Guilford County Has Reached a Turning Point

On Friday, October 24, 2025, Partners Ending Homelessness convened its inaugural Turning Point Symposium at The Conference Center at GTCC in Colfax, North Carolina. The event brought together advocates, service providers, community leaders, and individuals with lived experience of housing insecurity. The symposium aimed to spark honest dialogue, dismantle barriers, and ignite actionable change in the fields of homelessness and housing insecurity.

Throughout the day, participants explored two central themes that underscored the need for systemic transformation:

• Barriers and Breakthroughs: This panel featured direct service providers from Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, who shared insights about the daily challenges they face in housing, service delivery, and community response. They also highlighted the innovative solutions developed within their community to directly address homelessness.

• Strategies and Solutions: The keynote address was delivered by Stephanie Watkins-Cruz of the North Carolina Housing Coalition. She discussed how policy, politics, and community design intersect to influence homelessness, offering practical recommendations for how communities can continue strategizing to end homelessness despite evolving federal and local challenges.

Each session emphasized that sustainable change requires moving from silos to collective action, and from short-term fixes to systemic solutions. Speakers brought a diversity of perspectives - including service providers, people with lived experience, peer advocates, and community organizers - each contributing valuable insight into what works, what does not, and why. Together, they illuminated the complexity of homelessness - not merely as a lack of shelter, but as an issue deeply connected to health disparities, structural inequities, and the design of local systems.

Attendees actively engaged in networking, building connections across sectors including housing agencies, health care systems, faith-based groups, law enforcement alternatives, and community organizations. Many participants left with a renewed commitment to forming and sustaining cross-sector efforts, recognizing that meaningful change requires more than isolated programs - it demands integration, alignment, and persistence.

While the symposium centered on local issues in Guilford and surrounding counties, its implications extended far beyond. Homelessness remains tightly linked with health outcomes, economic disparities, racial inequities, and systemic design. The symposium reinforced that timely, humane, and effective responses depend on partnership, data-informed practices, and community-led solutions.

Moreover, by intentionally uplifting voices that have been historically excluded from these conversations - those with lived experience, peer leaders, and front-line practitioners—the Turning Point Symposium advanced the idea that those most impacted must also be central to the solution.

Partners Ending Homelessness also provided updates on the agency’s progress over the past year, its current leadership transition, and its plans for the year ahead. During the event, the organization presented four awards in recognition of outstanding contributions:

• The Steve B. Key Award for Distinguished Community Service: Latoya Bullock

• The Key Turners Awards: The Foundation for a Healthy High Point, Wesley Memorial Methodist Church, and The United Way of Greater Greensboro

As the day concluded, the atmosphere was one of cautious optimism and determination. Attendees deepened their connections by networking with peers from across the state and visiting the featured art exhibit, To See and Be Seen, To Know and Be Known by Kelly Oakes. The exhibit showcased portraits and stories of families and individuals who had obtained housing after experiencing homelessness in Orange County, North Carolina.

Participants carried away:

• New contacts and potential partnerships

• Inspiration to revisit local practices with fresh perspectives—questioning assumptions, realigning priorities, and setting the stage for future innovation

• A shared understanding that this symposium was not a one-time event, but a turning point in the ongoing journey to end homelessness in our region

Partners Ending Homelessness extends sincere gratitude to all who attended the Turning Point Symposium - speakers, panelists, organizers, volunteers, and participants. Your contributions helped shape a thoughtful, inclusive, and forward-looking gathering that will continue to nurture meaningful and lasting community impact.

For more information about the symposium, please visit www.pehgc.org/turning-point