be neighbors."

I'm Thelisha Eaddy.

On one hand, we can easily see the impacts of population growth in various parts of the state, from new housing and apartment developments and construction to areas that were once rural and underdeveloped, but now bustling with commerce.

But then, on the other hand, we hear statistics like more than 75,000 South Carolinians spend half of their income on rent, or that the state is facing a shortage of more than 87 thousand affordable rental homes for extremely low income households.

So, where are we and what's being done to help more residents attain housing?

To help answer that question, our panel of experts.

First, we have Scott Morgan.

His name should sound familiar.

He is a reporter here at South Carolina Public Radio.

His work has appeared in numerous national and regional publications, as well as on NPR and MSNBC.

And for the past two years, Scott has dedicated much of his time to reporting on South Carolina's housing issues.

Next, we have Jamilla Harper.

She is chief operating officer at Metanoia.

It's a nonprofit organization dedicated to community development through community based leadership and goals.

Next, Joey Von Nesson is a research economist in the Division of Research at the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina.

He specializes in regional economics, regional economic forecasting, and housing economics.

State Representative Chandra Dillard has served district 23 in Greenville County since 2008.

She currently serves as the South Carolina House Deputy Minority Leader, a member and past treasurer of the South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus, and a member and past chair of the South Carolina General Assembly Women's Caucus.

And rounding out our panelists tonight, Clayton Ingram is South Carolina Housing External Relations and Policy Manager.

He provides the agency with leadership and insights in the world of communication and government policy.

And most recently, he has also focused on understanding the broad impacts of affordable housing, both multifamily and single family, throughout our great state.

Thank you all for being here.

We appreciate your time and thank you to our live studio audience.

I'm really excited to have this conversation about housing in South Carolina, and I first want to start with my colleague Scott Morgan.

As I mentioned earlier, for about two years now, you have really been digging deep into the housing issue here in South Carolina.

Just this morning, through one of your reports, we learned that the town of Fort Mill and York County, as you state, has hit pause on most residential construction.

I wanted to ask you, what trends have you noticed, what common issues, barriers, or even language have you experienced or heard of since digging deep into this issue?

Scott Morgan> Well, trends, it's, it's exactly what you kind of said in the intro.

It's, there's this combination of population growth and demand and rising prices and, trying to keep pace with wage growth.

And for the most part, what is an interesting thing to sort of lay out here, I think at the beginning, is that in the macro, at least, And there's a big caveat with that, because it's the macro and we know how macro conversations go.

But in the macro South Carolina actually is fairly affordable and it is affordable compared to a lot of other states.

Now, when you say that, the caveat, of course, is it's the same argument as last year when we heard a lot of talk about well, the macro economy is pretty good, but people are still paying $13 for a carton of eggs, right?

So saying that we're doing better than the national average is kind of like saying, I just got a kick in the shin as opposed to a punch in the face.

So it's... not necessarily that it's wonderful.

There is a problem.

We are actually building more houses per capita than other states our size.

If you look at, Colorado, Alabama, I think, and I think Minnesota or Michigan, one of the M's up there, that have that population of around "five-ish" million, we're building more houses than they are per capita, right.

So all that sounds great, but there are people who are increasingly looking at wage growth, not keeping up with housing growth.

Just today, as a matter of fact, there was, from Adam Data Solutions, who was a pretty good, data broker that I actually referenced quite a few times for quite a few stories.

And, excuse me, they, study about 16 general counties in South Carolina that are the more sort of mover and shaker counties, and five of those 16 counties, the wage growth is lagging fairly far behind, when it comes to, housing price growth.

And that's housing prices.

And it's also rent prices.

And so I think, generally speaking, if you could extrapolate that larger, you're talking about a third of the state that is really trying to struggle with that.

And as more people move in, we're getting a lot of people coming in, we're having a lot of jobs coming in.

But at the same time, we are a lot of houses short, you know, and I won't bore you with a bunch of numbers, but, I mean, at least, not yet.

But, you know, but generally speaking, the trend is exactly kind of what you laid out.

It's just a lot of, a lot of people, a lot of pressure and fewer houses.

And we're not building them fast enough.

Thelisha> So, I want you to take us inside that story, and you can read and, or listen to that story right now.

It's live on our website at SouthCarolinaPublicradio.org.

Take us inside the story.

What's happening in Fort Mill?

Scott> Well, Fort Mill's a little bit of a, of a unique case because everybody wants to move to Fort Mill.

And if you go back about 15 years, I think the population was about 10 thousand some, in the 2010 census.

There about 36 thousand people now, 15 years later.

So, it's gone a lot and a lot of that is because people want to go to the school district and, you know, but for whatever reason, they're going to Fort Mill, right.

They're trying to get a reign on that growth.

And one of the ways they're trying to check it before was these impact fees, because a lot of people are moving in and impact fees, in case anybody doesn't know what impact fees are, is essentially, price that you put on at the beginning of a house when you build it.

Okay.

So if it cost, you say, $150 thousand dollars to build a house, you add the impact fee on top.

Well, Fort Mill's impact fee is way higher than pretty much everybody else around here.

It's almost $30 thousand dollars per house.

So to question 150 thousand 160 thousand to build the house.

And you tack that on, you're now building $190 thousand dollar house or $200 thousand dollar house.

So they're trying to kind of get a handle on it, but that doesn't really stop construction, per se.

That just makes more expensive houses.

What they're trying to do now because they're working on the comprehensive plan.

And that's kind of a, a caveat that you need when you are, putting a moratorium on residential development.

You need to have some kind of a, attached to a kind of a comprehensive plan review, which happens every ten years, or a master plan review or something.

And so they're doing that now, to try to hit a little bit of a break on all that development.

And so what they've done and it's a very specific, piece of information to keep in mind, is they are putting a moratorium on, rezoning to residential so that you're not going to rezone, say, light commercial for residential.

And then you can't also annex for the purpose of residential and why that's a good distinction to make is they can still petition, like you could still petition if you're a builder, you could still petition to build in an already residentially zoned zone.

Thelisha> Okay.

Scott> But this is supposed to sort of help kind of get a check on what they want, how to grow, and how to get smart.

It's kind of just sort of taking a breath right now.

Thelisha> Right.

Scott> But again, they're kind of a special case because of how fast they're growing.

They're really one of the fastest growing towns in the entire country over the past five years.

Thelisha> Joey, I want to bring you into the conversation.

A few years ago, you were, you were a part of a statewide housing needs assessment.

First, give us the background on that assessment.

And then how does South Carolina's housing needs look in different parts of the state?

Joey> So the assessment was designed to really take a comprehensive look at what's going on in South Carolina, with respect to housing affordability, some of these long term trends that Scott has mentioned.

And to really get a pulse on what's happening, locally.

And a lot of what we've started talking about already, we find and we go into detail on.

But mainly this is a story of supply and demand.

And even though we talk about supply being a challenge in recent years, if we look further back, this is not something that has just emerged since the pandemic.

This lack of supply goes all the way back to the Great Recession, back in 2008, when we went through that, that financial crisis and that housing crisis.

Coming out of that crisis, we saw a lot of builders that went bankrupt.

Others were very skittish about getting back into the market, either because of low demand early on, because of new regulations, a variety of reasons.

But population growth didn't cut back.

And we saw that just continue on.

And so we've been accumulating this, supply debt or this, this persistent lack of supply over the last decade as permit and, construction activity has been down, even though population growth has been very steady.

And so you fast forward to 2025, and so we've got a 15 year history of lack of, an accumulating lack of supply that really goes into a lot of what we're seeing in South Carolina and around the nation now.

And that's why when we look to create more affordable housing and to, solve this supply and demand mismatch, this is going to be a long term challenge to face, because it's this has been something that's been developing over a number of years.

Thelisha> What were some of the major findings of that assessment and recommendations to move forward?

Joey> Well, one of the things that we saw was that we're seeing more concentrated growth in South Carolina, both from a population and an employment standpoint.

And from that perspective, there are very different housing needs in terms of whether we're looking at the more urban areas or the more rural areas.

So, for example, about 90 percent of South Carolinians live in just 50 percent of the counties.

And if we look at employment trends, those are just as extreme.

If you look over the last decade, about 85 percent of the employment growth has gone to just 12 counties, primarily in, in and around Rock Hill, in the upstate, in Greenville, Spartanburg, and along the coast, primarily in Charleston, not exclusively there, but more generally in coastal South Carolina.

And so you look at those areas and you say, well, here, here's where the opportunities are being created for South Carolinians.

And you look at rural areas of the state, which are in many cases losing population.

And so you have residents there who are looking more at maintaining their housing, housing units, looking at upkeep, whereas you look at affordability challenges specifically related to housing payments that are more likely to emerge in the more urban areas.

So there's a a big divide there in terms of the types of challenges that South Carolinians face.

Thelisha> Okay.

Jamilla, a lot of what of Joey described for us is, is you're experiencing that in the Lowcountry.

Lowcountry is home for you.

It's also the backdrop, in which that you do your work through...Metanoia.

What does housing affordability or the quest for attainable housing look like in your neck of the woods?

Jamilla Harper> Yeah.

So in Charleston County, specifically, building off of what was just said, there's a need for at least 29 to 36 thousand homes in the next decade to be able to keep up with the demand and the growth in the Charleston, in Charleston County area.

For us specifically, there's a real challenge also around eviction rates in North Charleston.

That's where is home for Metanoia, and that's where we are concentrated.

And so if you look at the conversation around eviction, North Charleston actually leads the nation, in terms of eviction rates, right around 16 percent.

And that is out of and due to affordability.

It's become a real challenge for folks who have, lived in Charleston and grown up in the area and region to be able to maintain, due to wages, not keeping up with the demand, as previously stated.

But to give some more color and texture to that, what we are seeing in the Lowcountry are homes being sold at about, well over 500 thousand, 600 thousand dollars, but yet the median income is right around $84 thousand dollars, a year.

And when you kind of put that into some calculations, what you're looking at is mortgage rates, at that level being probably probably around, $5,000, $4,000, $5,000 a month, whereas the actual take home of someone with that median income of 84 thousand, take home is probably more so around $4,000 a month.

Right.

So the affordability for the vast majority of Charleston County residents for buying homes, it's, it's out of question.

And the percentage of folks that are housing cost burdened, pushes at around, pushes at around, 46 percent of the folks are housing cost burdened, meaning that they are spending at least 30 percent of their income on housing.

So, for myself and the work that I do at Metanoia, where the average person is earning around $29 thousand dollars, a year, we see the lack of stability, folks being able to maintain living in place, a place that they call home.

And what we realize also is, an inability to really think about the future for folks that call this place home.

And so our work at Metanoia is looking at how do we make unique investments and commitments, together with families who want to be able to attain housing, to find affordable housing, and that may be through rental or home ownership.

Thelisha> Thank you.

Representative Dillard, when you hear stories like this, when you hear this information, I know you've been hearing it for a while now, what comes to mind?

What are some of the things that you wish existed in the state, or what's on that list that you were prepared to take to the legislature?

Rep. Chandra Dillard> Well, yes, I do hear these issues and I hear them, in my community where I serve, but also it's amplified across the state.

And I will say that, I've been serving now for a while.

And when I started in the legislature, very rarely did you hear concerns around affordable housing.

But now, everybody's talking about affordable housing because they're reaching out to us as legislators, asking for our partnership in these matters.

And what does that partnership look like?

It looks like, there is now legislation to address this eviction issue where we want to erase, and expunge some evictions.

Right.

That makes it more difficult for people, when they have an eviction on their record to seek housing.

We want to keep people in their housing.

It has, manifested in tax credits.

We have, we decided several years ago to create legislation to bring down the federal tax credit combined with the state tax credit.

So, that helps buy down the cost of affordable housing.

Just recently, last session, we allowed municipalities to use part of their accommodations tax money to put that toward affordable housing, and workforce housing.

So we are trying to be creative.

We are trying to give the tools that are necessary.

Is there more we can do?

Certainly.

But I will say we've had more traction, in the last five years than I've seen in the General Assembly.

Thelisha> Mr. Clayton Ingram, I want you to piggyback off of that.

What comes to mind when you hear where South Carolina is in terms of housing?

Clayton Ingram> We know we're under built.

We know that prices are up.

We know that interest rates are up.

And we also know that people are moving to South Carolina in droves.

It's a double edged sword.

People moving in, decrease the availability, increase the prices.

Places like Charleston, it's almost killing the goose that lays the golden egg, because the people who are in the service industry can't really afford to live, on the island right now.

But South Carolina is still in a, in a good position from our point of view for affordability compared to other places and for availability.

And one of the things that we do is try to help make that available through home ownership programs, where our agency is able to, we function sort of like a bank.

We're...a finance agency.

We function sort of like a mortgage bank.

And one of the main things that we do is we give down payment assistance to people who are buying mostly their first home, but a wide range of things.

And we can also offer usually a lower interest rate than they would be able to get on the market.

We can also qualify someone with a credit score of 640 or better, which is, a little bit better than, than some of the financial institutions do.

And our mortgages are 30 years fixed.

So when you get that mortgage payment, it's going to be pretty much the same.

You know, what you're going to be paying.

And a lot of people that can afford rent in this environment, which is extremely high now, can probably afford a home payment, but they can't save up the down payment.

They can't save up that first little bit.

Something happens and their savings go away, at the same time.

So we step in with down payment assistance and a little bit lower interest rate to try and help them make that transition, build into a permanent community, start building equity and, and put down roots.

Thelisha> If you're just joining us, this is "Palmetto Perspective: Let's be neighbors".

I'm your host, Thelisha Eaddy.

Tonight, our panel experts and our live studio audience, we are talking about South Carolina's housing crisis.

On our panel, is South Carolina Public Radio's, Scott Morgan, Chief Operating Officer at the nonprofit Metanoia, Jamilla Harper.

We have research economist, Joey Von Nesson , State Representative, Chandra Dillard, and South Carolina Housing External Relations and Policy Manager, Clayton Ingram.

I just need to mention that we have in our audience, some key stakeholders.

I want to talk now about some of the creative programs and projects that's happening across the state that's helping to remedy, what we're calling our housing crisis.

And so happening, I love this story.

I remember when this story hit the news happening in Fairfield County.

Something called a village.

We have a village in Fairfield County that's helping teachers afford homes.

And so I want to bring in to our conversation now, Sue Rex, she is with the Fairfield County School District Education Foundation.

She's in our audience.

Sue, thank you for being here.

I want you to talk a little bit about the village in Winnsboro.

Sue Rex> Thank you for having me.

The school district in Fairfield County is a rural one.

And, they've been struggling for many years with retaining teachers and recruiting new ones because of being the distance.

And it had reached the point where 70 percent of our teachers were commuting, mostly to Columbia area.

And, as they commute, they passed many schools along the way that are also looking for teachers, and that works against us to keep the teachers in Fairfield.

Our superintendent at the time, Dr. J.R. Green, set up a foundation, our Education Foundation, and asked us to work as a team to address housing for teachers.

It's been an eight year process to get where we are today, but, our village is a, the first in the state, and it's a community for teachers.

Our major goal is retain what we have and recruit new teachers.

This first year, we built 16 homes.

And we have nine more that will be opening up, next month.

So we'll have 25 families living in our village in Winnsboro.

And we believe that we're not only able to provide, rental homes, three bedroom, two bath homes, all appliances included, at below market rates, but this is an opportunity for them to save some money, because I know some of them do want to own a home.

And I think that, with some encouragement and guidance, many of them will have that opportunity in Fairfield County.

Fairfield's growing.

We know it's going to take off.

And, we hope those teachers will stay in Fairfield, and then those homes that, become available, our district will use those to recruit new teachers to Fairfield County.

Thelisha>I've been hearing more.

Thank you, Sue.

I've been hearing more, more and more that residents who provide, who work in service industries cannot afford, to live close to where they work.

And Sue just shared how teachers are commuting long distances so that they can work where they want to, and housing becomes an issue there.

What are some unique projects or goals that's already in the works that's helping, helping our service providers, be able to attain affordable housing?

Just throwing that out there, for anyone.

Clayton> State housing offers a program once a year that's aimed at teachers, originally aimed at teachers.

Now it's aimed at teachers, first responders, law enforcement, fire, correctional officers, and those...types of people that we rely on every day.

It's called the Palmetto Heroes program.

And so again, we're doing the down payment assistance, offering that down payment assistance and offering a lower interest rate that we're able to do it, by the fact that we're a, we sell bonds, and are able to make loans through the, through the proceeds from those bonds.

So, that's one of the things we're doing.

Another thing that we're just now kicking off and I, I hope you'll keep up with this, because I think we're going somewhere with it.

We're doing a pilot project that we're working with the home builders and the building industries to find if we can.

Where's the sweet spot for a smaller home, a smaller footprint at a, at a more affordable price for people who are just starting out?

Someone who's in the beginning of their career arc, or they're just starting a family, can we build a smaller home that's more affordable, and where can we do that?

So we're going to be offering incentives to builders and also incentives to home buyers once they're built, just as a pilot project originally.

But we're going to see where this goes.

And if we can scale it and make it replicable, because a lot of older people don't want a large home or a large yard, now.

A lot of young people don't want a large home.

They'd like to have a large home, but they don't have to have a large home to start with or a large yard.

So if we can get smaller lot sizes and maybe smaller homes.

I'm not talking about tiny homes.

That's a that's a different thing, reasonable sized introduction homes.

We used to have this.

It's harder now because of, materials costs, among other things, regulatory costs, among other things.

But we're trying to at least start a conversation.

It's going to have to be a bigger conversation.

It's going to, it's going to have to be statewide or even greater to find out what we can do to make these homes affordable for people.

And it- Scott Morgan> Change the zoning.

Clayton> Change the zoning.

That's...yeah, Scott> ...the materials costs, it's the fact that there are zoning issues.

And if you want to talk about affordable housing, you have to start with the word zoning.

Because I live in Rock Hill, right.

If my house blows away in a hurricane, God forbid, 10 thousand times, but if my house blows away in a hurricane, I can't rebuild my house at that footprint.

I have to build a larger house and put another bedroom on it.

Okay.

And when you think about the fact that it cost $180 per square foot on average in South Carolina to build a house, how are we supposed to build affordable housing without certain incentive programs, but also with that zoning problem.

It's a great idea to do, you know,... something we're looking for smaller footprint houses.

And I also, by the way, I love the idea of, you know, the heroes program.

I do wish it would include hospitality workers, because we rely on hospitality workers a huge amount in this state.

They're a gigantic part of the economy here.

And we learned in the pandemic in the COVID pandemic that they're extremely important people.

So, I do hope that more of that happens.

Also, may I touch back briefly, very briefly on that, Thelisha?

Thelisha> Absolutely.

Scott> Thank you.

To deal with the eviction crisis, because it's big, you need to change how easy it is to create an eviction filing.

It's what, $40 or $45, I think it is?

It's something like that, $40 to $45 dollars, to say, hey, I'm going to give you an eviction filing.

Usually it's done to compel the payment of rent.

Okay.

And (Jamilla) mentioned that in, you know, in North Charleston leads in eviction rate.

If you go back to the eviction lab, right.

North Charleston is the number one large size city in the country for eviction rate.

Saint Andrews is the number one median sized city in the country for eviction rate.

And in the top 100 rural and small cities, 47 of them are in South Carolina.

So, you have to make it harder to evict people.

So I'm sorry, I don't want to hijack the conversation here.

I had just been busting to say that for about five minutes.

So, but I do think, you know, there are a lot of programs that are, actually very good at doing it.

I think SC housing is doing, some good work with that.

There are some local programs that are happening up in Rock Hill.

We have the H.D.C., we got some people here from H.D.C., the Housing Development Corporation, who are doing things.

It tends to be more of sort of say homeless, level help, you know, and to try to get people off the streets and not so much the workforce housing, you know, at least what I've covered.

I shouldn't say that.

you know, but they're not doing that.

But at least as far as, you know, what I have covered, it's been more on trying to get people out of a very bad situation that is getting increasingly worse, because York County is one of those, counties that I mentioned earlier where the housing price growth is higher than wage growth.

Thelisha> You're not hijacking the conversation.

Not at all.

Scott> I will heel... Thelisha> But now I want, I want to turn now to Corinne from H.D.C.

Thank you for joining us, as well.

Go ahead, Corinne.

Corinne Sferrazza> Hi.

Thelisha> Through the lens of your work, where do you see where should we shine the spotlight when it comes to trying to solve South Carolina's affordable housing crisis?

Corinne> So, as Scott said, we are working very closely with our Catawba Area Coalition for the Homeless to really find housing that is deeply affordable for these individuals, that they don't maybe have stable employment, they don't have a consistent income.

So we're really looking at how we can house our individuals experiencing homelessness.

And that is a piece we're working very hard on.

We've just opened four, deeply affordable units in our community that we had to get grants to be able to support, and we also had to have some variances with the zoning, with the parking, because it is very difficult to build and afford these units.

Thelisha> Thank you so much, Corinne.

And Scott, I want to say again, you're not hijacking, because what I wanted to talk about next was, as we have these conversations in different pockets of the state, what's not being said?

And I'll start with you, Joey.

Joey> Well, I was going to say one thing to kind of follow up on what we were talking about before in terms of broader programs and ways to to look at housing.

We have to also step back and look at the relationship between, individual South Carolinians and their employer and how, and how employment opportunities match back to housing affordability.

So, for example, if we look at a lot of the infrastructure projects that are happening in South Carolina right now, that also can support housing affordability in the sense that it supports more employment opportunities.

So if you look, for example, that, urban rural divide that we talked about how we're seeing more growth in the, in the urban areas, we look at a lot of the infrastructure right now that is, helping to, develop transportation infrastructure across the state, developing broadband, providing people more access to be able to, to...work jobs remotely, which is becoming a professional norm as it has, as everybody knows, over the last several years.

So,...housing programs, specifically are one piece of it, but also we can look more broadly, and certainly a lot of these infrastructure dollars can help indirectly, with these challenges, as well.

Thelisha> You talk about industries and businesses and jobs.

I think almost every week we are reporting on a job expansion or an announcement coming from the State Department of Commerce.

Just this week, we reported on the Florida based digital infrastructure and how they are going to locate a $2.1 billion dollar computing data center at a site near Gaffney.

And, we have here that the Cherokee County Council, Chairman Tim Spencer, he calls it transformative, a transformative moment for the county.

In our audience today is someone, that's mayor pro tem of Blythewood, and one of those announcements, some time ago, a big one for Blythewood, Scout Motors reported some 4,000 jobs coming to the area.

Of course, some of those positions will be filled from people already there, but then also people coming in to your area.

What's the conversation like right now in Blythewood on how you are going to adjust, to the growth that you are seeing?

Donald Brock> How are we going to adjust?

That's funny.

The conversation in Blythewood is actually very exciting.

And I think that, to touch on some of the panelists and I don't remember everybody's name, so forgive me.

I think that, bringing in quality jobs that pay an affordable wage go a long way of tackling the affordable housing problem.

In Blythewood, you mentioned 4000 jobs, 4,000 jobs, are the minimum number of jobs that were guaranteed by the Scout Motors Corporation, but that isn't where it stops.

There are ancillary jobs that come along with it.

There will be OEMs.

There'll be other services that follow.

You know, we look at it from the perspective of if you bring the jobs the people are going to follow and what follows people, businesses.

So we anticipate or at least I do.

And Councilman McKenrick, who's also on the Blythewood Town Council is here with me, we anticipate that this will create over 10 thousand jobs, because 4,000 is your minimum, but you're going to have to have all these parts suppliers, and it may be local within the Midlands, but it will certainly be within the state, if not the region.

So creating jobs that pay people a living wage where they can afford houses is...a key.

Is one of your keys, in my opinion, to getting, this...issue tackled.

Thelisha> Thank you very much for that.

That was, Mayor Pro Tem, Donald Brock of Blythewood.

Did I get that right?

All right.

There we go.

Thank you again for that.

I want to talk about the economic impact.

Again, when...when talking with people around the state, I recently went on a bus tour with a nonprofit organization in Columbia, and we toured sites around Columbia where, developers in the city was getting it right when it comes to affordable housing and then some sites where they kind of missed the mark and should go back and work a little bit harder.

And in my conversation with that group, we talked about how... it may not be top of mind to everyday residents of how affordable, how affordable housing touches all of us.

So, money talks.

That gets our attention.

What is the economic impact?

What are we seeing when we talk about the economic impact of South Carolina's housing crisis,...Joey?

Joey> Well, if we look at the impact of housing, we can start with that.

What's the impact of housing, real estate, construction, the industry as a whole?

And depending on when and how you define it, it represents between 15 and 20 percent of the economy.

So it's one of the biggest industry sectors in South Carolina and in the U.S. And we don't normally think about that because sometimes we only think about construction itself, which is seven, eight, nine percent of the economy.

But you have to look at all of the secondary services and additional resources that go into buying and selling of...homes, all of the furnishings, all of the everything that goes with that.

So it's not just about the the bricks and sticks as you hear the construction, but about all the other services that go along with that.

So it's one of the biggest components of, of our economy.

So when we look at, going forward and we look at that, that industry and how important it is and how, of course, it permeates all aspects of, of South Carolina, all regions.

And we're looking at the, the future, it really comes down to an industry that is supporting essentially population growth, that is, that is continuing to, to increase, even though it's been steady over the last 15 years, population growth has, as increased in South Carolina and throughout the southeast since the onset of the pandemic.

And South Carolina has been consistently ranked number one in the... or in the top five in the country, since 2020.

And population growth, ranked number 1 in 2023.

So, it really comes back to supply and demand.

We are going to see more and more demand for housing.

And it's about, creating ways to effectively incentivize the development of more supply, in order to keep up with that demand.

Rep. Dillard> If I may, one of the, business industry sectors that saw the first, sort of need for affordable housing was tourism, in the state of South Carolina.

And that is what has brought many of my colleagues to the table, when you start talking about your Hilton Heads, Bluffton, Beaufort areas, and they, the business owners find it very difficult to find people who can come to work or they have to transport so far in.

So there's that economic piece, as well.

I know in Greenville we have, a restaurant owner.

He...is supplementing his employ- his employees with a housing stipend just so that they can find affordable housing.

So there's that whole economic piece to, this crisis.

Thelisha> You mentioned earlier how this did not just develop overnight.

I think 15 years in or 15 years out.

How long, if this is a reasonable question, how long do you think it will take for us to kind of see the tides turn a little bit?

Joey> Great question.

Oh, we don't know, is...the short answer.

But it's a it's a years long process, I think is the short answer, that we do have a significant housing, housing shortage.

And it's going to take us a number of years to, to continue to, develop ways to encourage more supply and encourage the building of more housing units, at different price points across the state.

Again, it's a complex, a complex challenge.

But we are continuing to see population growth.

So in a sense, it's about we've got to kind of catch up first and then or catch up to, to demand and then be able to, to recapture some of that lost, that lost ground that, that we've lost over the last 15 years.

So it's going to be a while.

This is a years long process.

Clayton> And there's so many wild cards.

Joey> Yeah.

Clayton> I mean, there are so many things that are unknown...insurance.

I mean, that's, that's one of the big ones.

And South Carolina's a disaster prone state.

I mean, we have, we have just about everything here that can happen, as we've seen, between floods and hurricanes, etc., storms last night across the state.

So, the rising insurance rates are going to have a huge effect on this.

And even things like population shifts, you know, one of the things that makes me think we may come into some sort of a solution to this is just the population of the baby boomer generation.

I mean, that the vanguard of that cadre will be turning 80, next year.

And I'm on the tail end of it.

But, you know, you know, every year that passes mortality looms larger.

And that's going to be a very wealthy generation with a lot of home ownership that will, by no choice of their own come onto the market at some point within the next 10 to 20 years.

Rep. Dillard> But it's also an opportunity to have some heirs property- Clayton> -Yeah.> Rep. Dillard> to put those houses in trust.

I just had that conversation in my community.

I said, don't sell Grandmama's house.

That could be your key into home ownership.

<Yeah.> Rep. Dillard> You know, we...must start to look creatively about how to move people into home ownership.

Thelisha> Jamilla?

Jamilla> Yeah, I just going to also add like just the pure funding.

So speaking from a nonprofit who works in building housing, and also building housing in Charleston County, we more recently just in the last year or so, have built up a housing trust fund, which is being administered by the South Carolina Community Loan Fund.

And, as I said, what we're looking at is needing at least 29 thousand homes, in the Charleston County area in the next decade, at a minimum, to be able to keep up with, with growth.

And so without really stabilizing funding sources and getting creative in terms of what, what and how we're funding these things, we're still going to be at a disadvantage.

One of our partners, great partners, is actually SC housing in terms of being able to build new, affordable, home ownership opportunities within Charleston County.

And at the same time, many of them are single family homes.

Going back to what we were saying earlier about zoning, inclusionary zoning, which means zoning, that, as we're looking at increasing the density throughout different parts of Charleston County, inclusionary zoning is a tool.

It also can be used, within policy making that requires a certain minimum or percentage of workforce housing, of attainable housing to be included in any development that comes into Charleston County.

And so without, finding unique ways of working with government and unique ways of working with funding sources, I think we'll still continue to be behind.

So without those, it's hard, I think, for us to answer the question of like, how long will it take?

There has to be the funding and mechanisms, for it to be provided at all levels.

Thelisha> Thank you for that.

Scott> I wonder if I might add one little.

Thelisha> Sure.

Go ahead.

Scott> Again, I'm not trying to hijack.

Thelisha> Hijack away, Scott.

Scott> I think something to keep in mind here, too, is that you cannot solve housing in isolation and you can't solve it in isolation in geographically.

Because what say, Columbia figures out affordable housing and everything works fantastic.

Everybody wants to move to Columbia because the housing is affordable and then it creates, not affordable housing anymore.

Right?

So you can't solve it without solving it regionally, without solving it statewide, without solving it countrywide.

Right?

You also cannot solve it without understanding the interrelationship between housing, transportation, food insecurity, daycare, health, occupation, all that.

I mean, we touched on this.

I mean, you know, higher paying jobs obviously are a good thing, but you have to look at all of these things, every part of this weaves in, like the fabric on this rug right in front of us.

This rich tapestry that, you know, that weaves into this thing, you cannot look at any of these things in isolation.

So, yes, we do need to find creative housing solutions.

We also need to make sure that people can get to work.

It's great to bring high paying jobs in, but if people are living in a place where they're paying too much money for their cars and their and their housing, it doesn't really do much good.

So we have to pay attention to that, as well.

Thelisha> Thank you for that, Scott.

This is " Palmetto Perspectives: Let's Be Neighbors."

I now want to turn to our wonderful guests in our audience for questions.

As you listen to our panelists tonight and we've talked, we've touched on a lot of topics.

What comes to mind or from the lens of the work that you do.

What should South Carolinians and our leaders, be talking about when it comes to trying to remedy our state's housing issue?

I'll just throw it out there for anyone that wants to jump into tonight's conversation.

Crickets.

Thank you.

What's your name, please?

Ben> My name is Ben Wilcenski.

I'm with the local building industry association.

One thing I don't think we've talked about, a little bit, we've touched on was zoning and comprehensive plans and government, affordability of housing is a lot of the lots, lot availability, ability to turn those into homes.

It takes a very long time to do that now.

It's gotten harder and harder over the years, and it seems to be what is known as "NIMBY-ism".

N-I-M-B-Y.

Not in my backyard.

Perhaps you've heard that term.

It's, it's gone a step further to BANANAS - build absolutely nothing anywhere, or near anything.

BANANAS.

Thelisha> Okay.

Ben> That that seems to be more and more of a problem.

And it's on a local, very hyper local level, in fact.

So it's, we've, we've talked with a state legislature.

It's very difficult for state legislature to affect how local municipalities, affect their business and do what they want to do, because it's all politics is local.

So how can we as a state, be more friendly toward housing if we're going to stand up and cheer for new jobs and ra, ra, when Scout comes to town, how can we also say, "Yay!"

But we need places for those jobs to live and sleep at night?

That that seems to be a major problem here.

Thelisha> Good question.

Who wants to tackle?

Joey> Well, I'll just mention, in general that I think this trade off between growth and affordability is important to, to, to recognize and that if you've got a, an area that's in high demand and people want to move in, if you limit that, you're going to put upward pressure on housing.

I mean, it comes down to supply and demand.

I think sometimes we don't, recognize that, that trade off, enough and...don't take that into account when we're looking at policy considerations and that's, that's, that's really important.

Thelisha> I wanted to circle back to inclusionary zoning.

Jamilla, how does this impact your area?

Jamilla> So it actually comes at the intersection with transportation in our area, in particular.

We have a certain amount of housing, that is available that is naturally occurring.

It's affordable, within the community.

As I mentioned, the average income is $29 thousand dollars, So, people are able to afford to live in place there.

However, as this pressure continues to rise, we understand that, easily this particular community, this tract of communities, have the, high, high capacity or potential to be able to, to be moved, right, to be pushed out.

And so in Charleston area, what's being implemented is the Lowcountry Rapid Transit.

And along that transit line, which will go from Summerville area all the way to downtown Charleston around the medical district.

It will be providing an ability to get downtown, within 20 minutes, or so they say.

And a part of that plan is also including increased density of housing along that line.

So what that really means is, you know, bringing in more housing and, what we don't have in the state of South Carolina is ensuring that all income levels will be able to live along that, particular line and be able to now have affordable transportation closer, so they're not...paying, what on average now is $750 dollars a month, is what the average American is paying in car, in their car, every single...

Yes, $750, a month, in what they're paying for their car.

And so what we are really looking at and tackling is, what, how, how can we be able to, really encourage the conversation around density?

That can also, be able to bring about, places where everyone can stay.

It's really unfortunate, like places like Mount Pleasant, entire businesses close because service industry folks can't afford to live there and are not able to pay to commute.

And those conversations aren't happening.

Those connections aren't being made.

It's not being really clear around, communities aren't talking about and it's not being vocalized by the folks, who do not have the income levels, because I feel like a lot of American society and culture, it's really put back on the individual that the individual has not achieved and are not able to make their rent payments or mortgage payments, as opposed to the broader systemic issues, this intersectional issue of, the math does not add up for me to be able to afford to stay in Charleston right now.

When you add in transportation, plus housing, plus costs, the overall cost of living.

Thelisha> If I had a magic wand, what would be the what would it take or what would be the the right conditions to make this conversation more of a, kitchen table topic for everyone so that this education gets out there?

What would make what would remedy that problem?

Jamilla Harper> I think, it really, it would really be countercultural for us, I think, to talk about housing that doesn't include, someone feeling pity or the shame of not being able to afford their bills.

It is, I think, a standard that someone can be able to afford a roof over their family's head and afford to be able to feed and clothe their families.

And so, it really would have to be a more transparent and open conversation about wages.

And also employers really thinking about what would we need to do to make this, this community, the Lowcountry, the state of South Carolina, affordable for all?

And at the same time for governments to really understand the trade offs that are happening.

Just recently, I was talking with a College of Charleston student, and he was mentioning about how many students at the college, are starting to think I can't afford to live in Charleston.

Where am I moving to, once I get my degree?

Whereas just 15 years ago, I remember thinking to myself, where am I moving out of South Carolina, so that I can get work experience, because there weren't as many job opportunities, in the Charleston area in 07', 08', which we just mentioned as a part of the housing crisis, as well.

And so I think it's a real time for South Carolinians to think about, how are we setting up and supporting our children and our future, those college students, to be able to live and thrive within the state of South Carolina.

Joey> And that goes to another point about, thinking about workforce development, that we talked about loosely and employment opportunities and, and looking at, workforce training and different programs to move that in, in to make sure that, South Carolinians can see a path towards higher wage jobs.

Because, you know, where we have a significant labor shortage in South Carolina and across the country, is in the trades.

And you can make six figures with, with going through an apprenticeship program and with a few years of experience.

And those are also jobs that are less susceptible to A.I..

So, you know, you're not going to have a robot crawling around under your house repairing your... HVAC unit anytime soon.

So, so it's also about workforce development and, and these job training initiatives to help again match South Carolinians with opportunities, to lead to higher wages for them to be able to, to afford, to afford a home.

Thelisha> Clayton, Jamilla mentioned in, in her area, a trust fund.

Can you talk a little bit about the state housing trust fund?

Clayton> Sure.

The State Housing Trust Fund is a fund that we administer granted to us, by the legislature.

It uses a percentage of the deed tax stamp fee.

When you transfer real estate, you, you pay a deed tax stamp fee on that.

We have a percentage of that that we can use for three main areas.

Home repair, which deals with mostly the envelope of a building, roof, windows, HVAC.

We can give $30,000 for that.

And this is to homeowners who own their home and income qualify.

Think of it as extreme deferred maintenance.

A lot of time, this is elderly people who own their home.

Everything's fine, but they just can't afford on their income to make major repairs.

The home repair, can do those external features.

Then we've got critical home repair that can do some major revamps, putting in, bathrooms, etc..

Helping people age in place or people who are disabled, helping them to be able to continue to live in their home.

And we also have a component that we fund supportive housing, transitional housing, youth that are transitioning out of foster care, troubled youth on the street, people with disability issues.

So those are the things that we fund out of that.

The supportive housing piece is going on just, just fine.

We've evolved it now into the disaster, disaster assistance program.

Following Helene, we looked at these funds and we said, maybe we should expand a little bit, and we brought in municipalities.

We allowed municipalities... to apply and use this fund to fill in critical gaps that, that insurance didn't cover or deductibles or things that they just, they couldn't do on their, on their own.

So that's evolved.

The one place that we're really hoping to get some more attraction is in the home, the home repair program.

We don't do that directly.

We do that through non-profits throughout the state.

And post-COVID, a lot of these nonprofits went away or refocused themselves, onto other things.

So, if anyone's out there that has a nonprofit that's interested in housing, go to our website and look up the Housing Trust fund, because that's a great opportunity there.

And, we...could do a lot more with it, but we're doing we're doing a lot especially with the supportive housing right now.

Thelisha> Thank you for that.

Earlier in the program, I joked and said that we're going to have this hour long conversation, and we're going to solve South Carolina's housing issues within this hour, but, as our as our time starts to, to wind up.

Scott, final thoughts?

What types of stories would you like to be reporting on, in the near future, and then down the road when it comes to housing?

Scott> Do you got another hour?

(Thelisha laughs) The short version of it is, we need to be paying more attention to those intersections that I was talking about before, with other things like transportation and food insecurity.

We need to be paying more attention to heirs property.

We need to be paying more attention to renovation, is certainly one of those, one of those, kind of.

We don't seem to talk about that for some reason.

And there are a lot of vacant properties in this state.

If you go back to 2023, the census numbers, there's like 325 thousand vacant housing units in the state.

Some of those are vacation properties.

Some of those are, Airbnb, you know, or whatever, you know, some of those are second houses, vacation homes, etc.

but there's got to be some.

Okay.

And so, if we could get those to renovate them, it's a lot cheaper to renovate a house than it is to build a new one, in a lot of cases, at least per square foot.

You know, we're especially, you know, keeping up with those older houses.

Like one of the problems we're having in Rock Hill is that you have especially on the South side, you have older communities of people who have had their houses for - You know, mom passed it down or grandma passed it down or something.

But they're old houses and they are too poor to repair them.

They don't have insurance sometimes, you know, and we need to be talking more about how people aging in place, you know, are not able to keep up with their houses and senior homelessness in particular, is a growing problem that we need to be paying more attention to.

So, that's at least what I would like to do.

And then, of course, anything with data and numbers, I never met a database I don't like.

So I, I, I would like to look more into those kinds of things.

Thelisha> Joey, I'm going to give you the final word here.

You have a little bit of time, but what are your final thoughts on, what we are currently doing, what we should be doing or on the brink of doing in solving South Carolina's, housing crisis?

Joey> Well, as, as an economist, I say it always comes back to supply and demand.

That's, that's the long and short of it.

And the bottom line is we don't have enough housing supply in South Carolina to keep up with demand.

It's a, in a sense, a good problem to have because we are going to see more and more people move to South Carolina.

We are a very attractive state for a variety of reasons.

Migration patterns are on our side.

People are moving to South Carolina.

Industry is moving to South Carolina.

We're seeing some of the highest employment growth rates in the country, as well.

So we're moving in the right direction.

Again, at a 30 thousand view, when we look at South Carolina as a state compared to many other states in the country, and we're very bullish on the long run outlook.

But that means we do have to keep up with housing supply, as we look to, to provide resources for this growth, resources for individuals, make sure they have, a supply of housing, make sure we're keeping up with infrastructure and all of the associated services that are necessary to sustain the growth.

So any policy solution has to look at fundamentally increasing the stock of housing supply.

And there are all sorts of ways to to consider that, different price points, different regions.

But, but that's the long and short of it that we have high demand.

That is...going to continue.

That's a good problem to have.

And so these supply challenges are really what we have to be looking at.

How do we increase housing supply in the long run?

Thelisha> All right.

I want very quickly because I know Greenville County is growing as well very, very quickly.

Final thought?

What would you like to see in the next five, ten years?

Rep. Dillard> I think from a legislative perspective, we need to continue to put tools in the toolbox.

<Got you> >> And we need the community, to tell us what those tool boxes, you know, what things should be in the toolbox, but primarily, the funding.

Thelisha> Yeah.

Rep. Dillard> Yeah, I'd really like to see more funding toward this issue.

Thelisha>Representative Dillard, thank you very much.

Thank you to all of our panelists.

Scott, as well, I look forward to your reports tomorrow morning and next week, as well.

Jamilla Harper from our Lowcountry area from Metanoia, thank you.

Joey Von Nesson, as always, thank you very much.

And again, Mr. Clayton Ingram, thank you for your time.

And to our audience.

Thank you for joining us, this evening.

Thank you for your questions and your comments, as well.

On our website at SouthCarolinaETV .org or scetv.org , you will see all of our panelists, links to their respective workplaces and more information on South Carolina's housing crisis.

Thank you for your time.

I hope this conversation really pricked the ears of some people, and I hope we can see more of what we talked about tonight.

I am Thelisha Eaddy.

For all of us here at South Carolina ETV and South Carolina Public Radio, Thank you for your time again.

And don't forget to start your day with South Carolina Public Radio first thing in the morning.

6:04 a.m. for local statewide news and weather.

For all of us here at South Carolina ETV and Public Radio, thank you very much.

Have a good night.