'A place to live': Formerly homeless Homeward Bound's Compass Point resident finds home

ASHEVILLE - In her first days at Compass Point Village, new resident Vickie Parker said she struggled to stay in her room for more than 30 minutes at a time. She'd find herself leaving to walk the street.

"That's what I'm used to," she said Dec. 7. It was hard to sleep. Scared someone was going to kick her door down, the same way they would slash her tent. But time passed and eventually, Parker said, she was able to let her guard down.

"It took me a while to get used to being here," she said. "And after you get used to it, it's great."

Compass Point is part of Asheville's homeless crisis solution and the largest project of its kind in Western North Carolina: transforming a 1960s motel into 85 units of permanent supportive housing in East Asheville. It opened in September and began moving people in the next month. Already, 78 units are filled.

Meet the new CEO

Permanent supportive housing is a housing model that targets chronically homeless individuals, offering long-term housing with wraparound services. "Chronically homeless" is a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development definition that describes people who have experienced homelessness for at least a year, or repeatedly, while struggling with a disabling condition such as a serious mental illness, substance use disorder or physical disability.

They are among the most vulnerable of the city's unhoused population, and Carl Falconer, Homeward Bound's new CEO, told the Citizen Times Dec. 7 that the people housed at Compass Point would otherwise be on the street.

There are services and case managers within the building, like Sunrise Community for Recovery and Wellness; Equal Plates Project, which provides food; and Appalachian Health Center. Other organizations frequently come through, like case workers from RHA Health Services and the county's community paramedics program.

There's no checkout time at Compass Point. It could be someone's home for the rest of their life, Falconer said.

While they're tracking people for the highest level of self-sufficiency they can obtain, he said, be it scattered-site housing or an apartment complex, “we’re here as long as it takes them to get to that point of self-sufficiency. If they never get there, that’s OK. We’re still here with them as long as they need our support services.”

Falconer started on Nov. 6, Homeward Bound's first permanent leader in more than two years. Sitting in a conference room at Compass Point, he said with nearly 30 years of experience in homeless services, he intends for Asheville to be his "final destination."

Most recently in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Falconer was the CEO of a nonprofit serving the unsheltered population in Broward County. His work runs the full gamut, he said, starting in street outreach, and going on to work as director of housing programs, running a large emergency shelter, working on an assertive community treatment team, veteran programs and more.

"This is my life," Falconer said of homeless services. He's worked across 10 different Continuums of Care, the planning bodies responsible for organization of a locality's homelessness response system, and said he was encouraged by Asheville's direction, which he felt people were pursuing with a "solution-oriented" lens.

'Mama V'

Parker has been homeless for 10 years, five of those in Asheville. She moved into Compass Point in October.

From her seat in the conference room, she gestured toward the window. Outside. Where she "suffered three winters" in Asheville, nearly freezing to death, where food was scarce and she was on constant guard.

Her room at Compass Point is small, she said. A kitchenette, fridge, microwave, bed, TV and bathroom. There's only a few ways to rearrange the furniture.

But "it's warm, it's private," she said. There's satellite television, wi-fi and an on-site laundry room.

“It’s a place to live. The outside world wanted to throw us away. That’s the way I look at it. They wanted to throw us away and Homeward Bound don’t. They actually care," Parker said.

"If Homeward Bound wasn’t helping, I don’t know where we’d be."

People call her “Mama V,” she said. For her, Compass Point is a steppingstone. She’s “trying to prosper. I’m finally learning how to go back into society.”

It was morning when she talked to the Citizen Times. She'd just gotten back from a grocery run and had on an olive green hoodie. Two heart-shaped necklaces draped over the collar. Her nails, which she had gotten done the day before, were a cosmic riot, a maelstrom of glitter and color.

On the street, some of her teeth were knocked out when someone shoved a .45 in her mouth.

"It's hard out there," she said. Particularly for women. “I’ve been shot, I’ve been beat up, I’ve been stabbed, I’ve been raped. These men think it’s funny.”

Her daughter came to see her recently. They hadn't seen each other in five years. Parker said she thought her daughter was dead, had "buried her" in her mind.

"You guys look so much alike," said the case manager sitting with her. Parker smiled. She preferred not to be photographed.

But even at its best, Parker said Compass Point has its difficulties. She sometimes feels staff members aren't listening to her, and she occasionally has frustrations with other residents, who she said invade her privacy and try to scare people.

But for people like her friend Johnny, who has lung cancer, the shelter and access to resources is necessary. When he needs food or help, now a case worker can help him get it. There were times they were out together in the cold, and Parker said "if he freezes, I'll freeze with him."

“It’s not about what you got or what you get. It’s about coming together and being a family," Parker said. "These street people out here, they’re my family."

Next steps?

It's a time of change for Homeward bound, with Compass Point nearly fully occupied and a new CEO, as it is for the city of Asheville, which was alluded to by Falconer.

Asheville's homelessness response is undergoing a period of immense transition as it works to overhaul its current governance system, restructuring the Buncombe County Continuum of Care in accordance with recommendations from the National Alliance to End Homelessness, which gave a report to the city and county in January.

It's a necessary and exciting change, Falconer said. For the community, he thinks of next steps in terms of short- and long-term goals. Long-term is more affordable housing, not just housing projects themselves, but building more affordability "systems and mechanisms" within the city's process.

He also named the ongoing effort around a low-barrier shelter for Asheville and, again, the governance restructuring.

For short-term, it's immediate solutions, like Code Purple, which offer emergency shelter in sub-freezing temperatures, and addressing tensions between business owners, tourism and the city's unhoused populations.

The first, priority, he said, is "keeping those people alive, keeping them well, until we can actually get them into housing." He acknowledged the tension between business owners and unhoused populations, something he said is seen "pretty much everywhere."

It's important for business owners to understand how the city's homelessness service systems function, he said. Though priorities may differ, "we both want to get people off the streets, and we want people to not be homeless anymore. How we do that, that’s where we have to understand each other."

Board members Kelly Pierce and Melissa Duong said the board will begin working on a 12-18-month strategic planning process, with a longer three-to-five-year plan to come.

There are other solutions Falconer wants to see introduced that aren't currently operational in Asheville, like reunification funds: A pot of money, typically set aside by the city, county or another organization, that works to reunite unhoused people with support systems elsewhere.

"People he get stuck," he said. For some, a flat tire while passing through can be enough to leave them stranded, though housing, family and support may exist elsewhere.

It's not, he stressed, sending someone who is homeless in Asheville to be homeless elsewhere, but it is reuniting them with housing and a support network that is already waiting for them.

There are countless myths and misunderstandings that surround homelessness, he said, and to people who are struggling to separate fact from fiction, he encouraged them to volunteer and get involved.

“When you start meeting people, you start to see, ‘this is not the narrative that people have been telling me it is,'" he said.

More: Look at Homeward Bound's Days Inn reno: How will it serve Asheville's homeless population?

More: 2 new housing options for chronically homeless people coming to Asheville: What we know

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. Please support local, daily journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville Compass Point nearly full formerly homeless residents