Homelessness in Orange County

Written by Mackenzie Thomas

Three meals a day. Clean clothes on your back. A roof over your head. A warm bed to crash into at the end of a long day. Everyday Americans take things like these for granted, but when you are homeless, gaining access to any one of these things becomes less of an expectation and more of a miracle.

It’s no secret that homelessness is an ever-present issue in our state and even across the country, and even small towns such as Carrboro, North Carolina are not immune to this reality.

According to the Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness, 148 people are currently recorded as being unhoused in Orange County, which is a 17 percent increase in the unhoused population (including those who are sheltered and unsheltered) from 2023-2024. This is the highest value since 2021, when the unhoused population reached 176. Until 2024, this number had been trending downward with each year, but now, the unhoused population is on the rise again.

Brimming with small businesses and unique shops lining the streets, Carrboro is a place where diversity and ingenuity thrive. These qualities extend to the town’s efforts to rectify the unhoused crisis in their own backyard.

Carrboro is home to programs and organizations such as the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service, which provides services such as their Community House that provides shelter for unhoused men in the area. Community Kitchen is another IFC program that provides hot meals for anyone who needs them.

Additionally, there’s the Freedom House Recovery Center, which serves those struggling with substance abuse and mental illness, and the Street Outreach, Harm Reduction and Deflection program, which connects the unhoused population with the resources they need.

As much of an impact as these programs make in the community, the amount of funding available can limit the extent of the work they do.

“I would guess that there are often funding challenges in the sense of… are there enough staff lines to do this?” said Theodore Nollert, a council member for the Chapel Hill Town Council.

This need for increased funding may contribute to the disconnect that allows homelessness to persist in the area.

What events often lead to a person becoming unhoused? There’s the loss of a job, substance abuse, a mental health crisis, and many more possibilities. With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic though, these problems were only magnified.

“The pandemic has exacerbated national crises that existed long before the coronavirus,” said United Way, a global nonprofit organization.

“Nowhere is this more evident than in the pandemic’s influence on homelessness and affordable housing.”

Mental health, which was significantly affected by the pandemic, is another key factor in the homelessness issue today.

“When you have severe and profound mental health issues, if that’s untreated, or sporadically treated, or self-treated…to some extent, you’re just on a cycle,” said Carrboro police Chief Chris Atack.

“The challenge is to unpack that cycle, stop the crisis, and get those folks in a situation where they can get stability.”

Additional challenges also arise for people when the mistakes of their past interfere with potential job prospects.

“Common causes of poverty are often people not being able to find employment due to their past… incarceration for the most part,” said April Scales, a peer support specialist for Freedom House and a board member for IFC.

“A lot of people will go to the interview, get the job, and when they see something on their past… regardless of how long ago it was, they will not give them the job.”

A lack of transportation poses a unique challenge as well, as it can prevent those in need of certain services from getting to places where those services are offered, especially if people are coming from more rural areas, said Scales.

It can also prevent those who are already employed from reaching their place of work.

“If you’re in a situation where you’re coming a long distance to get to work, and all of a sudden, let’s say your car doesn’t work anymore, and you were living paycheck to paycheck, your choice is, I can stay home and stop earning money, or I can stay close enough to work that I can get to work until I can pay to get my car repaired,” said Nollert.

“People just end up in a situation where their expenses push them out of the housing that they can afford.”

Considering all the possible challenges and obstacles, it can be difficult to determine the best solution for everyone involved. However, more affordable housing is definitely needed, said Scales.

Atack also said more affordable housing is needed, as well as higher wages for workers in the area.

“I think it’s gotten worse. If you look at the jobs in Carrboro and what’s available… the people that make enough to live here in a house do not work here.”

In Chapel Hill, the prices of homes have risen 23.4 percent within the last year while they’ve dropped 13.2 percent in Carrboro within the last year, according to Redfin, a real estate company. But even with a 13.2 percent drop, the median price for a home in Carrboro is still $629,000, which is well above the price range of the lower income demographic.

Nollert suggested a coordinated plan involving Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, and the county as a possible solution to homelessness. However, it isn’t a perfect one.

“I think the realistic challenge you have with anything like that is if it’s only Orange County that does it, then you end up with a potential attractor effect for folks in counties that don’t have the resources to do it,” said Nollert.

“Then you end up with a higher responsibility and that’s something we would have to try to adapt to at that time.”

Sometimes, people just need a second chance.

“There needs to be more employers willing to be second chance employers,” said Scales. “Get to know the person and not the past, and just be willing to give them a chance.”

The Prison Policy Initiative, a non-profit organization that focuses on criminal justice reform, said that those with a history of incarceration are nearly 10 times as likely to be unhoused than the rest of the public, meaning that a second chance for these individuals could be the difference between thriving and living in poverty.

Not everyone is ready and willing to ask for this second chance though.

“Some people are too prideful,” said Scales. “Some people are not willing to admit that they need help until it’s too late.”

Even though there is still work to be done, Barbara Foushee, mayor of Carrboro, said that Orange County has already made good progress in addressing homelessness in the area.

“Service providers and local governments have helped to significantly expand programs and services to address the needs of people who are at risk of experiencing homelessness,” Foushee said.

“There are still some gaps to be filled in order to meet the current need and end homelessness in Orange County.Filling these gaps will hopefully result in homelessness in our community becoming rare, brief and one-time.”

Mackenzie is a journalism major and a rising senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.