Eviction cases are piling up, more Charlotte residents are losing their homes for the first time, and local leaders are scrambling to keep up with the fallout.
A new county report shows a community under strain: while the overall number of people counted as homeless on a given day has edged down, service providers say the rising tide of first-time homelessness and the loss of low-cost rentals are stretching shelters, schools and legal services to the limit.
What the County Report Found
According to the county's 2025 State of Housing Instability & Homelessness report, eviction filings in fiscal year 2025 topped 52,625 - roughly a 14% increase over the prior year - and about two-thirds of those cases ended in eviction orders. Mecklenburg Housing Data also reports that the county's "One Number" list, a by-name count of people currently experiencing homelessness, dropped to about 2,404 as of June 30, 2025. At the same time, the number of people who became homeless for the first time rose by roughly 11%.
Providers Say They Need Flexible, Fast-Acting Funds
Nonprofits say those numbers confirm what they are seeing on the ground and argue that the community needs money that can move as quickly as the crises do. That means subsidies, short-term rent assistance and stabilization services that can be deployed fast, not just one-time development dollars that take years to show up as new units.
“It’s really incumbent upon government and private philanthropy to think about how we intervene,” Roof Above CEO Liz Clasen-Kelly told WFAE, arguing that philanthropic and public investments have to become more nimble if the goal is to keep people in their current homes.
Schools Are Feeling the Crisis
The housing instability is showing up in classrooms across Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. The district identified 5,680 students as experiencing homelessness or housing instability during the 2024-25 school year, a spike that school liaisons say is already dragging down attendance and academic performance.
Mecklenburg Housing Data indicates that most of those students were not in shelters but instead were doubled up with relatives or staying in hotels and motels, arrangements that can change overnight and make it tough for kids to stay anchored to a single school.
Courts, Landlords and the High Stakes of Early Intervention
Legal advocates say the eviction wave is not being driven only by big corporate landlords. A large share of recent filings, they report, are coming from smaller private landlords who use third-party property managers, a setup that makes outreach and mediation harder to pull off, according to WCNC.
That is where early legal help can be the difference between a crisis and a catastrophe, said Justin Tucker, who runs Legal Aid of North Carolina’s courthouse eviction clinic in Charlotte. “Without legal help, people can get rolled over,” he told Legal Aid of North Carolina.
Policy Moves and Pilots Already Under Way
Local planning efforts are shifting from discussion to implementation. The A Home For All initiative, now led by United Way of Greater Charlotte and partner organizations, backed a $100 million housing bond in 2024 that doubled the city’s Housing Trust Fund and carved out money for production, preservation and emergency repairs.
United Way of Greater Charlotte and county leaders say emerging pilots, including landlord recruitment incentives and upstream rental assistance, are aimed squarely at keeping tenants housed before their cases ever hit a courtroom.
What Comes Next
Mecklenburg County and partner organizations are now conducting follow-up outreach and are expecting additional data and analysis later this year to drive decisions on funding and programs. According to Mecklenburg County and nonprofit partners, the next phase of work will focus on expanding eviction prevention efforts, strengthening tenant legal aid and building up flexible pools of subsidy dollars, all with an eye toward cutting down on first-time homelessness.
