Bank of America, Habitat for Humanity partner on affordable housing in west Charlotte neighborhood

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - The American dream of owning a home has just become closer to reality for many in the Charlotte area.

Bank of America has partnered with Freedom Communities and Habitat for Humanity in an effort to turn local renters into homeowners.

Charlotte is growing by leaps and bounds and, like other cities, faces affordable housing challenges.

What the endeavor is doing is taking 23 homes in the Camp Greene neighborhood in west Charlotte and transitioning them from rentals to owner-occupied.

Organizers gave WBTV a tour of a model home as leaders from the organization met with people already living in the neighborhood to talk about the venture.

The program is open to those current residents and also potential new homeowners.

Leaders noted that the area - like many others in Charlotte - has seen an influx of people moving in and those prices are going up, many times creating disparities and displacing lower-income and minority families.

The idea is to relieve some of those discrepancies and allow affordable housing to be accessible to everyone.

”For the current tenants of these units, we’re going to be maintaining the rent structure that they have, but through attrition and other ways, when those units turn over, we will be then creating homeownership,” Brenda Suits, with Bank of America, said.

“No one can come and say, ‘Hey, next month your rent is going to go up a thousand dollars or $500.’ You have a mortgage and you know what your mortgage is gonna be and you can go to work and know that, when I get home, I have a peaceful place to sleep and a place to call my own,” Eugenia Washington, a potential homeowner, said.

This is a venture three years in the making, made possible by a donation from Bank of America of $1 million in the form of a low-interest loan.

It’s a process that will take about a decade.

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