1. Home
  2. Issues
  3. Articles about Housing and Homelessness

Articles about Housing and Homelessness

[title_1]
Residents wait to see if they can stay in fast-changing South End
   June 4, 2020
Mae Israel
Debbie Williams grew up in Charlotte’s Brookhill Village, a neighborhood of one-story duplex and triplex apartments built for black families in the 1950s. She has watched while its owners let the buildings deteriorate as luxury apartments began rising nearby.  Two decades ago, she moved away. But her mother and sister remained in the low-rent housing community, home to several generations of... Read more
[title_1]
COVID-19 exposes the impact of the racial wealth gap
   May 6, 2020
Lori Thomas
James E. Ford
In the United States, White households have 10 times the wealth of Black households and 7 times the wealth of Latinx households.This has not occurred by mere happenstance. Wealth is built through a combination of pathways, each with its own history of policy and practice.  The consequences enhance or hinder asset building across racial and ethnic groups. The systemic patterns of racial... Read more
[title_1]
The impact of the racial wealth gap in Charlotte-Mecklenburg
   May 4, 2020
Lori Thomas
James E. Ford

This is the first in a series, based on a report by the Urban Institute. Read Part 2 here. The report was compiled with support from Bank of America, ​which partners with the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute and the Institute for Social Capital on...

Read more
[title_1]
As Mecklenburg shelters in place, crowded housing conditions vary widely
   March 24, 2020
Ely Portillo, Katie Zager
Mecklenburg County residents are directed to stay at home through a new proclamation Tuesday, in order to limit their social contacts and slow the spread of coronavirus. But some residents could find that harder to do: The rate of crowded housing varies widely across the city of Charlotte and the rest of the county. Read more
[title_1]
Our homeless neighbors are especially vulnerable to the coronavirus
   March 23, 2020
Lori Thomas
If there has ever been an object lesson on why housing matters and why we must prioritize providing it for people who don’t have a place to live, this latest crisis should teach us. Charlotte’s homeless population is at particular risk as we collectively adjust to COVID-19.  Work to end homelessness takes on new urgency in a pandemic, for reasons of both personal and community safety. The... Read more
[title_1]
Three ways to address affordable housing beyond subsidies
   March 12, 2020
Ely Portillo

Charlotte is in the midst of a major affordable housing crunch, and though the city has substantially increased its subsidies for building leaders acknowledge there’s no way to fund the tens of thousands of units we’d need to meet demand. 

Read more
[title_1]
Opinion: Let’s steer clear of the “D-word” when it comes to housing
   March 11, 2020

Post-war zoning effectively made America’s historic neighborhoods illegal. No longer could you live above the store. No longer could you build a duplex, triplex, or quadraplex  amidst single-family houses. Now, most new housing was a homogenous spread of nothing but single-family bungalows. Apartments were all lumped together and quarantined off in a different part of the city. But stroll... Read more
[title_1]
Can we build our way out of the housing affordability crisis?
   February 24, 2020
Ely Portillo
There’s a growing consensus that if we want to get out of the housing affordability mess we’re in, we need to hear a lot more swinging hammers. Policymakers, developers and housing advocates are all talking about the need to build more, and more of everything: single-family houses, duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, townhouses and apartments. It’s fast become the conventional wisdom that we need... Read more
[title_1]
Single-family construction once dominated Mecklenburg, but that’s changed
   December 4, 2019

Nathan Griffin
After the 2008 recession, apartments came to dominate housing construction in Charlotte, reversing longstanding trends and outpacing the number of single-family buildings. What factors led to this, and will this furious pace of construction be sustainable? Read more
[title_1]
Small towns and rural communities seek to boost affordable housing
   November 15, 2019
Mae Israel
Although housing affordability is often thought of as an issue in big cities, rural and suburban communities alike are struggling with the affordable housing crisis. And, like Charlotte, smaller communities are trying to figure out how to deal with the ballooning problem with limited resources. Regardless of where people are choosing to live, salaries aren’t keeping up with rapidly increasing... Read more