CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Earlier this week, officials announced the 2025 Charlotte Mecklenburg Housing & Homelessness Strategy.
It’s a joint effort between the city, county, private sector and nonprofits, with the goal of reducing homelessness and increasing affordable housing options.
“I think a lot of people don’t understand how someone could just live on the streets," Shelley Moore said.
Moore believes there’s a misconception of people who end up in that situation.
“It’s not just people who don’t want to work or don’t want an income, it’s working people and families who are living in their cars and living on the street," she explained.
Moore knows first hand, after becoming homeless herself after losing her job due to the pandemic.
"For people living paycheck to paycheck, it’s scary not knowing that I’m going to be able to keep paying my light bill or paying my rent, or getting an eviction notice and not able to get out of that situation financially," Moore said.
She was initially able to pay to stay in a hotel but said it was only a temporary fix.
"It’s tough to get out of the situation, even if you’re able to pay $400 a week and live in a hotel, there are so many people in our community who live in hotels and they're not able to save money to pay deposits and first months rent,” she said.
Moore was ultimately able to get help through the Salvation Army’s Rapid Rehousing Program but said it point to a bigger issue in the city: affordable housing.
Charlotte’s section 8 waitlist is currently closed to new applicants, with over 6000 people on the waitlist.
“It's so packed up in the city with people needing that assistance, you get discouraged and a lot of people don’t even sign up for it that are probably able to get it," Moore said.
Increasing affordable housing is one part of the 2025 Charlotte Mecklenburg Housing & Homelessness Strategy, having a goal of ensuring everyone has access to a housing unit they can afford.
Contact Lana Harris at lharris@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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.