About Easter's Home
Easter's Home began as the dream of Caldwell Presbyterian Church, which sits next door on East 5th Street.
Easter's Home is operated by the board of Caldwell Housing Incorporated, which is a non-profit independent from the church, acting as a partner and a neighbor.
The church's former education building — which previously served as a preschool and an emergency women's shelter — has been transformed during a 10-year process of reimagining, refurbishing, and renovating a historic building for a new purpose.
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 permanent supportive housing model of addressing homelessness, a data-proven strategy that gives residents stability, time, and space to address their personal needs and improve their lives. Roof Above, Charlotte’s leading provider of housing and related services for those who have experienced chronic homelessness, 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. Residents will sign leases and pay rent —typically based on 30 percent of adjusted monthly income. The remainder of the rent is paid through federal, state, and city housing assistance.
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​Potential Tenants
Tenant selection for Easter’s Home will be managed by Roof Above, using Coordinated Entry, our community’s entry process to available housing/shelter resources for individuals and families who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. Visit www.roofabove.org/get-help or call 704-284-9665 to learn more.
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About Caldwell Presbyterian
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 diverse, more missional, inclusive and justice-centered expression of faith.
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.
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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.
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.