County income gap grows

A growing wealth disparity in Orange County has some local officials calling for action.

Despite having the highest per capita income in the state, the number of families in need continues to increase in Orange County, according to Tuesday’s State of the Community Report from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce.

“While we have the highest per capita income, we also have real poverty in our county,” said Aaron Nelson, president and CEO of the chamber.

The annual report tracks progress in Chapel Hill and Carrboro based on several different indicators — including social, economic and environmental factors.

From 2009 to 2012, the number of Orange County families receiving food stamps has risen to 6,304, according to the report.

The number of Orange County Schools students receiving free and reduced lunches has also increased from about 33 percent to almost 40 percent since the 2006-07 school year.

Chris Moran, executive director of the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service, said he’s concerned about a lack of action to reduce poverty in the county.

In the 2011-12 fiscal year, IFC served about 80,000 meals to the homeless.

Lee Scurlock has been homeless for two years and uses IFC’s services.

“I lost my job, lost everything,” he said.

Moran said he thinks the community isn’t doing enough.

“The only way to deal with it is to raise taxes to have the rich pay their share,” he said.

And budget cuts have forced local social service agencies to make tough decisions.

Jamie Rohe, Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness coordinator, said her organization has had to cut staff in order to deal with a tighter budget.

Despite these cuts, Moran said they are helping out as best they can.

“We deal with this every day. We have a great staff,” he said. “We do the very best we can with the resources we have.”

Moran said many people become homeless after losing their jobs — and many stay that way because of an inability to find work in the area.

The Orange County unemployment rate was 7.1 percent in July — the third lowest in the state, according to data from the N.C. Department of Commerce.

Still, Moran said unemployment is especially problematic for homeless people who wish to apply for affordable housing, which requires them to have jobs.

Nelson said more jobs in the area would help fix the wealth disparity.

“Dramatically more people are working at this time than were working at this time last year,” he said. “We have work to do to make sure people in our community have work opportunity.”

Contact the desk editor at city@dailytarheel.com.