Emerging ONE Wake Action Supporting St. Augustine University (SAU)
ONE Wake is joining with other organizing groups, the Raleigh City Council, SAU alums, and others to provide support to SAU as they continue to face financial burdens that threaten their future. In August Gothic Ventures made a predatory loan to SAU that, with a 26% interest rate and a $2 million prepayment penalty, SAU is likely to default on. This will cause the university to forfeit their property and force them to close.
The Raleigh City Council is prepared to work with SAU to lease or purchase unused university land to build affordable rental housing with the revenue stream going to SAU. Self-Help Credit Union has agreed to buy the loan from Gothic Ventures if Gothic Ventures will waive the penalty. At this point Gothic Ventures has refused to negotiate. The above mentioned groups are proposing to put public pressure on Gothic Ventures because they believe that they will be susceptible to public pressure.
An action is being planned for noon on 11/20 or 11/22. This will be a press conference with the intention to make the public aware of this situation and put pressure on Gothic Ventures to negotiate. As soon as we know more we will make that information know.
On Thursday night 11/7/24, 42 ONE Wake clergy and core team leaders convened to discuss the situation. The consensus from the discussion was that:
– supporting SAU is important and consistent with our ongoing work to prevent the displacement of long time residents and the loss of Black land and wealth in Southeast Raleigh;
– partnering with Self-Help and the SAU Alumni Association opens the door to potential future win/win opportunities to build affordable housing on unused campus land;
– ONE Wake could also measure success in this particular effort by our ability to be relevant to the interests of our institutional members, in particular, our Black-led institutions that are connected to SAU, and our ability to respond quickly to an emerging situation.
Judy Keyes (919-622-0582) or Chris Olson (904-742-4396) for more information.
