|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The Assembly is putting storm coverage outside of our paywall and making it free to republish in any local or regional outlet.
Asheville’s unhoused population is accustomed to navigating complicated pathways to meet basic needs from city and county resources, nonprofits, and religious institutions. Now tens of thousands of other Western North Carolina residents are experiencing similar barriers on a temporary basis as the unhoused population grew overnight due to people who lost their homes in Hurricane Helene.
The city has added four shelters for the general population, and the need continues to be high.
The number of unhoused people in Asheville was already a concern before Helene. Rental prices here are among the highest in the state, and as a heavily marketed popular tourism destination, a significant amount of housing stock is used for short-term rentals. The barriers to accessing treatment for mental health and substance abuse are also acute in a city that has become a hub for the rural region that surrounds it. Buncombe County’s January 2024 point-in-time count identified 739 people living in transitional housing, emergency housing, or living outside.
Anthony Littlejohn, an Asheville native who was unhoused for about two decades here and in Atlanta, said the devastation caused by Helene is “going to be a big impact.” There are people who lived in encampments in the woods or along the rivers who “lost everything” in the flooding, he said.
Dr. Ben Williamson, executive director of the nonprofit Asheville Poverty Initiative, worries people “who were struggling before the storm will see an even harder path to elevating out of poverty.”
Health Care On the Move
The bright green van that is Appalachian Mountain Health’s mobile medical unit usually visits the same location on a certain day of the week to provide primary and mental health care.
Since Helene, however, the mobile team assesses daily what the needs are, and goes where they are greatest, said Summer Hettinger, a family nurse practitioner for Appalachian Mountain Health.
Hettinger spoke to The Assembly outside of Bartlett Arms, a public housing apartment complex in the South French Broad neighborhood. The mobile unit operates from two small tents on the front lawn to see patients. The van carries equipment like blood pressure monitors and supplies like menstrual hygiene products.
Patients have not been coming into Appalachian Mountain Health’s brick-and-mortar location as much since the storm, Hettinger explained. She suspected that the bus system’s modified routes might be the reason. On October 7, the team went to Bartlett Arms because the clinic knows a lot of patients live there. The mobile team has also visited Haywood Street Respite, a refuge for people experiencing homelessness to recover from health issues, and Western Carolina Rescue Mission, two shelters in downtown Asheville.
Prescriptions for medication-assisted treatment have been one of the greatest medical needs for people who are unhoused, said Hettinger. “Refills of Suboxone was an urgent need for a lot of people,” she said, along with heart medications and insulin.
Caring for wounds that result from substance use has also been a necessity made more difficult with no running water in most of the city. In addition to giving out general hygiene kits from Direct Relief, the mobile team has handed out wound care kits for abscesses, such as xylazine wounds. Also known as “tranq,” the sedative xylazine can create open sores on the skin.
Prior to Helene, the mobile unit saw patients by appointment. Given the difficulties with cell phone and Internet service, it’s now “first come, first serve,” Hettinger said. (Locations for the mobile medical unit are shared on Instagram and Facebook.)
Anti-anxiety and antidepressant medications have been in demand post-Helene. Hettinger says the mobile medical unit is both refilling prescriptions and initiating new e-prescriptions at four pharmacies that have the capacity to do so.
RELATED STORIES
A Disaster No One Saw Coming
We knew Hurricane Helene was going to bring rain. We didn’t foresee it delivering devastation so widespread its impact will be felt for years.
The Long Road to Recovery
North Carolina has about $5.5 billion reserved for emergencies, but it will take several weeks to assess storm damage.
How to Get Help After Hurricane Helene
Here’s what to know about state and federal assistance programs in the wake of the catastrophic storm and flooding in Western North Carolina.
Looking Up in Chimney Rock
Eleven months after Hurricane Helene devastated the mountain town, tourists are trickling back.
FEMA’s Uncertain Future Leaves N.C. and Other States in Limbo
Trump’s shifting position on FEMA has created uncertainty for storm-prone southern states.
Back on Track
Hurricane Helene wiped out several major rail lines in Western N.C. Now most are back up and running. Here are scenes from the rebuilding.
Short- and Long-Term Shelter Needs
Some of Asheville’s unhoused residents found their way to temporary shelter during Helene, although exactly how many is unclear, said Emily Ball, manager of the homeless strategy division in the community and economic development department for the city.
During extreme weather events—which typically means freezing temperatures—Asheville adds capacity with “Code Purple” shelters, increasing the number of beds at existing shelters and allowing temporary shelters to operate at participating churches. The city’s Asheville Rides Transit system, or ART, buses riders to these shelters for free. Ahead of a weather event, public safety staff and service providers communicate directly with people who are unhoused about the shelters, Ball explained.
On September 26 and 27, Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry opened Code Purple shelters at its Transformation Village location, which is for women and girls, and its Veterans Restoration Quarters location, for single men.
But at the men’s location, the National Guard informed them at 7:30 a.m. on the Friday morning the storm hit that they needed to evacuate given their proximity to the Swannanoa River, executive director Rev. Scott Rogers said. The 71 men there were moved to other shelters in the community.
Transformation Village, like most of Asheville, still doesn’t have running water. Mercy Rodriguez and Emily Farrington, both residential advisers there, said portable toilets arrived on Saturday, October 5, and the Asheville Fire Department provided nonpotable water for flushing, they said. “Thankfully!” said Rodriguez. “We were having to go poop in the woods!” The women also good-naturedly laughed about how electricity wasn’t restored until last Sunday, leading Rodriguez to eat cold spaghetti and meatballs out of a can when she was hungry. “I’m not picky about cold foods,” she said.
Across town in West Asheville, Safe Shelter, a 20-bed shelter at Trinity United Methodist Church specifically serving families, people of color, and LGBTQ individuals, continued to operate, according to Rev. Dustin Mailman.
He said Safe Shelter welcomed additional guests who fit their demographics, including a man who had been rescued from underneath a bridge. When Safe Shelter encounters people who are unhoused who don’t fit their demographic, they’re referred to one of the four general population shelters the city has established.
Bathroom Troubles
Access to sanitation is one of the biggest issues facing people who are unhoused right now in Asheville, said Williamson.
Before Helene, 12 Baskets Cafe, a free restaurant operated by Asheville Poverty Initiative, and the West Asheville Public Library, were two locations with bathrooms accessible to anyone. Williamson said 12 Baskets Cafe’s bathrooms are not open to the public at this time, and all public libraries in Buncombe County are currently closed.
Downtown Asheville has several public bathrooms in its main square, and the city is in the process of installing a 24/7 access “Portland loo” before the storm. The single occupancy bathroom has open grating on the top and bottom of its walls, which are also graffiti-proof. Asheville’s Portland loo has been highly controversial for some due to its price tag and concerns about enabling drug use.
Sensing long-term issues related to the lack of running water on top of access to available bathrooms, Williamson said a grant from the nonprofit Community Foundation of Western North Carolina enabled Asheville Poverty Initiative to install two portable toilets and a handwashing station. They were set up in the parking lot of a former Family Dollar on October 6, with permission from that property owner. “We may spend some money on some more,” Williamson continued. “I’m a little worried about vandalism. But I am more worried about people continuing to use the bathroom outside.”
Williamson hopes other nonprofits and businesses will do the same–particularly as the city continues to lack running water. (Some businesses, like an Aldi in West Asheville and a Lowe’s in South Asheville, installed portable bathrooms in their parking lots which are accessible to customers. The Lowe’s bathrooms, however, were locked after the store closed at 6 p.m.)
“We’re going to need big-time access to gray water, like tanker trucks of non-potable water, stationed in the middle of West Asheville,” Williamson said. “And probably in six or seven other areas of the city.”
Williamson, like others who spoke to The Assembly about the impact of Helene on the unhoused, pointed out that mutual aid groups, economic justice nonprofits, and food justice groups have been best positioned to scale up a response after the storm, because they have already been doing that kind of work on the ground. “The emergency of poverty existed long before Helene,” said Williamson. “And will be here long after.”
Whether those who are newly experiencing homelessness from Helene will be unhoused for the short-term or long-term remains to be seen. A number of hotels located in areas that suffered flooding are temporarily closed. AirBnb has offered some free temporary housing. Williamson noted that for many housed people, the uncertainty of where to find shelter “has been foreign to them” until now.
“This communal sort of poverty we’ve all been experiencing these past weeks will be an eye-opener for them,” Williamson said. The impact of the storm “is obviously a tragedy,” he continued, but to people who were already experiencing homelessness before the storm, those barriers to meeting one’s daily needs are “also kind of normal.”
“They’re very used to being food-insecure, they’re used to being housing-insecure, they’re used to not having consistent access to health care and transportation,” Williamson said. While it’s now “more dramatic” in some ways, in others it’s “kind of another day.”
Jessica Wakeman is a freelance reporter based in Asheville.