Charlotte, North Carolina is planning strategic initiative around housing instability and homelessness in our community. This initiative is a broad consortium of the public, private and non-profit sectors, led by Atrium Health, Bank of America, City of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County and Charlotte Center City Partners. The 2025 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing & Homelessness Strategy is led by Cathy Bessant, Chief Operations and Technology Officer for Bank of America and Eugene A. Woods, president and CEO of Atrium Health. Nearly 50 city, county, non-profit and corporate leaders are all part of this comprehensive community undertaking. That includes including those who serve on the front lines of housing instability and homelessness and those with lived experience of homelessness.
By October 1, 2021, this group will have developed and begun to launch a five-year strategic plan to help Charlotte-Mecklenburg become a national leader in addressing current and preventing future homelessness. In addition to Atrium Health and Bank of America, a consortium comprised of representatives from Mecklenburg County, City of Charlotte, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Continuum of Care and Charlotte Center City Partners have provided initial support to lay the foundation for today’s launch. McKinsey is providing a fact-based analysis on a pro bono basis.
The framework of this comprehensive plan will be guided by four main pillars: strengthening the prevention system; optimizing the temporary housing/shelter system; growing permanent affordable housing; and strengthening cross-sector supports. The five key focus areas of this work are unified policy advocacy; coordinated funding alignment; innovative data analytics; effective communications; and ongoing strategy support. To be truly effective, this plan must also be stakeholder-driven and steeped in equity, transparency and inclusivity.
