Charlotte Family Housing says it's full, turning away families

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — With many Charlotte homeless shelters full, officials are having to turn away women and children.
 
Stephen Smith, executive director with Charlotte Family Housing, said it is heartbreaking having to turn away a family with young children, but said they have no choice.
 
The program does not have enough room in their shelters.
 
Charlotte Family Housing has three shelter sites with a total of 106 beds.
 
The sites are at capacity and the average wait time is three to six weeks.
 
They saw a 40 percent increase in families served over the past year.
 
The program said it has seen progress. The average stay went from 100 days to 77 in the past year.
 
Smith said those numbers could rise in the summer because that's when homeless families tend to get kicked out of family and friends' homes.
 
"Their patience runs out so to speak, and they feel less guilty in saying you've got to go," Smith said.
 
It's a situation Cortney Crowder knows all too well. She and her three children have stayed at the Salvation Army Center of Hope for the past seven months. She said before the center she had nowhere to go.
 
"At one point, I had to give up my kids when I was on the street, sleeping in a park and everything," Crowder said.
 
Salvation Army officials said they have also had to turn families away due to overcrowded conditions.
 
Mecklenburg County commissioner Pat Cotham said funding must be set aside to help every homeless individual.
 
The city and county are currently working to eliminate the chronic homeless population: the people who have been homeless for several years and have one disabling factor, such as mental illness.
 
Cotham said reaching out to the faith community is one step.
 
"We have to ask them. There's also a need to ask them if they will help us," Cotham said.
 
Crowder said she's thankful she's not on the wait list, because otherwise she'd have no idea what she'd do.

Statistics on Charlotte Family Housing:

• CFH has three shelter sites: Hawthorne Place houses six families, Elizabeth House houses four families and our Plaza Place location houses 15 families with a total of 106 beds.
• We are currently at capacity, with a waitlist averaging three to six weeks depending on the location.
• We started 2015 with 38 families waiting to come into shelter and now we are down to 10 families currently waiting to come in.  This number will gradually increase again over the next two months as we will see an influx of families needing a place to stay.
• CFH saw a 40 percent increase in families served in our shelter over the past year.
• Our average shelter stay for families decreased over the past year from a little over 100 days down to 77 days. We are stably housing families at a faster pace this year, allowing us to decrease our waitlist period as well as placing families into a safe shelter.

WSOC