Asheville City Council postponed a vote on the installation of a prefabricated 24-hour restroom outside of the Rankin Avenue parking garage at its Jan. 23 meeting over concerns regarding the project’s cost and maintenance. Council previously voted to allocate $650,000 of American Rescue Plan Act funds for the new facility in May 2022.
At first glance, the dispute between Grace Episcopal and the Facebook group members seems a clear-cut case of how social media can effect change: A concerned resident encouraged like-minded people to contact the church, they did, and the church declined to serve as a host site. Viewed through a different lens, however, the incident highlights the potential for harm that can result from jumping to conclusions — and then broadcasting them via social media.
The survivor of a violent relationship has difficult decisions to make. She has to figure out when it is safest to leave, where she can go, what she can bring and what she can’t. Sometimes she’s stopped cold when she realizes she might have to leave the dog behind.
Compass Point Village, a renovated Days Inn motel on Tunnel Road, will provide one-room apartments and supportive services to 85 people, many of them considered to be chronically homeless.
“We’ve pretty much been doing cleanups for 50 years without really seeing any real changes,” says Asheville GreenWorks’ operations manager Chelsea Adams. “We go back to the same roads, in the same section of river and creek, every single year and do cleanups over and over and over.”
