Charlotte families facing homelessness don’t need gestures. They need housing | Opinion

At a recent meeting, Charlotte City Council declared November Homelessness Awareness Month in the city and Mecklenburg County. A proclamation was entered into the record acknowledging the “plight, hope and achievements of our homeless neighbors.” A certificate was duly presented to designated representatives of two non-profits. We all clapped.

Later in that meeting, Alicia Harvey and Shenise Williams came to the dais to plead with council members. They were paying rent to live with their children at the Lamplighter Inn under deplorable conditions: pest infestations, frequent loss of heat and power, no hot water. Due to code violations, they’d been informed they would be evicted Dec. 11. They were worried they’d be left homeless.

The mothers brought their children and neighbors to the meeting. They spoke with tremendous self-control, though their voices broke with emotion at times. “Please, we are human beings. We are people who work hard. We are people whose children go to school. We are very intelligent individuals. We are talented and unique people who have formed community and are doing the best we can.”

It turns out they weren’t evicted Dec. 11. Their key cards stopped working Nov. 29. The city worked with organizations to find them new housing. Now, they are scattered across the city in different temporary housing. But they aren’t on the streets. For now.

All around Charlotte, people are packing boxes with Dollar-Tree trinkets to ship to children on the other side of the world. People are giving generously to groups providing bikes and toys. At this time of year, no one likes to think of a child without a present on Christmas.

But no one likes to think of a child without a place to live at all. So we don’t.

Two years ago, the congregation I serve was forced to evict a family who had been living safely on our campus for more than nine years. Though the space meets city code, but it does not meet county code because it is not equipped with automatic sprinklers. In a city and county experiencing an affordable housing crisis, this unit had to be closed immediately.

A church like mine could give one of the Lamplighter Inn families transitional housing with dignity and stability, not to mention heat and hot water. But the authorities won’t let us. We can house 12 different people one night at a time but not one family for an extended period of time.

I am so grateful that the council found a way to keep the Lamplighter families off the street. But I grieve that they are still stuck in the same cycle, starting all over again in different temporary living arrangements with no idea how long this placement will last. They need permanent affordable stable housing where they and their children can put down roots and maintain community.

As the alarm signaling the end of her time went off, Ms. Williams’ speech trailed off “All around town . . . they’re building all these nice places.” She wasn’t given time to finish her sentence, but we know the ending. New housing is going up all around Charlotte, but none of it is accessible to the hard working parents struggling to keep their children safe and housed at places like the Lamplighter Inn.

Permanent housing doesn’t have to mean brand new builds. The council can facilitate creative solutions and create stability for families by repurposing the structures we already have. We just need the political will to do it.

The Lamplighter Inn families, like so many others, deserve more than a proclamation, more than words of affirmation from the dais, more than compassion from our county and city leaders. They need city and county leaders who are proactive, not reactive.

In 2021, the council estimated we are short 32,000 units of affordable housing. Currently, the plan seems to be to build our way out of this crisis, shuffling families from crumbling motel to crumbling motel until we do. This is unacceptable. We need to review and revise our city and county building use codes so that families can live in safety, stability and dignity in the buildings we already have until we build all the housing we need.