Asheville homelessness: New funding, staffing approved to address crisis, Is it enough?

ASHEVILLE -  Within the newly approved budget is unprecedented money and staffing for homelessness services, but despite city efforts, some advocates wonder if the increased resources are enough to respond to rising desperation on Asheville's streets.

"(It's a) really significant investment by the city in the capacity we need to help drive progress in our community," said Emily Ball, the city's homeless services system performance lead.

During her more than a decade in Asheville, she said there has never before been this level of staff capacity targeting the crisis.

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Though addressing homelessness is among Asheville City Council's leading priorities, Ball said she currently serves in a division of one. However, this summer the Homeless Strategy Division will grow to four.

With the June 28 passage of a $216.9 million budget, Ball now has funding to bring on a homeless strategy project specialist, a new position created to develop and implement strategies to alleviate homelessness and provide technical assistance to community partners.

The same evening, City Council accepted $375,000 from Dogwood Health Trust to fund a two-year temporary staff position to oversee the implementation of the the city's $1.5 million in funding from the National Opioid Settlement.

The fourth and final position in the division will replace former Homeless Strategy Division Manager Brian Huskey.

"I’m really excited about it," Ball said of the growing department. "I feel really clear about the work that we need to do, and it feels just so exciting to have that capacity on the horizon to be able to do that."

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For the first time, the city's budget contains $50,000 in dedicated funding for Code Purple emergency shelters in extreme winter temperatures and support for continued funding in coming years. There is an additional $50,000 budgeted for homeless outreach services provided by Homeward Bound, bringing its total to $110,000.

Also ongoing is an almost $73,000 contract with the Washington, D.C.-based National Alliance to End Homelessness, funded by Dogwood Health Trust, which will result in a needs assessment and recommendations for addressing unsheltered homelessness in Buncombe County.

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The alliance made its first visit to Asheville in June and met with homeless service providers and other stakeholders.

Among these providers was BeLoved Asheville, and co-director Amy Cantrell said she was going to "wait and see" what comes from the city's new positions and its work with the alliance before she can celebrate progress.

Cantrell said much of the immediate needs are already known, such as increased housing stock, eviction protection, mental health care and poverty remediation. Still, she's hopeful that once the city has the alliance's recommendations in hand, they will be fully funded.

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“If there were consultants that have to be chosen, certainly we are grateful it was them,” Cantrell said, noting the alliance's strong reputation and decades of experience.

Likewise, Marcus Laws, the new homeless services director at Homeward Bound, is hopeful about the process.

“I think they are doing the legwork to be able to make a fair assessment of where Asheville’s (Continuum of Care) currently stands," Laws said. "But we have to do that work together and not apart. We can’t be siloed if we are actually going to attack to the issue."

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'A lot of suffering'

Ball hopes increased staffing will mean better execution of her division's intended goal: "Absolutely, ending more homelessness."

More staff means greater ability to build out support systems and the technical capacity of service providers, she said, creating coordination between agencies.

In short, more money to target the problem works.

"Last night was the first step," she said.

But as resources grow, so does the community in need.

Asheville is in the midst of an increasing homeless crisis, according to the latest point-in-time count, which offers a snapshot of the homeless population each January.

The number of homeless people is up 21% since 2021 to 637, with twice as many people who are unsheltered than the year before.

Ball said this follows nationwide trends coming out of the pandemic, and numbers that were low heading into 2020 are now seeing record highs.

I think the increased investment on the city’s part is in response to emergent community need," she said.

Winter brought numerous highly visible encampment sweeps — dozens of tents razed off of I-240, the removal of demonstrators and unhoused people from Aston Park and an encampment cleared along the French Broad.

Now, following policy changes by APD in the way they remove, or clear, homeless encampments, Cantrell said people are being driven further and further to the outskirts.

In February, the department officially reduced its seven-day notice ahead of encampment clearings to 24 hours.

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“We’re seeing just a lot of suffering. I think people tend to forget about folks on the street in the warmer weather, and summer brings a whole host of hardships and dangers when you’re on the street," Cantrell said.

“Imagine everywhere you go, being somewhere you can’t be. That becomes very difficult.”

Laws said while there have been less large encampments, he has noticed that campers move around much more frequently, cautious of the knowledge that they can be cleared at any time.

“I know they have been moving around a lot lately, trying to avoid being caught, so it’s been more difficult on the outreach end to actually keep relationships," he said.

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Cantrell said people are camping in smaller groups to try to escape police notice.

The most recent large clearing came in early June, when an encampment of about 20 people tucked in a wooded grove below Murray Hill Park was cleared by APD.

As with most city clearings, the campers scattered, collecting all the belongings they could carry in carts and bags, many without an idea of where to go next.

Sarah Honosky is the city government reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. News Tips? Email shonosky@citizentimes.com or message on Twitter at @slhonosky. 

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville homelessness: New funding, staffing OK'd but is it enough?