CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Southern Comfort Inn in west Charlotte has found new life once again. The hotel turned affordable housing shut down last summer due to a lack of funding and missing rent payments. Now, it’s back open and flourishing in the community.
“We let the people down,” Dumar Hemingway, CFO of Love In Action, said about the summer shutdown. Love In Action is the nonprofit behind the inn.
The organization, formerly known as Freedom Community Outreach, found new funding in the fall and began to rebuild. After renovating its rooms, it reopened.
“I mean it’s a blessing," Hemingway said. "It’s like living life again.”
It's a new life for the nonprofit and the 37 residents living there. Hemingway said they have full hearts being at full capacity.
However, to keep going they’re constantly looking for more help.
“Funding is the issue right now," Hemingway said. "Funding and more help to find more people like us to really help the people and be there for the people.”
The inn offers transitionary housing for people who have fallen on hard times.
“[They] really actually saved me and my son from the street,” resident Mary Benton told WCNC Charlotte.
Benton was homeless, escaping domestic violence with her son who has autism, when she came to the inn. Now, they both live and work there.
“They gave us self-esteem back," Benton said. "A door you can shut, a place to lay down, a shower, a TV, just some normalcy.”
The Inn goes beyond housing – opening the Love in Action Café in February in an area where Chef Manny Lovon said it’s needed most.
Lovon called the area on Tuckaseegee Road a food desert. The café hopes to help the community become healthier by offering a vegan menu.
“We are really about making your food your medicine,” Lovon said.
For mental health, the inn connects residents with services and hosts art therapy.
Leaders plan to keep building partnerships and applying for city grants so the west Charlotte community can see more Love in Action.
Contact Julia Kauffman at jkauffman@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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