Carolina Impact: March 21, 2023

- [Announcer] Support for Carolina Impact comes from our viewers and Wells Fargo.

- [Narrator] Wells Fargo has donated $390 million.

- Honey, like I said, you get your own room.

- [Narrator] To support housing affordability solutions across America.

- You're never gonna get it!

- [Narrator] Doing gets it done.

Wells Fargo, the Bank of Doing.

- [Announcer] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

- Just ahead on "Carolina Impact," we're learning about a unique public-private partnership helping create more affordable housing.

Plus.

- 100 years after the opening of Charlotte's original all-black high school, how about a brand new Second Ward High School?

I'm Jeff Sonier.

We'll tell you what the school board is planning, coming up.

- And we'll take you on a One Tank Trip to Lando Manetta Mills History Museum.

"Carolina Impact" starts right now.

(bright music) - [Announcer] "Carolina Impact" covering the issues, people, and places that impact you.

This is "Carolina Impact."

- Good evening.

Thanks so much for joining us.

I'm Amy Burkett.

As Charlotte continues to grow, it's facing a problem that's impacting cities across the nation, not having adequate affordable housing.

Housing advocates point out many who fall into the category of the working poor and middle class can't find housing in the Queen City that they can afford, but a new type of investment philanthropy that utilizes public/private funding shows promise.

Bea Thompson explains what the Housing Impact Fund is all about.

- [Bea] She is dubbed the Queen City.

Charlotte, the largest in the Carolinas, setting records as businesses boom and people relocate to it.

But the boom that city leaders talk about is leaving many of those residents out as they search for affordable housing.

- I was wondering if I would be able to find affordable housing.

- [Bea] Meet Lisa Mashore, a retiree who for more than a year looked for a housing that she could afford.

But like many in Charlotte on a fixed income or with low-paying jobs, she could only watch as the rents went up.

- It's really expensive and I don't know if they're building any more affordable housing for people.

It looks like they're building like apartments for people whose seem like wealthy to me.

(bright music) - [Bea] The statistics are discouraging for those looking for affordable housing.

Charlotte is one of the fastest growing cities in America.

The United Nations projects it will be the fastest growing area in the United States through 2030.

According to apartment rental research, the median rent is a little over 1,300 a month for a one bedroom apartment, and 1,400 for a two bedroom.

That ranks the city number 42 in the nation, among the country's 100 largest cities.

More than 55,000 Charlotteans currently don't have an affordable place to live, and city planners say an additional 32,000 units of affordable housing is also needed to meet the current needs.

- Well, what it looks like, it looks like there's a big gap between those who need houses and the availability of housing, or the affordability of housing, I would say.

- [Bea] Meet Ron Leeper.

Many will recall his time as a city council member, then as a successful business owner, and now one who saw a need that maybe he could help fill.

- A lot of middle-income people, not just poor people, but a lot of middle-income people would have difficulty living in the city of Charlotte.

- [Bea] That prompted a new twist to Charlotte's philanthropic giving.

Leeper and longtime North Carolina power brokers, Erskine Bowles, the former president of the UNC system, and Nelson Schwab, co-founder of Carousel Capital, along with a group of private investors all decided to tackle the issue of affordable housing, dubbing their effort the Housing Impact Fund.

- [Ron] So we decided, let's go and get some of those existing unit.

You don't have to wait two or three years to build 'em, they're already there, and if we can buy 'em at a reasonable cost, we can renovate 'em and put a cap on 'em so that the rent won't rise over a certain level of time, over a 20 year period of time.

(bright music) - [Bea] The result, more than 58 million in investment dollars raised in less than six months to buy existing older apartment communities like Maple Way in East Charlotte.

Communities that outside investors were buying in order to turn a profit.

- Really, in the last 10 years, I mean these apartment communities have become extremely vulnerable because of Charlotte growing as a city for investment.

- When you bought the complex, there had to be major changes, right?

- There was, yeah.

This place had been neglected for years.

- [Bea] Mark Ethridge leads Ascent Housing, a part of Ascent Real Estate Capital.

Ascent has partnered with the Housing Impact Fund to acquire more units.

- The repercussions for families are really immense because when a private equity group buys an apartment community like this, they might fix it up a little, but they raise rents a lot.

- [Bea] As a result, in three years, the Housing Impact Fund has acquired the Lake Mist Apartments, the Pines on Wendover, Shamrock Gardens, and the Peppertree Apartments.

The process has been aided by taxpayer dollars, dollars that ultimately will be paid back to the city and county.

- On each one of these properties, they've committed a piece of that housing trust fund bond in the form of a low interest loan that goes into all of our private sector capital.

The community can feel good that that investment is leveraging lots of private sector dollars to do this work, and in return, it helps us keep the rents as low as possible.

We're housing people from an income perspective that, you know, make $13,000 a year and above.

And so we see a lot of working families, we see retirees, senior citizens on a fixed income.

We see individuals.

- [Bea] And in a city where rents can start in the thousands, by using only a percentage of their income, on average their rent is.

- Somewhere between 400 and $1,200 a month.

When you compare that to the market right now, there's no comparison.

I mean it's a major difference with keeping these units in that range, and we're keeping them in that range for 20 years.

- [Bea] And for retired resident Lisa knowing what her housing costs would be long term was key.

- Rent is getting higher and higher, it's not getting lower.

So when they said they'll keep the rent around the same place, I was like, that'll work for me.

(construction machines rumbling) - [Bea] Similar concepts are playing out in Minneapolis, Washington, and Austin, Texas.

Charlotte's first phase of this private/public effort has been so successful the group has started seeking more investors for Housing Impact Fund Phase 2.

- [Ron] Looking at the quick response that people in the private sector, some of our financial institutions and individuals who have invested in this fund pretty quickly, gives me a lot of hope.

- [Bea] For Leeper and the Housing Impact Fund members, it's one way to aid the city by investing their time, money, and efforts.

For city residents who are seeking permanent affordable shelter, it's an option that's been a long time coming.

And for the city, itself, it's one answer to the complex problem America now faces, affordable housing for all.

For "Carolina Impact" I'm Bea Thompson.

- Thank you so much, Bea.

Such a creative solution to this challenge that we have in our area.

Well, Charlotte's Original high school for African American students celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.

The actual school itself is just a memory and no longer exists.

Second Ward High School was demolished in the 1960s.

Part of Charlotte's uptown urban renewal back then.

And old promises to build back the school were unkept until now.

"Carolina Impact's" Jeff Sonier and videographer Doug Stacker have more on CMS plans for a new Second Ward High School, and lessons we can still learn from an old school that's long gone.

- Yeah, it was 1923 when Charlotte's first all-black high school opened here in what used to be Charlotte's biggest all-black neighborhood, known as Brooklyn.

Before Second Ward High School, if you were an African American student you couldn't get a public school diploma here in Charlotte, but eventually the school board even built a brand new gymnasium that still stands today.

But 20 years after the Second Ward Gym opened, well they tore down everything else.

(emotional music) Like the old gym itself, all that's left of Second Ward High School today is what decades of Second Ward graduates remember, from this Tiger trophy case in the lobby, to these old high school photos on the wall.

Some graduates even leaving their mark on the gym's original wooden bleachers, etched reminders of high school romances and homecoming dances.

- I remember the band practiced on the stage, and the basketball games.

A lot of memories in that gym.

- [Jeff] Lindsay Williams, Jr. Class of 1953 played trumpet in the old Second Ward Band, and today, at age 88.

(smooth trumpet music) Well, once a horn player, always a horn player.

A little rusty maybe, but Williams still blowing the bluesy notes that bring back those Second Ward memories.

- [Lindsay] I lived in a three room house, shotgun house, you know, a family of four but, you know, but we made it.

I'm still here.

When they was building that gym, I used to go down and play in the bottom of that gym 'cause I lived two blocks from school.

I used to play while they was building.

We'd go by seven, eight blocks to go to football game and we enjoyed that, you know, 'cause you went to school there.

Everything happened in your life here, you know.

(video player rattling) - [Jeff] In fact we actually found video of Williams' Second Ward High School memories in this old film from the estate of Pearl Phillips Diggs, featured in a documentary about the school produced in 2002 by North Carolina's Center for Educational Films.

These are scenes of the classes that Williams enjoy the most.

Not just reading, writing, and 'rithmetic either.

- The thing I like about it, they don't have now, they had these brickmasons, stuff like that, shoe repairing, drafting, auto mechanics.

(video tape humming) - [Jeff] The film also shows female students learning to cook, and to make beds, and to serve tables.

Charlotte's first black high school preparing many graduates not for college or careers, but instead for the only jobs they could get back then.

- The school system was segregated and what happened, the white schools were better.

The black kids that made it, they were just smart.

They had less, they were just smart.

It was a good high school if you took interest, if you guys, had to be in you to get something out of you.

It was there, you know?

It was there.

- But Williams also remembers all those old promises to rebuild Second Ward High School, promises that today are sort of like these old gym lockers, still empty decades after the school closed.

What Williams calls decade after decade of Second Ward disappointments.

- Yeah it was, but when they tore it down it was gone.

It was around '69 or somewhere they tore it down.

Yeah, it bring back memories, and they said well we gonna build you another high school.

Okay.

But that never materialized.

- And then the belief it would come back.

What are we gonna do about it?

When are we gonna, you know, bring it back?

It had such rich histories.

- [Jeff] School board member Lenora Shipp says that same Second Ward High history here in the old gym is also part of her own family history.

- My mother went to Second Ward.

- [Jeff] And now Shipp adds it's time to keep that old promise of a new Second Ward High School.

- This was Brooklyn and, you know, that's gone too.

But to bring it back to say, "Look, we care, and here is history and we need to make this right."

We have to, as a board, we need to say it, "Promises made, promises kept."

- [Jeff] What CMS is proposing to build is a $186 million Magnet high school with underground parking, here on the same site as the old Second Ward campus.

What Shipp calls a modern MedTech high school that would prepare today's students for tomorrow's careers in healthcare and technology.

- This location is ideal.

We are so close to Central Piedmont, Atrium, the Wake Forest medical program coming.

We have so many opportunities and now's the time to grab hold of those 'cause they're children and students that have these dreams but they don't know how to get there, and we gotta help them on that path to get there.

And I think this is an opportunity, phenomenal opportunity to give them a path.

- Today, I guess expectations are higher.

People want more out of their schools, their high schools than than what they used to want.

- Right, we just felt like this is a good time.

It's the 100th anniversary of Second Ward, but also having an opportunity to be in the, this part of the city.

This is the footprint and just to think we can come back here.

- You know, well we were used to disappointment.

You know, when you're used to it, you get the heck over it.

- Right.

- [Jeff] And while Lindsay Williams has his doubts about this latest promise, he also has hope that 70 years after graduating from Second Ward High it's about time to bring it back.

- Well things change.

That's the way it is, you know?

We change, things change, you know?

- Still lots of questions about that New Second Ward High School project.

Like this 100-year-old campus, is it really big enough for a modern new high school?

Also there's talk about moving school board offices and the meeting chamber to this site.

How, exactly, is that gonna work?

And will voters approve the bonds needed for funding of this new project?

The answers to those questions will eventually determine whether the school board should and would make good on that old Second Ward promise.

Amy.

- Thank you so much, Jeff.

You can learn more about the hundred year history of Second Ward High on our website, pbscharlotte.org.

We'll link you to the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library's digital timeline of Second Ward High photos and memories.

Well suppose you're playing tennis or golf, or even a casual walk and you pull a muscle, what do you do then?

You might put some ice on it or get an elastic bandage or brace.

But this one-size-fits-all approach doesn't always work as people's bodies come in all different shapes and sizes, and support is needed in different spots.

As "Carolina Impact's" Jason Terzis shows us one local company is revolutionizing the way we think about those types of braces.

(upbeat music) - [Jason] Her passion is gymnastics.

(people screaming in background) 13-year-old Sadia Wright just loves to be out there on the mat, honing her skills for nearly half her life.

- My favorite bit's, the floor.

So just the creativity I can put into that.

(people shouting in the background) - [Jason] But as the routines and years went by, she started noticing something.

- 'Cause I was constantly complaining about how my back would be hurting, and I would tell my mom and she's just like, "Well maybe you need to rest."

- [Jason] But resting didn't really help, so it was time to go to the doctor.

- So he checked me and he was like I might have scoliosis.

I was just like, "What is that?"

I didn't know what it was, but when I knew of more about it and my mom told me more about it, and Dr. Chapman told me more about it, I was just kind of like, "Dang."

- [Jason] Scoliosis, a sideways curvature of the spine.

Most often diagnosed in adolescence, in some extreme cases it requires surgery.

- And when they said surgery, I was like, "No."

- [Jason] Her doctor instead referred her to MIGN, a relatively new company in Charlotte's Camp North End that produces custom-made braces.

- Just as Invisalign did for bracing, you know, where they've done a digital scan and they can use their software to build a treatment plan for your teeth.

We can do that with our software for your body.

- [Jason] It begins with a clinical specialist pinpointing certain areas of focus.

Then a full body 3D scan with 20 cameras taking pictures.

- [Automated Voice] Relax your arms and shoulders and remain still.

Measuring begins in three, two, one.

- [Jason] The pictures produce a 3D computerized image which allows onsite designers to create the actual brace.

- The magic happens in here.

This is the workforce, we use this for creating most of our braces.

This is a EOS P396 selective laser-centered 3D printer.

- [Jason] A very fine nylon powder is used which melts together to form the piece.

- It is not just like us, like, building a brace, we're building a whole 3D printing manufacturing plant, basically, that allows us to really streamline the process.

- This machine takes about, depending on the height of the build, anywhere from 12 hours to 20 hours to print.

Then after that it takes about three or four hours for it to cool.

- Using the technologies that we have at our disposal with the scanning and our Genesis software, we can, you know, for the first time we can mass customize those devices to all different indications in patient sizes and shapes.

- There's a trigger down here.

(machine hissing) - [Jason] Once all the excess nylon dust is blown away and vacuumed off, the brace is complete.

- So once the person gets the brace, we can make small modifications, we send the patient on their way, and we do those follow-up to make sure that it's in alignment, what the physician is wanting in their care process.

- Took a tour of their facilities and absolutely enjoyed what they did.

Saw that it was a personalized approach, that it's not a one-size-fits-all model, and then ultimately started integrating them into my everyday use of patient care.

- [Jason] For the last couple of years, Novant Family and Sports Medicine Doctor Payton Gregory Fennell refers about three to four patients per month to MIGN.

- Over the years, I mean there have been products very similar to this.

However, what I have found that separates them, this company from other companies is that their approach to how they make the product truly is more personalized.

There are some where you can just download a, like an x-ray or something along those lines, and they make measurements, you know, without even seeing the patient.

- [Jason] And as for Sadia, admittedly getting used to and wearing the brace was challenging at first.

- 18 hours a day wearing that brace, it was kind of just like, "Okay, well I'm gonna go with it but I don't know."

But when I first put it on and felt it, I was like, "This is something I can maneuver around."

But I was like, "How I'ma do anything in this?"

- [Jason] But it was only a matter of weeks until she started noticing the braces benefits.

- My back would adjust to the brace so quickly I would have to come back like every, maybe the first brace, I think I came back maybe three weeks later 'cause my back had already adjusted to the first brace.

- [Jason] She's now wearing her third different brace and could soon be heading for her fourth.

The inconvenience, a small price to pay to avoid surgery and to getting her life back.

- I can see from when I didn't have a brace to now when I have a brace, my, I actually don't have a lot of pain anymore to be honest.

I feel a lot better, actually.

A lot better.

- [Jason] And thanks to MIGN, those custom-made braces are allowing her to continue pursuing her passion.

For "Carolina Impact" I'm Jason Terzis, reporting.

- Thank you Jason.

An amazing company right here in our region.

Well locally MIGN is partnering with Novant as well as OrthoCarolina and expanding into other markets like Atlanta and New York, and they hope to take the product national and international soon.

The braces are covered by most insurances.

Well, if you are new to the area, you may have heard the term mill village.

It's a small town that's created by mill owners to house workers' families.

All the necessities were provided, from housing and electricity to shopping and entertainment.

As the textile industry changed and the mills closed, people moved away.

But a local group decided to create a history center for mill villages.

In tonight's One Tank Trip, producer Russ Hunsinger takes us on the road to visit the Lando Manetta Mills History Center.

(gentle music) - [Roxanne] Ah, wonderful memories.

- [Paul] Peak population probably would've been close to 2,000, 800 or more people worked in the mill in its heyday.

Almost a hundred years we made blankets for Cannon Mills and Lady Pepperell.

The Lando Manetta Mills History Center is a collection of southern mill village remnants, and stories, and pictures that have been collected over the years.

Our goal is to preserve the history of Lando, the people that lived here, and tell the textile story.

(jaunty music) 'Cause there were hundreds and thousands of mill villages throughout the South, but what is unique about Lando is the people.

People donated the pictures, people donated the artifacts.

People continue to donate stories and we keep them all here and recreate them within these four walls within the History Center here in Lando.

We have stories that date back to the early 20th century, tell how this mill village was created.

The Heath family, when they came in as bankers outta Charlotte to start a default textile mill and recreate it into a thriving village.

(jaunty music continues) - Everybody knew everybody.

Everybody was kind and generous.

No one had a lot of stuff, so whatever you had, you know, you shared with your neighbors and your friends.

- Just so many little things that tell a big story, and you put 'em all together and it's all about continuing to preserve what it was here.

One of the biggest artifacts, or our favorite artifact is we got the old payroll books.

1951 worked 24 hours, they made $22.55.

- This is a payroll card from 1970, and my dad, Jackie Arbor, was a loom fixer and he made $110.80.

(light upbeat music) - [Paul] As the historian you want firsthand items.

We have it here.

This side over here is actually the president's office, would've been Harry Heath's desk.

You can see some of the relics that would've been in the company office at the time.

- I grew up in Lando.

Probably 90% of the people on the walls here I grew up with, or their fathers are here, and it's really heartwarming to see that all this was reserved and conserved.

- This museum means the world to my generation.

I was born in '55 and Mr. Heath had a birth log, and I can go and look up my birthdate.

My dad got a silver dollar when I was born.

Those kind of memories, you cannot duplicate.

(jaunty music) Everybody lives in a mill owned house.

- [Paul] We have recreated several rooms.

What a mill house kitchen would've looked like, a living room.

Your rent was tied to your paycheck.

5 cents a room or 25 cents a room at the end.

We have schoolhouse, we have the doctor's office.

- [Roxanne] Dr. Gaston was here and he'd do whatever you needed to be done and take care of it right then, and then on payday, you'd pay him back.

- [Paul] We have a room dedicated to the barbershop.

Barbershop existed in every mill village where everybody went on Saturdays to get your hair cut.

They had a bandstand.

They had music and sports.

They provided a baseball stadium, a baseball field.

- [Roxanne] This is the company store where you come to get your mail, buy meat, whatever you needed to do, you bought it at the company store and paid for it on payday.

When money got scarce back in the Depression, the mill made its own currency and you spent it here in the company store.

It was called a Looney.

(upbeat music) - [Paul] Was it a perfect life?

No.

There was many, many problems in every community that existed, but this was a community where you watched after each other.

- Come see how a textile mill village was back in the day.

It's just a great place to look back in time for our memories, and we want future generations to know what it was like growing up in the early 1900s.

- Thank you, Russ.

There's no fee to visit the History Center but donations are accepted.

I never cease to marvel at the amazing things going on across our region.

We'd love your help learning about other interesting people and places that could make great stories on "Carolina Impact."

Send us your ideas to stories@wtvi.org.

Well, that's all the time we have tonight.

Thanks so much for joining us.

We always appreciate your time and we look forward to seeing you back here again next time on "Carolina Impact."

Goodnight my friends.

- [Announcer] A production of PBS Charlotte.

Support for Carolina Impact comes from our viewers and Wells Fargo.

- [Narrator] Wells Fargo has donated $390 million.

- Honey, like I said, you get your own room.

- [Narrator] To support housing affordability solutions across America.

- You're never gonna get it!

- [Narrator] Doing gets it done.

Wells Fargo, the Bank of Doing.