Affordable Housing
Artist and resident Rene’e Valentine recently moved from Willard St. into Ashton Place and enjoys creating her vibrant paintings in her new space.
Creating more affordable housing options
Lack of affordable housing for both renters and owners is a crisis in too many cities. The solution? More high-quality, energy efficient, and affordable single-family homes and rental options — created in partnership with community leaders and nonprofits.
Self-Help is addressing the need for affordable housing as both a developer and a lender
Self-Help is addressing the need for affordable housing as both a developer and a lender
Self-Help as developer
30+ years of building affordable homes
Self-Help has been building and renovating affordable housing since the mid-1990s, starting with developing single-family homes in neighborhoods experiencing disinvestment.
As the affordable housing crisis has deepened across much of the country, our approach has broadened to include rental housing development and preservation.
We often work with multiple partners to help make complex projects more feasible, like the Willard Street Apartments project in Durham, North Carolina.
We often work with multiple partners to help make complex projects more feasible, like the Willard Street Apartments project in Durham, North Carolina.
We've been lending to affordable housing developers since 1998. In that time, we've helped create nearly 3,000 affordable housing spaces.
Often, the math on affordable housing developments is hard to make work. Self-help is often able to bring complex financing tools to bear, making tricky projects viable.
In 2025, Self-Help launched the Western North Carolina Affordable Housing Loan Fund. Though the fund, we partner with other lenders to help local affordable housing developments move from concept to construction.
In just over a year, the fund has deployed more than $18.5 million, supporting 270 affordable homes. We've also built a pipeline of 28 future projects requesting nearly $100 million in financing.
By partnering with other lenders to provide flexible financing, we're able to multiply our impact and create much-needed affordable housing options for the local community.
When affordable housing already exists in a community, keeping it affordable can be a crucial strategy. Both as a lender and a developer, we work hard to identify and preserve naturally existing affordable housing.