Articles

by Ellissa Brooks Nelson, Ph.D., and Sydney Idzikowski

[Note: This article is an update to a story on the Student Emergency Fund published in March 2025.]

An unexpected expense can disrupt a student’s ability to stay enrolled in school. At UNC Charlotte, a partnership between the Division of Student Affairs and the Charlotte Regional Data Trust helps campus leaders better understand the needs of students seeking emergency financial assistance, and use that knowledge to inform more coordi[…].

by Bianca Bagley and Asha Ellison

Home is more than a place on a map. It is the roads we travel, the neighborhoods we know, the farms and forests beyond our cities, and the small towns and growing communities that give this region its character. As the Charlotte region continues to grow and change, an important question remains: Is life actually getting better for the people who call it home?

On Oct. 7, 2026, the Charlotte Urban Institute brought that question to the forefront at its inaugural State of Our Region, held at The Dubois Center at UNC Charlotte Center City. The gathering brought together researchers, community leaders, regional stakeholders and residents to consider what publicly available data and residents’ own experiences reveal about quality of life across the 14-county region.

by Nikki Ferguson and Jenny Hutchison, Ph.D.

Access to affordable food is important to reduce food insecurity and maintain healthy communities. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP or food stamps, helps to reduce food insecurity by providing benefits for low-income families (see “Closing the (SNAP) Gap” for more information about food insecurity and SNAP). In 2025, SNAP saw significant changes as a result of the passing of H.R.1, otherwise known as “the One Big Beautiful Bill.”

by Evan Wright, Ardrey Kell High School

I have always been interested in medicine and plan to pursue a career in the medical field. That interest grew through my participation in Science Olympiad, where I competed in the Disease Detectives event. Being tested on epidemiology and pathology gave me my first real look at how population-level patterns shape human health. However, as I looked at the broader medical landscape, a statistic made me pause: only about 5–6% of physicians in the United States are Black. That disparity made me question: what can I do right now, as a high schooler, to support and educate my community, rather than waiting until medical school to begin contributing?

by Sydney Idzikowski

We are excited to release the third annual State of Our Data report! The report provides the Charlotte Regional Data Trust Board of Directors, as well as our communities, partners and stakeholders with an annual update and summary of our community data ecosystem. The report helps to tell the story of the Data Trust by documenting the data we hold in trust, who is represented in the data, how people are linked across the organizations that serve them and how the data has been used for impact.

by Asha Ellison

Housing affordability involves much more than the price someone pays for a roof over their head. Discussions about the price of housing and associated costs are just the beginning of the conversation.

This summer, in collaboration with the City of Charlotte, the Charlotte Urban Institute began a series called “Affordable housing in Charlotte,” exploring the city’s Housing Trust Fund, or HTF, and what its investments mean for the people and communities they serve. The HTF uses voter-approved housing bonds to help create and preserve affordable housing by supporting the construction of new units and the conversion of existing housing into affordable uni[…]

by Haley Cooper

Charlotte’s nonprofit professionals can see change unfolding in the communities in which they work. However, not all nonprofits feel confident they can measure these changes – or that they have the right systems in place to even try.

At the Impact, Data and Evaluation Academy, we recognize that nonprofits may have questions abou[…]

by Sydney Idzikowski

In 2025, there were 397,572 unique people represented in the Charlotte Regional Data Trust data, about 33% of Mecklenburg County’s population.

If that number reflected the population of a city, it would be the THIRD LARGEST in North Carolina. Curious about the characteristics of those individuals? Let’s take a closer look at what the data show, together.

by Charlotte Urban Institute
The UNC Charlotte Urban Institute seeks the eighth cohort of faculty fellows to research issues related to economic mobility and quality of life arenas in the Charlotte region, with support from The Gambrell Foundation […]

by Asha Ellison, Angelique Gaines, Jenny Hutchison and Eric Moore

Affordable housing is about more than having a place to live. For residents, housing stability can affect whether they are able to remain in their homes and communities, while access to additional supports can help address challenges that extend beyond the cost of rent. For Charlotte, these considerations are particularly important as the City continues to invest public dollars in affordable housing through its Housing Trust Fund, or HTF.

The first article in the “Affordable housing in Charlotte” series explored Charlotte’s growing housing affordability challenges, the role of the HTF and why long-term investment in affordable housing matters. It also introduced the broader research project, explored through the second article, which begins to examine several dimensions of the HTF, including its relationship to neighborhood stability and the types of supports available to affordable housing residents. This, the third article in the series, focuses on two questions: How is housing stability changing in neighborhoods with Housing Trust Fund-financed properties, and what does research tell us about supports beyond rental assistance that can help affordable housing resi[…]

by Sydney Idzikowski

The Charlotte Regional Data Trust is an integrated data system where people can make requests of its data for research, evaluation or planning purposes. The Data Trust holds data that represent the Institute’s quality of life domains such as housing and homelessness, education, and safety and justice. Learn more about the projects and requests people have submitted for Data Trust data so far in […]

by Mia Gaddy, Mecca Howe and Kadae Phimia

In January, the Charlotte Urban Institute completed the second phase of a multi-year study to understand the impact of federal administrative changes on Charlotte-area nonprofits. Phase two of the study included both a survey that was distributed to local nonprofit leaders and facilitated focus groups. Data from the January 2026 survey was then compared to data from the first phase of the study, conducted in July 2025. These are the resu[…]