Local

Charlotte church donating land, buildings for affordable housing project

CHARLOTTE — A local church is stepping in to help alleviate Charlotte’s affordable housing crisis.

Caldwell Presbyterian Church is donating land and buildings in Elizabeth, one of the city’s most desirable neighborhoods.

The goal is to convert an existing building into 21 units of affordable apartments over the next two years.

The studio apartments will be for people who are experiencing homelessness or who are have an annual
low income between $17,000 and $35,000.

Several years ago, Caldwell Presbyterian sheltered dozens of homeless women. Now church leaders say they want to get back to that tradition of helping the community.

“We did a long, hard study on what made us passionate as a church and a church organization and the work in affordable housing really came to light,” said Eddy Capote, the leader of the initiative for the congregation. “We had previously housed an emergency shelter here on the property and it had just invigorated the church and we wanted to recreate that.”

The church hopes to start construction later this year and open the housing by 2024, but funding remains a hurdle.

So far, the church said it has raised or received more than $4 million to fund the project, but it still remains short about $2 million to get the apartments off the ground.

“The big challenges has been the funding piece of it,” Capote said. “Affordable housing isn’t affordable to build, and so it’s a $6.5 million project. … We’ve got a funding gap, so any assistance and any funding can be great.”

More information can be found on the church’s website.

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