Alleviating the Charlotte Public Health Crisis through Housing for All
Kendrick has worked to advance housing for all since 2017
When Kendrick was in high school, he had to help his mother find a place that would let their family stay there using their Section 8 voucher. It quickly dawned upon him that this was not a happy, let’s go look at all the homes in our mind and see which one best fits our needs process. His mother told him that they had a certain amount of time to find a place that would let them use their voucher before they lost it. Unfortunately, they did lose their voucher for that very reason. Kendrick remembers being upset at everything because he felt it was unfair that they had the money, but still could not have access to housing because of a provider's discriminatory stance on section 8 voucher holders.
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A Charlotte native, Kendrick has witnessed countless long-term residents in our historic affordable communities move because of the lack of preservation policies in our community. This contributes to the growing public health crisis that many communities find themselves at the epicenter of. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg region suffers from socioeconomic segregation. This means that the demographic profile of a household determines the quality of life it is assigned. Unfortunately, race, income and education all play a role in determining this. Call it whatever, but there are three common factors that define class – education, income, and occupation. As someone who comes from a family that did not obtain high school diplomas and worked predominately in the leisure and hospitality industry as associates, Kendrick knows first hand about the quality of life experience for working families in Charlotte.
Kendrick firmly believes that in order to create more triumphant communities and deflate the price of the Charlotte housing market, the City of Charlotte must outpace the building of housing units and the creation of housing options juxtaposed to that of the amount of units we need to house per income level per year. Once activity begins to occur in the market, housing demand will increase. This demand can only be driven by a housing market that embraces the ability for housing providers to offer an array of housing options at diverse price points. As demand increases and we continue to outpace the construction of housing with different options, the price of housing will begin to consolidate and enter a sustained period of deflation. This macroeconomic solution is what I refer to as Housing for All. In the end we would have increased the total revenue of our housing market.
In 2021, Kendrick helped to organize community leaders in support of goal three of the Charlotte Future 2040 Comprehensive Plan - housing for all. This plan along with Kendrick's housing for all macroeconomic strategy was adopted by the Charlotte City Council in June 2021. Kendrick was a key champion and vital stakeholder of the anti-source of income discrimination policy movement. He was recognized by President Biden for working on this policy front to create more affordable housing in Charlotte. In 2022, the Charlotte City Council adopted an anti-source of income discrimination policy that mandated any housing provider receiving city dollars to accept all sources of income.
Kendrick has worked to advance housing for all since 2017
Kendrick first discovered Source of Income Discrimination during his undergraduate research. His professor Dr. Elizabeth Fournierr said that he had a policy key that would remove major barriers to revolutionize the housing market in America as we know it today. Those words have stuck with him since 2017. Discovering source of income discrimination was a huge shock to Kendrick because his family has been largely negatively impacted by the ability for landlords to turn them away because of the sources of income they needed to use to ensure they had shelter. Kendrick also knew this was something his friends and neighbors were all dealing with. Therefore, it was something personal to him and an issue he felt obligated to do something about given his ability as a political strategist.
Ending source of income discrimination is one of the reasons he decided to continue his career in organizing beyond building youth power in North Carolina. It is one of the reasons he understands the complexity of the housing web and can talk among all key housing stakeholders to help us enhance our housing industry in our city. Kendrick believes that this is the viable pathway forward to eliminating De Facto Segregation in America which would remove a lot of barriers for an extremely diverse group of Americans across all income levels. This would expedite the housing application process in our region and increase the amount of housing options Charlotte residents can qualify to access. Fully banning source of income discrimination would also spur on activity within the housing market, increasing the demand for housing. This would ultimately trigger price stabilization for a brief period.