FOR RENT
By Julia Camenisch, Project 658
“We don’t know what to do, Miss,” my Afghan friend said wearily to me. “The landlord told us we can no longer live in this house.” Over a year has passed since the resettlement agencies in Charlotte were scrambling to find housing for Afghans. Families were put almost anywhere that was offered as local landlords opened up rental properties for short-term assistance. There was great generosity and an outpouring of support from the community here for these emergency situations.
But news cycles fade and Charlotte’s rental prices continue rising. Landlords who were charging below-market rent now need to raise the rents on these borrowed properties. And for some new Afghan families, this means skirting dangerously close to homelessness. They are, for the first time, having to navigate finding a rental house. Many families are too large to be allowed in the standard apartment, and swamped resettlement agencies no longer have staff to help negotiate rent. At Project 658, we’ve had the opportunity to provide rent assistance several times thanks to generous donations to our Afghan Assistance fund, but now that money is running out.
I’ve spent far too many hours on Zillow trying to find my friends a place that is large enough, cheap enough, close enough. Yet I at least know how to navigate the system. Many of these Afghan families are bewildered at the long list of requirements being thrown at them when they try to find a new house. They were displaced once. Now they’re facing displacement again as salaries from low-wage factory jobs no longer cover the ever-rising rents here in the Queen City.
Isaiah 58:7 reminds us to, “bring the homeless poor into the house…” And churches are stepping up. Teams from congregations here are working together to find housing solutions for individual families. Yet so much more is needed. Pray that God would open (literally) the doors to affordable rentals for refugee families who desperately need a place to live, a place of safety. While our city might be the final stop in these families’ journey to safety, they haven’t yet found a place to call home.