Tracking Affordable Housing Impact in Wake County
Wake County's Department of Housing Affordability & Community Revitalization (HACR) leads the county's efforts to expand affordable housing access across a broad portfolio of programs. To give all stakeholders a shared understanding of local housing conditions and track progress against newly established production and preservation goals, HACR partnered with HR&A to build the Wake Housing Data Platform — a tiered tool serving internal staff, municipal partners, and the broader public.
The Challenge
Wake County launched new housing funds and set ambitious production and preservation goals but had no centralized way to track progress or demonstrate the value of public investment. There was no shared platform to show residents, elected officials, and municipal partners how housing dollars were being put to work.
The Approach
HR&A began with extensive user research to understand how different users access and apply housing data, then built the platform around those findings. Organized around Wake County's most pressing housing questions, the platform offers distinct access levels for department staff, county partners, and the public.
Tiered platform serving HACR staff, county partners, and the public.
It includes:
- A public-facing Impact Tracker updated quarterly, demonstrating progress toward the county's housing goals and program-level outcomes to communicate the value of public investment
- Snapshot and comparison views across demographics, housing supply, rental affordability, and homeownership at the county and city level
- A Report Portal housing a suite of narrative reports designed to support storytelling and communication
- Data downloads in PDF and Excel format to streamline grant applications, budget requests, public presentations, and annual reporting
Results & What's Next
Public-facing Impact Tracker updated quarterly.
The Wake Housing Data Platform has offered HACR and its partners a single, reliable source for housing data across the county. The platform has established a shared fact base across county staff and partners, grounding conversations about housing needs, policy priorities, and investment decisions in a common understanding of local conditions. The Impact Tracker provides a transparent, public-facing account of how Wake County's affordable housing dollars are being put to work, strengthening HACR's ability to attract funding and communicate its impact.