Spark a ‘Christmas miracle.’ Help find this Charlotte man missing since Thanksgiving.
Everyone misses Issac.
His smiling face is a staple around the affordable southwest Charlotte apartment complex off Clanton Road. But for the three and a half weeks since he went missing, the lobby has been void of his candor.
Djakaridia “Issac” Traore, 55, went missing just after Thanksgiving on Nov. 25, according to a police report. Police and staff at SECU The Rise on Clanton are asking for help finding him.
Traore walks with a slight shuffle, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. He suffers from “several medical conditions” and was last seen wearing jeans, a white hoodie with “Aero NYC 1987” on the front and a blue striped shirt underneath.
He was headed toward the Family Dollar on Clanton Road and South Tryon Street, but even that was abnormal for Traore, who never really left the complex, said Gena Robinson, the Vice President of Housing at SECU The Rise on Clanton.
Roof Above, a nonprofit dedicated to ending homelessness, converted the hotel where Traore now lives to be able to host 88 residents, all of whom have a disability and experienced chronic homelessness for at least a year, Robinson said.
Traore, who once spent 90 days in the hospital because of a seizure disorder, has lived at the converted hotel since August 2022. Before that, he was at the North Tryon Street shelter.
He is from Ivory Coast in Africa and speaks fluent English, French and Swahili, as well as Jula — his native language.
““I love it here. It is peaceful,” he said, according to a Roof Above social media post shared earlier this year.
“Isaac treasures his friendships with the people he met living in the shelter, including his across the hall neighbor, Stanley, and his best friend, Tim,” the post reads.
Some residents have gone missing before, said Liz Clasen-Kelly, the CEO of Roof Above, but the organization can normally find them by visiting the places they stayed when they were homeless or checking local hospitals, she said.
No one has ever been missing this long.
“We are hoping for a Christmas miracle and for him to be found,” she said. “And we certainly welcome any prayers for his return.”
Anyone with information on his whereabouts should call 9-1-1 immediately, police said.
