ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) —
Homelessness has long been a hot topic in Asheville with local officials and community groups grappling with ways to help.
The city is continuing its learning series on the topic next month with sessions in Weaverville.
Those sessions come as a West Asheville church will begin housing a homeless shelter Saturday as part of a rotating program that provides 20 beds year-round for underserved communities, such as families with children, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals.
HOMELESSNESS DOMINATES DEBATE OVER DOWNTOWN BID DISTRICT
Safe Shelter is a collaboration between three area churches (Trinity United Methodist, Grace Episcopal and Grace Covenant Presbyterian) and Counterflow LLC.
The shelter opened in November at AHOPE Day Center after signing a six-month lease with Homeward Bound, officials said. It then moved to Grace Episcopal Church on Merrimon Avenue in May. It will move into Trinity United Methodist Church on Haywood Road for June, shelter director Christian Chambers said in a news release.
Trinity United Methodist pastor Nancy Dixon Walton said in the news release that Homeward Bound’s Room in the Inn program, which operated for more than a decade until it ended in 2020 at the onset of the COVID pandemic, was an inspiration.
Safe Shelter clinched 12 months of funding from Buncombe County and the city of Asheville in September. The allocation, totaling $485,500 between both municipalities, was part of $1.75 million in COVID relief funds directed toward securing immediate shelter beds, city officials said.
The funds are set to last through December 2024, Buncombe County Communications and Public Engagement Director Lillian M. Govus said.
HOMELESSNESS TASK FORCE FINDS COMMON CAUSE — AND FRUSTRATION
The 2024 Point-in-Time Count found 739 people living in the city without permanent homes — either in shelters and transitional housing or unsheltered — up from 573 in 2023.
Homeless Strategy Division Manager Emily Ball said collaborative work on homelessness was recently restructured through the Continuum of Care, which is a formal planning body that develops and oversees homelessness response.
The team in the Homeless Strategy Division provides staff support to that collaborative, which consists of a membership body (currently 324 members) that recently elected its first board, Ball said. Board members will work in the coming months to set a strategy for the CoC that can guide community-level efforts to amplify the impacts of individual and organizational work already happening, Ball said.
“The CoC’s goal as identified in its charter is ‘developing and overseeing a comprehensive and well-coordinated system of effective services designed to prevent and quickly resolve occurrences of homelessness in Asheville and Buncombe County,'” Ball said via email. “The CoC’s work to accomplish that will include mapping the capacity the service system currently has, conducting regular gaps analyses to understand where the system needs more capacity, planning and implementing services and infrastructure to fill those gaps and developing resources to make that possible.”
ANNUAL COUNT CONFIRMS RISE IN HOMELESSNESS IN ASHEVILLE
Want to learn more about homelessness in the area? The Homelessness Division of the City of Asheville Community and Economic Development Department invites the public to join them for a learning series focused on homelessness in the community. The June sessions will be 11 a.m. to noon at the Weaverville Library.
“They’ve been so popular with the community we have made them a monthly series and have spread beyond our originally identified geographic boundaries,” city Communication Specialist Kim Miller said of the three-part sessions that began last year.
June schedule
Session 1: June 7, 2024
Understanding Homelessness – causes and local landscape
Session 2: June 14, 2024
Understanding Solutions to Homelessness – community response, present and future
Session 3: June 21, 2024
Personal Response to Homelessness – how to partner with local agencies and take action
The three-part learning series, presented by Homeless Strategy Specialist Debbie Alford, offers community members the opportunity to learn more about the causes, responses and actions that surround the homelessness issue in Asheville and the region.
Click here to learn more or to register.
