RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Seating was at a premium Thursday evening inside the Roberts Community Center in Southeast Raleigh.

People waited to share and listen what’s happening in their community.

“As far as our district right now, a lot of the things that we are dealing with right now is housing, housing housing” said Corey Branch, District C Council Member and Mayor Pro Tem. “We are trying to figure out where we can build affordable housing.”

The Southeast Raleigh Citizens Advisory Council held the meeting to connect and keep residents in the loop of what’s going on in city government.

The Southeast CAC is one of eight CAC’s representing different areas of Raleigh. 

It’s back up and running after being disbanded by Raleigh City Council in 2020.

Crime was also a focus Thursday evening.

“We’ve had a lot of residents that have been getting shot in the first quarter 16 residents that got shot and all of those have been gang related,” said Captain Bobby Latour with Raleigh police.

Despite staffing issues, Latour said a team of six officers, called the SET team, is working to weed out guns and drugs out of this community.

“I’m not using this as a crutch. We are short staffed. Lots of businesses are short staffed,” he stated. “We are talking about officers in the first quarter answered 16,000 calls for service.”