‘It’s just so expensive to live up here.’ Homeless count records barriers to housing
Hope Lawrence’s tent was tucked under Interstate 277, where the 19-year-old had been about five months after an unsuccessful housing search.
She’d been homeless as a child, spent time in foster care and arrived in Charlotte from Tennessee, she told volunteers with the annual homeless “point-in-time count” when they met her just after 6 a.m. Thursday.
“It’s expensive. It’s just so expensive to live up here,” she said over the rumble of uptown’s early morning commuters above.
Teams of people from local government, homeless services, police officers and other volunteers fanned out across Mecklenburg County to interview people without permanent housing about their circumstances and offer outdoor essentials like sleeping bags, tarps, toiletries and breakfast.
They searched along streets, in encampments and under bridges. Others took tallies in the area’s emergency shelters, where a majority of the county’s homeless population sleeps each night.
The count is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for communities that receive certain funding for homeless programs and services.
Getting an accurate picture of the county’s homeless population is essential for funding allocations that meet the need, said Courtney LaCaria, housing and homelessness research coordinator for Mecklenburg County. Recent county data shows nearly 3,600 people are homeless, including 277 households with children.
“There is this misconception that everyone who is homeless looks the same,” LaCaria told a group of volunteers during a recent training before the count.
Monthly income last year: $1,000
The average monthly income for people surveyed last year was $1,000, LaCaria said. It’s not enough to afford most housing in a city where the average apartment rents for about $1,200, according to apartment-tracking firm Real Data. About 50 people in last year’s count had a housing voucher but had not found landlord to accept it, she said.
Lawrence had looked at apartments in Charlotte but found nothing she could afford with the pay from her catering job.
“They don’t understand how hard it is,” she said. “We need better jobs, more affordable housing. There are people who want to work, too.”
Mecklenburg County Commissioner Pat Cotham, who has participated in the count since 2013, said she’s seen changes over the years. There seem to be more women on the street now and more people who report working part- or full-time, she said.
“It’s hard to go to work and then come back to this,” she recalled one man telling her about living in a camp.
High rents and criminal records are among the most common barriers to housing, said Akeem McDuffie, a housing case manager at the Urban Ministry Center who led a team to interview people near the Music Factory.
Despite the litany of challenges he told his team to find moments of hope, like the man who told them had marked 30 days of sobriety on Thursday and secured housing.
“That’s one of the things I love about the point-in-time count,” McDuffie said. “It allows you to see the grittiness, but it also allows you to rejoice in the victories that people are having.”
This work was made possible in part by grant funding from Report for America/GroundTruth Project and the Foundation For The Carolinas.
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