Buncombe County’s latest Point-In-Time count — meant to record every resident sleeping on the streets, at a shelter or in transitional housing on a single night — found 232 unsheltered residents in January 2022, up from the 116 people counted a year before. Overall homelessness in the county increased by about 21% over the same period.
A week after the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners doled out about $4.9 million of its own American Rescue Plan Act allotment, Asheville City Council will consider over $11.7 million in ARPA projects Tuesday, May 10.
The three applications were the first to be funded out of 105 projects that had been submitted in response to Buncombe County’s latest request for proposals for American Rescue Plan Act support, which closed April 12.
New construction at Deaverview Apartments, Asheville’s second-oldest public housing community, will consist of two three-story buildings and one four-story building containing 82 total mixed income units.
Eventually, the city plans to use the land to revamp Deaverview into a “purpose built community,” which, according to the Atlanta-based nonprofit steering the national model, would help local leaders create “greater racial equity, economic mobility and improved health outcomes for families and children.”
Removing Asheville’s Vance Monument will cost between $114,150 and $495,000, according to five bids submitted by North Carolina-based construction and demolition companies.
Upcoming projects include initial steps to expand Deaverview Apartments into a “purpose-built” community and an 80-unit apartment complex for people experiencing chronic homelessness.
“I joined the circle because parents of color have to worry about their kids encountering the wrong officer in a way my parents never did.”
