Cary partners with church for affordable housing, childcare project

A creative partnership between church and state is coming together in Cary to create much-needed affordable housing and childcare in the area.

A new five-story building will share space with Greenwood Forest Baptist Church, located at the corner of Southeast Maynard Road and Kildaire Farm Road.

Storage buildings next to the sanctuary will be torn down, and the new building will go up in its place to provide affordable housing for dozens of families, including some who have nowhere else to live. The town of Cary is extending some of its own land next to the church for the project.

Greenwood Forest partnered with Cary, Wake County and DHIC, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to the development of housing communities in the Triangle, for the project.

Natalie Britt, DHIC's vice president for real estate development, said there will be affordable apartments for families who make 60% of the area's median income or less.

"The need in Wake County is tremendous," Britt said. "New income levels for HUD (public) housing in Wake County increased 4.5% this year. Right now, the family of four median income in Wake County is $122,300 a year. Income limits keep going up here, more people are moving here all the time putting pressure on housing prices in the market, so the need is growing every day."

Lauren Efird, senior pastor at Greenwood Forest, said the church envisioned the project back in 2019.

"Like other churches across town, we have a very large space with a lot of buildings that are not used in the same way they were before," Efird said. "We wanted to be able to use this space – it’s in a really wonderful location in town – to actually do good in the community in a way we had not thought about before."

Efird said community members supported the idea of affordable housing and childcare.

"The congregation decided they really wanted to do more good by offering justice in the community – for folks to have housing, we believe, is a moral right," Efird said.

Greenwood Forest Baptist Church's children's center has been operating for 57 years and enrolls 175 students in a half-day program. Now, the children’s center will become a full-day childcare in partnership with Cary's Taylor Family YMCA.

The new building will offer expanded, full-day childcare on the first floor and transitional housing through The Carying Place on the second floor. The top three floors will have at least 60 affordable apartments.

"I absolutely believe this is where God is calling us, that this is what our community needs," Efird said. "For us, being an inclusive community means also serving the people who need housing."

The Carying Place teaches homeless, working families with children life skills for attaining independent living while providing short-term housing.

Leslie Covington, executive director, said the project will allow families to get a fresh start without worrying about the high cost of housing in Cary.

"The people who come to us are families who are working but they’ve found themselves struggling," Covington said. "It’s a beacon of light for those folks to say – you know what, I don’t just work in Cary. I can live in Cary."

The partnership just submitted a rezoning application to the town of Cary this week. It will go through that process, including a neighborhood meeting, likely sometime in May. The goal is to have families moving in by the end of 2027.