Atrium Health Affordable Housing & Homelessness Support Timeline
Ongoing – Assertive Community Treatment Team
Atrium Health provides a service known as the Assertive Community Treatment Team (ACTT), a community-based behavioral health program that delivers intensive wraparound services for individuals with severe and persistent mental illness. In addition to housing assistance, the program offers 24/7 crisis response, medication management and vocational support, helping patients avoid hospitalization and maintain stability in the community.
2025 – HOPE Street Medicine Project – Essential Outreach and Supplies
The HOPE Street Medicine Project, led by emergency medicine providers, was founded in January 2025. It is designed to deliver street-based care to unhoused individuals — meeting them where they are, with dignity and compassion. Outreach teams are equipped with essential supplies, such as prescription drugs, hygiene kits, weather-appropriate clothing, sleeping gear, snacks and water. These items support basic health needs and help build trust with patients who often face significant barriers to care. The project is funded through the Emergency Medicine Fund at Atrium Health Foundation.
2025 – Street Psychiatry Pilot
In September 2025, Atrium Health launched “Wellness Without Walls,” a street psychiatry program aimed at delivering behavioral health care directly to unhoused individuals. The pilot, funded at $303,000 through philanthropic partners, provides psychiatric evaluations by Atrium Health physicians, medication management and follow-up care in the community.
2024 – The Pearl Innovation District Commitment
Connected to the planning and financing of The Pearl, Atrium Health voluntarily made a commitment to contribute an approximately 14-acre site on North Tryon Street for affordable housing. In June 2024, Atrium Health placed a deed restriction on the land to ensure future use would be for this purpose and fulfilling the terms of the Tax Increment Grant financing agreement with the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.
The city’s housing authority, Inlivian, owns the adjacent property and is expected to develop a combined 28-acre affordable housing community near the light rail.
In addition, as of October 2025, we’re in talks and working with a housing developer who plans to develop onsite housing at The Pearl site in future phases and intends to include 5% of its residential development for affordable units.
2023 – NOAH Preservation and Virtual Clinic
Atrium Health deepened its commitment to investing in naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH) units to preserve affordability for households at 30% of the area median income. In May 2023, Atrium Health partnered with Ascent Housing to open the first virtual care clinic inside an apartment complex, at Peppertree Apartments, on Charlotte’s Central Avenue corridor. The clinic provides convenient access to primary and specialty care for residents and non-residents, removing barriers such as transportation and time constraints. Equipped with telemedicine technology and on-site support, patients can receive comprehensive exams, testing for common infections and immediate treatment plans. This initiative reflects Atrium Health's commitment to meeting people where they live and closing gaps in health care access for vulnerable families.
2023 – Health and Housing Program
Atrium Health partnered with Supportive Housing Communities to launch the Health and Housing Program, serving chronically unhoused individuals with complex medical and behavioral health needs. The initiative provides integrated care alongside housing support, helping participants stabilize their health and living situations. Each year, the program enrolls up to 20 individuals who meet the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s chronic homelessness criteria and have multiple chronic conditions or frequent emergency department visits. Supportive Housing Communities reports that 94% of residents remain in stable housing, 94% in recovery do not relapse and 93% with mental illness avoid emergency mental health crises, underscoring the effectiveness of permanent supportive housing in reducing homelessness and improving health outcomes.
2021 – Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing and Homelessness Strategy
In April 2021, Advocate Health CEO Gene Woods was named co-chair of A Home For All, a community-led initiative that produced 99 recommendations to make homelessness rare, brief and nonrecurring. The plan established a unified governance structure for homelessness response and introduced a braided funding strategy combining public and private dollars, with $4.6 million committed for fiscal 2024 to begin implementation. By 2023, United Way of Greater Charlotte began implementing the recommendations, directing more than $12 million in grants to programs that include housing stability and homelessness prevention programs and aligning dozens of local agencies under a unified governance structure. Atrium Health remains engaged in the implementation.
2021 – Launch of Housing Assistance for Teammates
Atrium Health introduced the Housing Opportunity Promoting Equity (H.O.P.E.) program, offering affordable housing options for its teammates facing hardship. Units were made available at sliding-scale rates, and the program included financial coaching and career support to help employees achieve long-term stability.
2021 – Expanded Housing Stability Support
Atrium Health strengthened its approach to housing insecurity by formalizing referral pathways to community-based emergency rental assistance programs and homelessness prevention services. Through community partnerships and these referral pathways, care teams connected patients and families to programs covering back rent, first month’s rent and security deposits, as well as homelessness prevention services offered through local call centers and community service hubs. These efforts provided critical short-term stability for vulnerable individuals during a period of heightened financial hardship.
2020 – Service on the Governor’s Task Force
Advocate Health CEO Gene Woods was appointed to the North Carolina Governor’s Andrea Harris Social, Economic, Environmental and Health Equity Task Force, which addresses disparities, including housing insecurity. He served on the task force until 2024.
2020 – Advocacy Through Partnerships
Atrium Health partnered with Roof Above, providing a $5 million low-interest loan for an apartment complex offering 341 affordable housing units. Seventy-five units are reserved for participants in Roof Above’s Homeful Housing program, which serves chronically unhoused individuals. An additional 50 units were designated for use by Atrium Health teammates in need of housing security. Today, Advocate Health, which includes Atrium Health, partners with 725 community-based organizations to address social drivers of health such as housing insecurity, including Charlotte Family Housing, Ascent Housing and the Charlotte Housing Authority.
2020 – Housing Impact Fund Partnership
Atrium Health joined the Housing Impact Fund, contributing $10 million since 2020 toward efforts that preserved and created affordable housing for families earning below 80% of the area median income. This partnership’s aim is to deliver 2,200 affordable and permanent supportive housing units, reinforcing Atrium Health’s commitment to addressing housing as a health priority. Over the past four years, the fund has raised $125 million, enabling the acquisition, renovation and preservation of 11 communities totaling 1,866 units serving more than 5,000 residents. Collin Lane, an executive vice president at Atrium Health, currently serves on the Housing Impact Fund’s advisory board.
2019 – $10 Million Affordable Housing Commitment
On June 4, 2019, Atrium Health announced its $10 million investment in affordable housing initiatives to improve community health. This commitment was met through contributions to the Housing Impact Fund and Roof Above, beginning in 2020.
2018 – Launch of the Community Resource Hub
Atrium Health began embedding housing support into its broader community health strategy. Through its Community Resource Hub, launched in February 2018, Atrium Health connected patients and families to programs addressing housing insecurity, energy assistance and homelessness prevention. Since launching the Community Resource Hub, Atrium Health has connected more than 7,000 people, approximately 4,000 of whom are Atrium Health patients, to housing resources.
2017 – Community Health and Benefit Grants
Atrium Health awarded more than $1 million in community health grants, some of which supported housing stability and homelessness prevention programs. These grants complemented Atrium Health’s mobile health units and partnerships with local organizations to address social and economic factors impacting health.