A Home For All Next Steps Announced

United Way of Greater Charlotte announced today next steps for the A Home For All initiative with the release of the Implementation Plan Executive Summary.

The overall vision of A Home For All is to create a community where homelessness is rare, brief and nonrecurring and every person has access to permanent, affordable housing and the resources to sustain it.

Aligned with this vision and building on priorities identified in the Strategic Framework launched in January 2022, the Implementation Plan outlines initial priorities to address housing instability and homelessness in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area.

Development of the Implementation Plan took nearly nine months, included feedback from more than 150 individuals and organizations, and was driven by insight from a Technical Committee made up of 73 subject matter experts with professional and lived expertise.

“Stakeholders across Charlotte-Mecklenburg—all tireless in their dedication to addressing housing instability and homelessness—came together to create this Implementation Plan,” said Laura Yates Clark, United Way of Greater Charlotte president and CEO. “The plan’s creation and, more importantly, efforts to move the plan forward, demonstrate the power and potential of strong public-private partnerships.”

United Way of Greater Charlotte was selected to lead the implementation of A Home For All and continues to work closely alongside Mecklenburg County, City of Charlotte, nonprofits and community stakeholders to address the full continuum of housing instability and homelessness across the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area.

“Mecklenburg County is committed to finding ways to end and prevent homelessness,” said Dena R. Diorio, Mecklenburg County Manager. “The A Home For All strategy is an Enduring Structure to achieve this critical goal for our community. I am thankful for the trusted partnership with United Way of Greater Charlotte to implement the plan and guide the work.”

The Implementation Plan identifies nine near-term priority initiatives and centers action around three key pillars: Person-Directed Care, Prevention and Housing Supply.

Person-directed care will help to overcome a fragmented system of service provision that makes it difficult for people to connect to critical services. Prevention will build on highly successful existing programs to create a robust prevention system that helps people stay in their homes and avoid experiencing homelessness. Expanding the supply of affordable housing will make all types of housing—from shelter beds to single-family homes for sale—available to people experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity.

“The City of Charlotte has been focused for many years on affordable housing, having provided financial support to create or preserve nearly 13,000 units since 2002, and the A Home For All Strategy will help make the city’s investment more impactful for our community,” City Manager Marcus Jones said. “United Way of Greater Charlotte has been a tremendous partner for us for many years and I appreciate their leadership on this critical challenge. Housing insecurity is a community-wide issue which requires a community-wide response.”

Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s successful creation of A Home For All demonstrates the power and potential of deep collaboration between public and private partners and the critical importance of centering the voices of those with lived expertise in designing solutions to our community’s most difficult challenges.

View the A Home For All Implementation Plan Executive Summary.

The full Implementation Plan will be available in late July. For more information, visit AHomeForAllMeck.org.