Something Big Happened on June 14th!
Forsyth STRONG
1,400 People Showed Up. Here Is What Happened.
On Sunday, June 14, 1,400 people walked into Emmanuel Baptist Church for the Founding Assembly of Forsyth STRONG.
A month ago, several hundred people had committed. The minimum goal was 600. They pushed. CwD pushed. Every institution in the coalition pushed.
Then 1,400 people showed up.
City with Dwellings brought 91 of them: donors, volunteers, partners, staff, board members, friends, and neighbors who showed up because someone they trusted asked them to. Our board co-chair Carmen Caruth represented us at the institutional roll call, placing a symbolic check in the common vessel at the base of the Tree of Power and adding CwD’s leaf alongside the other institutions that make up this growing coalition.
Here is what happened inside that room, and why it matters.
“When a community shows up in numbers like these, that is not just a good turnout. That is a signal – people are ready.”
WHAT IS FORSYTH STRONG?
For more than five years, civic and faith organizations across Forsyth County have been building relationships, training leaders, and listening to more than 1,100 residents about what they most need to see change. That work, organized through the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), came to public fruition on June 14.
The organization ratified its name that evening: Forsyth STRONG. Forsyth FUERTE. A nonpartisan, multi-racial, multi-faith network of more than 30 civic institutions committed to organized people-power on shared community priorities: housing and homelessness, mental health, and public education.
City with Dwellings has been part of this effort for more than three years. Not as observers, but as participants, building relationships across institutions and helping advance a housing stability agenda that connects directly to our mission.
A SHARED AGENDA FOR CHANGE
The Assembly was not a rally. It was a structured public action, organized and designed to secure specific commitments from specific decision-makers. Four campaign areas shaped the agenda.
PUBLIC EDUCATION
Leaders called on Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools and the Forsyth County Commission to hire 60 additional Exceptional Children (EC) teachers over three years, improve EC processes and communication for families, and build bilingual school counseling capacity. The County Commission Chair announced $1.3 million in new funding above the standard formula for EC staffing in the FY27 budget. The WS/FCS Chief of Staff committed to continued collaboration on the remaining proposals.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING
The Happy Hill Neighborhood Association called on the City to address more than 100 documented street-level safety and infrastructure concerns, and to explore transferring 8.9 acres of public land to a Community Land Trust for permanently affordable housing development by and for current and former Happy Hill residents.
Mayor Joines committed to meeting with leaders within 90 days. Seven of the nine City Council members present each said yes individually to exploring the land transfer, contingent on a viable plan within six months.
HOUSING STABILITY
This is the campaign closest to City with Dwellings’ own work, and the one we have been helping advance through Forsyth STRONG’s Ending Homelessness Research Action Group.
Maia White, CwD’s Supportive Housing Navigator, presented the Housing Stability testimony alongside Michelle Fahey of The Dwelling. Maia named what we already know from our work: that one in four Forsyth County households is housing cost-burdened, that small, timely interventions prevent homelessness before it starts, and that CwD has been doing this work on a limited scale for years with consistent results. She also named something important: we have had to turn away six times as many families as we could serve for lack of funding.
“The City of Winston-Salem included $52,000 for housing stability in its FY27 community grants. Forsyth County directed $50,000 in Opioid Settlement funds to support CwD’s housing stability work. Together, these are the first public investments in scaling what we know works.”
The City’s $52,000 came through its community grants program as part of the FY27 budget process. The County’s $50,000 came through Opioid Settlement funding, a meaningful commitment that reflects the deep connection between housing instability and the overdose and recovery crisis. The County is working through legal questions around direct local fund support for housing, and we respect that process while celebrating what they were able to commit.
We are also expecting announcements from additional corporate and philanthropic partners in the coming weeks. The goal is to grow the Housing Stability Fund to $250,000 in its first year, stabilizing 500 families, and ultimately to a $1 million annual fund. The June 14 commitments are a down payment. The work of building sustainable, recurring investment continues.
MENTAL HEALTH
Leaders called on Atrium Health and Novant Health to expand access to clinical mental health services in underserved areas through a mobile, community-based model staffed by Black, Latino, and Spanish-speaking therapists anchored in trusted community institutions. Novant Health’s Senior Director of Community Health committed to convening executive leadership within 90 days to explore concrete investments. Forsyth STRONG has committed to pursuing a meaningful relationship with Atrium Health.
WHAT THE ROOM FELT LIKE
Hopeful. Respectful. Determined. Celebratory.
The crowd energy was genuine and sustained across two hours. It was a multiracial, multifaith room that felt like it actually represented the breadth of a community rather than a subset of it. Leaders from congregations, neighborhood associations, nonprofits, and unions stood alongside elected officials, health system executives, and business leaders and asked for things directly, on the record, in public.
Every elected official in attendance said yes to meeting with Forsyth STRONG leaders within 90 days. Those are public commitments made in front of 1,400 witnesses. Forsyth STRONG will hold them to it.
“1,400 people showed up because something in this community is ready to move.”
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR CITY WITH DWELLINGS
CwD has been part of Forsyth STRONG because we believe homelessness cannot be solved by service providers alone. We can respond to crises. We cannot on our own change the conditions that create them. That takes organized people, sustained relationships, and the kind of public accountability that June 14 was designed to produce.
The funding commitments made on June 14 are a direct result of years of relationship-building and research by Forsyth STRONG and the Ending Homelessness team, of which CwD has been an active part. We will keep you posted on what comes next.
If you want to stay connected to this work, reach out at admin@citywithdwellings.org or 336.790.9766.
THANK YOU
To everyone who came with us on June 14: thank you. To everyone who invited someone, followed up on a maybe, or sent a reminder text the morning of the event: thank you. CwD’s 91-person delegation did not happen by accident. It happened because captains made personal asks and people said yes.
And to the 1,400+ people who filled Emmanuel Baptist Church: you told this community something important. There is a deep longing here for change, for working together, for a Forsyth County where everyone has a place to call home. That longing showed up on June 14, and it is not going away.
