Charlotte unveils plan for $100M in new housing money. Will it help solve crisis?

Housing advocates and experts offered cautious optimism in interviews with The Charlotte Observer after the City Council unveiled a spending plan last month for its doubled Housing Trust Fund.

The program, started in 2001 , provides money to developers for affordable housing. It’s created or preserved more than 10,800 affordable units and 880 shelter beds, according to the city. Now, Charlotte wants voters to agree to double the bond to fund it from $50 million to $100 million. The new money would pay for more rental housing, efforts to keep neighborhoods affordable and other components of affordable housing.

The doubled housing dollars come as Charlotte faces an affordability crisis. In Mecklenburg County, 47% of renters and 20% of homeowners have difficulty affording their housing, according to a 2024 study by the North Carolina Housing Coalition .

“It’s become increasingly unaffordable over time,” said Yongqiang Chu , director of the Childress Klein Center for Real Estate at UNC Charlotte.

Advocates say the plan may not be perfect, but new money could generate progress.

“I think it’s a critical piece of the overall plan to stem the tide of increasing housing costs and lack of affordable housing,” said Kaedon Grinnell, chief program officer for Roof Above , which provides services including emergency shelters and affordable housing for homeless people.

Affordable housing plan in Charlotte

Under the plan presented to city leaders at an August city housing committee meeting, the $100 million in Housing Trust Fund dollars would pay for:

• $35 million in rental housing production. That includes new multi-family, mixed-income housing and accessory dwelling units — smaller units on the same lot as a single-family home. It also covers “missing middle” housing , which often includes townhomes, duplexes and cottage courts.

• $25 million to help people become homeowners, including down payment assistance

• $14 million for rental housing preservation and helping neighborhoods stay affordable

• $9 million for transitional housing, emergency shelter capacity and housing with services for people with disabilities

• $5 million for housing rehabilitation and emergency repairs

• $5 million for pilot projects

• $5 million for buying land

• $2 million for administrative costs and evaluating the fund’s performance.

The plan would also create rules for where housing is built, who has access to it and what must be in developments.

It calls for a focus on buyers who make up to 120% of the area’s median income, workers in low-wage jobs and other vulnerable populations. The plan would incentivize building in areas where people are vulnerable to getting priced out of housing and areas near transit and amenities.

It also would require developments receiving money offer services such as job training, health care and child care.

The city would measure success by the number of housing units created, neighborhood affordability and residents’ stability and economic mobility.

Council member Victoria Watlington, who chairs the City Council’s housing committee, said it was important to develop a holistic approach.

“We wanted to hit several different avenues,” she said

Charlotte housing crisis solutions

Ismaail Qaiyim , who works with the Charlotte Housing Justice Coalition and sits on the board of the West Side Community Land Trust , described the Housing Trust Fund as “complex.”

He’s questioned the “oversight and enforcement” of the fund, including how long housing it pays for stays affordable. He wants to be sure the program still helps those with very low incomes and is sustainable in the long term, in addition to providing opportunities for home ownership and trying out new ideas,

“It’s not a straightforward question to try to answer,” he said of the best approach.

Roof Above is optimistic the city’s plan can make a difference, Grinnell said.

”There will be a direct impact on the number of folks who are seeking services through our programming,” he said.

Grinnell also was pleased to see a focus on services such as job training.

“Dollars alone don’t solve the issue,” he said.

It’s “challenging” to decide whether $100 million is enough, he said. What’s “critical,” he said, is getting people into housing and helping them afford to stay there.

Chu, whose team creates UNC Charlotte’s annual “State of Housing” report, said the fund can help improve housing affordability “to some extent,” but it needs to keep up with “the huge increases in house prices in recent years.”

“If we keep the fund as it was, then it’s not sufficient,” he said.

Another change he said should still be on Charlotte’s to-do list: “remove a lot of the regulatory burden on developers” to spur more development and lower prices.

“Supply is extremely limited,” Chu said of the current market.

What’s next for Housing Trust Fund proposal

The City Council’s housing committee will discuss the Housing Trust Fund again at its Sept. 3 meeting ahead of a vote by the full council on the plan.

Council member Ed Driggs, who was part of a working group over the summer about the fund, is pleased it includes more accountability about how money is spent.

“I think we’re going to see that within the limits of the money we have — which even $100 million, you know, compared to the scale of the problem, is not a huge amount — we’re going to get better results,” he said.

But Driggs, one of two Republicans on the City Council, says he’s still got questions about how much of an impact the city can have on the housing market. H e’d prefer the city spend more on the “nuts and bolts” obligations of city government. That includes things like sidewalks and street lights.

Watlington is particularly excited about the $5 million allocated for pilot projects.

“We have done our best to try to determine the best way to invest these dollars for today’s needs, but we also understand that we don’t know everything,” she said. “So we wanted to create some flexibility for the market to help us to co-develop some different type projects.”

Charlotte voters will ultimately decide the fate of the ballot referendum during the November election.

“I’d be very surprised if it didn’t pass,” Driggs said.

Watlington said keeping the community involved in discussions about the fund will help that.

“My message to folks that are considering whether or not they’ll back the bond is to get involved. Think about what it is that might give you hesitation or what your concern might be, and let us know up front,” she said. “Now is the time.”

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