Raleigh City Council Work Session on Homelessness Data and BRT Northern Corridor – April 14, 2026
Raleigh City Council Work Session: Homelessness Data & BRT Northern Corridor Update – April 14, 2026
The Raleigh City Council held a work session on April 14, 2026, with Mayor Calvin excused. The session featured two presentations: first, an update from Housing and Community Development and Wake County on the Continuum of Care (COC) system performance metrics and a proposed strategic initiative to reduce homelessness; second, a presentation from the Department of Transportation on the Wake Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Northern Corridor Major Investment Study, including recommended route alignments for the Midtown and Triangle Town Center corridors. Councilmembers engaged in extensive Q&A on both topics.
Discussion Items
Continuum of Care System Performance & Strategic Plan
- Presenters: Emily Sutton (Housing and Community Development Director) and Eileen Rosa (COC Director for Wake County) provided an overview of the COC, which covers all of Wake County. Key metrics for federal fiscal year 2025 (October 1, 2024 – September 30, 2025) were shared:
- First-time homelessness decreased compared to the prior year, though total persons served increased slightly.
- Average length of time homeless was nearly two years (cumulative across breaks) while average shelter stay was about two months.
- Street outreach teams achieved a nearly 50% exit-to-permanent-housing rate without reliance on shelter or vouchers.
- Permanent supportive housing (PSH) retention was 97%.
- Returns to homelessness mainly occurred after one year of being housed, rather than within six months.
- Strategic Initiative: A two-year surge (through calendar year 2027) aims to house over 1,400 households (400 via direct-to-housing for unsheltered individuals, 1,000 via rapid resolution/flex funds). Total estimated cost is $22 million, with $12 million in planned commitments from the City of Raleigh and Wake County, leaving a $10 million gap to be covered through private philanthropy and a public-private partnership. The initiative includes integrated care for complex cases.
- Q&A Highlights:
- Councilmember Branch asked about root causes of homelessness (affordability, car repairs, etc.) and whether services beyond rental assistance (job training, mental health) are needed. Rosa emphasized coordination and immediate housing stabilization first.
- Councilmember Jones inquired about reasons for returns to homelessness (end of COVID-era programs, data gaps due to COC transition) and longer shelter stays (lack of rapid exit resources). She also asked about COC oversight of nonprofits and reporting cadence.
- Councilmember Patton clarified that the $22 million will significantly reduce unsheltered homelessness but not end all homelessness in Wake County. She also noted the importance of progressive engagement to avoid re-entry after the surge.
- Councilmember Silver asked about public-private partnership models (e.g., foundations as fiscal agents) and whether the $22 million covers only Phase 1 (through 2027).
Wake Bus Rapid Transit Northern Corridor Major Investment Study
- Presenter: Heet Patel (Transit Planning Manager) presented the final phase of the major investment study for the Northern Corridor, which includes two separate BRT corridors: downtown Raleigh to Midtown and downtown Raleigh to Triangle Town Center. Both corridors are funded in the Wake Transit Plan.
- Recommended Alignments:
- Midtown Corridor – Alignment 6: Capitol Boulevard → Atlantic Avenue → Six Forks Road → Wake Forest Road → St. Albans Drive. This route connects to growth areas and the future S-Line rail project. Ridership modeling showed strong performance, though it may not meet the 50% dedicated bus lane threshold (making it a “BRT-lite” system with mixed traffic).
- Triangle Town Center Corridor – Alignment 3: Capitol Boulevard directly to Triangle Town Center (mirroring existing Route 1). It has the highest ridership potential, fastest travel time, and is likely to be most competitive for federal Capital Investment Grant funding.
- Downtown Routing: An alternative route using Peace Street, South Street, and Wilmington Street is being considered to improve pedestrian connectivity and transfer opportunities compared to the current Dawson/McDowell alignment.
- Next Steps: The Raleigh Transit Authority unanimously endorsed both recommended alignments on April 9, 2026. City Council will be asked to formally endorse the locally preferred alternatives, which will then be submitted to the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) for adoption into the Metropolitan Transportation Plan. Following that, the city will issue a request for qualifications for preliminary design and environmental documentation.
- Q&A Highlights:
- Councilmember Silver expressed concern about right-of-way constraints and potential costs for the Midtown alignment, particularly on Six Forks and St. Albans. She asked whether a different mode might be more feasible for Midtown. Patel explained that while dedicated lanes are challenging, BRT features like signal priority and enhanced stations still provide significant improvements.
- Councilmember Lambert-Melton voiced full support for both corridors, emphasizing that even mixed-traffic BRT to Midtown is far superior to existing service. She stressed the need for clear public communication about the level of dedicated lanes.
- Councilmember Branch asked about the timeline: Wake Transit Plan currently allocates local matching funds for construction in 2033–2035, but earlier implementation would require reallocating funds from other projects.
- Councilmember Patton noted that the new Route 14 (added March 2026) overlaps part of the Midtown alignment and could provide proof of concept. She also asked about park-and-ride options; Patel stated that a transit center at Midtown is planned, and park-and-ride facilities for other routes would need separate studies.
- Councilmember Jones supported Alignment 6 for its connectivity to shopping centers and car dealerships in her district, and asked about park-and-ride options for North Raleigh residents. Patel mentioned potential park-and-ride at Triangle Town Center and future planning.
- Councilmember Silver and Lambert-Melton highlighted the transit-oriented development potential along Capitol Boulevard, which could accommodate 15–20% of Raleigh’s projected 200,000 new residents by 2050 without displacing existing residents.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken during the work session.
- The Raleigh Transit Authority unanimously endorsed Alignment 6 (Midtown) and Alignment 3 (Triangle Town Center) on April 9, 2026.
- City Council is expected to consider a formal resolution endorsing the locally preferred alternatives at a future regular meeting, allowing the project to advance into preliminary design and federal project development.
- Council directed staff to provide detailed cross-sections and cost estimates during the design phase, and to engage the public on the mixed-traffic nature of the Midtown corridor.
- The meeting adjourned at approximately [time not specified], with Council reconvening at 7:00 p.m. for public comment.
Meeting Transcript
Oh my god. No fair to see it. I need again you find me. Shadow the feel that holds me too. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you all for being here. I am calling our work session to order. And the first item of business is to share that Mayor Cal is absent and excuse. Today's meeting will be first a presentation from housing and community development and Wake County to discuss the Wake County Continuum of Care, and then a presentation from our Department of Transportation about the Wake Bus Rapid Transit Northern Corridor Major Investment Study. So first up, Emily Sutton. Good afternoon, Emily Sutton, the Housing and Community Development Director. It's my pleasure today to introduce to you Eileen Rosa, who is the Continuum of Care Director for Wake County. And she's going to talk to you today about the Continuum of Care system metrics as well as the strategic plan. Thank you, Emily. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for having me. As Emily shared, I do want to share a few system updates for the Continuum of Care or the COC, particularly related to federal funding and some of the updates that we've heard on that front, since I think that was a question and something that came up from our joint city council and Wake County Commissioner meeting earlier this year. So we have some of those completed. We'll provide an overview today, but we'll have more coming out as we have additional data being published. And then finally want to end with the strategic initiative and exciting next next steps on that front. So first and foremost, wanted to share a bit more about the Continuum of Care. And for those who are not as familiar, the Continuum of Care is essentially a program in which HUD, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, distributes funds focused on homeless services and permanent housing down to communities, and so we are structured in what's called a COC or a continuum of care. Our COC that encompasses Raleigh also encompasses the full geographic boundaries of Wake County. And so as the lead agency on behalf of that COC, we are responsible to serve as the collaborative applicant for those federal funds. Given the delay, and given that it was initially issued as a two-year notice of funding opportunity. So since this is the first update, I'll sort of pause and see if there are any particular questions on this front. Okay. All right. And so we'll dive into some data. So with the COC system performance metrics, these are these fall under our duty as the HMIS or homeless management information system lead agency. So we are responsible for compliance and completion of all of the federal reporting requirements as it relates to the COC. And so the SPMs are something that we do on an annual basis, typically submitted in February or in January from the previous federal fiscal year, so October 1, 2024 to September 30th, 2025. And so we just completed that FY25 HUD submission, and they allow us to resubmit our FY24 metrics. And so because the COC has been through a significant transition in terms of leadership and the lead agency, that has impacted a lot of data quality. And so we have some positives and some things that we want to share, but also point out for the community. And so you'll see a couple of measures today. We've kind of combined them for brevity and to see the correlation. But there are ultimately seven measures and a couple of submeasures that basically assess our performance as a continuum of care in the work of preventing and ending homelessness. So length of time homeless, returns to homelessness or recidivism, number of people experiencing homelessness, employment and income growth, number of folks who are experiencing homelessness for the first time, and then how folks are able to maintain housing placement and prevent future homelessness. So first and foremost, want to share, and again, as a follow-up to the joint uh City Council and Wake County Board of Commissioners meeting, we had some questions and discussion about like what is the best data to kind of point to in terms of the state of homelessness in our community. And and there are several, but I I kind of pointed to a great annual metric to look at is our system performance measures. And so we now have those in place. But to draw the correlation, we are also showing here the orange line at the bottom is our point and time count. So the distinction here being point and time count is a one-night snapshot or inventory of folks experiencing homelessness in our community as well as the shelter and temporary housing programs that we have measured against folks who are coming into our system on an annual basis. So the bar chart is the number of uh unduplicated persons served and coming into our continuum of care and homeless services system. The light blue bar are folks who are experiencing homelessness for the first time this past year, and then again the orange line are folks who are on a one-night um snapshot. So you can kind of see the scale versus you know who's actively in our system on a day-to-day time point uh point in time versus the number of folks who kind of come in and out of our system and system of care throughout the year. And so what you can see is our inflow in terms of people experiencing homelessness for the first very first time actually decreased from last year, um, which shows good progress in terms of upstream prevention, but also um uh rapid exit from our system, and we'll draw that that uh connection in the strategic initiative, even though our overall number of persons served increased slightly. And so this is the importance, right, of having a flexible you know set of options to be able to offer folks as they're engaging with our system so that we avoid long-term homelessness.
openpublica.com