ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Asheville City Council on Tuesday accepted a $6 million Right at Home grant aimed at keeping Buncombe County households from slipping into homelessness, voting unanimously to take the money for a three-year prevention pilot.
The city is the lead shop for the Asheville-Buncombe Continuum of Care coalition. Buncombe is one of 10 communities in the national Right at Home trial run by Destination: Home, a San Jose-based public-private partnership. Local managers say the cash will fund contracts with nonprofits that deliver rental help, case management and other stopgap aid for people still housed but on the brink of losing their place.
Emily Ball, who runs the city’s Homeless Strategy Division, told council the goal is to reach a target of 1,000-plus households across the three-year window and to have help starting around January. Sarah Dickerson, the city’s Right at Home project manager, said thousands of Buncombe households seek crisis help each year and that local capacity has not kept up.
Continuum partners recommended Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry, Year-one service contracts worth about $1.3 million would go to Homeward Bound, Operation Gateway and Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry for up to 250 households. Separately, Pisgah Legal Services would handle legal backup for 25 of those cases in eviction court and landlord fights for about $102,000. A California pilot cited to council kept roughly nine in ten participating households housed two years later.
Some council members worried money might move too slowly, pointing to delays in other local aid programs. Ball said dedicated staff and national partners should speed this round. Prevention work targets people who still have housing but face a sudden setback — a car repair, utility arrears or a job disruption — before they enter the shelter system.
