Vacant Asheville Primary School proposed as temporary homeless shelter location

Sarah Honosky, Asheville Citizen Times
·7 min read
Asheville City Schools recently announced the locations to which Asheville Primary School's preschool program will be relocated to this fall.
Asheville City Schools recently announced the locations to which Asheville Primary School's preschool program will be relocated to this fall.

ASHEVILLE - After a brief presentation Dec. 5, Asheville City Board of Education directed staff to move forward with an agreement that would allow the vacant Asheville Primary School building on Haywood Road to become a temporary winter shelter for the city's most vulnerable homeless populations.

ACS spokesperson Dillon Huffman said Dec. 8 that before the memorandum of agreement is finalized, it will require school board approval. The vote is expected to take place at its regular board meeting Dec. 15.

“This is a number of populations that are not served by the current shelter system. Without this in place, without holding any punches, (people) are going to be left out in the cold," said former Asheville school board member Peyton O'Conner Dec. 5.

“I know that this isn’t the conventional use for the APS building, but it is an opportunity to put this building to use as we look at fully transitioning the space in the future.”

The Dec. 5 meeting was O'Conner's last on the board. She announced her resignation a few minutes after the shelter vote following several transphobic attacks from an anti-LGBTQ group making appearances during school board public comment.

People hold hands to say grace before dinner on the last night of Code Purple at Trinity Methodist Church in West Asheville March 31, 2022.
People hold hands to say grace before dinner on the last night of Code Purple at Trinity Methodist Church in West Asheville March 31, 2022.

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The request to use the school as a shelter was made by a newly-formed group, Winter Safe Shelter, formerly Asheville Ecumenical Winter Shelter. The group is a partnership between Trinity United Methodist Church on Haywood Road, Grace Episcopal Church and Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church, both on Merrimon Avenue.

Also involved is Counterflow Asheville, a group helping Winter Safe Shelter develop the project, supported by WNC Healing Collaborative, according to the memo discussed at the Dec. 5 meeting.

As proposed, a wing of Asheville Primary School would be utilized as the winter shelter, with a focus on keeping intact families together, something not typically possible at other emergency shelter options.

With only 10 beds, they anticipate housing two families at a time, and any additional availability will be directed toward people of color and LGBTQ individuals experiencing homelessness.

“It’s important to continue these types of endeavors for families not to be separated," said school board member Shaunda Sandford prior to the vote. She noted information in the memo that said a mother and son may be separated in most shelter options if the son is over the age of 13.

Most shelters operate as men/women’s dormitories, meaning if a husband, wife and child seek shelter they have to separate in order to receive shelter.

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If approved, the school will be used as a shelter beginning Dec. 16, with the option to continue through March 31.

Four classrooms will be used in the east wing of the school on the second floor, with access to hall bathrooms, upstairs kitchen and courtyard, according to the request.

One room will be a common space for all and the other rooms will be used for sleeping on mattresses and storing belongings. Access to other areas of the building will not be necessary or permitted. Food will be brought in for meals, as will water if the primary school's water is not potable.

Guests, staff and volunteers will be responsible for cleaning up the space and removing trash daily.

Included in the memo is information regarding legal liability, which dictates Winter Safe Shelter must have $1 million in liability insurance to utilize the building, and O'Conner noted this is the same for any organization coming to use the building.

The memo does not mention any reference of rent or other amount required to utilize the space itself, though there were discussions of Winter Safe Shelter shouldering any utility costs. In response to questions about costs associated with the proposal, Huffman said, "the details of the MOU have not been determined."

At the Dec. 1 Homeless Initiative Advisory Committee meeting, Nancy Dixon Walton, pastor at Trinity, updated the committee on the safe shelter project. At the time, the presentation did not mention the inclusion of the primary school.

A homeless encampment along the French Broad River December 3, 2020.
A homeless encampment along the French Broad River December 3, 2020.

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Dixon Walton said Dec. 8 that she was not sure if the request to use Asheville Primary School would actually happen, "so we were pretty surprised."

She said Winter Safe Shelter was encouraged to pursue the location by community members.

As a winter shelter option, the beds will be available each night, not just when Code Purple is called, which is triggered when temperatures drop to 32 degrees and below. The shelter options will be referral only, and will not accept walk-ins.

On Dec. 8, Dixon Walton said the plan is to use the school beginning mid-December through the end of the month, and then rotate the location of the shelter space, beginning in January with Trinity. Dixon Walton said this plan was subject to change.

'There will always be a need'

The strategy is motivated by Homeward Bound's Room in the Inn program, which operated for more than a decade until it ended in 2020 at the onset of the pandemic, and Trinity United Methodist Church’s experience during the previous winter season, when they served as an emergency shelter option for the first time.

Winter Safe Shelter anticipates serving 30-50 people over the season, according to Counterflow's website.

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Numbers of homeless individuals have been on the rise in recent months, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the latest count, completed Jan. 24, identified 637 experiencing homelessness, 232 who were unsheltered.

That is 110 more than the 2021 count, which found 527 people experiencing homelessness in Asheville, of which 116 were unsheltered.

According to the May 10 point in time report given by Homeless Strategy Division Manager Emily Ball, of those included in the county, 47 people were part of intact families experiencing homelessness, while 92.2% of those, or 587 people, were counted as individuals.

Dustin Mailman, also a pastor at Trinity, said this push for more winter shelter represents the group's continued effort to fill a critical gap in Asheville's homeless services.

“We hoping that this initiative will ripple as the shelter last year did ripple into what is happening at Jubilee, what is happening this year," Mailman said. “There will always be a need for winter shelter,”

Mike Reardon, associate rector at Grace Episcopal, said he was excited for the winter sheltering effort to operate out of Asheville Primary School.

The school closed at the end of the 2021-2022 school year, following a controversial Dec. 13, 2021 vote by the school board to close the facility.

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Outside a Asheville City Schools Board of Education’s specially called work session, more than 25 parents, students and community members gathered to protest the potential closure of Asheville Primary School.
Outside a Asheville City Schools Board of Education’s specially called work session, more than 25 parents, students and community members gathered to protest the potential closure of Asheville Primary School.

Since its closure, Huffman said the building has been used for storage. After its temporary use as a winter shelter, he said there is no indication of what its next use will be.

Reardon said he hopes that, for the time the shelter is there, they will help make the neighborhood a "better place."

“I frequent Haywood Road, and I remember last year seeing people organize to save their school, with drums and all kinds of instruments and posters, chanting. And I watched as they lost the thing that they fought for," Reardon said.

"And so I hope that even for a short time, we can function in a way that allows people to see some kind of newness arrive out of that space. Something worth celebrating and worth making community out of again. Hopefully, we are a net positive for that space, that now lies vacant, and for the surrounding community."

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 Primary School homeless shelter school board approval needed