800 Buncombe households saw eviction papers so far in 2022. Here's who gave out the most.

Andrew Jones, Asheville Citizen Times
·6 min read

ASHEVILLE - Just more than 800 evictions have been filed in Buncombe County Small Claims Court nearly halfway through 2022, more than a quarter of them by Asheville's housing authority and more than half by real estate and property companies.

Court filings and historical data obtained by the Citizen Times show that as of June 16, Buncombe is on course to have more than double the number of evictions in 2022 than in 2021.

In 2021, there were 871 evictions filed between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, according to data collected by the Buncombe County Small Claims Court.

Housing Authority of the City of Asheville by June 16 has filed to evict 220 people.
Housing Authority of the City of Asheville by June 16 has filed to evict 220 people.

In 2022, as of June 16, at least 805 evictions already were on file.

Just more than 170 of these were against two or more adults living at the same address. A handful of individuals had evictions filed against them more than once.

More on eviction, housing and cost-of-living in Buncombe and beyond:

Attorneys with Pisgah Legal Services — a group that helps those facing eviction find legal and fiscal help — said that, though the 2022 eviction numbers are high, they represent a return to normal after the eviction lull during the pandemic, underpinned by a pandemic-era, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-ordered eviction moratorium, which was lifted in August 2021.

Data from the Buncombe County Small Claims Court clerk shows how eviction cases fared during the pandemic. Between August 2020 and December 2021, a total 1,232 evictions were filed. Of these, 728 were granted, 245 were dismissed and 374 were voided. Already in 2022, just more than 800 evictions have been filed in Small Claims Court.
Data from the Buncombe County Small Claims Court clerk shows how eviction cases fared during the pandemic. Between August 2020 and December 2021, a total 1,232 evictions were filed. Of these, 728 were granted, 245 were dismissed and 374 were voided. Already in 2022, just more than 800 evictions have been filed in Small Claims Court.

In 2022, filings have hit a new fever pitch. Where the average number of filings per month in 2021 was about 75, the average number in 2022 is much higher.

  • January evictions filed —106

  • February evictions filed — 187

  • March evictions filed — 121

  • April evictions filed —124

  • May evictions filed —137

  • June evictions through June 16 —128

Court records also show which groups and subgroups filed the most evictions between Jan. 1 and June 16.

Here are five facts about those numbers:

Asheville Housing Authority has filed more evictions than any other Buncombe entity

Since January, the Housing Authority of the City of Asheville filed at least 220 evictions, outpacing the runner up — a real estate company — by more than 150.

HACA has filed to evict more than 20 households each month starting in February.

Broken down by month, those large swaths of eviction filings include:

  • 81 in February

  • 36 in March

  • 31 in April

  • 24 in May

  • 47 in June

Discussing these ongoing evictions, Housing Authority Executive Director David Nash told the Citizen Times in March that the authority was focused on getting back rent and tackling lease violations.

"Our approach is the same as it was a few months ago," Nash said June 17, a day after the latest batch of filings. "We're filing people who haven't come forward to make arrangements to get their rent paid."

Most of those cases Nash said are being dismissed because people are either paying rent or getting assistance.

Nash didn't immediately have numbers on how many people were being evicted, but said he believed roughly 80% of the cases "were getting resolved."

Of the first 80 filed in February, Nash said in March he believed about eight would likely face actual evictions from their residences.

The hundreds of 2022 eviction filings come after the agency stopped filing for evictions in spring of 2020 when the moratorium went into effect.

At one point during the pandemic, Nash said, the total amount of money tenants owed to HACA was close to $500,000.

There are 1,525 housing authority apartment units in Buncombe, all of which were in use at the start of 2022.

"It's never our goal to evict people unless they've done something serious," Nash said. "We just need for them to pay their share of rent on time. And it's definitely to their advantage to do that before we file them in court, but it we have to we have to."

He said he didn't know if HACA would continue to file large amounts of evictions each month for the rest of the year.

Businesses entities filed more than half

Nearly 470 eviction fillings thus far in 2022 were made by businesses large and small.

These include property management groups, real estate companies, apartment complexes, small businesses and a handful of trusts.

Individuals haven't filed many evictions

Compared to other groups, individuals have not filed many evictions between January and June 16.

In total, this group was responsible for approximately 115 eviction filings.

Filings by individuals often list more than one person as the plaintiff, — those facing evictions are defendants — sometimes with the same last name.

Southwood Realty, Hawthorne filed the most

Court filings show the two companies that filed the most evictions in 2022 were Gastonia-based Southwood Realty and Greensboro-based Hawthorne Residential Partners.

Southwood has filed to evict at least 54 households by June 16, and Hawthorne filed to evict 45.

No representatives from Southwood were available to comment on the Buncombe evictions.

Hawthorne's main office did not return a call.

The companies separately own several apartment complexes in Asheville and surrounding communities.

Southwood's properties include Haven at Enka Lake, Palisades of Asheville, Dilworth Apartments and Avalon at Sweeten Creek.

Hawthorne's properties include Hawthorne at Haywood and Hawthorne at Bear Creek.

Roughly 1,000 people face eviction; data doesn't account for families.

Accounting for the number of households with more than one adult listed on the eviction filing, roughly 1,000 people already have faced eviction in 2022.

But this doesn't account for children, indicating the actual number of people who have faced evictions is likely much greater than 1,000.

Asheville residents wait outside of small claims courts in an attempt to fight eviction on February 23, 2022.
Asheville residents wait outside of small claims courts in an attempt to fight eviction on February 23, 2022.

Recession a 'drop in the bucket' compared to pandemic

Pisgah Legal Managing Attorney Robin Merrell at a June 7 Affordable Housing Committee meeting spoke to members — Buncombe Commissioners Brownie Newman, Parker Sloan and Amanda Edwards — about the impact the pandemic is having on housing stability.

At the same meeting commissioners mulled a $950,000 ask from Pisgah legal for American Rescue Plan Act funding to support homelessness prevention and housing stability in Buncombe County.

Merrell recalled the Great Recession and the foreclosure cases Pisgah tackled during that era of national economic downturn.

"That recession is a drop in the bucket compared to what this pandemic is doing," she said. "The effects we're seeing in the housing arena are evolving, and they're going to continue to evolve."

No longer do people have time off, enhanced unemployment benefits or the eviction moratorium as they did during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Merrell said.

Related: Buncombe County wants to build 3,000 units, invest $62 million, use tax credits

She told the story of a woman in her late 50s who sat in Merrell's office "crying," saying she'd worked for years to stabilize her life after being homeless.

But the woman caught COVID, lost her job and became two months behind in rent.

"When she got better, she went out and got herself two full-time jobs, each three nights a week, 12-hour shifts."

The woman was afraid, Merrell said, because an eviction was filed against her and she thought she could go home and "find her door padlocked."

That's not the way the process works, Merrell noted, adding Pisgah was working on the woman's situation and that "she's not going to be evicted."

Merrell thanked commissioners for their efforts to create more affordable housing in Buncombe, but asked them for ongoing support of Pisgah's work with those who face eviction.

The group often sets up a table outside the Small Claims Court where attorneys and employees help those facing eviction with legal and fiscal guidance.

Need help with rent?

For more about rental assistance, call Pisgah Legal Services at 828-253-0406 or Buncombe County at 828-250-5500.

Andrew Jones is Buncombe County government and health care reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at @arjonesreports on Facebook and Twitter, 828-226-6203 or arjones@citizentimes.com. Please help support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Hundreds of Buncombe households faced eviction in 2022