- [Narrator] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.
- Just ahead on Carolina Impact.
- High prices, low inventory, lots of competition.
That's what first time home buyers are facing right now in Charlotte, but is some of that competition unfair?
I'm Jeff Sonier.
Stick around, we'll show you what happens when Wall Street wants to buy your street.
- [Amy] Plus, nutritious foods, hard to come by for some.
We'll take you from the farm to families receiving excess fruits and vegetables.
And ever wonder who's in charge of those colored lights in Uptown?
We're taking you behind the scenes to meet the people running the show.
Carolina Impact starts right now.
- [Narrator] Carolina Impact, covering the issues, people, and places that impact you.
This is Carolina Impact.
(intro music) - Good evening.
Thanks so much for joining us.
I'm Amy Burkett.
If you're house hunting in Charlotte for the first time, get ready for sticker shock.
Prices are at an all-time high, supply is at an all-time low.
And even if you find the home you're looking for, chances are you'll have lots of other buyers bidding against you, including Wall Street investors buying as many homes as they can in some Charlotte neighborhoods.
Well, PBS Charlotte's Jeff Sonier is in one of those neighborhoods with more on the high price of home, sweet home.
Jeff?
- Yeah, this is an east side neighborhood of what real estate people call starter homes.
Newer houses, not fixer-uppers, nice and pretty affordable, too.
At least they used to be pretty affordable, but not so much anymore.
Not if you're on a budget and especially not when you have to compete with Wall Street.
(melancholic piano music) - Look, I don't want no apartment.
I don't want no townhouse.
I don't want no condo.
- [Jeff] Natalie Hale was a first-time home buyer herself four years ago, but the single-family home she bought here then would be way out of her price range now.
- Yeah, it says $270,000 and the price has gone so far up.
I was shocked.
I mean, the price!
I said, "Are you kidding me?"
(melancholic piano music) - [Jeff] Her neighborhood is Wallace Creek, off Harris Boulevard, where the streets are quiet and crime-free.
Not like they used to be.
- Squatters, drug addicts, guns being shot through people's house.
They got them out.
It's quiet, no more stealing.
The riff-raff has gone.
I really mean that.
- [Jeff] Now, first time home buyers are attracted to the patios and the picket fences they find here.
But driving up and down these streets, what they won't find here is many For Sale signs because investment firms are getting to Wallace Creek first, offering more before they're even on the market and turning these starter homes into rental homes.
- "Dear Natalie, I'm interested in buying your house.
I can pay you cash for your house as is."
- [Jeff] And Mrs. Hale says the letters come in her mail every week.
Sometimes every day.
- "There is no obligation, so call me if you're interested in a no-hassle cash sale."
So one day I decided to call them and ask them, "Why do you want to buy my house?"
They don't answer that question.
- No, the all cash offers don't offer many details.
And apparently she's not the only owner on those investment company mailing lists, either.
Because in her neighborhood, Mrs. Hale says everybody gets those letters.
- I been talking to them all day.
We get them all the time, especially for the ones who've been living here 17 and 18 years.
Them people ain't going nowhere.
They're established, and the hard times as it is now, they ain't got nowhere to go.
- [Jeff] Do they feel pressure to sell from these callers, these mailers?
- No, they're just getting tired of it.
I just want to know why, you know?
I said, "I might be willing to sell.
I just want to know why you want it so bad."
(calm piano music) - It's not too high-income, not too low-income.
And it's kind of right in the sweet spot for what these Wall Street-backed rental companies like to purchase.
And it's right in that sort of first-time home buyer zone.
- [Jeff] Ely Portillo is an assistant director with the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute.
They did the research showing Wall Street owns a third or more of the homes on these streets and more than 11,000 homes countywide.
Once for sale, now for rent instead.
Where does that leave those buyers, those buyers that used to come into a neighborhood like this, shopping for homes?
- Well, it leaves more of them renting.
- [Jeff] Yup.
For investment companies, the same shortage they're creating in for-sale starter homes also creates a bigger market for their rental homes.
For them, it's a win-win, and the losers are those first-time home buyers getting priced out by the shortage.
These are folks that would like to buy a house, but they can't.
- So we're in a really competitive real estate market.
You know, the average price for a home in the Charlotte region has crossed $400,000.
It's even higher in the city of Charlotte proper and where we're seeing the biggest crunch is on the lower end of that inventory.
(solemn music) - We dedicate this home.
- [Jeff] At this Habitat home project in Mooresville, these are new homes in an old mill village.
Not single family homes, but 10 townhomes on three single family lots.
Because higher prices are causing a crisis for providers of affordable starter homes, too.
- Since COVID, we are now dealing with not only increased land prices, but increased cost for construction.
We had even more families that are in need and that are waiting for safe, secure, affordable homes.
- Okay, home sweet home.
- [Jeff] Amber Stinson shows off her new home.
- Got our kitchen area right here.
There will be a stove, a refrigerator, a dishwasher.
- [Jeff] It's not quite finished yet.
Still dust on the floors, plastic on the doors, but so much more than she and her son had before.
- So this is like everything.
This is more than enough space for the both of us, and it's great.
- Thank you.
- [Shannon] Being able to build more homes really is what we need to do.
There's no lack of people that need affordable housing and there's no lack of people that need affordable home ownership.
- We ask that you would now transform these buildings into homes, and the people that will build lives within these walls fill them with your love.
- By the way, buying a house, not just buying a place to live, it's also a way to build wealth.
Buying a house is an investment.
That's something else we talked about with Ely earlier.
If you're a first-time home buyer and you can't buy a house because homes are too scarce or too expensive, well, then there is no investment.
And that's when that gap between the haves and the have-nots, that's when it gets even wider.
Amy?
- Thanks so much, Jeff.
If you want to know where else Wall Street investors are house hunting in our region, head to pbscharlotte.org.
You'll find a link to research by the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute with more and why affordable starter homes are so hard to find these days.
For some people, homes aren't the issue.
It's food.
Nearly 15% of households in Mecklenburg county are considered food insecure, meaning they have limited access to healthy foods.
Nearly 590,000 households in the state don't have enough food to eat each and every day.
That's according to the North Carolina Justice Center.
Now, Rochelle Metzger tells us how the North Carolina Gleaning Network works to reduce food waste and feed local families.
- [Rochelle] The sun is up and beaming down on this sticky Carolina morning as a group gathers at the entrance to Barbee Farms in Concord.
These folks aren't farm workers, but they are here to work.
- So what we're trying to do is save that good food that would go to waste.
- [Rochelle] Jean Siers organized this outing, bringing together volunteers with a common goal: to help end hunger in their communities.
- We have a large food desert, just north of Kannapolis.
- [Rochelle] Here at Barbee Farms, rows of vegetables and fruit trees line nearly 70 acres of this North Carolina century farm.
Charlie Barbee and brother Brent are sixth generation farmers.
Brent owns and operates the farm, one of many that partner with the Society of St. Andrew, the nation's largest and oldest gleaning organization.
- We work with farmers and volunteers and hunger agencies.
Sort of a triangle, if you will, to connect farms that have excess produce with volunteers who can pick the produce with hunger agencies and neighborhoods that can receive the produce and get it to people who need it.
- [Rochelle] Last year, Barbee Farms donated more than 103,000 servings of produce.
Today, they've opened their tomato fields to Siers and her group of volunteers.
- This is not perfect food, but it's still got the nutrition to it and everything.
- [Rochelle] The group picks a good spot to park and unload equipment.
A quick tutorial from Siers.
- You want to take that stem off.
- [Rochelle] Then, buckets in hand, volunteers set out to divide and conquer.
Among those hard at work reaping the crops are members of Christ Episcopal Church in Charlotte.
- You know, being out here is something that I don't normally do every day.
So it's something new and it's with a community that I enjoy being with.
- Now that the profitable produce has all been picked, the volunteers behind me will go through these fields and glean what's left.
They'll pick a couple of thousand pounds of tomatoes today looking for almost ripe red ones and green ones, discarding any that looked like this, which means they'll go bad before they make it out to clients.
- Farm fresh tomatoes in the grocery store, they're $3-4 a pound, and folks on a fixed income just aren't going to be able to do that.
- [Rochelle] As part of the North Carolina Gleaning Network, Siers organizes outings like this on a weekly basis.
- We usually start up in probably in late May, early June when the strawberries and blueberries start, and then July and August are the busiest times when we're kind of going full bore in the fields.
- [Rochelle] She says they stayed busy through the winter months.
- [Jean] We continue to move food all year long.
- [Rochelle] Siers says in a community as affluent as Charlotte, it may be easy to forget how many of our neighbors struggle to put food on the table.
- [Jean] I think a lot of people feel left behind.
- [Rochelle] It's a mission Maria Gandy shares.
- Who needs a bucket?
- [Rochelle] Gandy is program director for Caterpillar Ministries, a grassroots nonprofit nestled in the heart of the Huntington Green mobile home community in Huntersville.
- In the neighborhood, families struggle with it's either you pay the rent, you pay the bill, or you know, you buy cheap food.
- [Rochelle] Maria understands their struggle because she lived it.
One of seven children raised by a single mom who would wake up at dawn to go gleaning so they could eat.
- My mother is extremely proud of me.
- [Rochelle] But she says that's not what drives her to help others.
- I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do, and because if I come over here and pick tomatoes, then I know that some kids are going to be eating spaghetti sauce or salsa.
- [Rochelle] After gleaning, Gandy takes her haul back to Huntersville.
Crates of tomatoes, along with boxes of eggs from St. Andrew's are unloaded off the truck.
Once things are set up, she goes on Facebook live to spread the word.
- So please bring your container, bag, or a bucket.
- [Rochelle] Within minutes, cars lined the street.
Joshua Leon lives nearby with his parents and five siblings.
- We're really thankful for everything they've done.
- [Rochelle] He says he comes to the pop-up food pantry once, sometimes twice a week.
Today, he brought two of his siblings to help carry the groceries home.
- For this community, it helps out a lot financially and just having a better life.
- [Rochelle] Feeding Kannapolis Hunger is a group with a similar mission.
The nonprofit connects families in Cabarrus and Rowan counties with fresh food.
The organization doesn't stop there, offering wellness classes and cooking demonstrations at their weekly mobile markets.
Participants receive a supplemental food box filled with whatever volunteers gleaned that week.
- To take it from the field to the people that in need is something very special.
- [Rochelle] Fruits of their labor that would otherwise spoil instead provide sustenance for hundreds of local families.
- To do this just actually does me more good than anything.
But when you're in the field, you feel closer to God.
- [Rochelle] For Bramlett and others in the network, gleaning is a gift that feeds their souls.
For Carolina Impact, I'm Rochelle Metzger reporting.
- Thanks so much, Rochelle.
Here's how you can help.
Take fruits and vegetables that you've gleaned or grown from your own garden directly to a soup kitchen, shelter, or food pantry near you.
Well, he dreamed of playing football professionally, but when COVID canceled his season, his football career took a hit.
Unsure of what to do next, the Charlotte native shifted his passion for playing the game to coaching.
Barbara Lash introduces us to Austin P. Duke.
(funky electronic music) - [Barbara] On any given weekend, you can find Austin P. Duke helping these young men master their craft, but during seven-on-seven football tournaments through his foundation.
- Austin's a great coach, and he really helped me through a lot of things with recruiting and getting my throws right, and really coaching me up through being able to play, tackle, and seven-on-seven.
I think this will be six years, six or seven years.
So it's been great.
- [Commentator] Austin jumps and he scores!
Touchdown!
- [Barbara] Austin is a Charlotte native and a record holder with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte 49ers football team.
He made more headlines with the Carolina Panthers in 2017 for the rookie mini camp and signing with the NFL team's practice squad.
He also spent time in the Alliance of American Football, or AAF, and in the Extreme Football League, also known as the XFL.
- [Commentator] Austin took us in for the touchdown for the Guardians.
- [Barbara] That was until the season was canceled in March of 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- [Barbara] Austin explains coming back home to Charlotte was challenging.
- I tore my hamstring, came back and I was just in a serious state of depression.
I was going to therapy.
My football career was kind of at a point where I didn't know where I was going to go, if I was going to play or I was gonna hang it up.
And it ended up working out.
One of my next door neighbors came up to me, Alan Caldwell and said, "Hey, we got a seven-on-seven team.
Come out.
You still have a lot of influence in the community.
The boys still love you.
You still have a lot to give back."
(jumpy electronic music) - [Barbara] Never being too far from his love for the game, Austin accepted the invitation and realized just how much giving back is part of his DNA.
- Alright, so here we go!
- Smash, smash, smash.
- It's so nice to see Cam Newton do it.
Ever since I was younger, I saw him do it, but I didn't realize I was in a position to do that until I went out there to the kids, to their own team and saw their energy towards me.
Anything I said, they were receptive of it.
If I told them a certain route, they were eating it up.
They played better that day, or so I was told.
- [Barbara] That team and the experience morphed into what is known today as the APD foundation, which not only helps develop football skills, but also helps these young men develop their character - It's definitely helped, like, reading what the other team's defense is doing.
Being able to make the right throws against them.
It's really helped me.
And he's helped me as a leader, too.
Being able to coach up my other players and know what to say.
- I really like Austin.
He's a good coach.
He keeps everyone up.
He don't let people get down.
And just have fun.
- [Barbara] Elijah's father, Clarence Holmes, knew of Austin before his son became a part of the foundation and its seven-on-seven events.
- Of course, we follows football and everything, so we would know of him from being at the Panthers, but as far as in the community, that's what I really heard about Austin.
The work that he's doing in the community.
- [Barbara] Work, according to Austin, that stresses the importance of becoming a good player, student, son, and brother, and someone who sees the total picture.
- [Austin] I don't want their identity to just be football.
- [Barbara] Not a chance of that happening, to hear Cameron tell it.
- Well, every single time we have a guest speaker, he'll literally cut out seven-on-seven time.
And just to teach us things about life, like being smart with your money or challenges you're going to face when you're growing up into being a man.
Sometimes you get these teams where, you know, they don't really offer a lot of work for the kids or a lot of insight for the kids.
It's more about, you know, wins and losses.
For Austin, it's about growing them to be better men, to be better fathers in the future, and just be better players all around.
- [Barbara] Parent Ernest Chambers is also looking forward to getting his youngest son Jaylin more involved after seeing how his older son Jordan evolved under Austin's influence.
Jordan's dad says he's now a college student at Coastal Carolina.
- Throughout the years that he played with him, it helped him become a better man, it helped him become a better athlete, and his just work ethic was off the charts, and I really appreciate that.
- [Barbara] These parents and student athletes also appreciated the foundation providing a safe space to sharpen their skills during the pandemic, especially as they begin to attract the eye of college recruiters.
Marty Forloine says his son is better for it.
- With the pandemic hitting, there was no other schools that were having any activities or anything that can help these kids out.
You know, have an outlet.
So Austin was gracious enough to open this back up, let us get out, get some reps, get these kids back together.
In a safe environment, of course.
- [Barbara] Today, along with heading the APD foundation, Austin P. Duke is a mortgage broker, showing even more examples of success to the youth he coaches and mentors.
And now that he is partnered with National Preps, the sky's the limit.
- So National Preps has committed now coach Jeff Mullen into helping us spread exposure for these boys to get recruited.
That's major.
For guys that are serious and for parents that are serious about getting their kids to that next level, because not everybody has the money to afford to go to college.
But if we can at least give them the answers to say, "Hey, you can earn a football scholarship," whether that's D1, D2, D3, or whether that's at an academic scholarship, whatever the case is, and we're providing those resources.
- Austin's outstanding.
And you know, as far as I'm concerned, I think more people should take advantage of it.
He's looking to grow the foundation and get into different areas.
As far as I'm concerned, it's been a great program for my son and my family.
- One, two, three!
Work!
- Now of course, there are plenty of athletes all across the Carolinas, giving back with camps and other initiatives.
And we applaud all of them, especially the ones who help develop the total athlete, giving them skills so that they can win on the field and off.
For Carolina Impact, I am Barbara Lash.
Amy?
- Thank you, Barbara.
The APD foundation also gives out $1,000 annual scholarships to college students.
Well, if you're a Panthers football fan, you've probably seen the buildings in Uptown light up on game day.
Have you ever noticed how on some nights the colors are different, but on other nights they're all the same?
Well, those questions got Carolina Impact's Jason Terzis wondering: Who's in charge of that?
And how does it all work?
Jason went and did a little digging to bring us some answers.
(bright music) - [Jason] The Uptown Charlotte skyline.
Over the decades has seen plenty of change, from small southern city to thriving metropolis with new buildings popping up seemingly all the time.
But as days turn to night, the Queen City comes alive, alive with light.
- And you walk outside and you look at the lights all lit in one color and you say, "Oh!
That's so cool!"
- [Jason] On many nights, the colors on Uptown's buildings are all the same.
Green for St. Patrick's day, Red celebrating Red Cross Month, blue in support of autism, purple for melanoma, magenta and teal celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month, Panthers blue for the Panthers, and red, white, and blue for the 4th of July and September 11th.
And that's just the start of it.
- And if you look around and you say, "Gosh, why are the lights that color?"
There is a reason.
They aren't that color just randomly.
There is always a reason.
- [Jason] It's all about community spirit, creating a sense of pride.
It's unity done with a flick of a switch, or in this case, a computer program.
- It is really special when the whole city is lit up for the same event.
It just brings a unity to the city that's visible to everyone.
- [Jason] The coordinating of the lights began in January of 2004, during the lead up to the Panthers' first Super Bowl run.
- [Commentator] Foster's fighting for the touchdown.
What an effort!
- We looked around and we said, wouldn't it be great if we could figure out a way to show unity in the city?
And we said, "Well, all the buildings, some of them have lights.
And I wonder if they could do a color on their lights."
So we contacted all the buildings.
We called them up and said, "Can you do something with your lights?"
And they said, "That's a cool idea!"
- [Jason] But back then, the technology wasn't what it is today, so changing the light colors was no easy task.
- Because nobody had LED lights and they all had to go up, they all had to order these gels and put them in frames and put them in front of these big lights and put them up in their crowns and in their edges.
It was a big fat, hairy deal, truly a lot of heavy lift for them.
But we all looked around and said, "This is cool as can be!
What if we did this more often?"
And they all looked at us and said, "We cannot do this more often.
This is hard."
- [Jason] But just a few years later, as the Duke Energy building was being built, a game-changing idea came to light.
- One meeting, I was sitting there with these architects who are fabulous and incredibly creative.
And I said, "Hey, I'd like to light the building."
And they're like, "What do you mean light the building?
Like, put flood lights on it?"
I said, "No, no, no.
I want lights on the building that you can change the colors of and change the design and change the effects of it, like on a hourly basis, on a minute-by-minute basis.
And they looked at me like I was crazy because it hadn't been done.
- [Jason] At the time, Bob Bertges was an executive working with Wells Fargo, overseeing construction of the new building.
Growing up in Pittsburgh, his dad worked at a gas company that had a flame on top of a downtown building.
- And it just made an impression on me that I never thought about again until this project came along.
- It was really his creative vision.
- I think it was the natural progression of Charlotte, but I think we might've accelerated it a little bit.
- [Jason] The building has over 500 lighting features, all LED.
Just before the top of each hour, the building goes dark for a few minutes, then comes back at the top of the hour with a random three minute pattern before returning to its designated color for the evening.
- Any color, any pattern at any time.
- We were obviously excited when we first started.
We didn't know.
We were hoping that it would become what it is.
- The other buildings looked at them and said, "That is cool!"
- [Jason] Controlling the building's lights is Kate Kopecky.
And she can do that from anywhere on her laptop, including running various simulations, like the famous Panthers touchdown celebration.
- So anytime there's a touchdown, there's like a sparkly show, a celebration that the building does with the lights.
- When they win at the top of the building, we're able to do a V for victory.
- [Jason] Over the last decade or so, just about all of Uptown's older buildings have converted over to LED lighting, and the newer ones have incorporated it into the design.
- For us, it's really exciting to see more buildings do that.
- I put together a spreadsheet for each request that I receive.
- [Jason] Doing all the coordinating is the lady who started it all, Moira Quinn with Charlotte Center City Partners.
She takes color requests from the public, and if she thinks it's good and serves the community need, emails it out to all the building managers.
- I will not claim any credit for this, I completely credit the buildings for having the vision, for adding the LEDs, for saying yes when I send out the spreadsheet requests and the reasons that we're doing it.
I kind of sell it a little bit.
- [Jason] But whatever you request, just don't ask Moira for something that's just for one person.
- For example, we don't do birthdays.
We don't do baby reveals.
No.
I drive a line at things that are just personal for one person.
I'm very sorry.
We don't.
You just don't that!
- [Jason] But if it's for a non-profit, a good cause, or a community event, your request just might be approved.
For Carolina Impact, I'm Jason Terzis reporting.
- Thanks for answering that question, Jason.
I've always wondered how the city lights change.
Well, if you have a story idea that you'd like to see on Carolina Impact, please email us those ideas at stories@wtvi.org.
We look forward to showing your stories in the future.
Well, I have some special guests joining me in the studio this evening.
As we recorded this show, Girl Scouts from troop 219 in the Hornets' Nest Council, they were here, watched the whole thing, and we're so glad to have them.
They're some amazing young women.
But ladies, we're out of time, so I want to let the viewers know that we always appreciate your time and look forward to seeing you back here again, next time on Carolina Impact.
Good night, my friends!
(light, upbeat music) - A production of PBS Charlotte.