Pandemic-related funds mostly dried up in 2023, but the problem of eviction remains. In recent years, Norris has seen rents rise and other troubling trends.

She says fewer landlords are accepting federal Section 8 rental-assistance vouchers from low-income renters. Meanwhile, rental-pricing software tools can push rent to upper limits, while aggressive bargaining and cash purchases by investors make homeownership less accessible. The rise of corporate ownership of rental properties further stresses the system.

“They don’t give property managers a lot of leeway,” Norris adds. If a corporate policy says no partial payments, for example, mediation is out the window. “They don’t have the sense of community, or the sense of investment in our community.”

Guilford County’s homeless population largely tracks with the rise and fall of the rental-assistance programs.

An annual point-in-time count shows a high of 721 people experiencing homelessness in Guilford County in 2016 – 129 of them under 18. The total number reduced to 452 in 2023 but rebounded to 665 in 2024.

Homelessness, Norris says, becomes a community problem when people are forced to live on the street.

Businesses that rely on employees getting to work, on consumers with dependable income, and on safe streets to engage in commerce have as much of a stake in this as local government, neighborhoods, and community organizations do.