About this story
This story is part of a journalistic collaboration between The News & Observer and Enlace Latino NC to more broadly cover the displacement of Latino residents and immigrants in Raleigh. The deep relationships of Enlace Latino NC Working with Spanish-speaking communities, combined with N&O’s housing and urban development coverage, allowed us to spend time within Los Navaho, speak with residents in their preferred language, and document the human impact of redevelopment with greater care and precision. This collaboration ensured that the voices of residents—often overlooked in important land-use decisions—shaped the story from the beginning.
This story was produced in collaboration between Enlace Latino NC and the News Observer. Read here in English
For Candelario Ocampo Fuentes, 69, The Pointe at Midtown has been his home for more than 15 years.
Located behind the glass towers of North Hills in Raleigh, the 1960s garden-style compound is where she raised four children, worked long hours in Mami Nora's kitchen, and built a life in a city that has grown up around her.
Now, she's quietly packing up. In February, she received a non-renewal notice giving her until next spring to move out—one of hundreds of residents who will be displaced as the 365-unit complex at 835 Navaho Drive, known to neighbors as "The Navaho," is cleared for redevelopment.
In the coming years, the property—one of the last pockets of affordable housing in Midtown—will be cleared and demolished to make way for a sweeping 28-acre expansion on Navaho Road, off I-440, spearheaded by Kane Realty, the developer behind much of the North Hills transformation. Plans unveiled in May envision more than 1,200 new homes, along with office towers, walking paths, and retail, in what would be the largest expansion yet to the North Hills Innovation District.
“What can we do?” he said. “The owners have their investments. Those who have, have, and those of us who don’t, we have to gradually adapt wherever we can.”
More than 40 buildings in the complex will be phased out, allowing leases to expire without renewal. Residents received more than a year's notice, exceeding the city's 180-day requirement, according to Michaella Murphy, a Kane spokesperson.
Contracts can be extended until March 31, 2027 at current rates, and some residents may be able to move to units with later departure dates, depending on availability.
The first contracts expire in less than a year.
“We recognize that The Pointe is home to a community,” Murphy said, adding that the company has implemented a support program designed to “facilitate the transition and minimize disruption.” This includes one-on-one assistance for residents facing relocation, a dedicated support manager, guidance on housing options, referrals to local agencies, and limited financial assistance, such as help with application fees and waivers of early termination or short-term lease fees.
“We are committed to clear communication and supporting residents,” he said.
But the phased demolition of The Pointe reflects a broader strain on Raleigh’s housing landscape: even as the city relies on rezoning, density incentives, and “mid-housing” renovations to address a growing shortage, older, “naturally affordable” housing, or NOAH, is disappearing far faster than it can be replaced. Housing advocates warn that the loss of NOAH means higher rents, fewer options for working families, and increased displacement.
It's a problem across the Triangle region, though the pattern varies by city. Chapel Hill has already lost most of its NOAH (New Old Garden Area), a result of decades of high land costs and limited supply. Durham still has older garden-style complexes, but they are being renovated, redeveloped, or demolished rapidly as rents rise and demand grows.
Before the non-renewal process began, rents at The Pointe at Midtown generally ranged from the low $900 for a one-bedroom apartment to $1,500-something for a three-bedroom one — well below the current market and firmly within the naturally affordable housing category.
Ocampo Fuentes knows it won't be easy to find something similar. He's focused on helping his 20-year-old son find a new place to live and moving with his wife to a mobile home in another part of town. After that, he plans to leave Raleigh—and the United States—for good and return to his native Mexico.
“For me, right now, there aren’t many opportunities here,” she said. “I’m surviving on my savings and help from my children. I just want my youngest son to get settled and have stability.”
An offer that is rapidly decreasing
Between 2017 and 2022, median incomes in Raleigh increased by 37% in five years.
Meanwhile, the proportion of rents below $1,000 fell from 55% in 2016 to 10% in 2024, according to data from the American Community Survey (ACS) used in the City's 2025 Affordable Housing Plan.
In eight years, Raleigh has lost approximately 35,000 naturally affordable housing units.
Pressure on the remaining inventory is intensifying: Raleigh is adding 10,000 new residents a year, outpacing housing production. Older multifamily buildings are being demolished or repurposed, while most new units are entering the market with rents of $1,600 or more—well out of reach for many working families. Rents at Kane Realty apartments in North Hills typically range from about $1,700 for a one-bedroom to over $4,000 for larger units, reflecting the district's high-end luxury market.
The result is a structural affordability crisis that disproportionately affects African American and Latino households.
The mayor of Raleigh, Janet CowellHe said he is working towards a better outcome, but acknowledged the pressure.
“Given the cost of housing, I understand the frustration of seeing NOAH units lost,” he said in an email. However, he noted that the city and other metropolitan areas like Durham and Chapel Hill have “limited tools to prevent the loss of these units or to help those who must relocate when they are redeveloped.”
Among the main reasons: North Carolina is a state of “Dillon's Rule”This means that cities can only exercise the powers explicitly granted by the state legislature. As a result, Triangle cities cannot require developers to include affordable housing units as a condition for rezoning, even when existing affordable housing is demolished.
Relocation assistance is available for residents of subsidized housing, such as Raleigh Housing Authority or DHIC communities. But for most renters, Cowell said, “that level of accountability doesn’t exist.”
Raleigh has invested in preservation efforts, including a home rehabilitation program for long-time homeowners and a $4 million contribution to the Wake County Affordable Housing Preservation Fund, part of a $62 million initiative to preserve 3,000 units over a 15-year period.
The city also recently approved to hold a referendum in November on bonds for $203 million —a package divided equally between affordable housing and transportation improvements.
City leaders emphasized that the bond would not involve a tax increase, a point that finance director Allison Bradsher described as the city's "steady state" approach.
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“These are real people”
But for many opposition groups led by residents, those measures fall short.
“When [these residents] are evicted, who is going to help them find a new place to live?” asked Randy Jones, 69, a former asset manager who founded Midtown Neighbors United, a group that opposes accelerated redevelopment.
“These innocent people [are] going to be forced to scramble to find affordable housing in an increasingly unaffordable market. That is cruel.”
Stef Mendell, founder of Livable Raleigh, a volunteer-based advocacy group, argues that the city's reliance on "supply-side" strategies — the idea that building more housing of any kind will reduce overall costs — has failed to create affordability.
“These speculative rezonings only raise land prices and property tax assessments without adding units, let alone homes that will become affordable over time,” she wrote in a recent blog post. She supports increased public funding and greater contributions from developers.
“There are ways to do it with the right incentives,” he said in an interview with the N&O.
For Fabian Ramirez, 28, time is running out.
Originally from Guatemala, he has lived in Los Navahos for almost four years — long enough for his third-grade daughter to learn to skate on the cracked basketball court and for the neighbors in building 801 to feel, as he describes it, “like one big family.”
When the non-renewal notice arrived, he remained calm. The administration told him he could move to another building across the courtyard, a temporary solution that would keep his daughter on the same bus route for a little while longer.
“They’re not abandoning their people,” he said. “They’re trying to help us stay and have options.”
She doesn't yet know that those buildings will eventually be demolished as well. "No, supposedly they're going to maintain that area," she said. "That's why they're relocating the tenants there."
He recently lost his construction job — “layoffs, I think,” he said — and has been applying for jobs at other companies while trying to maintain stability for his daughter.
Inside her apartment, she keeps a small altar in memory of her parents and her brother, who was killed in Petén, Guatemala, during a family land dispute two years ago.
People tell him, “Come back.” But he knows there’s not much to come back to. “I stayed here for my children. For their safety,” he said.
Now she's slowly packing, waiting for January, hoping the next apartment will appear, and holding on to the last few months of a place that offered peace, community, and a sense of permanence—until the redevelopment plans came along.
“We just want to be together as long as possible,” he said. “This has been our home.”
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