(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

- Straight ahead, please join me for a conversation on Charlotte's ongoing affordable housing problems.

We sit down with those working to help people find housing they can afford.

"Carolina Impact: Seeking Unity" special starts now.

- [Narrator] PBS Charlotte presents a special "Carolina Impact: Seeking Unity".

- Good evening, thanks so much for joining us.

I'm Dara Khaalid.

Welcome to our special "Carolina Impact: Seeking Unity".

The lack of affordable housing is a continuing issue across our region.

The Charlotte Mecklenburg State of Housing Instability and Homelessness Report shows that there was an increase in the number of low and moderate income households struggling to afford housing.

In 2021, there were 94,592 households, and in 2022 that number jumped to 103,239.

Affordable housing is defined as spending no more than 30% of a household's income.

There are people working for solutions on this problem.

Let me introduce you to a few of them on our panel tonight.

Starting with Elizabeth Kurtz, Executive Director of the nonprofit, Charlotte Family Housing, an organization that helps working families dealing with homelessness gain long-term housing.

Next we have Lamont Simmons, a local man who experienced homelessness while struggling to find an affordable place to stay.

However, with the help of Charlotte Family Housing, he was able to land on his feet again and purchase his own home two years ago.

Lastly, Julie Porter, President of Dream Key Partners, a nonprofit that's expanding affordable homes through real estate development and home ownership programs.

Now, beginning with my first question, what factors do each of you believe are the cause for the shortage of affordable housing in our area.

Julie?

- Yeah, I think that there are multiple reasons for it, but I think it can really be boiled down to the fact that incomes just haven't kept up with what's required for rent or for a mortgage payment.

And so what's happened over time is that people simply cannot afford to live in Charlotte.

And that has been one of the biggest factors.

But then also, especially during the pandemic, we just didn't have enough production, you know, increases in costs for construction just skyrocketed.

And so both on the multifamily and the single family side, we just didn't have enough in the ground, coming out of the ground.

- Lamont, Elizabeth?

- Julie's right, and just to tag on to what she said, not only were we not bringing enough units out of the ground during the pandemic, we saw the same thing happen back in 2008 in the financial crisis.

We saw a slow down in development that we still haven't caught up from.

And then when you look at the population trends of folks moving into the Carolinas during the pandemic, as our population increased, it way outpaced, and you just had the two lines going in opposite directions.

- Lamont, anything you wanna add?

- Yeah, the same thing she was saying, just I think North Carolina, South Carolina are the top 10 states, or within the top 10 of people moving here.

And when people come from New York and California, they have money because they can get a bang for their buck here.

So it just drove the prices up.

And then obviously the people who've been staying here, it's just, you know, it's kind of like supply and demand and people are going sell to the highest bidder.

- Well, thank you all for that.

And the latest data shows from June of 2022 to June of 2023, homelessness in Mecklenburg County increased 11%.

Now Elizabeth, what are some of the ways that Charlotte Family Housing is working to help end homelessness?

- Thank you for asking that, Dara.

We take a different approach to homelessness in that we don't necessarily look at housing as the problem we're trying to solve.

What we recognize is that homelessness and housing instability are actually symptoms of instability in other areas.

The number one predictor of whether or not somebody is going to stay stably housed is whether or not they have a stable, steady income that covers all of the bills.

So we look at all of those factors that support stable housing, stable childcare, stable transportation, stable income, the financial literacy skills to manage your money, access to quality healthcare, strong, healthy support networks, all of those things.

If they're in place, the housing is pretty much gonna stay stable on its own.

- And you all have found success in those programs that you've had with helping people?

- We absolutely have.

We interview our families, not only, we don't only track when they leave the program, but we keep in touch with them for two years after they graduate from the program.

And 95% of our families over the course of the past five years have been able to maintain that stable housing moving forward.

- And Lamont, for you, as someone who's experienced homelessness firsthand, talk a little bit about your experience and some of the things that led you to that.

- Well, it was a lot, but it was, like I said, with my daughter, my oldest daughter, she was in eighth grade, we didn't have an address, so that's how I got introduced to Charlotte Family Housing.

But it was, you know, some other previous things in my life had happened, so my credit wasn't good and my income wasn't that great, and I couldn't work a lot because I was a full-time dad.

So it was just, you know, the help that I needed to be able to actually go back to school and then still be able to provide for my family.

But even at that time, the rent wasn't as bad as it started to, it was getting worse.

So I was like, I gotta take advantage of the opportunity, because when this program is up, I gotta be able to swing everything.

And I was grateful, but you gotta really study the market and realize that it just keeps moving forward whether you ready or not.

- And for you, Julie, hearing Lamont's story, someone who was working hard, doing the best they could, how often is that the story for people who come in contact with your program or the working poor?

- Almost always.

What we find is that people really do want stable housing and that they're willing to work for it.

The problem is that the market gets away from them very, very quickly.

So it's important that, as a community, that we're addressing it, you know, that we are building new affordable housing, that we are, you know, investing in home ownership.

Because those are the things that will make a difference in people's lives, especially for the long haul.

I mean, you're talking about generational wealth and generational change.

And I think that we have to be able to invest in that as a community.

- And continuing on with that a little bit, I wanna give you all some of the average cost prices that we're seeing in terms of rent.

So the average cost of a one bedroom apartment in Charlotte is just over $1,400 a month, and a three bedroom is a little over $2,000.

So Elizabeth, with high rent prices like this, how is that impacting Charlotteans, particularly your clients?

- When you look at the majority of the types of jobs here in our area, most of them are customer service focused.

Some, you know, granted, teachers, our folks who work for the city and the county, our hospital system employees, our banking employees, all of our big employers, those entry level jobs tend to start in the $15 to $21, $22, $23 range an hour.

The what we call apartment rate, in order to be able to afford your typical two bedroom apartment, it's about $27 an hour.

So there's just a big gap between the jobs that most of our community members do and the price of the housing that's out there.

- And Lamont, for you, as someone who experienced the pain of those high rent costs, talk a little bit about how it makes it harder to catch up when, like you said, you're working, you're doing the best you can, but the rent prices just keep on rising.

- Yeah, it is very difficult because you really almost have to reinvent yourself.

You have to get a skill that's going to pay.

Because at the end of the day, they're gonna go to the highest bidder.

And who can afford it, if they got enough people who can afford it, then that's just this business, they're not looking at your individual story.

So I think you have to get out of the mindset that people are going to really care about what you're going through, versus this is the market.

And I think that's the most difficult part is that, you know, you hate to say it to people like, but nobody really cares.

But they do care.

But at the end of the day, people are gonna go with what makes business sense, and you gotta make sure you put yourself in a position to say, this has to make your business sense as well as my story.

They gotta match up for people to want to rent to me, and I gotta make sure I can afford it because you know, it's a free market.

So that's just kind of the way it is, unfortunately.

- Julie, anything you wanna add to what these two said?

- No, I think that they've got it pretty well, you know, nailed down.

I do think that home ownership is sort of a way out of some of that rental, you know, trap, because as rents continue to increase, all of a sudden you realize, you know what, if I purchased a home, my mortgage payment might be less than my rent.

So as we look for solutions, I do think that's something that we have to look at closely right now especially, because we are not stopping these rent increases, is how do we help people purchase their first home?

You know, whether that's through down payment assistance or whether that's through housing counseling, I think those are things that we should be looking at as a city, as a community to say, you know what, let's invest in people's long-term wealth building.

- And I know for you personally, your organization has a few projects going on right now.

So talk a little bit about some of the work that you all are doing.

You have boots on the ground right now.

- We do.

Of course, we're a home buyer education center, so we do home buyer counseling and one-on-one, you know, mentoring for people who want to buy their first home.

But we also administer House Charlotte, which is the city of Charlotte's down payment assistance program.

People who are less than 80% of area median income, which right now is $70, almost $80,000 for a family of four, they can actually get up to $30,000 in down payment assistance.

And there's a statewide program we also administer that they can get an additional $50,000.

So with that $80,000 or up to $80,000, they can really take a look at purchasing that first home.

Now the real issue though is you have to find a home that is less than $300,000 if it's an existing home, $315,000 if it's new construction.

And there's not a lot on the market.

First of all, there's a lot of competition, of course, with investors purchasing those homes.

But what Dream Key decided to do, we decided, hey, if there's nothing on the market, we're gonna build it ourselves.

So right now we have over 50 either single family homes or townhomes under production, under construction, and all of those will be sold to families who are low and moderate income.

- And is there a timeline?

When are you all expecting the completion of those projects?

- Yeah, we have properties right now in the Druid Hills neighborhood that are for sale, very, very popular neighborhood, just a mile or two from uptown.

And then in the Greer Heights neighborhoods, we have 18 town homes under construction right now.

They should be ready probably in about nine months.

Those are really the two most exciting.

We have 12 townhomes in called Vantage Point, which is also off LaSalle Street and Catherine Simmons that will be available now.

So yeah, there's a lot that's happening.

A lot of inventory out there.

We also ended up buying a portfolio of investor-owned houses because, you know, investors were buying a lot of Charlotte's housing inventory.

We bought 30 houses from an investor.

And we are slowly selling those into home ownership as renters move out.

- And something I just thought about, when we think of waitlist here in Charlotte for people to get affordable housing, is there anything, Elizabeth or Lamont, that you can add to that waiting list that may have been one percentage at one point in time, but as we continue to move forward, and like you said, the competition is increasing, how has that changed the waitlist?

Are we seeing more people on that?

- I'll defer to Julie on that one.

I think she's probably going to answer answer yes.

But I'll tell you one, of the challenges when we work with families experiencing homelessness, waitlists and homelessness don't marry up very well.

When our folks are in the shelter and we're looking to get them housed, we don't have 18 months for them to sit on a waitlist.

So it's been challenging for us.

- We do have a wait list.

We own about 2,600 units of affordable housing here in Charlotte, mostly for people who earn less than 60% of area median income.

Those are very high demand, especially the ones that are under 30%, the very low income and extremely low income.

So there can be a two year wait.

Now, you know, we do have some new properties coming online, especially for seniors.

Sanctuary Gardens should be opening up here really soon.

And there's a Rockwell place we'll be actually leasing starting this week, also for seniors.

But we see the demand is always going to exceed the supply.

That's just the way it is.

We can't build fast enough to fix the problem.

And as Elizabeth said, you know, if somebody's coming out of homelessness, I can't move a family that is moving out of homelessness above somebody who's been waiting for 12 months or 18 months.

So, you know, just fair housing and making sure that people who have been waiting a long time do get their housing, but that just exacerbates the problem.

- And you mentioned seniors, so talk a little bit about that age group and some of the challenges they're facing when it comes to affordable housing, especially if they're on a fixed income.

- Yeah, we've had a lot of challenges, especially because the increase in operating costs for many of our properties has skyrocketed.

People don't realize that the insurance costs here in Charlotte for affordable housing apartment communities has gone up 30%, 40% just in the last year.

And so what troubles me the most is having to raise rents on those seniors.

But if I don't raise rents, then I can't take care of the properties.

But, so I think that they absolutely, because social security, which most of them are on, doesn't change a whole lot, you really cannot adjust their rents the way that we probably would need to if we were trying to make money.

We are not trying to make money, we're trying to house people.

So I think seniors have a special problem.

And food access can always be a real issue for seniors, and getting to a grocery store.

So you have to pay attention not just to the housing, you have to pay attention to food access, transportation, all the other things, health and safety, all those things that might affect a senior's life.

- And backtracking a little bit, going back to home ownership and the importance of that, Lamont, we know that you recently bought your own home.

And so talk a little bit about that experience, the highs and the lows, as someone who, we talked about your story earlier, experiencing homelessness, but now you have the keys to your own home.

So talk about the highs and lows of that journey for us.

- Oh man, it was a journey.

Because I also bought when a house would go on the market and be gone in 10 seconds.

So I actually got turned down like 16 times, outbidded.

So that process was tough in itself.

But just going through the whole process, like everything gotta be on point.

I mean, checking everything.

And then I had to, you know, actually I had to move outside, I live in Salisbury, Spencer, so I couldn't even get anything in Charlotte.

It was just overpriced.

So I think that's the hardest thing where people have to realize that sometimes you have to say, can I really afford to stay here?

And really just, you know, have the reality check of maybe I might have to look somewhere else.

So like with my mortgage, that was four bedroom house, but it's cheaper than a one bedroom apartment in Charlotte.

So that won me over, you know, that I wasn't gonna spend, you know, a whole bunch of money just to, that I really couldn't even afford really, Versus me leaving and then getting space.

'Cause I didn't want to again buy a one bedroom condo that needs another $20 grand in work just to say I live in Charlotte.

And that's just kinda like how it is unfortunately now.

So I just tell people, you gotta be open-minded of, you know, sometimes you can't get what you want, for now.

But if I wanted to move back to Charlotte, I've actually got about $100 grand in equity now.

So if I wanted to sell, I could go back to Charlotte.

So there's ways you could do it to say, okay, let me go here first, this place is growing, then I can go back to Charlotte if that was my goal.

My goal is, I'm okay.

(all laughing) - So you're okay on the outskirts?

- I'm okay, I love the outskirts so that's not bad.

- Alright, well thank you for sharing, and congratulations.

- Thank you, thank you.

- You're welcome.

And so Julie and Elizabeth, is this a trend that you've seen from a lot of people?

I know I'm from Rock Hill and a lot of people opt for places like Rock Hill, Fort Mill, Salisbury, just the surrounding areas to find affordability.

- We definitely see it as a trend.

We see it as a little bit of a problematic trend because, as Elizabeth was talking about, service workers, we need service workers here in Charlotte.

We need people who can afford to live here because they work here.

And when people are moving to Gastonia and then having to drive back, that just exacerbates climate change and you've got all kinds of other issues, the cost of that transportation.

So I mean, our preference of course would be to build enough affordable housing for everybody here in Charlotte.

We do a reality check and say, okay, where can we build where the land isn't quite as expensive?

But at the same time, you know, as a city we're really gonna have to grapple with this.

If people can't afford to live here, where are our workers going to come from?

And that's gonna be a problem.

- Elizabeth, anything you wanna add?

- I absolutely agree with Julie.

I think as we move, as Charlotte grows and changes, we are going to have to really think of ourselves more and operate more as a metropolitan area.

You know, right now we think very much of the city of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, and then the outlying counties.

But if we're not coordinating between all of those areas, we're gonna end up in trouble.

And quite frankly the outlying counties are gonna see similar affordability trends to what we're seeing here in the core.

- Right, and so I know tonight we spoke a lot about the reality and how those challenges can be for everyday people.

And so from each of you, what can the community at large, how can they help solve this problem of affordable housing that we're seeing?

- Well, I can start.

I mean, one of the things that is coming up will be this fall, which is gonna be a vote on the housing trust fund bond.

And we're not sure what that level is going to be set at.

I mean, it was $50 million every two years.

So we haven't had a vote for two years.

I'm hoping it gets increased because what's happening is the gap between what it costs to build a unit of housing and what basically the subsidy will pay for has just increased.

And we have got to be able to cover those gaps if we're going to build here in Charlotte.

And so I think the easiest thing is just vote for the housing bond.

It's incredibly important that money goes to hard costs of development for those units of affordable housing.

I think paying attention to zonings and making sure that you're supportive of affordable housing if it happens to be coming near your neighborhood.

I do think that those are things that the average person can get behind and help us with.

- And so when you speak about that neighborhoods and NIMBYism, what are you all seeing from communities?

Are you experiencing any pushback at all when you're setting up?

I know you're a developer, so are you experiencing any pushback, or has that eased a little bit?

- You know, it has eased.

I have to admit, you know, when I first came to Charlotte, that was in 2013 and we were under a huge zoning fight at that time, and ended up in lawsuits.

When we rezoned the property, we had almost no opposition.

So, and I think even some people realized suddenly that their kids can't come back to Charlotte, and maybe what they really need to support are things like affordable housing programs, home ownership in their neighborhoods, those types of things they can get behind.

It can still be difficult.

When it's coming next door I do think that people, you know, are worried, probably needlessly, but worried.

But it's nothing like it was before.

- Lamont, Julie, anything you'd like to add about what the community can do to help in this fight?

- We were talking about this right before the show.

We often refer to this and think of this as an affordable housing crisis.

And I think one key is recognizing that it's actually not a crisis.

This is a long-term, systemic failing of the way we produce and price housing.

Over the past three decades, the cost of housing has outpaced household incomes by three and a half times.

This is a long-term problem.

And so our elected leaders and our community members and the citizens at large need to really understand that we've gotta do some changing of our systems and changing of our mindsets in order to be able to make sure that all of our citizens have a place to live.

- And is it possible to put a timeline on that?

Could we say it'll take X amount of years?

Or what are we predicting right now in terms of solving this problem?

- You know, it's taken us decades to get into it.

I think it's going to take us decades to get out.

But we gotta start now.

- Lamont, anything you'd like to add about what the community can do?

- Financial literacy, gotta hit the youth early to let them understand that Charlotte is one of the top markets in America, and unfortunately from the business side, it's going to cater to who has the money.

And you know, gets more programs to help more things about home ownership because that's gonna be the main key where, you know, I mean outside of taxes, this is what your mortgage is going to be.

I've seen people renting, and I've seen it go up $600 on a renewal.

And most people can't afford, you know, barely a $50, much less $600 increase because supply and demand.

But the owner of the property has the right to do that once the lease is up.

So I just think financial literacy, just understanding the market and how much it's grown.

And this is a very attractive place and people are coming here, and they're going to lean more towards that.

And of course the people who don't have it, they're just gonna have a very small option pool or waiting list, and it's just getting bigger and bigger.

- Alright, well thank you all for sharing tonight and giving your perspectives on what you do and also how the community can help as well.

So we are out of time, but again, thank you all to our amazing panel tonight.

And to everyone at home, thank you for joining us for this special "Carolina Impact: Seeking Unity".

Goodnight.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] A production of PBS Charlotte.