• Durham has the highest percentage of youth who are unemployed (31%), rate of violent crime (6.6 incidents per 1,000), and youth poverty (30%) of any county in the Research Triangle Area.

• Durham has the region’s highest pregnancy rate (93.2 per 1,000 for all young women, 114.1 per 1,000 for black young women.

• Median weekly wages for individuals with an associate’s degree are almost twice that of wages for high school drop-outs ($149, versus $721/week).

• The drop-out rate for black students is over twice that of white students within Durham Public Schools. (Department of Public Instruction).

• The graduation rate for black male students in DPS is 30%; 63% for black females. (Department of Public Instruction)

Southwest Central Durham, the area over 80% our students have been residents of since our founding , is an area largely contiguous with Durham’s Census Tract 5. According to the 2000 Census, this area is challenged by a number of issues. The median household income of $21,144 is a little over half of the household median income for the city as a whole. The poverty rate is 38%, compared to 11.3% for the city of Durham; 19% of the households are female-headed with children.
The community suffers from deteriorating housing; its housing stock is among the oldest in the city, and many properties are now vacant. Forty percent of the houses were built prior to 1949, and 10% of the available housing lots stand vacant.
The population of 4,273 is 56% black, 28% white, with the remaining 16% percent representing a variety of other ethnic backgrounds. Historically, the population has been predominantly African-American, but recently the neighborhood has started to change, with a growing number of Latinos moving into the area. Almost 9% of the population is over 65 years of age; 18% is under 18 years of age.
Census data indicate that the residents of this community are in need of additional education and job training. Over 29% of the adult population does not have a high school diploma, and 12% do not have a ninth grade education. The unemployment rate is twice that of the Raleigh-Durham Metropolitan Statistical Area’s rate, and the community has one of the area’s lowest literacy rates.