Scheduled to be occupied in early 2025, Easter’s Home will offer 21 studio apartments for those who have been chronically homeless.
Caldwell is converting a century-old building, for decades used for Christian Education and later as a preschool, on its 1.3-acre property located 1.5 miles from center-city Charlotte. Caldwell’s development partner is DreamKey Partners, one of the region’s most experienced not-for-profit developers of affordable housing.
Easter’s Home will follow a housing-first, permanent supportive housing model of addressing homelessness, a data-proven strategy that gives residents stability, time and space to address their personal needs and to improve their lives. Roof Above, Charlotte’s leading provider of housing and related services for those living on the margins, will select criteria-eligible residents and provide case management and other supportive services. It will also serve as property manager.
By completing the $6-million development and construction funding, Easter’s Home will help meet the city’s dire need for very low-income housing, by providing housing to those meeting the income limits at 30% and 50% of the area median income. Residents will sign leases and pay rent typically based on 30% of adjusted monthly income. The remainder of the rent is paid through federal housing assistance. As part of the supportive housing model, residents will be assigned a Roof Above case manager and will be offered various additional services, at no cost to them.
About Caldwell
Founded in 1912 amid one of Charlotte’s many growth booms, Caldwell Presbyterian grew in membership and stature through about 1960, when membership numbered 1,100. It then entered a decades-long decline, driven in part by suburban sprawl and neighborhood changes. By 2006, members had voted to close the church due to dwindling funds. However, God had a different idea. An unaffiliated group of seekers that had been renting a room at Caldwell for weekly fellowship and study joined with the dozen remaining members of the church to renew and redirect the church toward a more missional, inclusive and justice-centered expression of faith.
Check out this video about Caldwell’s Resurrection
Who Was Easter?
In 1922, what began as John Knox Presbyterian received a substantial sum of money left to the church by the last remaining member of the Caldwell family, Sallie Caldwell White. Her father, David Caldwell, had been the final owner of the family’s plantation in northern Mecklenburg that had enslaved a number of Black families and individuals stolen from Africa. The church honored the gift by changing its name to Caldwell Memorial Presbyterian.
Here is a slideshow with more information about the Caldwell Family.
A woman named Easter was among those the Caldwells enslaved, according to David Caldwell’s will. Easter’s Home is meant to bring visibility to her life and others enslaved by the Caldwells and to symbolize God’s Easter promise of grace, renewal, resurrection and reconciliation in Christ Jesus.
Click here to read a sermon about the re-born church’s discovery of this history
In preparation for Easter’s Home, the Caldwell congregation entered into a two-year learning curriculum in 2023. The congregation has read a range of books about the city’s and nation’s housing crisis and the plight of the unhoused. It offers a regular drumbeat of workshops and trainings on topics relating to how members can be the best possible neighbors, including Housing First, harm reduction, trauma-informed care, poverty, housing and homelessness, anti-racist practices and more.
Caldwell has created a library of its workshops, presentations, sermons and more to allow members and others to build the base of knowledge we believe is needed to provide appropriately constructive support and friendship to our neighbors-to-be. Below are the links to our workshops and other resources to date.
Links to our Curriculum and Materials
Housing First University’s Introduction to Harm Reduction 101 Materials
Videos of our Conversations and Sermons
Rev. Susan Dunlap, author of Shelter Theology: The Religious Lives of People Without Homes.
Home: A Christian Call to End Homelessness.
Easter’s Home Ownership and Funding
Caldwell Housing Inc. is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established to provide rental housing for low income individuals. It is governed by a Board of Directors that includes Caldwell Presbyterian elders and members as well as community members at large and will be advised by those with lived experience in being unhoused. Current Board members are Jeff Brown, Elli Dai, Randy Hood, Riley Kilpatrick, Lisa Thompson, and Rev. John Cleghorn (ex-officio).
Caldwell Housing, Inc. has entered into a legal agreement with DreamKey Partners to form Easter’s Home at Caldwell, LLC. Easter’s Home at Caldwell, LLC, owns and operates the Easter’s Home residence, and has a ground lease from Caldwell Memorial Presbyterian Church. See here for a visual of the various entities involved with Easter’s Home.
The following sources comprise the development and construction budget:
Caldwell Presbyterian Church Capital Campaign
$800,000
Myers Park United Methodist Church Grant
$1,000,000
North Carolina Housing Finance Agency
$600,000
Merancas Foundation Grant
$500,000
City of Charlotte Housing Trust Fund Grant
$630,000
American Rescue Plan Act Grant through Mecklenburg County
$2,500,000
Total Funding
$6,030,000
Our Partners and Donors
- Roof Above
- DreamKey Partners
- w/Architecture
- Rehab Builders
Materials Donated by
- Electrolux
- National Gypsum