What's being done to address homelessness in Asheville? Events will highlight response
ASHEVILLE - Outside the front doors of Haywood Street Congregation, people meet like old friends. There are cries of recognition, idle pockets of chatter and even from the sidewalk outside, the savory smell of cooking food.
On Wednesdays, the midweek Downtown Welcome Table is in full swing. It's one of Haywood Street's core programs, along with respite care, and the small parking lot on the edge of downtown Asheville is overflowing. The brick church building is boxed in by Patton Avenue and I-240, but it's easily walkable from even the farthest of downtown's reaches, nearby to Salvation Army, Western Carolina Rescue Ministries, the AHOPE Day Center and a bus stop.
It's a single piece in the larger tapestry of homeless services providers in Asheville — an interconnected web that includes nonprofits, shelters, faith organizations, emergency services, health care providers, food pantries, local municipalities and more.
And for the first time, area organizations are partnering to recognize national Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, from Nov. 11-18, with a slate of events intended to educate, involve and connect the larger community to the ongoing work around homelessness.
Laura Kirby, executive director of Haywood Street, which took point on this year's organizing, said it's a response to the oft-repeated notion that collaboration is missing from the local homeless service system and the even louder cry that nothing is being done at all.
Haywood Street feels the "mounting" pressure to remove visible signs of homelessness from downtown, said a November release, and Kirby told the Citizen Times that the congregation's goal from the beginning was to include the most excluded, those on the margins, the people that others most want to look away from.
"That sentiment is just magnified right now," she said. "Not only do they want to look the other way, but they don’t want to see any evidence of homelessness. We’re acutely aware of that.”
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'We need each other'
Solo, 65, first came to Haywood Street in 2014. April Nance, Fresco host and admin support for Haywood, called him a "steady presence" at the congregation. On a Wednesday in November, during Downtown Welcome Table, he's juggling calls and yelling greetings from the church's stoop.
“I’ve stayed out here on the streets, and I’ve seen what these people go through," Solo said. Now age 65, he thought he'd be dead at 25.
“It’s hard. If you read my record, it’s hard. ... But I never was a bad person," he said. Haywood Street has always looked out for him.
James Blount, who goes by "Brother James," was also sitting out front. He's been coming to Haywood for seven years. He arrived in Asheville from Atlanta, though he grew up in Polk County, and said he was homeless when he left the city.
“I came to Asheville and decided I wanted to get off the streets and … change my life," he said. Now, he's living at Aston Park Tower. The roof of the 11-story public housing apartment building is just visible from his seat, its top floors cresting over the skeletal beams of new construction on Clingman Avenue.
He still loves coming to Haywood Street, singing a solo at the piano in the sanctuary and visiting people, some of whom he's known for years.
“When I was homeless, I used to come over here, and I can’t forget where I came from," Blount said. "Especially the staff and the homeless, and God knows I love eating, too."
Nance was hopeful the awareness week and various programs — offered by organizations including the city of Asheville, the Asheville-Buncombe Homeless Coalition, Homeward Bound, Bounty and Soul, ABCCM, Food Connection and Helpmate — would help dispel a myth that all service providers are "siloed."
It's an answer to "growing public concern," said the news release, as homelessness as been elevated to a "crisis," area elected officials say, and exacerbated by the pandemic, which saw a marked increase in unsheltered homelessness locally and nationwide, typically more visible than its other forms.
Also driving numbers up is Asheville's climbing housing costs, providers say, which a January report from the National Alliance to End Homelessness found is more expensive than 98% of other North Carolina cities. Since the start of the pandemic, from March 2020 to October 2022, rents rose 41.7%.
In her ongoing learning series, Debbie Alford, a homeless strategy specialist with the city, instructs that while things like mental health, addiction, trauma, natural disasters and poverty are "precipitating events" for homelessness, the actual cause is a lack of housing. The solution, too, is housing-oriented.
While the overall numbers trended down this year, unsheltered counts remain higher than pre-pandemic figures, with 171 people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in Buncombe County, according to the January 2023 point in time count, an annual single night tally. The next point in time count is scheduled for Jan. 30.
Often, Nance said, people are inundated with negative stories about homelessness.
"Next week, our hope is that we can raise some awareness, some hope and some empathy for a situation that is really hard for a lot of people, and to support the people who are coming together to be in community with them,” Nance said. Part of this is an understanding that no community is a monolith — not everyone who comes to Haywood Street is experiencing homelessness.
Many are craving connection, are food insecure and want a hot meal. Conversation. A bouquet of flowers donated by Trader Joe's or respite from the cold.
"We need each other," she said.
A look inside Haywood Street Congregation
It only takes a walk inside the doors of Haywood Street to see the inter-agency collaboration on full display. In the sanctuary, lit in the muted glow of sunlight through stained glass, Blount had moved inside to the piano, where he played softly in front of the congregation's immense fresco, completed in 2019 by artist Christopher Holt, for which he was a model. Blount's painted double gazed benevolently across the scene.
Downstairs, weaving through community rooms, there were several groups at work — the community paramedics offering wound care in one, in another, volunteers cutting hair, someone trimming their beard over a deep sink, a dog at their feet. A case manager met with a group in a dimly lit room and in the garden, a trio joined hands in prayer.
In the first of the dining rooms, MANNA FoodBank was set up to assist others in signing up for food stamps, and volunteers carrying dish bins and food-laden plates threaded through the crowd.
At a table, Jeffery and Christie Glenn were eating beside Dustin Mailman, a pastor at Trinity United Methodist Church on Haywood Road, who Christie says will marry them in December. They mugged for the camera, Jeffery putting up "bunny ears" behind her head.
They first met Mailman while staying at Trinity's winter shelter in 2021, but after difficulty finding somewhere to stay as a couple, they're back to camping in any space they can find.
“We don’t have nowhere safe away from drugs,” Christie Glenn said. “Me being high-risk … him having seizures and stuff, no place wants to help us." They come to Haywood every Wednesday.
"We need to stay together," she said. At the table, Jeffery wiped playfully at Christie's mouth with a napkin.
In the next room, peer support specialist Paul Helou said he comes for the community.
“You need a place like this," he said. "The sense of community bolsters you up, no matter where you’re at.”
Behind him, Eric Freeman began strumming a song on his guitar, his tablemates tapping their feet. His performance was met with applause and a few whooping "yee-haws."
Laura Bernhein, a regular volunteer, said Haywood Street's Downtown Welcome Table is her "happy place."
Apron-clad, among the chaos of so many bodies, jostling and laughing, the air rich with food, "I feel like this is the most spiritual thing I can do," she said. "I feel the communion."
Out back are the gardens, which Haywood Street's lead storyteller Melanee Rizk said are among her favorite places on the campus. A stone wall tumbles along one edge. When unhoused people die and there is no one to claim them, she said the hospital often calls Haywood Street to receive their ashes. They scatter them there, at the wall.
“We’re really hoping that we can see some change in the atmosphere of the community, and really hoping that folks are able to set aside whatever presuppositions they come with, and ask questions," Rizk said of the coming awareness week. "It’s really all we’re wanting: to ask more questions and try to find out more.”
More work to be done
The work to increase awareness around community response to homelessness is essential to answering the recommendations from the National Alliance to End Homelessness, presented to the city and county in its January report.
Among its 30 multiprong recommendations was a call to ensure greater transparency, accountability and equity. This included more education of the area's Continuum of Care membership and the wider community around performance goals, data, priorities, best practices and opportunities for engagement.
The Continuum of Care is a federal framework that establishes a local planning body responsible for coordinating a system of housing and services for people experiencing homelessness. Currently, the governing body for the Asheville-Buncombe CoC is run by the Homeless Initiative Advisory Committee, with eight seats appointed by City Council and eight seats appointed by county commissioners.
But that process, too, is undergoing a major transformation. Following recommendations from the Alliance, HIAC is working to move its governance board out from under the city and county, initiating a complete restructuring of the area's CoC. A draft charter was endorsed by HIAC on Oct. 10.
Alford said while there certainly is constant collaboration among area organizations, there is no streamlined system response. "System improvements" to the coordinated entry system is among the key recommendations from the Alliance. This, along with restructuring the CoC itself, is part of the effort to untangle what can feel like a daunting, bureaucratic mess of red tape.
Coordinated entry is the process by which someone experiencing homelessness enters the system and is connected with staff, assessed and helped to access resources that meet their unique needs.
At the moment, Alford said, there is "no single entry point," but through incoming changes, she hopes they will see "more of that structure come about."
Alford will offer a compressed presentation of her learning series, dubbed "Understanding Homelessness and Your Personal Response," on Nov. 13 in the sanctuary of Haywood Street Congregation, the kickoff to the week of events.
Find the schedule of events for Asheville's Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week at https://haywoodstreet.org/event-schedule/.
Get involved
Homeless Initiative Advisory Committee: Meets in the first floor conference room of Asheville City Hall the second Thursday of each month. 9-10:30 a.m. It will not meet in December.
Buncombe-Asheville Homeless Coalition: Meets virtually the second Tuesday of each month. 1-2 p.m. To join the mailing list, email bcnc.homeless.coalition@gmail.com. It will be hosting a Nov. 19 event at New Belgium from 1-4 p.m., inviting the public to meet with local organizations involved in homelessness response.
National Alliance to End Homelessness joint work session: Asheville City Council and Buncombe County Commission will meet Dec. 4, from 9 a.m. -12 p.m. to follow up on the January report from the Alliance, with a focus on HIAC's work implementing recommendations, updates on key projects and next steps. It will be held in the Harrah's Cherokee Center banquet hall, 87 Haywood Street.
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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: Homelessness in Asheville: Event series to highlight what's being done
