LOCAL REPORT SERIES TOPICS RELEASED FOR 2018
Three new reports covering affordable housing, housing instability and homelessness will comprise the 2018 Housing Instability & Homelessness Report Series. The 2018 reports topics are described below.
STATE OF HOUSING & HOMELESSNESS REPORT
The State of Housing & Homelessness Report replaces the Point-in-Time Count Report which focuses on a snapshot of homelessness. This new, broader report will look at the overall State of Housing & Homelessness in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. It will provide information on progress in the work to end and prevent homelessness as well as the work to increase affordable housing.
HOUSING & HOMELESSNESS ECOSYSTEM MAP
The Housing & Homelessness Ecosystem Map will provide an overall landscape of the major providers, funders and other related components within housing and homelessness in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The final product will be interactive and located online within the Dashboard site.
CHILD & YOUTH HOMELESSNESS IN CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG
The Child & Youth Homelessness in Charlotte-Mecklenburg data story will describe child and youth homelessness and the systems with which they interact in our community. The report will analyze and integrate data from the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) data, Department of Social Services (DSS) data and other relevant sources.
SO, WHAT?
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Instability & Homelessness Report Series is designed to better equip our community to make data-informed decisions around housing instability and homelessness. Utilizing local data and research, these reports are designed to provide informative and actionable research to providers, funders, public officials and the media as well as the general population.
In 2015, the report series helped define “housing instability” and “affordable housing” and shared different ways to determine whether housing is “affordable.”
In 2016, the report series outlined 12 affordable housing strategies for affordable housing development, which has since been included in local recommendations and plans. It has also been referenced in planning documents within other communities. This series also provided a new look at family homelessness locally by including integrated data from the homeless services and school systems.
In 2017, the report series examined evictions in the community through three briefs. The first brief, released in September 2017, provided an overview of the impact of evictions, the eviction process in Mecklenburg County and county level data. The second two briefs will be released in early 2018 and will cover the geospatial distribution of evictions in Mecklenburg County and a one-month in-depth snapshot of eviction court records in Mecklenburg County. This is the first time that data has been mapped in Charlotte-Mecklenburg.
The report series was initiated by the Housing Advisory Board of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The reports are completed by the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute. Mecklenburg County Community Support Services provides funding for the report series.
Ashley Williams Clark is the Director of Outreach & Strategic Partnerships at the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute. The Director of Outreach & Strategic Partnerships is a new position created to help the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute strengthen its visibility and impact throughout the Charlotte region through the building of collaborative partnerships to address important regional issues.
Courtney Morton coordinates community posts on the Building Bridges Blog. Courtney is the Housing & Homelessness Research Coordinator for Mecklenburg County Community Support Services. Courtney’s job is to connect data on housing instability, homelessness and affordable housing with stakeholders in the community so that they can use it to drive policy-making, funding allocation and programmatic change.
