Affordable Housing

This research was used by USA Today for an investigative series called ‘Segregated by Section 8.’ The series is available online here (subscriber-only). Housing Choice Vouchers are a subsidy that helps extremely low income individuals and families (defined by HUD as earning less than 30% of area median income) afford housing in the private market. […]

Mecklenburg County Community Support Services releases today the 2021 State of Housing Instability & Homelessness (SoHIH) Report. The SoHIH report is part of the annual Housing Instability & Homelessness Report series which is funded by Mecklenburg County Community Support Services and produced by the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute. The 2021 SoHIH provides a single, dedicated […]

With the number of people experiencing homelessness in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County rising dramatically in the past year, local governments, nonprofit organizations and businesses are gearing up to implement a new plan over the next few years. A major goal of the 2025 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing & Homelessness Strategy will be to ensure homelessness is rare, […]

Decades of housing policy, from redlining to legal segregation to “urban renewal,” have left Charlotte a deeply unequal city, contributing to a large racial wealth gap and vastly different rates of homeownership between residents of different races. On Aug. 24, UNC Charlotte Urban Institute researcher Angelique Gaines and assistant director Ely Portillo joined local experts […]

Buying a house in the Charlotte region has, in many ways, never been more challenging. Buyers face a dizzying array of obstacles: A historic supply crunch, skyrocketing prices and homes that sell faster and faster each month. The reasons are numerous. Housing supply never fully recovered after the 2008 economic crash and Great Recession drove […]

As Charlotte grows rapidly, concerns about gentrification and displacement have become key issues for city government to address. Tracking gentrification and displacement can be challenging, as this process of neighborhood change is slow and takes many forms across space and time. However, when analyzed with viable data sources, areas that are potentially vulnerable to gentrification […]

For decades, the single-family home rental market was a small-scale industry, made up almost entirely of local landlords who rented out a few houses they bought as investment properties, or perhaps inherited, or held on to after relocating. But the years since the Great Recession have witnessed a dramatic shift, as Wall Street-backed rental companies […]

In the months since opposition to Charlotte’s new 2040 Comprehensive Vision Plan started building, staff and City Council have held forums, rehashed the plan in committee meetings, responded to hundreds of public comments and started tinkering with how to modify rules about what can be built where. But the heart of the matter, and the […]

There’s been a noticeable shift in the debate about density in Charlotte’s 2040 Comprehensive Plan over recent weeks. What started as a classic confrontation of progressive planning concepts vs. NIMBY-inspired resistance, has now taken on a different tone, with competing viewpoints emerging about the role that density plays in issues such as equity, affordable housing, […]

Where you can afford to live influences much of the rest of your life: Access to schools, medical care, fresh groceries, air pollution levels and, ultimately, your chance to get ahead and climb the ladder of economic mobility. The Charlotte region continues to grapple with rising housing costs that contribute to segregation and inequality. That’s […]