Client Success: Celebrating Record Gains in Affordable Housing
Courtesy of Housing Impact Fund
Charlotte has been one of the country’s fastest-growing cities over the past 10 years, but with that growth has come an increasing lack of affordable housing for the city’s working-class residents.
It’s a classic Catch-22 scenario: the more the city grows, the more people it attracts, and the more importance is placed on well-located housing to accommodate them. As in most cities, developers in Charlotte have been buying up properties in fringe neighborhoods and converting them into luxury housing, pricing out low- and middle-income who end up moving away from jobs, schools, transportation and other services that give them a fighting chance of gaining economic and social mobility.
Enter Housing Impact Fund, a unique effort combining private capital, civic partnership and a commitment to preservation that pledges to provide safe, affordable housing for 10,000 residents in some of Charlotte’s most desirable neighborhoods, making it the city’s largest and most successful initiative.
I had the good fortune of introducing Housing Impact Fund to the world five years ago with considerable acclaim, including a Fast Company feature story. So I was delighted recently to help them announce the close of their third fund raise, which combined with grants and low-interest mortgages gives the group some $750 million to acquire, improve and preserve apartments for people living on the margins.
The news received widespread local overage, including The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte Business Journal, Business North Carolina and WCNC-TV. We’re also helping them take their story to a broader audience, including national publications that cover philanthropy and affordable housing as well as speaking opportunities to reach policymakers and other influentials in the space.
Focusing my consultancy on providing communications strategy for companies facing seismic change is very rewarding – helping leaders navigate uncertain waters and showing them a path toward achieving their goals. But when you help a client essentially double their ability to provide safe, affordable housing to our most vulnerable neighbors . . . well, I can’t imagine anything more gratifying.
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