Three years ago, the City of Asheville paid a consultant $73,000 to issue recommendations and a report on how to combat homelessness.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness developed a plan to reduce the unsheltered homeless population – which stood at 232 people – by 50 percent in two years. The plan called for overhauling the city’s current system for helping the homeless and creating a new low-barrier shelter.

Neither recommendation came to fruition, and in late March, when the city released its findings from its annual Point in Time census of unsheltered people, it showed the count was 328, up from 219 the year before. (Those who are unsheltered typically live outdoors, as opposed to others who are experiencing homelessness but have a place to stay in a shelter or friends’ homes).

If not for Tropical Storm Helene, which displaced hundreds, the unsheltered count would have been 212, the city said. It also said it has enacted a more precise counting procedure that likely identified more homeless people. 

Still, after accounting for those two factors, the unsheltered homeless count would’ve been just seven fewer than the year before. 

Despite the best intentions and efforts, stakeholders are not close to cutting the problem in half.

Advocates say a number of factors, including a lack of collaboration and misplaced priorities, have kept the goal from being realized, and Helene has increased the challenge.

“No one has seen homelessness decrease,” said Michael Woods, CEO of Western Carolina Rescue Ministries. “With that being said, we are seeing — and will continue to see — an increase in the amount of unsheltered homeless individuals, and also sheltered individuals. One of the things that we’re experiencing and other shelters are (seeing), is that we’re seeing people that are having to stay in a poverty state a lot longer.”

Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer said “trying to reduce overall homelessness is incredibly challenging, not just for Asheville, but obviously nationwide, since the number rose nationwide by 18 percent this last year.” 

The mayor said Asheville is holding itself accountable, including with the improved counting methodology, “which means the number went up because it’s a more accurate count.” But she acknowledged the goal was not met.

“I feel like homelessness is one of these challenges where you have to constantly be working on it,” Manheimer said. “And if we weren’t working on it, it would be so much worse than it is. Unfortunately, sometimes a win is holding the line.”

‘We’re in a new season’

As it was unfolding, Woods criticized the National Alliance effort in 2022, which he calls a “cookie-cutter, housing-first model” that produced similar results in multiple areas of the country. The Rescue Ministries emergency shelter has 82 beds that can flex to 100 overnight, if needed.

While you may expect Woods, who’s worked in the field for 16 years, to be skeptical of yet another plan to cut homelessness, he’s upbeat about one element that came out of the alliance’s report and its 116 recommendations: the creation of the Asheville-Buncombe Continuum of Care (COC), which was established in February 2024. 

Stakeholders met weekly for 10 months to develop the COC, said Emily Ball, manager of the city’s Homeless Strategy Division. The COC includes more than 400 community members, and its board is slated to finalize its first three-year strategic plan in June, with implementation with the new fiscal year in July. 

“I’m more optimistic than I’ve ever been,” Ball said.

The COC is not a city initiative but a community-based entity with staff support from the city’s Homeless Strategy Division, which serves as the lead agency.

The COC’s website says it is the “collaborative planning body responsible for developing and overseeing a comprehensive and well-coordinated system of effective services designed to prevent and quickly resolve occurrences of homelessness in Asheville and Buncombe County.”

Ball acknowledged that homelessness is a crisis, but she pointed out the COC is not a crisis response entity.

“What it is building is a long-term strategy, and it’s building a system to respond,” Ball said. “We haven’t done that in this community until now. I think we’re in a new season.”

Systems have been in place to work on homelessness before, but sometimes the entities were working in silos. Previously, the city had the Homeless Initiative Advisory Committee, with members appointed jointly by City Council and the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners. The Homeless Coalition, an informal information-sharing group, worked separately.

‘We didn’t have a governance charter, a membership body, or a process to appoint committees and work groups,” Ball said. “Collaboration happened organically based on individual relationships, rather than at the community level.”

Like Woods, Scott Rogers, executive director at the Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry (ABCCM), has been skeptical of the city’s past approaches to reduce homelessness, mainly because he thinks it squelched efforts of his organization and the rescue ministry to expand the emergency shelter capacity.

All the emphasis was on building more affordable housing and rapidly rehousing people — noble goals, Rogers said — but that sidelined the pressing need for more emergency shelter space. 

The city is set to receive $225 million in federal Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery funding because of Tropical Storm Helene, and in its “Action Plan” released in early April the city earmarked $31 million for housing.

Rogers hopes the city may decide to use a sizable chunk of that $31 million to invest in homelessness solutions — both capital needs and ongoing operational expenses. He suggests that Buncombe County may also commit a similar amount.

“We’ve got a real shot at taking the existing proven, competent organizations and strategies and giving them the fuel that they need to really make a huge, wonderful impact,” Rogers said.

Ball said Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery Funding is in play after Helene, with Asheville set to receive that special allocation of $225 million for recovery within city limits. The state of North Carolina will receive about $1.4 billion from the same fund, which will include recovery efforts in Buncombe County. 

Projects related to homelessness “may be eligible,” Ball said, but nothing has been settled yet. 

Emergency shelter beds take precedence 

Before Helene hit Sept. 27, ABCCM, a coalition of local churches, had already funded a 36-bed women’s safe haven facility. It was scheduled to open in November, but that ribbon cutting has been pushed to this month, Rogers said.

ABCCM offers 76 emergency shelter beds, 260 transitional housing beds and another 75 “Code Purple” one that are open during extreme cold, Rogers said.

Before Helene, the Salvation Army was on the verge of approving the conversion of a former thrift store property it owns on Leicester Highway into a shelter for homeless people, Maj. Kenny Clewis said. Helene threw a wrench in the plans, but the idea remains in play, a move that could add 50 emergency shelter beds. 

Salvation Army is licensed for 65 beds downtown and can add 16 in an area that was flooded. Regarding the goal of cutting homelessness in half, Clewis said it’s very realistic, but Helene really hurt the forward momentum.

He’s optimistic that the COC is on the right track by emphasizing an increase in emergency shelter first, while not eschewing getting people in housing.

Rogers said between ABCCM’s initiative and the potential Salvation Army addition of beds, meeting the goal of cutting homelessness in half is realistic.

Melina Arrowood, chair of the COC board, said the notion of ending homelessness is “a lofty goal,” if maybe a practical impossibility.

“But I do think that we can make significant changes in the way that we assist people who are in situations that might lead them to homelessness before they get there,” Arrowood said. “And we can work together as a community to find additional ways to get people housed, so that people are not homeless for any significant length of time and unsheltered, which is brutal.”

Emergency shelter will play a key role, and Arrowood said it’s a “very high priority” for the COC board.

The board re-created a shelter planning work group, which will largely focus on emergency shelter, she said.

What about the Ramada Inn plan?

Another project, the conversion of a Ramada Inn in east Asheville into supportive housing for the disabled or chronically homeless, ran into a series of problems before getting a reset. As Mountain Xpress reported last fall, the city had pledged $1.5 million toward the project. But the plan collapsed when private developer Shangri-La Industries defaulted on its mortgage and filed for bankruptcy.

In September, City Council voted 4-3 to allow a different company, Friendship for Affordable Housing, to offer “50 units of supportive housing for veterans and 50 units that are affordable for those making half or less of area median income,” Xpress reported. 

Callum Davidson, director of acquisitions at Friendship, said April 28 via email that the plan remains the same, but Helene contributed to a delay in its timing.

“Due to the extensive damage of the storm, we are working with our architect, Rowhouse, and our general contractor, Beverly Grant, to get new drawings to the city as soon as possible so we can begin construction,” Davidson said. “Currently we do not have an ETA on construction start, but it is imminent.”

Ari Majer, chief development officer at Friendship, added that while the main construction has not started at the old Ramada, “we have done significant investment in the property since we took ownership in late 2024.

“We have cleaned up the site from the storm damage, including landscaping and cleanup work,” Majer said. “Additionally, we have secured the site with several improvements including putting up a permanent 8-foot fence surrounding the entire site, installing cameras for the construction period and other security efforts.”

Compass Point permanently housed 85 people

When the National Alliance set the goal for halving homelessness, some in the community expected Homeward Bound’s 85-room Compass Point Village permanent housing project on Tunnel Road to take a huge bite out of the total. The converted Days Inn motel opened in September 2023 after a $17.5 million conversion, and it remains full and operational, with an annual budget of nearly $2 million.

But it clearly did not cut homelessness in half.

Simon Dwight, CEO of Homeward Bound, a nonprofit that works to get people in permanent housing, said progress continues on homelessness, and they’ve “made great strides despite high demand, but systemic solutions are crucial. 

“The (Point in Time) count highlights ongoing concerns about the availability and affordability of both housing and shelter,” Dwight said.

Jessie Figueroa, Homeward Bound’s resource development director, said progress certainly is possible when it comes to homelessness, but it’s extremely difficult to solve.

“The issue is that we have these larger challenges, especially here in Asheville, that you have new people experiencing homelessness every year — with our affordable housing crisis, with other challenges, with not enough medical care, behavioral health care, continuing to have issues with substance abuse in the area,” Figueroa said. “And so there needs to be a system set up so that the experience of homelessness is brief.”

Ending homelessness is probably just not realistic, Fugueroa said.

“That there will always be new people coming in, that is something that is kind of intractable,” Figueroa said. “That’s probably never going to change.” 

But the area can have a system with a low-barrier emergency shelter, homelessness prevention programs, and rapid rehousing, so “that folks don’t have to wait to become chronically homeless to end their homelessness,” Figueroa added.

“That is what I think Homeward Bound and the Continuum of Care would like to see happen,” she continued. “And truthfully, it could just be taking a bit longer than anticipated to set up that structure.”

Figueroa said that if the original low-barrier Ramada Inn plan had come through as originally planned “I think we’d be having a very different conversation now surrounding this.”

Rogers recounted a conversation he had with a permanent housing advocate regarding homelessness who insisted that had to be the main solution. Rogers told him, “Buddy, we got to quit making homeless people first.”

Soaring housing costs

Housing opportunities rank as the “No. 1 data driver for the prevalence of homelessness in a community,” Manheimer said. Housing availability is a key solution, “however that’s accomplished,” she added.

“I don’t know what changes we’ll see because of Helene to our housing market, but obviously we have historically had one of the tightest housing markets in North Carolina, so we know that is a major factor.”

The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Asheville as of early April stood at $1,492 a month, 5 percent below the national average of $1,577, according to apartments.com. 

Those hoping to buy a home are in for worse sticker shock. 

Mosaic Community Lifestyle Realty reported that for the fourth quarter of 2024, the median home sales price in Buncombe County stood at $477,000. Inside Asheville, it came in at $488,000.

One wild card in the equation is federal funding. During the first three months of his presidency, Donald Trump has engaged in widespread cost-cutting in numerous federal agencies.

The New York Times reported April 17 that the Trump administration is considering deep cuts to federal housing programs, including the Section 8 voucher program that helps low income people with rental assistance. The vouchers often play a key role in helping low-income people move into permanent housing.

Manheimer said she’s “very concerned about the federal government withdrawing support” for housing, particularly vouchers provided through Housing and Urban Development.

“If you look at the numbers of people in just the city of Asheville that are living in housing through a federally subsidized housing voucher, it’s thousands of people,” Manheimer said. 

A life-altering second chance

Those working in the homelessness field agree that access to housing will play a key role moving forward. In particular, the community is going to have to work with landlords to give a second chance to those experiencing homelessness who also have spotty credit histories or criminal records. 

That includes people like Mercy Rodriguez, who says the second chance she’s received has been life-altering.

Rodriguez, a 48-year-old mother of two grown daughters, spent five years in state prison for trafficking methamphetamine. A Navy veteran who cleaned houses and worked in the hospitality industry after getting out of the service, Rodriguez is open about the mistakes she made, which started with taking a hit of meth and ended with her losing her children and serving time.

When she got out last year, she immediately went to ABCCM’s Transformation Village in the Enka area. It provides up to 100 beds of transitional housing for homeless women, mothers with children, and veterans. The facility allows women to stay up to two years, and it offers a range of social services, educational opportunities, Medicare and Medicaid programs and rental assistance.

Rodriguez liked the structure Transformation Village offered, as well as the chance to go to school and land a job. She stayed there eight months, leaving in December for her own apartment in West Asheville, an arrangement facilitated by Homeward Bound.

Homeward Bound pays half the rent, and it provided the first and last month’s deposits for the apartment. The rent payment will shift to a proportion of her salary.

Rodriguez works as the operations manager at Deep Time, a “community of faith for and with people impacted by incarceration.” Deep Time roasts and sells coffee, and it is opening a coffee bar at Trinity United Methodist Church on Haywood Road in West Asheville, where the business is based.

While she wasn’t ever unsheltered, Rodriguez says she’s pretty certain she would’ve wound up experiencing homelessness, or in worse trouble, without the help she received.

“Without Transformation Village’s help, I don’t think that it would have taken too long for me to go back to my old behaviors, to tell you the truth,” Rodriguez said.

Often, those exiting the prison system have no prospects, and not much help identifying services that can help with housing or bills, Rodriguez said, and they wind up homeless. Coming to Transformation Village was like being handed a “basket of resources,” with staffers to help you navigate them, she said.

“It’s like being handed a million dollars and you just have no idea what to do with it, you know what I mean?” Rodriguez said.

In a strange way, Rodriguez said, prison was the best thing for her. 

“Not only did it get me sober, but it gave me time to reflect on what my life’s goals are going to be,” Rodriguez said.

She often dwelled on steering her life in a different direction, and Deep Time fit that goal perfectly. 

Now Rodriguez looks forward to opening the coffee bar and expanding the bagged coffee sales — and helping others by sharing her life experience and the mistakes she made. Besides her full-time job with Deep Time, Rodriguez also works as a resident adviser at Transformation Village on the weekends.

Asked if Asheville can cut homelessness in half, Rodriguez said the city, and society in general, will have to adopt a different outlook toward people who’ve hit rocky patches.

“I think that if you started looking at the person and not their file, it would provide a better opportunity for people to be housed, instead of having to struggle with that stigma that people put on other people,” Rodriguez said. “Because of your background, that doesn’t mean that you can’t be a successful part of society.”

She hopes the community will offer the same chance to others.

“If you just give that little glimmer of hope to them, they can take it and run, you know?” Rodriguez said. “And it’s a huge thing to look at people being successful, and you’re just like, ‘Yeah, I feel like a mother again.’ I always have to remember, ‘This is you, Mercy. This is you on that other side.’”

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Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Boyle has been covering Asheville and surrounding communities since the 20th century. You can reach him at (828) 337-0941, or via email at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org. The Watchdog’s local reporting during this crisis is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.

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