Thursday is the deadline by which all former residents of the tent city must move out of the hotels financed by the district. The county says many have found permanent housing.
CHARLOTTE, NC – Thursday is move out day for all former tent city residents who lived in county-funded hotels.
Mecklenburg County officials said they started moving people from hotels to other accommodations a week before the deadline.
In February, 215 homeless neighbors had to move out of a camp north of Uptown Charlotte due to a reduction order from the health department. The order was due to a rat infestation in the camp.
“I would say it was extremely challenging,” said Karen Pelletier, who led the initiative for the Mecklenburg district.
The aim was to give the homeless residents 90 days to find a job, save money and find permanent housing.
However, there was not enough housing at the time to achieve the goal. The district extended the deadline to September 30th.
“Things went a lot smoother, smoother than I could ever have hoped or imagined,” Pelletier said.
Tomorrow all former tent city residents who live in county-funded hotels will have to move out. @MeckCounty tells me the move started last week.
72 people stayed in the hotels. All are taken to hotels or accommodations provided by non-profit organizations. @wcnc pic.twitter.com/oHPpLmVEPk
– Hunter Sáenz (@Hunt_Saenz) September 30, 2021
As of the day of the move, 100 former camp residents will be given permanent housing, Pelletier said.
In addition, 38 former residents of the tent city are already in permanent homes, she added. Last week, WCNC Charlotte spoke to a former resident of the tent city, who got his keys to his own apartment.
Pelletier found that on September 24th, 72 people were still living in hotels funded by the county. 68 of them will be moving to hotels funded by local non-profit organizations such as Catholic Charities, Roof up, and Block love. Four people have chosen to refuse other housing options, Pelletier said.
62 people moving into the hotels paid for by the non-profit organizations will receive a residential program and will live there until their permanent accommodation is available.
Pelletier said 10 more are waiting for the new permanent supportive housing program to go online in February.
The chart below shows the breakdown of what happened to all 215 residents who moved to the county’s hotels seven months ago.
The Mecklenburg district estimates that more than 3,100 people in the region are affected by homelessness.
“We need affordable, permanent housing,” said Pelletier.
The county will shortly decide how to spend the roughly $ 215 million it has received in COVID aid funds from the federal government.
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Pelletier hopes some of this will flow into a permanent solution.
“I don’t think we are turning our backs on possible permanent affordable housing,” she said. “And that includes buying hotels.”
Other communities have been successful in purchasing hotels to permanently house their homeless residents. In June, Hunter Sáenz of WCNC Charlotte spoke to a program in Delaware that Mecklenburg County has been in touch with ever since.
The county will hold a public hearing on October 5th to seek public opinion on how the aid will be spent.
Contact Hunter Sáenz at hsaenz@wcnc.com and follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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