The Lotus Campaign Inc

Our partnerships with landlords and property management professionals and diverse nonprofit homeless support organizations help unlikely allies learn each other’s languages and work towards a common goal: opening up housing for people experiencing homelessness. Because of these partnerships together we can provide housing, training and ongoing support to formerly homeless people allowing them to redirect their lives and achieve self-sufficiency. But most of all, these partnerships help us deliver hope to those who need it most.

We believe any solution to homelessness requires that we leverage the power of the private, for-profit real estate community. Our approach has three components:

First, our Landlord Participation Program is designed to incentivize landlords to lease to people experiencing homelessness by providing an upfront participation payment. We also guarantee against loss of rent and damages, and ensure that the residents receive social services.

Next, we plan to increase the supply of units available to those experiencing homelessness by investing in both existing and to-be-built properties using a combination of Lotus Campaign funds and private debt and equity.

Finally, we intend to provide advice and education to cities, counties, government agencies, and non-government organizations on how they can work with private, for-profit developers, owners, and investors to better address the issue of homelessness.

The challenge of homelessness is too pervasive for the government and nonprofit housing providers to solve on their own. To have a chance, we must engage the private, for-profit real estate and investment communities, with their vast resources and expertise, in the solution. We believe our pragmatic, economic approach will accomplish just that.

We select innovative organizations that provide services to people experiencing homelessness to become Sponsoring Organizations. It is the Sponsoring Organizations that both identify individuals (“Sponsored Residents”) who are ready for placement in a rental home and provide the social services necessary to make the placement a success. The Lotus Campaign provides the funding required to facilitate the placement.

Meanwhile, our team identifies landlords (“Participating Landlords”) who want to work with us. In exchange for accepting a Sponsored Resident into their community, the Participating Landlord generally receives a participation payment and guarantees against loss of rent or damages to the residential unit.

In simple terms, the Lotus Campaign brings together the Participating Landlords and the Sponsoring Organizations to do what they do best. The landlords provide housing, the organizations provide social services, and the Lotus Campaign provides the economic support to make it happen. Best of all, the Sponsored Resident gets a home.

The Lotus Campaign is an innovative nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the availability of homes for people experiencing homelessness by engaging the private, for-profit real estate and investment communities.

Who – We are a multidisciplinary team that believes there is a better way to address homelessness and housing affordability.

Why – Residential units available to people experiencing homelessness are in short supply. Not only is there a shortage of affordable rental units in virtually every market in the country, but many private, for-profit landlords have been reluctant to accept residents who are homeless because of real and perceived costs and risks. The challenge of homelessness is too pervasive for the government and nonprofit housing providers to solve on their own. We believe the needed innovation is simple: Engage the private, for-profit real estate and investment communities as part of the solution


How – Our approach has three components – Connect, Create, and Educate.

Connect - The Landlord Participation program is designed to encourage landlords to lease to people experiencing homelessness by providing an upfront participation payment as well as other measures designed to eliminate economic risk. By defraying economic risk, the program creates a straightforward path to matching interested landlords with homeless advocacy and support organizations in need of housing for eligible tenants.

Create – Our development arm finds investment partners to purchase, rehabilitate, and build properties to house people experiencing homelessness and to create affordable workforce housing. We also plan to research and pilot new construction techniques and materials to help test and champion innovative ways to build more cost effectively.

Educate - We provide advice and educational resource to cities, counties, public agencies, non- government organizations and the private development community to help debunk myths about people experiencing homelessness, housing affordability, and the economics of housing development.


Primary Strategies are:

1. Unlock private capital to address homelessness and housing affordability

2. Reduce economic risk by incorporating perspective of the landlord + owner/operator

3. Remain nimble, scalable and replicable

4. Manage an efficient use of capital and leverage equity

5. Realize housing as part of foundation to achieve greater economic mobility and racial equity

6. Utilize an approach independent of public subsidy

7. Maintain a Cost-to-Benefit ratio – approx. $1,000 houses one person/year

8. Promote the social impact investment and development model -- “You can do good and still do well”

The Lotus campaigns strengths are found in the cooperative partnerships that we have been able to secure and in the strength and professional acumen of our Board of Advisors.

A few of our partner organizations are as follows:

Charlotte Family Housing – Charlotte Family Housing (CFH) is a shelter-to-housing program working to empower families to achieve life-long self-sufficiency through shelter, housing, supportive services, and advocacy. CFH has partnered with the Lotus Campaign’s Landlord Participation program since November 2018. To date, they have housed 27 families as part of Lotus’s Landlord Participation Program.

Ginkgo Residential - Their mission is to provide reasonably priced, high-quality housing that is energy efficient and environmentally sensitive. Ginkgo has been a Participating Landlord with the Lotus Campaign since July 2018.

Running Works - is a values-led, mentorship-based organization which seeks to assist individuals and families experiencing homelessness and poverty with their needs for physical, emotional, and social well-being.

The Urban Ministry Center - is unyielding in helping Charlotte’s most vulnerable homeless neighbors. With the dedication of our volunteers and gifts from throughout the community, we’ve pursued this passionate mission since 1994.


The Lotus Campaign Board of Advisors include the following:

An Executive Vice President for the Urban Land Institute (ULI), a nonprofit education and research institute that focuses on issues of land use, real estate and urban development. A Senior Managing Consultant for federal, state and local municipalities and public authorities on traditional and alternative financing initiatives.

A senior executive who is focused on developing strategies to bring capital markets to disinvested communities to invest in the development of “sustainable restorative” human settlements.

An activist and award winning author who led the city-wide effort to build Moore Place, Charlotte’s first permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless men and women. recipient of the Bank of America Neighborhood Hero Award, the NC Housing Volunteer of the Year Award and recognized as a William J. Clinton Distinguished Guest Lecturer.

A Charles E. Fraser Chair on Sustainable Development at the Urban Land Institute where he is a leading authority on economic development and land use polices and trends.

Chairman of the Multi-Family Green Council of the Urban Land Institute (ULI), an active member of the National Multi-Family Housing Council (NMHC), a past chairman and current member of the Board of Directors of the not-for-profit, Over the Rainbow Association and an advisor to several property-tech firms and funds.

Old ways won’t open new doors.

The Lotus Campaign launched nearly 2 years ago to boldly reimagine how to solve homelessness. We wanted to figure out why - with all the time and money thrown at homelessness -- it remains such a devastating challenge? Why were there were so few partnerships with the private sector? And why weren’t existing solutions solving the challenge? The answer is simple: that homelessness is just far too large a challenge for government and traditional nonprofits to solve alone. The private sector needs to play a sizeable role. But how? We created the Lotus Campaign with the idea that private real estate and investment communities could be partners in the solution.
We worked backwards from what does not work in existing solutions, problem-solved how to use private capital as a tool for good and most importantly, how to bridge the gaps between those that know the most about real estate and investment and those that know the most about ongoing support and social services. But Lotus is so much more than housing. It’s about connecting unlikely allies as partners in new solutions, opening up housing in neighborhoods of opportunity and strengthening the fabric of our communities.

Since launching in July 2018, we have helped over 241 people move into housing at a cost of less than $1,000 per person per year through our Landlord Participation Program, invested in our first real estate project reserving 20% of the units for Lotus Campaign clients, and traveled across the country advising others of what we do and why it matters.


The winners of Fast "Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards" were announced last week (May 4, 2020), honoring the businesses, policies, projects, and concepts that are actively engaged and deeply committed to addressing climate crisis, social injustice, or economic inequality. The Lotus Campaign received an honorable mention in the general excellence category!!! According to Fast Company, the general excellence category includes "The broadest ideas, be they new government policies, new business models or entire new consumer categories. Anything that has the potential to effect true systems change or solve wicked problems." You can see us in the fine print right here and in Fast Company’s May/June print edition.



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