In 2022, Mecklenburg County scooped up an unassuming hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina — the TownePlace Suites Arrowood — for $10.5 million.
They did it with a vision in mind: to turn the hotel into apartments for people in the city experiencing homelessness.
The site — which was renamed as Forest Point Place — first began welcoming residents as early as July 2023.
But on April 1, the facility completed renovations that doubled the reach of the facility, expanding permanent affordable housing to more than 90 people.
The incoming tenants were handpicked from a pool of applicants, all of whom were over the age of 55, had underlying medical conditions, and were chronically homeless (unhoused for 12 months or longer).
Including people like Tim Barton.
“This place has really got me back on track,” Barton, a Forest Point Place tenant, told WCNC Charlotte.
“I was homeless [for] about five years, and drugs got me there, where I was at, got me down and everything,” Barton said. “They picked me back up, put me in here, and I come in here — I walk in my room, I feel like I’m walking in a mansion.”
Mecklenburg County manager Dena R. Diorio said that the project, which was laid out in the 2025 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing and Homelessness Strategy, comes at a time when “more than one in four homeless residents” in the larger Charlotte community is an adult over the age of 55.
“This will be an affordable housing option for individuals, couples and parents with adult children who are 55 years and older experiencing homelessness and who have other vulnerabilities,” Diorio said in a statement. “This county commitment allows these residents the opportunity to age in place.”
In addition to offering fully furnished apartments, Forest Point Place provides tenants with healthcare coordination, case management services, and events like poetry slams, movie nights, and more that help the tenants truly feel like neighbors.
“This is an opportunity for those people to live their best life, their best, healthiest life, and not have to worry about going back onto the streets or into a shelter,” Diorio said.
The renovations for Forest Point Place were led by Roof Above, a nonprofit that embraces the “housing first” approach to reducing homelessness.
“We see that older adults sometimes have less income, [which] makes them more vulnerable to homelessness, and then their health needs make independence harder,” said Liz Clasen-Kelly, CEO of Roof Above.
“This is unique, that it combines affordable housing with wraparound supports to prolong people’s independence and to give them the safety, stability and dignity at home.”
“We celebrate not just the opening of Forest Point Place,” Clasen-Kelly continued, “but the promise that lives and communities can be transformed through partnership.”
Tenants like Barton can personally attest to that transformation.
“I’m pretty much stable now,” Barton said. “I ain’t been stable in five, six years, I appreciate everything they’ve done for me. I love this place.”
Header images via Mecklenburg County
