“If you can, consider creating a studio apartment. If you can only spare $10 dollars a month, donate to Habitat, Homeward Bound, Helpmate or another charity. One person can make a difference.”
Tag: homelessness
Showing 43-63 of 151 results
Diversion program helps homeless residents erase charges, avoid jail time
The Justice Resource Center’s Unhoused Diversion Program focuses on aspects of homelessness that the criminal justice system rarely addresses, such as poverty, trauma, mental illness and addiction, and targets homeless residents who’ve been charged with nonviolent misdemeanors.
Letter: Research shows effectiveness of housing first
“Of all the housing models, housing first, a version of permanent supportive housing, has the imprimatur of research demonstrating its effectiveness at ending homelessness.”
Letter: Asheville, take responsibility for homeless problem
“Stop throwing people in the streets while making housing and access to food only for those that you are most comfortable with.”
Jubilee church hosts ‘microshelter’ for women
Monday is an important evening for the women living in the shelter at the Jubilee! Community. From 6-7:30 p.m., they break bread at the dining room table while they have “table talk.” It’s an opportunity to discuss the issues in their lives and collaborate on rules to make staying in their temporary home, the Jubilee […]
Ten things to know about Asheville’s proposed budget
Asheville City Council will hold a hearing on the proposed fiscal year 2022-23 budget during its 5 p.m. regular meeting Tuesday, June 14. In anticipation of that hearing, Xpress has pulled 10 noteworthy takeaways from the 112-page document.
Letter: Spend occupancy taxes on our community
“I think it would be a ridiculous waste of revenue to stop collecting a tax that visitors are used to paying. But it certainly should be used to benefit the community and keep it the strong, wonderful place that people would like to visit.”
Buncombe’s unsheltered homeless population doubles in a year
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.
Want affordable housing? Get real
“Until the professed advocates of affordable housing and assistance for the homeless get off their BUTS and honestly attack these issues, nothing significant will happen.”
Letter: An all-out war on the homeless
“It’s an all-out war on the homeless, supported by comfortable people who profit from tourism and gentrification. Where is our compassion for those less fortunate than we are?”
Letter: On improving downtown Asheville
“The problems sound enormous and hopeless, and I’m an optimist. But some cities have found solutions.”
Homelessness, safety rank as top downtown concerns
Safety and reducing criminal activity downtown closely followed homelessness among the top concerns. Survey respondents were asked to evaluate downtown in terms of how safe they felt. The average score was 3.5 out of 5 for perceived safety during the daytime, dropping to 1.9 out of 5 at night.
Letter: City acts to punish, not lead on homelessness issue
“Asheville city government appears to be failing its responsibilities as the custodian of homelessness funds received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.”
Council to hear update on homelessness survey
Despite near-freezing temperatures and gusty winds the night of Jan. 25, Asheville city staff and volunteers trudged throughout Buncombe County with the goal of counting every homeless resident. Emily Ball, the city’s homeless services lead, will present an update on that effort, known as the Point in Time Count, to members of Asheville City Council Tuesday, Feb. 8.
Letter: Overlooked and steps from being homeless
“I’ve had the chance to observe and talk with many, many teenagers and young adults in their early 20s who don’t fit the above scruffy/dirty stereotype, yet are perennially just a few drug incidents or financial disasters away from homelessness.”
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 […]
Letter: Asheville’s homelessness predicament
“Signing off on discordant behavior, whether by ignoring it, being apathetic or taking the ‘easy’ way out and just not dealing with it helps no one.”
APD data on homeless encampments shifts debate among Council members
During a presentation, Capt. Mike Lamb of the Asheville Police Department cited data showing that 10% of overall crime in Asheville from Jan. 1, 2020 to Jan. 9, 2022 — including 14% of violent crime and 8.5% of property crime — occurred within 500 feet of an encampment.
Letter: Why destroy homeless camp?
“Call the DOT and ask why and where it had planned to help them go so they could be safe, warm and not upset commerce and tourists.”
Spending a moment with Asheville’s homeless residents
As Asheville City Council pursues low-barrier shelter and permanent supportive housing options for the area’s homeless population, Xpress listens to two residents as they share their experiences on the street.
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 […]