Affordable Housing

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The City of Charlotte partners with several area nonprofits to help residents with affordable housing.  

What is affordable housing? 

Charlotte is one of the fastest growing cities in America: up to 120 people move here each day. The cost of renting or buying a home has skyrocketed, and many can't keep up. Housing is considered affordable if a family spends no more than 30% of their income to live there.  

See area median income limits for Charlotte. 

Housing cost increases have outpaced growth in wages, so many people who are working struggle to find an affordable place to live. 

See the affordable housing gap dashboard to explore the latest numbers on the need for affordable rental housing by income level.

What is the city doing about affordable housing? 

Guided by the Housing Charlotte Framework and in partnership with nonprofits, housing developers and other community partners, the City of Charlotte has developed a robust toolbox of policies and programs focused on affordable housing issues ranging from homelessness to homeownership. 

Want to dive deeper? Check out our Housing Dashboard to see the latest data and impacts. 

Housing Trust Fund 

As the city’s primary tool for creating and preserving affordable housing, the  Housing Trust Fund provides gap financing to developers to cover the cost of building affordable developments. This gap financing helps build, restore, and repair affordable housing to ensure that Charlotteans have safe, quality, affordable places to live. Since 2018, voters have approved $150 million in affordable housing general obligation bonds to increase affordable housing production. 

2022 marked the 20th anniversary of the first Housing Trust Fund investment. In the last two decades, the HTF has contributed $231.2M to support 11,000+ affordable housing units and 888 shelter beds for those experiencing homelessness. 

Learn more in the Housing Trust Fund 20^th Anniversary report(PDF, 10MB).

Looking for affordable housing? Check out Housing Trust Fund-supported developments that have units available.

Centra Square & faith-based partnerships  

Housing Rehabilitation  

Housing Services provides several repair programs for low-income city residents to ensure their homes can continue to be safe and affordable places to live.  

• Safe Home Rehabilitation programs, including Safe Home, TLC by CLT, and the Housing Preservation Program, provide moderate housing rehabilitation to remove code violations and improve handicap accessibility, energy efficiency and environmental safety, as well as provide other benefits.
• LeadSafe Charlotte provides testing and remediation of lead-based paint in homes built prior to 1978.
• Emergency Repair provides urgent repairs for homeowners experiencing a housing condition that affects life, health, or safety, and that could lead to the household being displaced from the home unit. The city also partners with nonprofit organizations offering home repair programs to the Charlotte community.

Homebuyer Assistance 

As Charlotte’s booming real estate market continues to thrive, providing access to homeownership continues to be an important and growing part of the city’s affordable housing strategy. 

Learn more about The Meadows at Plato Price, a community development project consisting entirely of affordable homes, and other homeownership initiatives supported by the City of Charlotte. 

The city offers several housing education programs for potential homebuyers, including financial literacy, pre-homeownership counseling, and foreclosure prevention. Topics covered in these classes include budgeting, credit repair, mortgage loan approval, assisting in locating a home and assisting in negotiating mortgage loan terms and the purchase price, and mortgage loan closing process. 

The House Charlotte homeownership assistance program offers deferred and forgivable loan options for qualified potential homebuyers. Learn more about what resources 

Emergency Assistance 

Our community's finest hours have always been when we come together to help one another. In our region, Mecklenburg County is the lead agency for providing resources and services for our homeless population. However, there are also many organizations and agencies including the City of Charlotte that work tirelessly to help our homeless neighbors. 

Need immediate help? Call Coordinated Entry at 704-284-9665 to connect to all available resources in the area.

Since 2018, the City has provided more than $40 million to support efforts to end and prevent homelessness, including more than $35 million since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic the City of Charlotte has allocated more than $60 million for housing and homeless support.

In April 2021, local leaders announced a place to create the 2025 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing and Homelessness Strategy, the first comprehensive effort to address housing instability and homelessness in our community involving the public, private and non-profit sectors.