CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Up to 200 people could be forced to find a new place to live as a west Charlotte motel is slated to close by the end of the month.
During Tuesday evening's City Council meeting, Mayor Vi Lyles noted she received a letter dated May 26 alerting her to the closure of Southern Comfort Inn. The extended-stay motel is set to shut down on June 30 according to Lyles, and it has provided low-price rent for residents there.
Lyles said the city government is making outreach to see what can be done. WCNC Charlotte has reached out to the City of Charlotte for more information.
The closure of the Southern Comfort Inn comes as the Queen City faces an affordable housing crisis. Different parties are looking at all kinds of solutions to help alleviate the dilemma. In the University City area, a hotel on North Tryon Street is set to become affordable apartments with the work of California-based firm Vivo Living. Churches like Caldwell Presbyterian are offering up their own resources to help, and neighborhoods have begun to push back against the purchase of homes by outside investors.
WCNC Charlotte is part of seven major media companies and other local institutions producing I Can’t Afford to Live Here, a collaborative reporting project focused on solutions to the affordable housing crisis in Charlotte. It is a project of the Charlotte Journalism Collaborative, which is supported by the Local Media Project, an initiative launched by the Solutions Journalism Network with support from the Knight Foundation to strengthen and reinvigorate local media ecosystems. See all of our reporting at charlottejournalism.org.