Part III - Solutions: Alternative Approaches to Address Root Causes
The Asheville City Council will vote on a proposal to extend restrictions on panhandling at their upcoming meeting on August 26. This has prompted much community conversation around issues of poverty and homelessness. In today’s newsletter, and each weekly newsletter in August, our Director, Ben, has included commentary around the proposal.
A recent Citizen-Times article does a nice job of summarizing where we are in this process, while also speaking directly with a collection of our friends on the street.
Part III - Solutions: Alternative Approaches to Address Root Causes
“Love and ever more love is the only solution to every problem that comes up.” - Dorothy Day
As mentioned in an earlier post, we can empathize with Council and business owners being frustrated with poverty, homelessness, and panhandling. We get it. Our hearts break every day in our work, as we see incredible wealth contrasted with devastating poverty. We see empty buildings and abandoned hotels while people sleep outside. We see our unsheltered friends becoming increasingly hopeless, turning away from a system that often chooses profit over people. We see the adverse effects of homelessness, untreated mental illness, and addiction on businesses and neighborhoods.
We share the desire to reduce panhandling in the city, not because we’re concerned about its appearance, but because we can empathize with the lack of opportunities available to those who choose to stand on a corner for hours and ask strangers for money. And panhandling, though inconvenient or aesthetically troubling to some, is often a better and safer option than other methods to acquire money, such as theft, the sale of drugs, or prostitution.
At the very least, we hope we can agree that ordinances like the ones the city proposes to extend, and similar initiatives that add criminal consequences to actions associated with poverty and homelessness, simply don’t work in a real or lasting sense. Research on these policies exists, with one study stating that analysis “suggests that existing panhandling regulation in US cities may not reduce public nuisance associated with panhandlers and may even increase it” (Leeson and Hardy, 2022).
So, we turn now to other ideas and solutions. Invariably, any idea will be met with resistance and an immediate list of reasons why we can’t, or shouldn’t, implement it. However, homelessness and deep poverty are emergencies that require boldness, creativity, and collaboration to provide temporary relief, while long-term solutions take shape.
Long-Term Solutions:
Housing. Homelessness is most fully a housing problem. Generally, cities with the lowest homelessness rates have the most accessible and affordable housing. Those with low inventory and high prices, typically, see more homelessness. We need a “moonshot” approach across the US, and in Asheville/Buncombe, to fully address this issue. We’re in a unique position locally to take significant, transformative strides in this area with federal Helene funds (though most of this money is planned to go elsewhere).
Without housing, which we support as a basic human right, it is incredibly difficult to develop and sustain outcomes in education, health care, employment, mental health, and substance use, among other issues. Our friends at Homeward Bound, Haywood Street, Habitat, Mountain Housing Opportunities, Asheville for All, and others are working hard on this. We recognize that governments and budgets balance many important needs, though we can’t find a need that has more return on investment than housing. We support as much funding and government support as possible for housing, and aim to make it as easy as possible for developers to build affordable housing. For more info, start here, or here.
“Wraparound” resources: Providing a place to stay is a great start. However, our newly housed neighbors often require access to a wide range of supportive services to keep housing once acquired. Luckily, our local system knows this and has resources in place such as case management, counseling, financial education, employment support, access to health care, and other services. Howerver, more local resources around recovery support and behaviorial health are needed. Having these services embedded into housing communities, as seen at Compass Point and other developments, is ideal.
Medium-Term Solutions:
Open a West Asheville Day Shelter: We’re so grateful to have a day shelter in downtown Asheville, AHOPE, staffed by the fantastic team there. At AHOPE, a Homeward Bound program, unsheltered neighbors can rest, access restrooms, lockers, showers, mailboxes, charge phones, get online, grab food and drink, complete housing applications, and access other support services. Importantly, it gives our houseless neighbors somewhere to go during the day that keeps them from trespassing or loitering.
AHOPE is excellent, but we need a second day shelter on the bus line along the Haywood Road or Patton Avenue corridors in West Asheville. 12 Baskets ends up serving many of these roles, but we are not staffed, equipped, or have the space to provide the suite of services that AHOPE includes downtown.
Add 1+ Emergency Overnight Shelter(s): A day shelter helps during our daylight hours, but we urgently need more immediate, high-access shelter beds in the city. Right now, if you’re unsheltered, there are often just no open shelter beds in the city. If you can get on a waiting list, the wait is often very long. Our Continuum of Care, of which API is an active member, has a workgroup of local experts, professionals, and residents with lived experience working on a new shelter facility, but I don’t have a date on when this facility will be online. Likely, we’re in the many-month or year range. Meanwhile, our unsheltered friends will remain outside, camping illegally. We can’t wait on this.
Solution: When Eureka, CA faced a similar situation, private business entities, frustrated with homelessness impacting their central business district, came together to put an emergency shelter together in six weeks. Private groups contributed the land and structures (in this case, shipping containers), the city ensured access to water and power, and non-profits managed operations and wraparound supports. The project, linked below, has served over 1,300 people in eight years.
For more information on Betty Chinn and this example of integrating private business support into community and homeless services, read this article. Incredible woman and story, and much we can learn from here in Asheville/Buncombe.
Community Response Teams (CRTs) as Alternatives-to-Policing:
Despite the city council’s push to extend this ordinance, the City and County have realized that responses to non-violent issues like panhandling, vagrancy, mental health, substance use, trespassing, and other similar matters are best met with an alternative, non-police response.
In recent years, we’ve seen the County’s Community Paramedic and City’s REST program (also called Community Responders) become a near-daily presence at 12 Baskets, AHope, Haywood Street, and other areas across the city. These resources have been invaluable in meeting the many varied needs of our friends on the street. These teams provide a compassionate, relational, and effective response to issues that are more closely related to untreated mental illness, substance use disorder, and a lack of connection to resources than violent criminal behavior.
THANK YOU to our city and county leaders for seeing this need years ago, pushing for pilot programs, and now securing them into yearly budgets. To see a real-time dashboard of REST team calls and activities, click HERE.
Solution: More of this!! Increase funding, capacity, support, and reach for these initiatives to enhance their impact. At API, we frequently contact Community Paramedics but often receive no response due to scheduling or staffing gaps. A single person may be assigned to handle REST responses, or they may find themselves already committed to another scene/response when needed. Let’s combine and/or increase these positive, supportive programs to meet increased community needs, while keeping police dedicated to more serious and violent crimes.
Models such as Durham’s HEART program, as well as similar programs in Raleigh and Fayetteville, offer examples of outcomes from fully built-out programs. We envision 3-person community response teams (mental health professional, peer support worker, and EMT) responding to non-violent calls such as those listed above, but also constantly circulating through the city, building and maintaining relationships, connecting and transporting our unsheltered neighbors to the resources they need, and following up with providers.
2 teams. 12-hour shifts. 7 days a week.
We’re grateful to our friends at Asheville Food and Beverage United for their advocacy around bringing a Durham-type HEART program to Asheville, and for their information-sharing with us during these recent weeks and conversations. Stay tuned for more work, information, and organizing from them on this critical issue.
While we wait on the city and county to bolster these programs, API is busy supporting an initiative from our friends at Deep Time Coffee called “Community Builders.” This is our own relational street team designed to build community and strengthen neighborhood relationships in our immediate area around the intersection of Haywood Road and State Street. Over the last weeks, we’ve been busy canvassing our immediate neighbors, knocking on doors, and having conversations.
Soon, you can expect to see small teams on the streets and sidewalks around our neighborhood, checking in with residents and business owners, assisting those in need, clearing litter and unsafe items, and connecting with friends dealing with homelessness. Friends from Safe Shelter and Trinity Methodist Church have also supported this initiative.
“The Intersection” - Social Enterprise as an Alternative to Panhandling
Street newspapers provide economic opportunities for people experiencing homelessness and poverty. There are ways in which individuals who may be previously motivated to panhandle can generate income legally and with dignity.
This is different than panhandling, in that vendors are trained, they purchase editions at cost and then sell (accept donations) for the papers at a profit. The cycle repeats itself, with new editions being created and published regularly. Meanwhile, vendors slowly build their individual businesses, supported by staff.
Many examples of street newspapers exist in other markets across the US, including The Contributor (Nashville), Curbside Chronicle (Oklahoma City), and The Denver Voice (Denver).
API is in the early stages of producing “The Intersection,” an Asheville-based street newspaper. Cities and counties can support efforts like this with funding, tools, and resources.
Short-Term Solutions:
Three basic human needs in West Asheville can be addressed quickly and at lower costs compared to the projects above.
Bathrooms:
There are no 24/7 public bathrooms in West Asheville. None. Every time an unsheltered individual needs to relieve themselves outside, they are breaking the law. We are grateful that a collaboration of stakeholders and city leaders installed one downtown recently, but we need something in West Asheville.
Obviously, this is a public health and safety issue. At the very least, a bathroom trailer or a suite of regularly serviced porta-potties is necessary. We regularly find, and field reports of, human waste in our immediate neighborhood. During business hours, many of our friends struggle to find a place that allows them to use the restroom. After business hours, in West AVL, it’s impossible.
Showers and Laundry:
Less critical than bathrooms, but providing a shower and/or laundry trailer, even a couple of days a week, is a necessary service. Downtown, our friends can access showers at AHOPE and now the YMCA, which is amazing. In West, there are no services. API currently has access to a 4-stall shower trailer, but it lacks the necessary parking, water hookup, and plumbing to use the trailer. The city or county could help with this, or even provide their own shower or laundry trailer, until a more permanent day shelter comes online with these services.
Sanctioned Tent Camping:
There are many examples of cities, even those in “red” states, that have designated lots or parking lots to be sites for tent camping. While not a permanent solution, they can provide shelter and support for many unsheltered friends in the short term.
Sites have access to water, power, bathrooms, showers, and serve as a home for resources. It should be stated that tents are not a replacement for housing, which we believe is a human right. However, until more suitable and humane options are made available, these options can be a safer and legal option for our unsheltered neighbors, while also bringing resources directly to those who need them.
Designated Camping: A Safer Solution (Cicero Institute)
Some examples are:
San Rafael, CA (47 sites)
San Diego, CA (767 sites)
Denver, CO (50 sites)
Portland, OR (6 city-run camping areas. 250 sites each. 1,500 sites.)
Conclusion:
At the CoC Board meeting last week, a discussion was held about homelessness in West Asheville. It was stated that “trespassing is egregious behavior.”
Some 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and are a couple of unfortunate coincidences or mistakes away from potential homelessness. If you happen to be unsheltered in West Asheville tonight, it’s illegal for you to sleep, or even sit and rest, anywhere, on private or public property (our parks close at 10 pm).
If you’re alive and breathing, you’re committing a crime, simply because you can’t afford rent, a mortgage, or a hotel. That’s trespassing, technically, but it’s not egregious. That’s someone who’s been left behind, discarded, and judged to be unworthy by all of us. That is one of millions of Americans who are victims of poverty, or what Dr. King called a “moral failing of society.” We’ve failed them. A country as wealthy as we are, with as many resources as we have, has failed to ensure all of our neighbors have even the most basic, fundamental needs met.
That’s egregious.
If you want to get off the streets, you will struggle to find a shelter bed. Recently, we attempted to help an unsheltered friend, who had recently completed serving a sentence in our justice system, find a safe place to sleep that wasn’t on the sidewalk. He had no options at the Mission and Safe Shelter. Salvation Army, however, was happy to put him on the wait list. He was number 86 on their list. 60 years old. A backpack on the front of his chest and another on his back. Sleeping outside. This person is sober, employed, and volunteering at 12 Baskets in his spare time. He’s trying incredibly hard. There are just no options for him. Any charge or citation he picks up during this time adds more obstacles to his reintegration into society and his ability to gain future employment. Thankfully, he’s working and has received some recent help from our County DSS office, and seems to be pointed toward housing.
Our friends on the street need resources, not charges and fines. They need invitations to community, not obstacles, isolation, and exclusion. Instead of deploying police to our neighborhood corners, we need teams of trauma-informed, relational, responders. The end goal of both of those options is the same: addressing poverty, homelessness, and panhandling, but the methods, impact, and outcomes of a police-led response and a community responder-led response are very different.
One approach is punitive and harmful. The other seeks to lift, heal, and strengthen our community.
Dr. King reminds us that “darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.” We can, and must, approach this issue with light, which we would equate with the transformative power of love. We must continually and relentlessly invest in and support our neighbors in need. We must design our responses in a way that reflects how we would want to be supported or how we would support our family members if they find themselves in a similar situation.
After all, we all are, in fact, family.
