Charlotte’s big names align to address city’s biggest problem: Too many have nowhere to live
Charlotte’s housing crisis is a lot of things: complicated, nuanced, often heartbreaking.
But impossible? No, says a team of the area’s leaders creating a five-year strategic plan for homelessness and housing instability.
On Thursday leaders across housing, health care, government and business fields announced a plan to create the 2025 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing and Homelessness Strategy. It will include recommendations for local funding priorities, policy changes, improved data collection and communication around housing issues.
Leading the effort are Atrium Health CEO Gene Woods and Cathy Bessant, chief operations and technology officer for Bank of America.
“There aren’t simple solutions and no silver bullets have been found,” Bessant said of reducing homelessness. “It takes the very best thinkers. It takes diverse perspectives. And so, this feels like the right group to tackle this important issue.”
The group writing the plan include representatives from housing and shelter organizations, major employers including several banks, city and county government, and health care companies.
Crucially, leaders say, the effort also involves grassroots organizations in direct contact with those who are homeless and people who have been homeless themselves.
Other participants include representatives from Novant Health, Wells Fargo, Roof Above, Salvation Army Center of Hope, Block Love Charlotte, Inlivian, UNC Charlotte, and Charlotte Center City Partners.
The plan will outline strategies for preventing homelessness, increasing the supply of affordable housing, improving temporary shelter and transitional housing, and integrating supports that keep people housed, like access to mental health and substance use treatment, child care and employment.
While public and private entities have invested significantly in affordable housing and homelessness in recent years, those in charge of writing the strategic plan said it hasn’t been in a coordinated manner.
“Our goal is to be a national model for how a community comes together with businesses, government (and) health systems to really make sure that everyone who needs shelter has shelter,” Woods said.
That includes underlying issues that make housing a challenge, he said, such as unmet physical and mental health needs and lack of employment opportunities.
Major investments in housing
Some 3,300 people in Mecklenburg are homeless, according to county data, including those in shelters and unsheltered environments. That figure doesn’t include those living in hotels, “doubled up” with family or friends or other unstable situations.
The group expects to finish the plan by October. Policy recommendations will then go to city council and county commissioners for adoption.
“It won’t be just a study on a shelf,” County Manager Dena Diorio said. “It’s going to have a concrete blueprint that’s going to help us implement the strategies that we come up with so that we can really have a sustainable system here in Charlotte-Mecklenburg.”
Pam Wideman, Charlotte’s director of housing and neighborhood services, said the plan will build on existing strategies, including the city’s Housing Trust Fund and home ownership programs.
Atrium and Bank of America have made previous investments for affordable housing in Charlotte. Both organizations have donated to the Charlotte Housing Opportunity Investment Fund, a private fund that helps finance affordable housing developments.
Atrium also recently loaned $5 million for Roof Above’s purchase of an east Charlotte apartment complex, which will include permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless individuals and units set aside for employees of the health system.
This story was originally published April 22, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
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