Today’s round of questions, my smart-aleck replies and the real answers:

Question: What are the unoccupied motor homes doing in the grassy field across from Revol Church on Beaverdam Road? This is the second batch of such motor vehicles. They seem to sit there for months. Thanks for looking into this mystery.

My answer: What are they doing there? Waiting for someone to offer $3,500 a month to rent them.

Real answer: These homes are part of the mission of the Asheville Dream Center, a nonprofit that offers a variety of services and programs to those in need, including providing temporary homes and rebuilding houses for victims of Tropical Storm Helene. The Dream Center is a separate entity from Revol Church, but the church has allowed the Dream Center to store homes there post-Helene.

“The church has been gracious to us, and we partner with about 27 churches in the city,” said Paul Benjamin, a Dream Center board member. “And we’re constantly doing things to impact the community. We find a need and try to fill it.”

After Helene, that was badly needed housing.

“Over the past ten months, the Asheville Dream Center has had the privilege of supporting 22 families with temporary housing after they lost everything in the hurricane,” the Dream Center said in a media statement. “As part of our emergency response, the Asheville Dream Center utilized RVs as a practical solution to provide shelter for displaced families in our region.”

Six recreational vehicles remained parked on the field next to the church, as of early August.

“These units are not in active use at this time but remain on-site as part of our extended Hurricane Helene relief operations,” the center stated. “Revol Church, owner of the property, has been in close communication with the City of Asheville, which has granted permission for these RVs to remain in place until October 2025, in alignment with the city’s extended disaster relief timeline.”

The Dream Center is currently working on three homes in the Barnardsville community, and it has helped complete four home rebuilds in western North Carolina. The nonprofit has helped “clean, clear, and muck out or landscape a dozen homes and properties,” according to its statement.

Benjamin said the organization provides the homes for free to families in need.

“They’re just used until they get housing, and the units come back to us,” Benjamin said. “So these units were already being used, and now we’re just looking for the next families that have a need.”

Benjamin and the Dream Center say they understand that neighbors may have concerns about empty homes being on or near the church site. 

“We can understand the concerns of our neighbors in the community who are seeing these RVs parked on the Revol property,” the group’s statement said. “Every effort is being made to quickly place these units with deserving families.”

Question: For the second week in a row, I’ve found piles of cardboard at the Curbie cardboard recycle center in Woodfin. All of it is saturated with rain. That means it isn’t recyclable now, right? There was a bulldozer waiting for me to finish adding my layer to the heap. I had driven around for a week with a load of cardboard hoping the two absent Dumpsters would return but found they had not by this morning. What’s up?

My answer: I’ve got to think that nonstop driving for a week with a load of cardboard probably wasn’t great for the environment, either, but I do appreciate your determination.

Real answer: This is a situation that looks worse than it is.

“Our truck that normally empties these Dumpsters has been down and in the shop being fixed,” Abe Lawson, president of Curbside Management, the area’s primary recycling entity, told me via email. “We have a sign up for residents to drop cardboard between the Dumpsters on the ground.”

While the piled-up, soggy cardboard looks bad, it’s still usable.

“Being in the elements does not mean that the cardboard is not recyclable,” Lawson said. “In fact, we ask residents who have too much cardboard to fit into their 96 gallon cart to stack it neatly (outside) next to the cart.”

Cardboard can take a pretty decent soaking.

“The wetness only becomes an issue if it is saturated for a prolonged period of time and it starts to break down,” Lawson said Tuesday. “We are/have been collecting the cardboard multiple times a day to keep the piles contained and hope to have the truck back up and running very soon.”

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Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Got a question? Send it to John Boyle at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org or 828-337-0941. His Answer Man columns appear each Tuesday and Friday. The Watchdog’s reporting 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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