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Asheville -- December 16, 2022: On December 5th, after hearing a brief presentation, the Asheville City Board of Education approved an agreement that would transform
the closed Asheville Primary School on Haywood Road into a temporary winter shelter for the city's most vulnerable homeless populations.
Dillon Huffman, a spokesman for ACS, stated on December 8 that final approval from the school board is needed before the memorandum of agreement can be signed. It is anticipated that the vote will occur during the board's regularly scheduled meeting on December 15.
As of the board meeting on December 5th, O'Conner had resigned from his position. Just minutes after the shelter decision, she announced her resignation in response to transphobic insults made by an anti-LGBTQ group during a school board public comment session.
A new organization called Winter Safe Shelter (previously Asheville Ecumenical Winter Shelter) has applied to use the school for shelter purposes. Trinity United Methodist Church on Haywood Road, Grace Episcopal Church, and Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church, all located on Merrimon Avenue, have joined forces to form this organization.
According to the memorandum presented at the Dec. 5 meeting, Counterflow Asheville is also involved. This organization is assisting Winter Safe Shelter in developing the project with funding from WNC Healing Collaborative.
The proposed winter shelter would use part of Asheville Primary School; unlike most emergency shelters, it would prioritize keeping families together.
They expect to house two families at a time in their 10-bed facility, and any extra space will be prioritized for LGBTQ and people of color who are currently facing homelessness.
Most shelters are run as men's and women's dorms, so if a man, woman, and their children are all in need of a safe place to stay, they will have to be apart.
If given the go light, the school will begin shelter operations on December 16 and run until March 31.
The request specifies the use of four second-floor classrooms in the east wing of the building, with access to the hall bathrooms, the upstairs kitchen, and the courtyard.
All of the residents will share one room, which will serve as a common area; the remaining rooms will be used to store personal items and provide sleeping quarters for those who like to use mattresses. It won't be necessary or appropriate to go anywhere else in the building. Should the water supply at the elementary school prove undrinkable, food and drink will be brought in.
Everyone using the facility, including guests, employees, and volunteers, will be expected to help keep it tidy and dispose of rubbish on a daily basis.
Legal liability information is included in the document, and it states that Winter Safe Shelter must have $1 million in liability insurance in order to use the building; O'Conner emphasized that this need is universal for any group planning to use the property.
There is no mention of rent or other charges associated with using the room in the document, though Winter Safe Shelter was expected to cover utilities. Huffman stated, "the contents of the MOU have not been determined," in response to inquiries regarding the proposal's accompanying expenses.
Trinity's pastor, Nancy Dixon Walton, gave an update on the safe shelter project at the Homeless Initiative Advisory Committee meeting on December 1. Back then, the program skipped over the elementary school's participation.
Walton stated that locals had urged Winter Safe Shelter to look into the property.
The beds are intended to be available nightly throughout the winter, not just when Code Purple is activated (at 32 degrees or lower) to provide emergency shelter. The shelters will only accept clients who have been referred by a social worker.
On the 8th, Dixon Walton announced that beginning in the middle of the month and continuing through the end of the month, the school would serve as the shelter place. In the new year, Trinity would serve as the shelter location, and so on. According to Dixon Walton, the plan is flexible.
Trinity United Methodist Church's first-ever experience as an emergency shelter option during the previous winter season and Homeward Bound's Room in the Inn program, which ran for over a decade until 2020 at the outset of the pandemic, inspired the concept.
According to Counterflow's website, during the winter months, Winter Safe Shelter will provide services to between 30 and 50 individuals.
The COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to a steady increase in the homeless population, and the most recent count, conducted on January 24th, found 637 people to be homeless, including 232 who were living without shelter.
The last count in 2021 reported 527 homeless individuals in Asheville, of which 116 were without shelter.
On May 10th, Homeless Strategy Division Manager Emily Ball presented a snapshot count of the homeless population in the county, which showed that 47 people were part of intact families experiencing homelessness, while the remaining 587 persons were listed as singles.
Trinity pastor and homeless advocate Dustin Mailman has characterized the congregation's efforts to increase winter shelter capacity as an ongoing attempt to address a severe shortage of such facilities in the Asheville area.
Similar to how the 2017 shelter influenced this year's Jubilee, "we hoping that our project will ripple into what is happening at Jubilee," Mailman added. Because "winter housing is always in demand,"
Grace Episcopal's assistant rector, Mike Reardon, expressed his enthusiasm for the winter sheltering initiative, which will be based at Asheville Primary School.
After a heated debate, the school board ultimately decided to close the building on December 13, 2021, bringing an end to the 2021-2022 academic year.
Huffman claimed the building has been used as a storage facility since it closed. He claims that after its current usage as a winter shelter ends, it is unclear what will happen to the building.
WNCTIMES by Marjorie Farrington
