Activists press Atrium on housing, worker conditions
The hospital authority, a government entity, doesn't allow public comment
The following article appeared in the December 3, 2025, edition of The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with smart and original local news for Charlotte. We offer free and paid subscription plans. More info here.
Protesters pack normally quiet Atrium Health hospital authority meeting; Atrium plans $450M hospital for Fort Mill
The board that oversees Atrium Health attracted an unusually rowdy crowd Tuesday afternoon as protestors from two groups packed the room with signs and medical equipment.
It was a stark contrast to typical Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority meetings, which are usually polite affairs attended by only one or two reporters.
Activists from Redress Charlotte, a social-justice group, were at the meeting with crutches, walkers, neck braces and other medical devices, symbolic references to the “healing” they said Atrium owes the community. Some carried signs that read, “Healing starts with housing” and “Housing is healthcare.”
Another group included union hospital workers from Chicago who were protesting working conditions at hospitals owned by Advocate Health, Atrium’s parent company.
Although the hospital authority is a government entity that must hold open meetings, it doesn’t allow public comment. Police escorted out one protestor who kept trying to address the board, telling them, “It doesn’t seem like any of this money is going toward workers.”
Greg Jarrell, senior campaign organizer with Redress, said the group wants Atrium to follow through on the affordable housing promises it made in 2021 when it secured $75M in public money for The Pearl, its medical innovation district that opened last summer.
Charlotte City Council members were told in 2021 that Atrium would build on-site affordable apartments and donate a 14-acre site on North Tryon Street for 400 more units. So far, none of the housing has been built, the land hasn’t been donated and a Ledger/NC Health News report found that a city contract doesn’t require it.
“Atrium has broken its word to the city and the county,” Jarrell said before the meeting. “The healing begins with honoring those promises.”
Atrium has said it is meeting its contractual obligations, it is working with a developer to include affordable units at The Pearl, and it has placed deed restrictions on the North Tryon Street site.
The Pearl sits on land that was once part of Brooklyn, a vibrant Black community that was razed in the 1960s for urban renewal.
The union representatives and maintenance workers from Chicago-area hospitals said Advocate has refused to recognize and negotiate with newly formed unions amid what they described as worsening working conditions. Advocate in a statement said, in part, that it respected “teammates’ right to consider union representation or refuse it and are committed to fostering a collaborative and supportive work environment, in accordance with all laws and regulations.”
Also at the meeting, the board:
Allocated $450M for a new hospital in Fort Mill: The planned 200,000-square-foot, four-story hospital would open with 60 beds in 2029, alongside a separate 70,000-square-foot medical office building. The board did not specify the project’s exact location.
Nominated three new members: The 24-member board unanimously nominated 10 members to its board, but only three would be new: Steve Smoot, president of Advocate Health’s North Carolina and Georgia division; Chris Jackson, CEO of Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont; and David Sheffer, a local investor who helped grow MyEyeDr from 35 local clinics to more than 800 locations nationwide, with more than $1B in revenue. Under state statute, the board’s nominees must be approved by Mecklenburg County commissioners chair Mark Jerrell. Jarrell of Redress Charlotte said before the meeting that the group’s members are meeting with Jerrell today to push for more community-minded individuals on its board.
Reported record revenue and income so far this year: Atrium is again exceeding its own budget expectations, with revenue of $10.5B and net income of $1.4B, or profit, for the first nine months of 2025. That means the system has already surpassed the $1.31B in net income it earned in all of 2024. Those figures do not include revenue from Atrium Wake Forest Baptist Health or hospitals in Illinois and Wisconsin that joined with Atrium in 2022 to create Advocate Health, the country’s third-largest public hospital system. Advocate reported about $35B in revenue in 2024. —Michelle Crouch
Related Ledger articles:
“As The Pearl opens, where’s the affordable housing?” (Oct. 13)
“Charlotte leaders press for answers on Atrium’s housing commitments” (Oct. 22)
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