Upscale restaurants, art galleries, and lively breweries line Biltmore Avenue in the heart of downtown Asheville, North Carolina. But with just a few steps down an alleyway or sidestreet, an entirely different reality emerges. Clusters of ragged tents and shelters appear by the dozens, signs of the rampant homelessness problem in the area. This striking juxtaposition has been fueled by many factors including a dire lack of affordable housing, and Jim Crow era zoning legislation.

 

Nationally, homelessness has been gradually declining over the last two decades, according to data published by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. However, in Asheville, as well as throughout the surrounding Buncombe County, the issue continues to worsen. A combination of factors throughout the region, from a limited job market to an increasingly high median income, have led to more than one-third of the entire homeless population of North Carolina being concentrated in its 11th most populous city. Both public and private entities are addressing this issue, but homelessness still looms large.

 

Asheville, the principal city in Buncombe County North Carolina, is nestled in a valley within the Blue Ridge Mountains. Population in Asheville boomed at the end of the 19th century as wealthy tuberculosis patients flooded the town en-masse looking to be healed by the cool and clean mountain air. As the tuberculosis epidemic subsided, Asheville’s reputation became centered around its natural beauty. Seemingly endless layers of blue tinted mountains dotted with streams and waterfalls surround the town. In the fall, the mountains become covered with vast swaths of striking red and orange leaves. Today, tourists continue to flood into the region to experience this natural beauty as well as emerging food and art scenes. Many of these tourists become residents, and the population now hovers around 100,000, with the broader Buncombe County being home to more than a quarter million people. 

 

However, this growth has come with consequences. Without a strong job market, geographic limitations posed by the mountains, as well as lasting effects from segregation and Jim Crow, extreme income inequality and homelessness has become rampant in Asheville. According to the City of Asheville's “point in time” database, more than 2,600 people were homeless in January of 2023. Emily Ball, a coordinator for this database notes that this is likely a conservative number, as it only includes data from certain service providers and shelters. To put this in perspective, Mecklenburg County, which encompasses the Charlotte metro area with a population 52% larger than Buncombe county, reported a homeless population of 1,750 in late 2022, using a similar system. And the problem is continuing to worsen. Amy Barry, a longtime resident of the area and executive director of a local nonprofit organization, says that while visible homelessness is not a new issue, it has gotten more noticeable in recent years. Barry has observed that in the last handful of years, those who are homeless have begun to more often outwardly exhibit signs of drug abuse or mental health issues that further entrench them into extreme poverty. 

 

The urgency of this issue has not fallen upon deaf ears however, as efforts from both public and private entities are ramping up. In November of this year, Homeward Bound, a nonprofit organization partnered with three local churches to repurpose an existing facility into a year round night shelter.. Barbara Wright, who sits on the board of this organization emphasized the relief that year round shelters provide in particular: “Health problems from sustained exposure to cold temperatures and snow is a serious issue when you're living outside,” says Wright. City of Asheville financial records show that the $450,000 used to set up and run this shelter was leftover from a much larger sum of federal COVID relief funds.

 

The Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry (ABCCM) is another private nonprofit organization involved with this issue. Their Transformation Village project, completed in 2019 provides not only necessities such as beds and showers, but also more than 50 “life skills” courses as well opportunities to earn certifications in various trades. According to ABCCM's website, donations from church-goers are the primary source of funding for these initiatives.  ABCCM’s goal is for people to leave their program with a living wage job and arrangements for public housing, which helps avoid cyclical homelessness.

 

While the importance of the work done by these private organizations is immense, the scale they are operating on is simply not enough to make significant reductions to the overall homeless population in the area. Timothy Love, the economic development director for Buncombe County explains that the city and county governments are taking on the role of land developers, which is not something that is common in the US. Love is the project manager for the county's most ambitious current land development project, which is being referred to as the Ferry Road project. He explains that the project is still in a pre-development phase, but environmental impact studies, initial planning, funding, and the 127 acre land parcel itself have all been acquired or completed. 

 

Love and his team are being advised by the development finance initiative (DFI) team from the University of North Carolina on many aspects of the project, from securing funding to developing the physical layout of the project. The project will include both single family homes and high density apartment buildings.Within the development, 55% of the total units will be priced at or below a rate affordable to those making less than 80% of the area median income. “We want to take this mixed income housing approach to avoid high density low income areas where crime can become a problem,” says Love.  The Ferry Road project has no estimated completion date at this point, and county officials recognize the need for solutions in the interim. According to the Buncombe County Commission’s December 5, 2023 meeting agenda, two proposals are being reviewed that would provide compensation to homeowners who rent out their properties to those making less than 50 percent of the area median income.  

 

Another party that is invested in this issue is the Asheville Chamber of Commerce whose primary mission, according to its Vice President of Communications, Erin Leonard, is managing and representing the economic interests of local businesses. “The reality of the situation in Asheville is that these interests overlap with the efforts to fight homelessness,” says Leonard. Chamber leadership recently visited Chattanooga, Tennessee, to explore their business improvement district (BID). BID’s are defined areas where businesses pay an extra tax to directly finance services and projects that improve things like public transit and safety within a certain area. Leonard and her team are actively working on creating a proposal for a BID in downtown Asheville. The Chamber is also working to amend current zoning ordinances in parts of the city. According to Buncombe County geographic information systems data, only a handful of land parcels outside of downtown are zoned for “mixed use” purposes, where commercial and residential spaces are both permitted. Creating more of these mixed use areas would allow for more dense housing and make easily walkable neighborhoods more feasible. Leonard believes this would benefit small businesses as well as create more affordable housing.

 

Another group within the Asheville City government that is active in this space is the Homelessness Initiative Advisory Committee, (HIAC). Emily Ball is also coordinator for the HIAC, and explains that although the city doesn't function as a  direct service provider to the homeless, the HIAC coordinates efforts of many private groups dealing with homelessness. A recent breakthrough for the HIAC was securing 43 emergency beds across several locations for homeless people during the upcoming winter. Ball explains that the city puts out “code purple” alerts when nightly low temperatures fall below freezing for consecutive days. As a result, these emergency beds become available when code purple is in effect.

 

Throughout the process of investigating the issue of homelessness in the Asheville area, a sense of optimism exists across the board from those directly involved with managing the issue. Emily Ball feels “encouraged by the level of attention and resources that are being provided by the city government.” Similarly, Timothy Love highlighted Buncombe County’s “Buncombe 2025” plan which features homelessness and affordable housing as key issues. Regardless, the bottom line is that the homelessness population continues to grow. However, it is clear that the issue is being taken seriously and dozens of capable people are working tirelessly to implement a gamut of solutions across public, private and non-profit sectors. Asheville residents hope there comes a time when this process can be viewed as a success story for other communities to base their own efforts on.