Partnership brings more internet access to Grier Heights, where many homes lack it
Free internet is coming to a couple of neighborhoods in Grier Heights in September as access increasingly becomes a necessity during the pandemic.
Open Broadband, a private Charlotte-based internet service provider, is working with Crossroads Corporation, a nonprofit that serves the Grier Heights community, to bring free internet to two apartment communities in the area, as well as upgrade the community center’s Wi-Fi connection.
Many Grier Heights residents, including students, rely on the center’s Wi-Fi to complete necessary tasks, such as going to class and filling out resumes.
“Just because you have a lower income, it doesn’t mean you’re exempt from online education or other needs,” Open Broadband CEO Alan Fitzpatrick said after announcing the expansion last week. “You still need the same access. And it’s great to have Wi-Fi in public spaces, but the ultimate goal is to get broadband at peoples’ homes.”
Open Broadband prides itself on focusing on underserved areas, according to Fitzpatrick, so when Crossroads approached the company a year ago about increasing internet access in the community, the decision to partner made sense, he said.
More than 45,000 households in Charlotte are without a subscription to broadband internet. Across North Carolina, about 20% of homes have no internet subscription, but that number is more than doubled in Grier Heights, where the majority of residents are people of color who live in poverty.
Research shows that people of color are less likely to have internet access than their white counterparts. Majority black neighborhoods in the city’s “crescent,” an arc surrounding the area north of uptown, are the ones with the highest rates of no internet subscription, while families in the city’s “wedge,” which includes neighborhoods like Sedgefield and Myers Park, where many white families reside, generally have internet subscriptions.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools started classes from home in August, and though schools across the state have distributed devices such as laptops, iPads and cellular service devices, many students still fall through the cracks. Though the infrastructure exists to support everyone who needs internet, unlike rural areas of the state, it’s too costly for some.
The partners landed on Grier Park Apartments and Grierton Square Townhomes because of the density of children and families living there.
A $50,000 grant from the Longleaf Fund is paying for the project, and the city of Charlotte has allocated another $75,000 to expand to more Grier Heights homes in the coming months, part of the city’s ongoing effort to expand Wi-Fi throughout Charlotte.
Though the community center is a priority and its upgrade will be completed by the end of September, Fitzpatrick said the apartments and townhomes will have free Wi-Fi by November. And he expects more to follow in the coming months.
“The fact that kids are having their classes online has really put a deadline and sense of urgency to everything,” he said. “When the pandemic is going on and people are forced to work from home, you have to have broadband. If you don’t have it, you’re going to fall behind, and we can’t let people in lower income areas suffer.”
Tiffany Capers, executive director of Crossroads, said the organization was aware of digital exclusion before the pandemic — it’s just shined a light on already-existing disparities in the community. She estimates about 1,200 Grier Heights residents will be initially impacted by this project.
“I hope that residents now experience some equity,” she said. “We can’t expect children to finish at the same place if they’re not starting at the same place.”
This story was originally published August 31, 2020 at 1:55 PM.
