EVALUATE UPSTREAM:

Action NC’s mission is to confront and reduce the root causes of poverty, underdevelopment, and social and economic inequality through grassroots education, training, organization and mobilization. The organization educates and organizes poor and “working-income” communities for self-advocacy; works for fair lending, quality and affordable rental housing, and the enforcement of tenants’ rights; and protects against homeowner foreclosure.

The Tenant Organizing Resource Center (TORC) is a volunteer-staffed, tenant-led project of Action NC that provides tenants’ resources and know-your-rights workshops and training to increase community involvement, community building and power. Goals include:

• Organizing tenant associations to fight gentrification and the cycle of displacement
• Influencing policy relative to housing policy and laws
• Promoting higher living standards, greater housing conditions and better interactions with management
• Providing leadership development workshops based on specific community needs including equitable housing, tenant rights, conflict resolution and varied housing resources
• Fostering meaningful relationships with tenants and management, including having repairs completed and ensuring notification of completed repairs

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Ada Jenkins Center provides an array of services to assist low-income residents of Davidson, Huntersville and Cornelius achieve economic stability and mobility. Access to services is structured in two pathways, based on the needs and preferences of each family:

• Access Pathway – Allows limited assistance (one year only) to financial support for medical, dental, workforce development, economic support (including crisis support for rent and utilities payments) or youth education
• Investment Pathway – Designed for a household seeking assistance with economic mobility, the primary goal of the Pathway option is increasing income for sustained financial stability. Whole families work with a social worker for the period of enrollment on budgeting and sustaining long-term financial goals.

The Hope to Home program – a new collaboration between Ada Jenkins Center, Habitat for Humanity and The Hope House Foundation – was inspired by their collective need of these three organizations to strengthen services and create solutions to address housing instability. The program includes three types of housing placement – transitional, progressive and permanent. Each provides different levels of support that allows families to create their own pathway to housing stability.

The Hope to Home initiative is an evidence-based residential, holistic program that centers the whole family system. The model incorporates well-organized, integrated services that are key to economic mobility: safe and affordable housing, education, career development, health, financial literacy, family and child stability, and building connections (social capital). Families may live in “teaching homes” for up to two years as they learn how to successfully become homeowners or long-term stable renters.

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• Hope House Foundation
• Charlotte Area Fund
• Canopy Housing Foundation

The Canopy Housing Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the Charlotte Regional Realtors Association. Through its grantmaking program, the foundation works to address unmet housing needs and advocate for fair and affordable housing standards and practices.

In addition to its dedicated Habitat Support Program that supports nine regional Habitat for Humanities, Canopy manages a broadly defined Community Grants Program to address additional unmet needs for housing expansion, improvement, stabilization and sustainability across the community. The foundation actively engages its association of Realtors in fundraising events and volunteerism to broaden its awareness of and relationships with grassroots nonprofits in the region.

Funding for Prevention Work:

Homelessness Prevention Partner Organizations:

• Ada Jenkins Center
• Habitat for Humanity Charlotte Region
• The Relatives
• Davidson Housing Coalition
• Matthews HELP Center

Carolinas CARE Partnership (CCP) works to foster a regional approach to preventing the spread of AIDS and meeting the needs of individuals and families affected by HIV/AIDS.

The Regional Housing Partnership LLC (RHP) provides tenant-based rental assistance through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funding. Eligibility for housing vouchers is based on qualifying and income guidelines. Supportive services are provided to assist clients who may have a diminished credit history and/or criminal history. CCP and RHP partner in ensuring that housing is available for individuals affected by HIV/AIDS.

As the project sponsor for HUD programs for Housing Opportunities for Persons with HIV/AIDS (HOPWA) program, CCP provides funding to agencies for numerous services and programs designed to meet the housing needs of low-income people and families living with HIV that include the following:

• Short-term rent, mortgage and utilities assistance to keep people affected by HIV/AIDS from becoming homeless. This program provides 21 weeks of assistance under the regular HOPWA stream without a dollar cap. Recipients of this funding must have a housing plan and a plan for not having a recurrence of the need for crisis financial assistance (e.g., an unexpected car repair expense).
• RHP provides tenant-based rental assistance, some of which is funded through HOPWA. It includes permanent supportive housing with no time limit on funding.

CCP manages 85 Housing Choice vouchers – and a long waiting list – for HIV-positive clients and their families. Half of the vouchers are for people who have been unstably housed, the other half for chronically homeless.

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• Affinity Health Center – Short-term rent, utility and mortgage assistance and housing information services
• Rosedale Assistance and Opportunities – Security deposits; short-term rent, utility and mortgage assistance; and housing information services.

Charlotte Area Fund (CAF) is a private, non-profit corporation and Mecklenburg County’s designated community action agency (CAA). CAF’s mission is to combat poverty by assisting low-income individuals and families with becoming self-sufficient. It is one of more than 1,000 member organizations of the national Community Action Partnership funded by the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG), a federal program that allocates funding to states to connect Americans to greater opportunity. CAF provides a variety of programs and services to assist clients with job training, employment, housing, emergency assistance and other family sustaining services.

• Temporary Financial Assistance: CAF provides crisis financial assistance to individuals and families earning 125% of the federal poverty level. Recipients of assistance must be able to demonstrate the ability to sustain their financial situation beyond CAF’s assistance.
• Self-Sufficiency Project: Participants in CAF’s Self-Sufficiency Project are assigned a Case Manager for up to two years and receive comprehensive services including job skills and work readiness training, support services, budgeting and financial literacy education, and referral assistance for additional needed services.

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Homelessness Prevention Partner Organizations:

• Ada Jenkins Center
• Heal Charlotte
• Common Wealth Charlotte
• Crisis Assistance Ministry
• Good Fellows
• Good Friends

Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy (CCLA) provides a wide range of free legal assistance to low-income residents of Mecklenburg County and beyond. Categories of services include immigration support, consumer protection, domestic violence protection, ex-offender re-entry, healthcare access, income security and home preservation.

CCLA provides legal assistance related to housing and financial stability. Its case work includes the following categories of home preservation:

• Homeowner protection
• Foreclosure defense
• Home financing and mortgage service disputes
• Homeowner association and tax foreclosures
• Reverse mortgage issues
• Heir and widow foreclosures
• Chapter 7 and 13 bankruptcy to preserve home ownership and home equity
• Unfair and deceptive installment sales contracts/seller-financed home purchases
• Expunctions
• Evictions

CCLA’s policy advocacy in support of housing preservation and homelessness prevention includes the following:

Protect Affordable Housing and Eliminate Housing Displacement

• Work with the Mecklenburg County Tax Assessor’s Office to explore and support opportunities that provide property tax relief and prevent property tax foreclosures
• Support state legislative efforts to expand the Homestead Act to prevent tax foreclosures
• Bolster and strengthen consumer protections in the N.C. Planned Community Act to protect homeowners from abusive HOAs and HOA management company foreclosure practices
• Enforce consumer rights to protect income and assets from predatory real estate investing activity and alternative home finance scams that displace residents
• Uphold tenants’ rights through impact litigation to prevent displacement and ensure safe living conditions

Promote Economic Mobility

• Support state legislative efforts to expand eligibility for and access to expunctions of criminal records under N.C. law to promote access to housing and employment for ex-offenders
• Protect against federal and state government’s proposed potential cuts to public benefits, including the federal government’s proposal to take away states’ ability to waive work requirements for SNAP benefits
• Monitor the implementation of proposed changes to IRS regulations including the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit for low-income taxpayers
• Enforce consumer rights related to rent-to-own contracts, contracts for deed and other alternative home-financing arrangements
• Advocate for policies that expand immigrants’ ability to gain lawful employment to stabilize families

CCLA’s Community Redevelopment Project promotes focused economic development, stable housing and entrepreneurship in targeted communities through the following public sector and nonprofit partnerships.

• Partners with the City of Charlotte to provide legal assistance to eligible low-income homeowners and tenants on targeted rehabilitation projects in low-income neighborhoods
• Partners with DreamKey Partners (formerly Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Partnership) to provide legal assistance to eligible low-income clients in the communities they are redeveloping to assist homeowners, tenants and homeless individuals who are trying to purchase or rent or remain in their housing
• Partners with Habitat for Humanity Charlotte Chapter to provide legal assistance to eligible low-income prospective homeowners in the communities it is redeveloping

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• Mecklenburg County Courts Landlord/Tenant Mediation Program
• DreamKey Partners
• Habitat for Humanity
• Community Development Corporations
• Legal Aid NC

Common Wealth Charlotte provides financial empowerment to Charlotte’s low-income workers through financial education coupled with certified one-to-one counseling and access to specially designed re-banking and low-interest loan products. Its trauma-informed financial education curriculum (TIFE) meets people where they are and is intended to effect long-lasting change and enhanced opportunities for upward mobility for clients earning 30% to 35% AMI.

Common Wealth Charlotte focuses on financial capacity building rather than financial assistance. By combining financial literacy counseling with low-interest, 6-12-month loans, the agency provides low-income individuals and families pathways to achieve the following goals:

• Build assets (cash reserve)
• Build financial credibility within the credit system
• Build wealth – The Generation 2080 program is intended to break generational poverty for the current clients within two generations

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Homelessness Prevention Partner Organizations:

• Dove’s Nest
• Roof Above
• Habitat for Humanity Charlotte Region
• Charlotte Family Housing
• Elevation Church
• Charlotte Rescue Mission
• Hope Haven
• Center for Community Transitions

Community Link’s mission is to enable families to obtain and sustain safe, decent and affordable housing. It achieves this through two programmatic foci – Homeless to Housing and Asset Building.

Homeless to Housing: Homeless to Housing program provides rental assistance for qualifying households. Rental assistance is funded by a City of Charlotte Emergency Services Grant (ESG). It assists with up to six months of rental arrears for populations earning between 0% to 30% of Area Median Income (AMI). To qualify for assistance, the cost of rental units must be considered within the fair market rent for the ZIP code within which they are located or the small area SMI.

Asset Building: Community Link’s Asset Building Program provides clients with the following services that are intended to support individuals and families in attaining homeownership or avoiding foreclosure on their homes.

• ‍Counseling to avoid foreclosure and connections to mortgage relief resources

• Education for first-time homebuyers, access to down payment assistance and how-to information for setting a roadmap to be mortgage ready and making smart choices on services

• ‍Free tax preparation and filing assistance through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program‍

• Financial literacy classes including understanding credit scores, and setting and attaining goals for financial security+

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Homelessness Prevention Partner Organizations:

• Crisis Assistance Ministry
• Beds for Kids
• Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont
• Loaves and Fishes
• Second Harvest Food Bank
• Good Fellows
• Good Friends
• HousingCLT
• Socialserve

Crisis Assistance Ministry (CAM) provides assistance and advocacy to people in financial crisis with the goal of assisting them to move toward financial stability. It accomplishes this through direct emergency financial assistance, access to free items to address basic needs, financial counseling, referrals for related services and assistance with accessing public benefits.

CAM addresses homelessness prevention through short-term and longer-term assistance.

• Emergency Financial Assistance: Case workers perform financial assessments to determine applicants’ eligibility to receive assistance with rent and utilities and to make plans to avoid future financial crises. Through partnerships, this support also includes financial assistance with mortgages and hotels.
• Economic Mobility Program: Enrolled families work one-on-one with a specially trained caseworker for an average of three months to identify barriers to financial security and to set goals for the ­future. Housing stability is guaranteed through a rent and/or utility subsidy while ­customers work towards their goals. Surveys of program participants one-year post-completion indicate that over 90% are still stably housed.

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• Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont
• Communities in Schools
• Community Link
• Care Ring
• Legal Aid North Carolina (LANC)
• Loaves and Fishes
• Roof Above
• Salvation Army Women’s Shelter

CrossRoads Corporation is a faith-based, nonprofit organization that honors the history and supports the collective vision of rejuvenation, economic stability, healthy living and educational achievement within the Grier Heights community. Through partnerships with nonprofit organizations and others, CrossRoads works to transform the Grier Heights neighborhood residentially and economically by offering affordable housing, critical home repair and youth programs focused on education, mentorship and recreation.

In response to Grier Heights’ aging housing stock and disproportionately low home ownership rate (20%), CrossRoads has made increasing home ownership and improving existing housing stock major initiatives and building blocks toward the redevelopment and revitalization of Grier Heights. A partnership between CrossRoads and Self-Help Community Development Corporation has resulted in the construction and sale of 39 new homes in Grier Heights since 2013.

To help low-income homeowners in Grier Heights remain in their homes, CrossRoads partners with Habitat for Humanity’s Critical Home Repair Program to recruit and qualify eligible homeowners, provide volunteers and supply funding for critical home repairs (e.g., roofs and floors).

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• City of Charlotte
• Wells Fargo
• Myers Park Presbyterian Church
• Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlotte
• JCB Urban
• Helen Adams Realty
• Self-Help Community Development Corp.

The Davidson Housing Coalition (DHC) is the product of planning by the Town of Davidson’s Affordable Housing Committee to mitigate the effect of rapid development and rising land value on housing affordability. The mission of Davidson Housing Coalition is to work with the larger community to preserve and create affordable housing options and to prepare families and individuals for financial stability and homeownership.

DHC addresses housing affordability and homelessness prevention through the following four programs:

• DHC has developed 20 affordable rental units in Davidson. All apartments have a set price that is designated “affordable” to those making less than 80% AMI (Area Median Income).
• Financial literacy and pre-purchase counseling are available to anyone.
• HAMMERS is an emergency home repair program available to area residents in need of help to ensure housing is safe, habitable and code compliant.
• CARE3 (Community Access to Resources that Engage, Empower, Employ) Job Search Assistance is a community program designed to give local residents access to job search resources. DHC’s counselor helps clients apply for jobs, create or edit resumes, and prepare for interviews.

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Formerly the Charlotte Mecklenburg Housing Partnership, DreamKey Partners is a private, nonprofit housing development and financial corporation and is one of North Carolina’s leading affordable housing organizations, serving low- and moderate-income individuals, families and communities. It accomplishes this through real estate development, homeownership education and financing, and neighborhood revitalization. Since 1989, the nonprofit invested more than $322 million in multi- and single-family real estate across eight counties in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

Foreclosure Prevention Program: During normal business practices, DreamKey Partners provides up to three months of mortgage payments (principal, interest, taxes and insurance) as a grant to qualified applicants, with priority given to homeowners with an active HouseCharlotte Program down payment assistance loan. All applicants for the program must have incomes at or below 80% AMI. Approved applicants must commit to foreclosure prevention counseling with DreamKey Partners staff over a two-month period for assistance to continue. For tenants who are not eligible for assistance, DreamKey Partners staff offers one-on-one counseling sessions to educate the customer about rights and responsibilities they may have to avoid foreclosure. DreamKey also partners with local legal nonprofit organizations to help customers that may need legal assistance.

Ready to Rent Program: This proposed program is designed to assist individuals not currently residing in DreamKey Partners properties who have recently become employed and are in a better position to pay rent. Participation is not restricted by income level and is not connected to level of employment status. It is open to all potential renters in the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. Ready to Rent provides strategies to people who have had previous difficulties being successful renters. The program enables residents to make an action plan contract as a part of the training course. Residents must complete the full course and fulfill the contract requirements to receive the Ready to Rent CLT Certification of Completion. The certification can be considered by landlords as a “make-up” for negative rental history and is recognized for one year. It is a three-day, housing-readiness education program in which residents work closely with housing specialists to:

• Accept responsibility for past rental issues
• Repair credit
• Create a workable budget
• Prioritize housing needs
• Develop a housing search plan
• Maintain appropriate housing
• Communicate effectively with landlords

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Homelessness Prevention Partner Organizations:

• Inlivian
• Crisis Assistance Ministry
• City of Charlotte
• Mecklenburg County
• Socialserve
• Legal Aid of North Carolina
• Salvation Army
• Roof Above
• PolicyLink
• A Way Home Endowment

Families Forward Charlotte provides individualized mentoring, educational opportunities and essential support to families living in poverty as they work toward long-term financial stability and economic mobility. Programs include the following:

• Family Liaison Partnership: Fifty families with children, referred by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and community partners, are matched with volunteer Family Liaisons. Families connect with their Liaisons through in-person meetings, text, email and/or phone calls for mentoring, connection to resources, goal setting and support.
• Goal Setting & Navigating Resources: Family Liaisons trained in Mobility Mentoring assess and help parents set life goals and develop an action plan. As families demonstrate needs, Family Liaisons help locate resources for the family using an online resource guide created by the organization.
• Educational Opportunities: Families Forward Charlotte hosts monthly Educational Workshops for families covering topics such as financial empowerment, goal setting, parenting skills and career readiness.
• Financial Support Request: Family Liaisons can request up to $1,000 in financial assistance for their partnering families based on needs to help the family break through barriers to success.

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• Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
• Providence Baptist Church
• Sardis Presbyterian Church

Freedom Communities is a private sector/nonprofit sector hybrid organization that works to build a collaborative network of cross-sector partners and neighborhood leaders. Its goal is to create a supportive ecosystem to holistically meet the needs of families residing in the Freedom Drive Corridor. Its strategy is to invest in community-identified gaps in affordable housing and early childhood education with both philanthropic and impact investments. The organization works to leverage investments in housing, early education and holistic wraparound care for families building the tools and capacities to fuel economic mobility and financial stability.

Freedom Communities’ preliminary focus is on increasing the inventory of affordable housing units in multiple neighborhoods across Charlotte. It has planned mixed-income projects in the Sugar Creek area, Westerly Hills and Camp Greene that will include supportive services for residents.

Freedom Communities is working to support an educational pipeline that begins with early childhood development and will continues through secondary education. It has created a coaching program for mothers of preschoolers called Moms Moving Forward which includes weekly coaching, monthly group sessions with financial incentives for participation and for regularly reading to their children.

The organization has provided limited emergency financial assistance to residents of the Freedom Drive corridor and has partnered with Crisis Assistance Ministry (CAM) in distributing applications for COVID relief assistance.

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• Crisis Assistance Ministry
• Multiple Churches in the Freedom Drive Corridor
• QC Family Tree
• Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
• UC Family Zone
• Freedom Corridor Partnership Network

Good Fellows is a charitable membership club of more than 1,800 men that exists to help working families with emergency assistance. The organization provides limited emergency
financial assistance for rent and utilities, excluding week-to-week rents (hotel/motel), mortgages, deposits or new moves. Documentation of earned income for the past 30 days is required and qualifying financial assistance recipients must have applied with Crisis Assistance Ministry within past 30 days.

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Good Friends Charlotte is an all-women’s charitable membership and volunteer organization that financially supports individuals and families at 200% of the federal poverty level. In addition to providing immediate emergency financial assistance to individuals and families, Good Friends provides summer camp scholarships annually to multiple organizations.

Referrals for emergency financial assistance or social services are submitted to Good Friends’ Distribution Coordinator by professionals responsible for coordinating assistance for clients. Good Friends referrals must be screened, verified and provided by a social worker or case manager. In situations involving rent or utilities, the client must access funds at Crisis Assistance Ministry preliminarily before asking their social worker or case manager to refer them to Good Friends Charlotte.

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GreenPath Financial Wellness is a national nonprofit that offers online resource for foreclosure prevention and debt and financial management counseling. Services also include online classes, foreclosure prevention and support, and resources for renters. GreenPath has physical locations in 22 states, although none in North Carolina, but offers services to residents of all 50 states.

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Habitat for Humanity Charlotte Region’s (HHCR) mission is to making quality, affordable homeownership available and sustainable to low-income residents of the region. Although best known for its affordable home development with accompanying homeowner financial literacy and sweat equity investment, HHCR also offers a Critical Home Repair program which helps senior citizen and disabled homeowners age in place with quality of life. Critical repairs include flooring, roofing, structural, plumbing and HVAC to bring houses up to code and make them safe for habitation. Homeowner sweat equity requirements for the repairs program is 50 to 70 hours, with exemptions for older adults and the physically disabled.

Habitat also considers its home ownership program to be an anti-homelessness program. Its ability to offer fixed-rate affordable mortgages is a buffer against rapidly rising rents which destabilize housing for renters in the Greater Charlotte housing market. As a debt servicer on more than 1,100 mortgages, HHCR is able to prevent foreclosures by offering payment flexibility among Habitat homeowners.

HHCR engages in policy advocacy locally and at a state level. Most recently, it has taken the lead on advocating for policy amendments that prohibit source of income discrimination (SOID) by landlords and property management companies.

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Heal Charlotte is a community engagement and activism organization that was founded by Greg Jackson, originally intended to serve as a communications bridge between the African American community and City of Charlotte officials and Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department. Since its founding in 2017, the organization has created two programs to prevent evictions, avert homelessness and provide youth programming within the Orchard Trace community. It serves tenants residing at the Orchard Trace apartment complex who are at 125% to 200% of the federal poverty level.

• Heal a Home Program – This three-phase program provides rental assistance to stop evictions, family financial literacy classes with Common Wealth Charlotte and workforce development with Charlotte Area Fund. The third and final planned phase is homeownership.
• Family Stability Program – Family Stability serves families who are already homeless by providing financial assistance and connections to transitional housing. Heal Charlotte has brokered relationships with hotels and motels to house homeless families.

In addition to these two programs, Heal Charlotte plans to launch a capital campaign to acquire a motel in the Sugar Creek area to create 137 units of transitional housing with supportive services and a safe space for youth being served by Heal Charlotte.

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Homelessness Prevention Partner Organizations:

• Crisis Assistance Ministry
• Common Wealth Charlotte
• Charlotte Area Fund
• Roof Above

Lakewood Neighborhood Alliance is a neighborhood association that is working to create a micro-ecosystem to prevent homelessness and strengthen the economic vitality and self-sufficiency of the Lakewood community. The multi-pronged strategies include the following:

• Educating neighbors about their rights as tenants and self-advocacy in landlord-tenant disputes
• Averting evictions through legal and financial supports
• Improving overall health and wellness among neighborhood residents through critical partnerships and health education
• Land banking through property acquisition
• Developing affordable housing through property acquisition and building affordable units on vacant lots; mitigating gentrification
• Establishing an economic mobility hub within a vacant CMS school
• Creation of a community resource guide of partnering organizations

Funding for Prevention Work:

• United Way United Neighborhood Grant
• Foundation For The Carolinas
• League of Intelligence
• Catawba Lands Conservancy
• Novant Health
• Wild Hope Farm
• League of Creative Interventionists
• Faith Memorial Missionary Baptist Church
• Amplify Charlotte (in-kind)
• Wells Fargo
• Bank of America
• First Presbyterian Church (Women's Fund)
• Habitat for Humanity Charlotte Region

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Legal Aid North Carolina (LANC) provides free legal counseling to low-income North Carolinians in civil cases involving basic human needs like safety, shelter, income and more. LANC helps North Carolinians retain safe and affordable housing by handling the following housing-related cases:

• Cases involving evictions from or admissions to public and other federally subsidized housing complexes and terminations of housing subsidies like Section 8 housing vouchers
• Cases involving self-help evictions from private housing (landlords trying to evict without going through a legal process), habitability (landlords failing to keep a property safe and in good repair) and evictions from mobile home lot tenancies
• Cases involving housing discrimination based on race, disability, familial status and more

LANC’s Fair Housing Project ensures equal housing opportunity for all people in North Carolina through education, outreach, public policy initiatives, advocacy and enforcement. LANC volunteers provide tenants’ rights workshops in partnership with Crisis Assistance Ministry.

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Homelessness Prevention Partner Organizations:

• Crisis Assistance Ministry
• Charlotte Mecklenburg Housing Partnership
• Good Friends
• Good Fellows
• Carolina CARES Partnership
• Lotus Campaign
• Housing CLT
• Tenant Organizing Resources Center (TORC)
• Action NC
• Heal Charlotte

Lotus Campaign is a private sector/nonprofit sector hybrid initiative created to increase the availability of affordable housing for people experiencing homelessness by engaging the for-profit sector. By focusing preliminarily on the preservation of workforce housing and longer-term on the development of more affordable units, Lotus Campaign leverages private sector capital, incentivizes landlords to participate in housing at-risk and homeless individuals and families, and partners with nonprofit organizations to provide ongoing supportive services to help tenants maintain their housing. The Lotus Campaign serves as a bridge between private sector expertise in real estate and investment and those who work at the forefront of providing supportive services for the unstably housed.

The Lotus Campaign’s three-part model comprises short-term, medium-term and long-term strategies working together to increase the availability of housing for those experiencing homelessness:

• Landlord Incentives Strategy – The Landlord Participation Program is designed to make market rate rental units available to individuals experiencing homelessness by mitigating the real and perceived financial risks associated with housing this population. The program partners with nonprofit organizations as “Sponsoring Organizations” to provide supportive services, paying participating landlords a participation payment and guaranteeing against loss of rent or damages to the residential unit and committing to absorb the cost of processing an eviction if the sponsored tenant is not successful. The program addresses both the economic and perceptual risks that keep landlords from renting to people experiencing homelessness.
• Investment Strategy – The Lotus Campaign’s investment program is intended to create and maintain quality, safe and affordable workforce housing. The Lotus Campaign partners with investors to purchase, rehab and create mixed-income housing, of which a certain percentage (not less than 20%) will be available for rental to persons who have experienced homelessness. The investment program focuses on the sustainable preservation, restoration and renovation of existing multifamily housing. Lotus funds are used to supplement private investment capital, equity or debt to make rehabilitation of existing housing and development of new affordable housing projects economically viable.
• Advise and Educate – Long-term, the Lotus Campaign will provide advice and educational resources to public agencies, nonprofit organizations, the general public and the private, for-profit sector to debunk myths about homelessness; bring awareness to issues of housing affordability and best practices around affordable housing financing and development; and research and innovate around new construction technologies to streamline and significantly reduce the time and cost of housing development.

Funding for Prevention Work:

• HUD Capacity Building for Community Development and Affordable Housing Program (Section 4)
• Women’s Impact Fund
• Wells Fargo
• Foundation For The Carolinas/United Way of Central Carolinas COVID-19 Response Fund

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Homelessness Prevention Partner Organizations:

• Roof Above
• Charlotte Family Housing
• RunningWorks

Matthews HELP Center provides short-term crisis assistance (food, clothing and financial) to residents within the ZIP codes of 28014, 28105, 28226, 28270 and 28079, which includes Matthews, Stallings, Indian Trail and parts of Charlotte. Crisis financial assistance is provided for rent, utilities, prescription medications, automobile repair and other basic needs.

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The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee, in partnership with Mecklenburg County Courts and the Greater Charlotte Apartment Association, offers free landlord/tenant mediation as a diversion from eviction proceedings. Mediation requires voluntary participation by both landlord and tenant, and rental disputes are mediated by trained, volunteer mediators. The process may also entail a funding source, such as Crisis Assistance Ministry, that will arrange for payment of back rent and/or damages.

Successful mediations result in resolution of outstanding financial issues, needed repairs or code violation corrections by the landlord and a financial plan with the funding source, as necessary, for the tenant to remain in the rental unit beyond mediation.

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Homelessness Prevention Partner Organizations:

• Community Relations Committee Dispute Settlement Program
• Mecklenburg County Courts
• Crisis Assistance Ministry
• Legal Aid of North Carolina
• DreamKey Partners

Pineville Neighbors Place serves as a conduit for assistance for the 21% of residents of Pineville who live at or below the federal poverty level. It addresses basic needs such as emergency financial assistance, food insecurity, literacy and other physical needs such as supplying beds for children. Pineville Neighbors Place connects neighbors to available services and “empowers them to make life sustaining choices.”

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• Crisis Assistance Ministry
• Local Houses of Worship

Promise Resource Network (PRN) is a 16-year-old organization that “uses the voices, experiences and resilience of people who have overcome trauma, mental health and substance use and related barriers to elevate recovery and wellness.” PRN believes that solutions should be led by people who are or have been impacted by the issues; 70% of their staff have experienced incarceration, a felony conviction or have a history of mental health and substance use challenges.

Based on the philosophy that employment and homeownership are key to sustained recovery, PRN supports clients in moving beyond subsidies and systems support. Its “open access support” approach (i.e., self-referrals welcomed) results in PRN serving some of the most challenging community members who have myriad and complex needs. The agency’s Individual Placement and Support (IPS) employment model is an evidence-based approach to supporting people with mental and behavioral health needs to work in jobs of their choosing. Similarly, PRN assists clients in finding housing that matches their needs and preferences – sometimes in individual, scattered-site locations and sometimes in congregate settings.

PRN offers over 100 online wellness classes each month through its Recovery Hub Program, for which it reports that it has 1,000 monthly registrants. Its programs include the following:

• Recovery Hub
• Supported Employment
• Front-End Re-Entry
• Shelter Plus Care (SPC)
• Homeless Shelter Partnership
• Mecklenburg County Wellness Court Partnership
• Transition-Aged Youth (TAY)

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• Mecklenburg County Wellness and Recovery Court
• Roof Above
• Socialserve
• Shelter Plus Care

Rebuilding Together of Greater Charlotte (RTGC) provides critical home repairs for aging and disabled homeowners. Based on its Building a Healthy Neighborhood revitalization model, the organization works in one or two neighborhoods at a time where there is concentration of need among multiple homeowners and strong neighborhood leadership. This neighborhood stabilization approach is intended to mitigate against rapid gentrification, typically involving an investment of at least a one year or until resources are exhausted. Qualifying homeowners must earn 80% AMI or less.

RTGC’s Emergency Repair Program (ERP) focuses on urgent, time-sensitive home repairs that are required in order to keep the homeowner safe, warm and dry. Open to homeowners throughout Mecklenburg County, ERP provides urgent solutions, most often within 72 hours. These critical repairs are intended to keep families in their homes, avoiding health department or social service interventions.

Funding for Prevention Work:

• Corporate and Foundation Sponsorship
• HUD Community Development Block Grant funding through the City of Charlotte

Number of Clients Served Annually:

Homelessness Prevention Partner Organizations:

• Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlotte
• Lowe’s
• Wells Fargo Housing Foundation
• Red Ventures
• Spectrum
• Novant Health
• Morningstar Storage
• West Side Community Land Trust
• Freedom Communities
• City of Charlotte
• Purple Heart Homes
• InReach/First in Families

The City of Charlotte’s Safe Home Housing Rehabilitation Program assists low-income homeowners by completing repairs to minimum housing code violations. The program includes limited improvements to visual exteriors, lead-based paint eradication and corrections to other hazards that may affect the health and safety of the occupants. Repairs may include, but are not limited to, replacement or repair of roofs, electrical, plumbing, flooring, structural repairs, windows, doors, exterior painting, and kitchen and bathroom repairs.

The assistance provided under Safe Home is in the form of a grant not to exceed $42,000. To ensure affordability, a Deed Restriction is placed on the property from five to 15 years, depending on the cost of the rehabilitation. Homeowners over the age of 62 who do not wish to encumber their home with lengthy deed restrictions and are willing to make only essential repairs may choose the Senior Citizen Essential Repair option under the Safe Home Program. Repairs under this program are limited to:

• Code Violations
• Roofing
• Plumbing, Electrical, HVAC
• Structural

Maximum assistance under Senior Citizen Essential Repair is $15,000. Work up to $10,000 does not require a Deed Restriction. Applicants over age 62 have the choice of the Safe Home Program or Safe Home Senior Citizen Essential Repair.

Emergency Repair Program: The Emergency Repair Program assists low-income households for whom property damage poses an imminent health risk or can put residents at risk (e.g., sewer backup, HVAC failures, tree limb falling on roof, electrical emergency). There is no time-based deed restriction with this program; the City performs an income check to confirm financial eligibility. An assessment of the property damage is performed within 24 hours of a request to the City of Charlotte, and contractors are on site to complete repairs within 47 to 72 hours. Damage repair costs are capped at $7,500. Emergency repairs are funded from local dollars.

Funding for Prevention Work:

Number of Clients Served Annually:

Homelessness Prevention Partner Organizations:

• Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlotte
• ForCLT

Founded and based in Charlotte, Socialserve is a national organization serving 30 states that connects people to housing and provides supportive, second-chance employment. Socialserve provides web- and call-center-based services locally and nationally to connect people to community-based housing. Its services link hundreds of thousands of people annually to safe, stable housing, from market-rate rentals to subsidized, accessible, veterans, senior, assisted and disaster-relief housing. The agency reported listing 30,000 units for Mecklenburg County alone, primarily income-restricted, affordable units.

Socialserve’s HousingCLT program builds collaborative relationships between housing and services providers to increase affordable housing options for people who are homeless. HousingCLT:

• Recruits and maintains relationships with property providers on behalf of local services providers
• Provides one point of contact for property providers
• Manages incentive and risk mitigation funds to retain housing providers

Through phone surveys of properties participating in specific publicly funded housing programs, Socialserve learns about issues threatening tenancy and communicates with services providers who intervene to try to prevent eviction.

Socialserve’s temporary COVID-related work includes oversight of emergency rental assistance programs on behalf of DreamKey Partners. Additionally, Socialserve administers a Hotel Triage Program (since end of April 2020) to provide COVID-related hotel/motel extensions to prevent shelter entry, offer housing navigation assistance and provide upfront housing cost assistance to move long-term hotel/motel guests into permanent rental housing.

Funding for Prevention Work:

Number of Clients Served Annually:

Homelessness Prevention Partner Organizations:

• DreamKey Partners
• Mecklenburg County
• Greater Charlotte Apartment Association
• City of Charlotte
• Housing-related nonprofit organizations

The Relatives provides a network of resources that helps children and youth find and maintain shelter and support. Its Youth Crisis Center, On Ramp Resource Center and Housing programs work to keep youth safe and families together.

The Relatives’ Housing Program provides case management and scattered site housing to young adults ages 18 to 24 who are at-risk, experiencing homelessness or fleeing domestic violence situations. Residents of The Relatives’ housing program receive the necessary support to find or maintain employment, enroll in school or even find affordable childcare. The On Ramp program includes a year-long subsidy, case management and supportive services, with the goal of supporting residents until they are able to safely transition from crisis to stability.

Funding for Prevention Work:

Number of Clients Served Annually:

Homelessness Prevention Partner Organizations:

• Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont
• Central Piedmont Community College
• Salvation Army Center of Hope
• Alexander Youth Network
• Monarch (mental health counseling)
• Roof Above
• Time Out Youth
• RunningWorks
• Canopy Foundation