CharlotteEAST

?? The Importance of HUD Funding for Safe and Healthy Homes ?? Across the country, millions of homeowners are struggling to afford critical home repairs. Nearly 50% of U.S. homes were built before 1980, and as housing costs continue to rise, more homeowners—especially older adults, people with disabilities, and families with low incomes—are forced to choose between paying for food, medicine, or keeping their homes safe and livable. At Rebuilding Together of Greater Charlotte, we rely on Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnerships (HOME) funding from HUD to provide essential home repairs and accessibility modifications. These funds preserve existing housing stock, prevent displacement, and ensure our neighbors can remain safe and healthy in their homes. Any delays or cuts to these funds would have immediate consequences for the communities we serve. Without this support, thousands of homeowners could be left in unsafe conditions, unable to afford critical repairs like roof replacements, plumbing fixes, or wheelchair ramps. ?? Now is the time to act! ?? We urge our elected officials at the federal level to protect and fully fund HUD’s CDBG and HOME programs so we can continue delivering these vital services. If you care about safe and healthy housing in your community, reach out to your representatives and let them know that this funding must remain a priority! #AffordableHousing #HUD #CDBG #HOMEfunding #SafeAndHealthyHomes #RebuildingTogether #CommunityDevelopment #Advocacy

We appreciate the coverage! Check out what we have in store for our business community this year.

We were so fortunate to have 60+ neighbors come out this weekend to support a food drive for the Garinger High School social work team; close to 100 bags were packed! Food insecurity plagues East Charlotte. Each one of these bags may feed a family of four for a few days, but there are more students facing housing instability at Garinger than there were bags packed. The school’s feeder pattern is the most highly concentrated with poverty in all of CMS, and 1/3 of our entire Greater Eastland community relies on Food and Nutrition Services (Food Stamps). In a City of great wealth that markets itself on its commitment to upward mobility, we’re still waiting on the needle to move for our eastside families. We’re fortunate to have so many great nonprofits and houses of faith, but there is = a $25,000+ annual income gap between our average household and that of Mecklenburg County — we can’t rely on philanthropy alone to fix that disparity. For twenty years, we have seen a lack of public investment (directly and in terms of influence) in job creation and sustainable economic development in East Charlotte. Over these decades, we have seen leaders attempt (in some cases succeeding) to divert tax dollars earmarked for our community to public and public-private projects in wealthier parts of our City; equity has too often proven to be just a buzzword. While we’re headed in the right direction with the City’s sizable investments in the Eastland redevelopment and other critical projects like Spark Centro, so much more needs to be done to recover from a lost generation of wealth-building and access to opportunity. In 2025, we hope more of our neighbors will plug in to what’s going on in local government — Mecklenburg County is soliciting feedback right now for next year’s budget, City Council is hosting its annual strategy this week, and candidate filing for municipal seats begins in July. Need help accessing food? Check out Lemontree: https://lnkd.in/eNyYTThT

We are excited to launch our "Adopt-a-Teacher" program next month! CharlotteEAST will be providing stipends (thanks to the support of Truliant Federal Credit Union Foundation) and one-on-one community volunteers to one teacher in year 3+ at each of the following schools: Winterfield Elementary, Charlotte East Language Academy, Merry Oaks International Academy, Eastway Middle, and Garinger High. Applications are now open and due January 24th. For more info or support with the application, reach out to us via email at [email protected]. Teacher application: https://lnkd.in/ex-8WCq7 Volunteer interest form: https://lnkd.in/e9UUddtF

After a solid year of organizational development and foundation building, we're excited and ready to launch programming early this year! Check out this snapshot of our 2025-2027 strategic plan and stay tuned for future opportunities to volunteer and partner.

Making an impact alongside CharlotteEAST in 2024: from helping 56 neighbors keep their lights on, to showing love to hundreds of CMS teachers, to partnering with the Office of Violence Prevention to distribute 100 gun locks along Albemarle and Milton Roads. This is just the beginning – we're gearing up for even more community collaboration in 2025 to create positive change where it matters most. Read the full newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/ej-qxZbz

It's award season! Thank you?to the City of Charlotte?and UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture?for recognizing CharlotteEAST as their Great Neighborhood Champion of 2024 at this year’s Urban Design Awards - the Urbies. Thank you to Queen City Nerve for selecting us as the 2024 "Best in the Nest" Critics' Pick for best Instagram account. We love East Charlotte and are lucky to be able to do this work every day!

As we began planning for the Greater Eastland business district earlier this year, we were looking for national models to guide the process and discovered District Bridges, a community ecosystem development organization with an origin story similar to our own. District Bridges grew from the Columbia Heights Initiative, a grassroots effort to preserve the cultural diversity and vitality of Columbia Heights, Washington, DC. The organization has evolved into a year-round organization supporting over 1,000 small businesses across the city via capacity-building grants, resource connections, facade improvements, promotional events, and more. Their innovative Main Street Approach tailors revitalization efforts to local needs and scales to create greater impact through economies of scale. Unique among Main Street organizations, District Bridges manages multiple Main Street programs, streamlining their launch and operations while building staff capacity and leveraging each community’s assets. Last month, the CharlotteEAST team toured the District Bridges' footprint during D.C.’s Art All Night festival, an event with 20 participating neighborhoods and roughly 200,000 attendees. Each participating neighborhood served as a catalyst for corridor revitalization by highlighting music, visual, literary, and performing arts, activating public spaces, bringing new foot traffic to small and local businesses within the corridor, and bringing an increase in business sales compared to a typical weekend night. Here's what we learned and hope to bring back to the Greater Eastland area: https://lnkd.in/eiriVWnh

Last night, Charlotte's City Council voted unanimously in favor of allocating a final $11.3 million in public funds needed to begin construction of the Eastland Sports Complex. The vote was the last turn of key needed to restart an economic engine that will bring $169 million in anticipated annual impact and 500+ jobs to East Charlotte. This project, these outcomes, are what thousands of East Charlotteans have spent two decades fighting to see materialize. As this chapter closes, we’re excited to start a new one by welcoming Robert Bolton (Bolton, Ivory, Cantey LLC), Edge Sports Group, Southern Entertainment, and Charlotte Soccer Academy to our community. We can’t wait to see the transformative impact their work will bring. I’m grateful to the City of Charlotte for its investment in both the site and our organization; with roughly a quarter million in support via Corridors of Opportunity and ARPA funding, CharlotteEAST is embarking upon a two-year effort to establish and formalize a Greater Eastland Business district. Our goal is to help our business community navigate the opportunities and challenges posed by this development, ensuring existing small businesses are given the supports they need to stay in place while opening the door to those who want to do business on our side of town. Helping get our community to this point after nearly three decades of economic decline has been a momentous personal and professional journey. I'm grateful to every public official, private stakeholder, and community member who has worked alongside our team to lay the foundation for a brighter future.

Ribbon Cutting Ceremony Success ?? Today, we celebrated a significant milestone with the grand opening of The Charlotte is Home Center. As ourBRIDGE for KIDS, we are incredibly proud to partner with Carolina Migrant Network and Charlotte Community Health Clinic to provide vital resources and support to our immigrant neighbors and families. Our center aims to cultivate a sense of belonging and safety, supporting our community with the tools for economic stability and long-term physical and socio-emotional well-being. A special thank you to Lowe's Companies, Inc. for choosing us as part of the #LowesHometowns project! Your support and the hard work of Lowes volunteers on Red Vest Day helped make this day possible. We are also deeply grateful to Aldersgate Living for providing us with a center where we can continue our mission for the greater Charlotte area. This achievement would not have been possible without your generosity. A special thank you to Congresswoman Alma Adams for your unwavering support of our mission and for joining us on this momentous day. Finally, thank you to all our partners, board members, and staff who have supported us and helped bring this vision to life. Being here today highlights the collective effort and dedication to making a lasting impact in the greater Charlotte community. Because, after all, this is The Charlotte is Home Center. -— #Ourbridgeforkids #Charlotteishomecenter #Carolinamigrantnetwork #Charlottecommunityhealthclinic —— Music track: Sky by Ocean Bloom Source: https://lnkd.in/dPgpHCQv Free To Use Music for Video