CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte area shelters say more families are extending their stays due to inflation and rising rents.
Shelter leaders say they don't anticipate the issue going away any time soon, and the slow turnaround times have a major impact on the number of families they can help.
Charlotte Family Housing, said as the number of people who are homeless continues to increase, they’re starting to see new trends.
"We are seeing recently a change in the patterns," Elizabeth Kurtz, with Charlotte Family Housing, said. "Typically in the past, we have seen most people coming in for help due to evictions or financial reasons. Now, we are seeing people pitched into homelessness simply because rent is going up."
Data from Real Estate Witch shows U.S. rent prices are rising four times faster than income, with rent increasing more than 78% in Charlotte compared to the year 2000.
Officials said the issue is causing more people to experience homelessness for the first time, making it a lot harder for agencies to help families transition.
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"We were typically at roughly 68 days in our pre-housing phase and that’s creeping up towards 90, which is not a trend we would like to see," Kurtz said.
Emergency shelters like the Salvation Army said inflation has highly impacted marginalized communities.
It says part of the problem is increasing incomes, but as the bar continues to rise, sometimes it feels impossible to catch up.
"People are staying in the shelters too long," Deronda Metz with the Salvation Army said.
"We would love to get people out of homelessness in 30 days, but it's taken us about 110 days and for some people, it's longer," Metz said.
Metz said they don't want to spend the next few years building more shelters because that's not what people really are looking for.
She said people are just wanting affordable and decent housing, and every organization in our area is working together to create back-end solutions.
Right now some officials are working to get more property managers involved in the ongoing issue.
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