Today, with homelessness in Mecklenburg County rising and housing affordability threatening to push more families into impossible choices and greater instability, our community has access to extensive data and research because of a vision and partnership born over a decade ago. It’s easy to take for granted that it wasn’t too long ago that getting accurate, consistent information on homelessness and housing instability was challenging in Charlotte-Mecklenburg.
This article reflects on the enduring partnership between the Charlotte Urban Institute and Mecklenburg County Community Support Services, which together, recently marked 10 years of advancing data-driven efforts to address housing instability and homelessness. As the formal project partnership comes to a close, this milestone offers an opportunity to look back on the impact of our shared work, the foundation it leaves for future progress, and the questions we must continue to ask ourselves to ensure data translates into action in people’s lives.

As of September 30, 2025, 138 Veterans were experiencing homelessness in Mecklenburg County. Of these, 37 are chronically homeless, meaning they live with a disabling condition and have experienced homelessness continuously for at least one year, or four or more times over the past three years. Ending Veteran homelessness requires ongoing coordination among multiple partners — including the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Mecklenburg County, and a network of dedicated nonprofit organizations. Together, these agencies form a critical safety net that ensures Veterans are connected to the housing and services they’ve earned through their service.

This blog post provides an overview of Veteran homelessness in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, recent data trends from the One Number update, and examples of how community collaboration is driving measurable progress toward ending homelessness among Veterans.

This blog summarizes key findings from the study, explains the concept of residual income cost-burden, and explores what the findings suggest about housing affordability challenges in Mecklenburg County.

Since its inception in 2019 , the “One Number” has served as the primary benchmark for the number of people experiencing homelessness in Charlotte-Mecklenburg.

The One Number is the best snapshot available for the number of people actively experiencing homelessness in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. It provides the most accurate minimum number of people experiencing homeless and provides insights into the minimum number of housing units and subsidies needed today to address their homelessness. These data also provide timely insights into the number of people flowing into and out of the homeless services system.

The Housing Data Snapshot, the hub for the latest data related to housing and homelessness in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, not only provides an overall count and demographics of homelessness by household type and subpopulation, it also highlights inflow to (Newly identified, Returns from Permanent Housing, Returns for Inactivity) and outflow from (Exit to Permanent Housing, Exit to Inactivity), homelessness.

This week’s blog post provides the most recent One Number update; the latest One Number trends and analysis; and what this means for Charlotte-Mecklenburg.