A Way Home Housing Endowment
A public-private partnership
A Way Home (AWH) provides temporary rental subsidies for working families experiencing homelessness, covering the gap between market rent and affordability. AWH also arranges for a social worker to address the barriers that caused the family to experience homelessness. After two years of AWH subsidies and social services, the family often remains in the same home with the children remaining in their same schools.
What differentiates AWH — and contributes to its success — is the partnership among the City, philanthropic foundations, business community, and faith community that created this $26 million endowment for rental subsidies. The County and non-profit agencies are critical partners in operating the program, providing the AWH social workers.
Outcomes
In a pilot program of 114 families, three out of four A Way Home families remained stably housed with stable jobs and no new eviction, results sustained for at least two years after support ended.
A Way Home Pilot Outcomes
Replication
Mecklenburg County funded a $6 million rental subsidy program in 2020, operating under the AWH governance structure but with slightly different admission criteria: income was capped at 30% AMI (instead of 50%) and working adults without children were included (instead of only working parents).
With the addition of this new program, called MeckHOME, four non-profit agencies that operate shelters now administer rental subsidies and social services under the same umbrella, sharing best practices across the majority of shelter beds in Charlotte.
