WHQR • 1st July 2024

Driftwood Apartments reopen after three years, housing the Wilmington community's most in need

Driftwood Apartments, located on a quiet street off Princess Place Drive, were originally conceived as permanent supportive housing.The federal government program mandated affordability- capped at 30% of a resident’s income, regardless of what that income was - for 15 years. But at the end of that term, the previous owners kicked most of the tenants out and tried to sell the complex on the private market.

WHQR • 6th June 2024

One year after the Pulp Road wildfire, Green Swamp Preserve has bounced back even better

Standing in the verdant meadows of the preserve, it’s hard to imagine the scene as an inferno. Last year’s Pulp Road Fire shocked the Cape Fear Region: thousands of acres of nature preserve went up in flames, casting ominous smoke clouds over Carolina Beach and the surrounding communities.A year on, things are looking a lot brighter.

NPR • 5th June 2024

Volunteers pick blueberries from a research farm for local food banks

A blueberry research farm in North Carolina can only donate — not sell — its berries, so volunteers help out by picking them for local food banks.MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: In rural North Carolina, a research farm grows new blueberry varieties for gardeners and farmers alike. And the berries - well, they have to be harvested. Reporter Kelly Kenoyer from member station WHQR went along on a recent picking.

WHQR • 9th May 2024

How to: Building an accessory dwelling unit in Wilmington

An upcoming zoning ammendment will make it legal to build accessory dwelling units on nearly every residential property in Wilmington. They provide many benefits to the homeowner and the community: providing rental housing in established neighborhoods, adding income for homeowners, and maybe providing a home for a new neighbor who can check in on your garden or your pets when you’re out of town.

WHQR • 1st December 2023

Heirs' Property: How to lose a home in three generations

Dolly Rheddick-White has inherited portions of two houses in Wilmington — one from her parents on Nun Street — and one from her grandparents on 12th Street. Both couples passed away without wills, so their property was split among a host of different heirs. And both properties are currently vacant. Earlier this year, though, an investor began buying segments of her grandparents’ property from her relatives. All told, the investor got 75% ownership of the 12th Street house.

WHQR • 31st October 2023

Evictions have returned to pre-pandemic levels. But have tenants learned how to protect themselves?

According to data available from the North Carolina Judicial branch, landlords have filed nearly as many evictions in the last fiscal year as they did before the pandemic, in 2018 and 2019. There hasn’t been a post-covid bump, the way some advocates feared. But one statistic has gone up- appeals. New Hanover County saw double the number of eviction appeals in the past fiscal year as it did in the fiscal year before the pandemic. Statewide the numbers are even more dramatic.

WHQR • 24th October 2023

Dispatch: People living at MLK and Kerr homeless encampment face uncertainty after removal

I accessed the encampment by a dusty dirt road meant for maintaining power lines, just off Kerr Avenue. The open land under Duke’s powerlines is largely vacant, but the nearby wooded area hides a sprawling range of camps, dotting the woods. Previously, people had lived there with little harassment. But renewed interest in the camp came when foliage got trimmed back. Around the same time, a county ordinance effectively pushed many members of the downtown Wilmington homeless community off of the

WHQR • 29th June 2023

Firefighter gear is full of cancer-causing PFAS. What can be done about it?

Last year, scientists released a study showing that turnout gear — that's the clothing firefighters wear into burning buildings — is filled with PFAS. All three layers of the standard protective gear tested for high levels of the chemicals, linked to a host of cancers and other health issues. That study followed a 2020 scientific paper that showed similar results. Given that firefighters die of cancer more than anything else in the field, the news was heart-rending.

WHQR • 26th June 2023

Firefighters say a part of the state budget will expose them to cancer-causing chemicals

The majority of firefighters who die in the line of duty don’t die from fire — they die from cancer. For years, the assumption was that carcinogens from fire were the primary cause. But recent studies have found that PFAS — a category of cancer-causing and cancer-linked chemicals — are in their turnout gear and in the foam they use for certain severe fires.

WHQR • 22nd June 2023

Living Hope Day Center offers hope and respite for Wilmington-area unhoused

Wilmington is officially home to a new day shelter for the unhoused, located on Fourth and Market in downtown Wilmington. In the basement of the First Baptist Church, the first thing you see is a kitchen table full of people chatting away. The first thing you smell is freshly brewed coffee. “Endless cups of coffee. That's kind of our number one thing,” Tony Perez explained. He's the director of the Hope Living Day Center, and to him, the coffee is a symbol of the atmosphere he wants to foster.

WHQR • 12th June 2023

Chemours blew by its barrier wall deadline. NCDEQ remains silent

Chemours, the company best known regionally for polluting the Cape Fear River with PFAS, failed to complete a mandatory barrier wall before its May 31 deadline. Advocates say the company has now completed the wall about two weeks late. DEQ already extended Chemours’ deadline once, from March 15 to May 31. Despite getting several extra months, Chemours still completed the wall two weeks late.

NPR • 6th June 2023

Volunteers helped tally terrapin turtles for science

Scientists are relying more and more on non-scientists to help them gather data. That was the case recently on North Carolina's coast, where volunteers spent a day counting terrapin turtles. Scientists want to know more about a little turtle called a terrapin, so they've asked volunteers to help count them. Kelly Kenoyer with member station WHQR in Wilmington, N.C., went on a quest to spot these reclusive turtles.

WHQR • 22nd May 2023

Advocates say NC bill will hurt tenants, and could financially benefit its primary sponsor

A bill featuring a host of legislation supporting landlords looks likely to pass both chambers, but it's getting pushback from tenant advocates, who say it will hurt renters. House Bill 551 has four parts, three of which impact landlord-tenant relationships. The bill bans cities and counties from enacting source of income non-discrimination policies. That means no local governments could institute protections for those who use Section 8 funding or VASH vouchers, which provide housing for veter

WHQR • 5th April 2023

Luke Waddell's lonely crusade against Housing First policy

Last month, using about $2 million in federal funds to create 66 permanent supportive housing units for the chronically homeless. The plan was popular with city council members, save for one: Luke Waddell. I mean, Housing First sounds great,” he said at the initial March 7 hearing. “But it's antiquated, and I think the data shows in no uncertain terms, it doesn't work.” Waddell said he’s ideologically opposed to Housing First policy – but what is it?

WHQR • 13th March 2023

Rx fire: The prescribed burns that protect you from wildfire

There’s something really surreal about watching a fire right next to a suburb and a major road. Emergency vehicles with lights flashing through the smoke, and cars slowing down because of the reduced visibility. But this fire isn’t some accident. It was set intentionally, in harmony with the wind and weather to ensure it doesn’t get out of control.

WHQR • 6th February 2023

Dispatch: What I saw at Wilmington's warming shelter

It takes dozens of volunteers to run a warming shelter, starting with the set-up crew. They wrestle with cots and set out blankets on each, working to provide shelter for dozens of unhoused residents in Wilmington. Every winter, when temperatures drop below 32 degrees for two nights in a row, this massive volunteer operation activates, ready to serve those with nowhere else to go in freezing weather. There’s an army of helpers, but it’s really just a small number of mainstays who keep the shel

WHQR • 12th April 2022

A third of New Hanover County residents are housing burdened. We asked a data scientist to explain why

New Hanover County stands out from nearly all other counties in North Carolina for the percentage of households that are housing burdened — it’s 97th out of 100 in the state. WHQR’s Kelly Kenoyer brought Cape Fear Collective’s Director of Data Science Nick Pylypiw into the studio to learn more about the problem.

WHQR • 31st March 2022

Study: Existing policies fall short of achieving North Carolina's climate change goals

The state is set to miss its climate goals benchmarks in both 2025 and 2030 by significant margins, but advocates say it's not too late to create more policies to reduce emissions.

WHQR • 17th February 2022

North Carolina researchers have a new, tiny, and far more effective weapon to fight PFAS

There's a new sheriff in town to fight the emerging contaminants in the Cape Fear River. The newly developed technology — known as 'ionic fluorogel' — is years in the making, and aims to unseat existing technologies that are less effective. Granular Activated Carbon, or GAC, is the filter of choice for many water treatment plants, as it covers a wide spectrum of contaminants. But Frank Leibfarth, a chemist and researcher at UNC Chapel Hill, said it’s not perfect.

WHQR • 16th February 2022

What do riders think of WAVE's planned route changes?

Last week, the Wave Transit Board of Directors approved a proposal to change the existing bus network, and replace two routes with micro transit. Should the plans be finalized, the route changes would go into effect this summer. But Wave is still seeking feedback — and riders at Padgett Station downtown seemed pleased with some of the changes.