Cheap Hotels In Charlotte Raise Rates And Kick Out Homeless Customers To Cash In On DNC Visitors

Cheap Charlotte hotels are cashing in on the Democratic National Convention by raising rates to up-scale lodging prices and kicking out the homeless who typically rent rooms on a weekly basis. Many homeless customers who have been living at down-market Charlotte hotels for months were sent packing last week to make way for more lucrative patrons. The sudden influx of poor people in need of a bed overwhelmed emergency shelters and churches, according to the Huffington Post .

Lakia Ramsey, 26, was paying approximately $200 per week at an inexpensive motel near the DNC area. The room rate jumped to $150 per night just before the Democratic delegates and President Barack Obama arrived for the political convention. Ramsey took her toddler daughter and preschool age son to seek shelter at a local church.

Family homelessness rose by 40 percent in 2010 and 20 percent in 2011, according to US Conference of Mayors statistics republished by the New York Daily News .

A homeless mother with four children told the Huffington Post that the daily rate at the hotel where she was living went from $30 per day to $300 per day right before the DNC began.

Belinda Cherry, 41, and her husband, Steve, were also living at a down-market motel until the convention came to town. The husband’s salary from a part-time job as a restaurant dishwasher allowed the struggling couple to afford weekly-based room rates. Unable to pay the vastly increased room fee, the couple was forced to sleep on a loading dock outside an abandoned building. Steve Cherry noted they both voted for President Obama in ’08 and plans to do so again; but is still wondering when help will arrive for people like him who are struggling to get back on their feet.