Quilt at Transformation Village

Buncombe tests and tweaks Code Purple plan

As presented to the county Board of Commissioners Nov. 15 by Jennifer Teague, Buncombe’s aging and adult services program manager, the Asheville-Buncombe County Homeless Coalition called the first Code Purple of 2022 on Oct. 15 — the first day this year’s program went into effect. After evaluating the results of that first night, the coalition decided to extend entry times for Code Purple shelters.

Asheville city seal

Council to hear Code Purple update amid freezing temperatur­es

If next week’s forecast is correct, overnight temperatures in Asheville will dip below freezing several times, potentially exposing those living without shelter to harsh conditions. Fittingly, members of Asheville City Council will hear an update on the city’s Code Purple program during their meeting of Tuesday, Nov. 15.

Community members address need for homeless shelter space

Asheville is gearing up to conduct its annual Point-in-Time count of unhoused community members Tuesday-Wednesday, Jan. 25-26. But even without the official numbers, which are typically released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in June, it’s clear that the city is facing a new reckoning around homelessness. The Asheville Police Department has […]

Volunteers operate Code Purple emergency shelter for six nights

For more than half of nights in November, the Asheville-Buncombe Homeless Coalition called Code Purple: an emergency protocol, triggered when temperatures drop below freezing, to increase space in homeless shelters beyond normal capacity. But for all of those nights, people sleeping on Asheville’s streets had no officially designated place to go. The two Code Purple […]