City Council - workshop

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the July 28th, 2026 City Council Work Session on Policy, Finance, and Infrastructure. The mayor will be joining us shortly. At this time, council, can I get a motion to approve the June 23rd, 2026 minutes? So moved.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes unanimously. The first item on our agenda is the Helene Recovery Boards and Council Committees Update. And here to present to us is Alex Smith.

Good afternoon, members of council, city manager. My name is Alex Smith and I serve as our assistant city clerk. And today I'll be providing an update on our four Helene recovery boards as we approach the one year mark from when these boards were created. And as we get started, I want to provide a little bit of context in terms of our timeline of where we are now. So as I said, we're about that one year mark. August of 2025 is when these four recovery boards were created. By October, we had them fully staffed. And by November and January, they started meeting. We in the city clerk's office along with the communications and public engagement department administered a survey to both recovery board members and city staff who support these boards. We've analyzed that data and that's what I will be presenting to you all today. Looking ahead in November, the chairs of our four recovery boards are going to be coming to policy finance and infrastructure work session to present annual reports. Also this fall, we will be doing focus group interviews with the communications and public engagement department to get further input on the overall progress of these recovery boards and the work they are conducting. And then looking ahead this coming spring in 2027, we will re-administer this survey to both members and staff so that hopefully we can get an additional set of data that we can then compare against this baseline and then of course in june of 2027 is the sunset date that was prescribed in the establishing resolution for these four recovery boards now before i get into the analysis of some of the data that we saw i want to tell you a little bit about the methodology behind our surveys both were administered using public input and overall we had a really positive response rate from both groups with about with 31 responses out of the 44 members and nine out of the staff membership, seven out of nine. So 70% and 78, so overall very good response rate among both groups. And as we move through the presentation, I just want to give you a couple key takeaways to keep in mind, kind of ground you as you observe the data. So overall, we've found that data suggests that the recovery boards are functioning well especially at an administrative level we also saw that the recovery board work so each agenda item does align with the full recovery priority areas set forth by city council as well as the city projects and initiatives that city staff are undertaking we also saw positive responses in terms of recovery board members perception of how the cross-disciplinary composition of each of these boards is impacting the overall recommendations they're providing unfortunately there is still a lingering sense of uncertainty regarding how these recommendations from recovery boards are making their way to city council and how they're being incorporated into decision making lastly we did provide A historical data set from a previous survey, I'll get into a little bit about the context of that later on in the slides. It's not a direct comparison, but we wanted to provide some historical data just to kind of see if we could have a little bit of a baseline for this comparison for data. So as I mentioned about alignment, we were really trying to drill down into whether or not the goal that we had at the outset of this project of ensuring that the work of these boards is directly laser focused on the full recovery priority areas of housing, infrastructure, environment, people, and economy was actually being reflected in the work that these boards are undertaking. And we've got a chart here that has our member responses in red and staff in blue. Um, the percentages over there on the left. So as you can kind of see from the data reflected here overall, the response was very positive that both staff and members have this perception that their work of these recovery boards is directly in alignment with city council's priority areas, which is good. That's what we wanted. Um, and that's really one of the main goals we were trying to achieve with this project Similarly, we were also trying to make sure that the work was aligning with the different projects and policy initiatives that city staff are undertaking with each fiscal year. Again, we have member data responses in red, staff in blue. Similarly, people did, again, feel that the overall work was directly in alignment with those city projects. So again, another positive takeaway from the survey. Now, we wanted to understand if members felt that overall they were receiving an adequate level of support from their city staff liaisons. And what we saw was that we asked them, could you function this well if you had less support? Overwhelmingly, the feeling was no. We like the level of support we're receiving right now. We want to keep it where it is. Please don't take away any of that support and that they do feel that is overall contributing to the success of these recovery boards. That leads me to my next question. What is that level of time commitment from the staff standpoint? How many hours are we committing to ensure the success? Our staff reported that on average, the majority of them are spending five or more hours to prepare for each of these recovery board meetings. And there's a lot of different factors that go into that in terms of what staff does to prepare for each of these meetings. And one thing I want to note here is this survey, again, was only just our management level staff liaisons and our administrative staff liaisons. What you're not seeing reflected here is the staff time that our communications and public engagement department is also spending to stream meetings, ensure our live captioning is functioning, ensuring that all of our AV equipment is set up properly so that we can ensure full transparency with those meetings. This actually might be a little bit higher than what we see reflected in this chart here. But as we think about these two factors in conjunction with one another, what that data really suggests to us is that in order for these boards to be successful, it does require a significant amount of staff time dedicated to ensuring their support. I also mentioned about the overall composition of these boards. We asked both staff and members about how they felt the diversity in terms of personal and professional experience represented in the membership of each of these recovery boards. As a reminder, each board is 11 members, and that is composed of both existing advisory board members who were given the opportunity to be selected as nominees or designees and then also at large seats. And so we saw a little bit of mixed feedback in some of the open end responses with some people noting the benefit of having this diverse level of personal and professional backgrounds and how that led to a more comprehensive discussion, more well-rounded recommendations overall. Other people cited that there could have been a little bit more intentionality in terms of how the memberships was chosen, maybe for instance, with our housing recovery board, maybe there could have been more representation from single family homeowners, given that they are having so many discussions about affordable housing and multifamily homes, maybe hearing more of that perspective from single family homeowners. So again, a little bit of mixed response right there, but overall- So wait, can you go back?

Sure. Are you saying that single family homeowners feel underrepresented?

There was a comment in one of the open-ended responses that there could have been more representation from neighborhoods and specifically citing that many of the discussions are focused on affordable housing and specifically funding allocations to multifamily housing units and that it could have been helpful since many of the members on that housing recovery board are advocates for multifamily housing and affordable housing, that maybe that is skewing slightly the conversations.

Okay, thank you.

Overall, though, in terms of the quantitative data, so our Likert scale questions that we were asking, again, we see the member responses in red, staff in blue. The feeling overall is that diversity in terms of the perspectives on the board is helping, and it is positively impacting the overall quality of recommendations. We also wanted to know how members perceive whether or not their recommendations are impacting city council's ultimate decision making. So we used two different questions to get at that sentiment. And one of them was asking about whether or not city council valued and acted upon board recommendations. And one, if the board member themselves felt confident that their recommendations are reaching city council in a complete and actionable form. And this is where we get into that little bit of uncertainty I mentioned. So in terms of how the members felt that the body, the city council is valuing and acting upon these recommendations, it was really split. So we had about 47% of board members saying that they either disagreed or strongly disagreed with that. And 54% saying that they, sorry, 54% saying that they did not. So we see a bit of a split there in terms of how people are perceiving that. Similarly, as well, in terms of whether or not board recommendations are reaching city council in a complete and actionable form, members were very divided on whether or not they felt that way with pretty much, again, a split down the middle in terms of agreement and disagreement. Now, I said that we had a previous survey that was administered in 2022 and 23 as part of the realignment working groups project for city council. Now, I want to be mindful to note that that is not a direct comparison. We did reuse some of the same survey questions again in the hopes that maybe we could provide a direct comparison, at least among those questions. However, these are different populations. So with their survey, it was both current advisory board members as well as outgoing previous members. Our survey data was administered to current recovery board members, much smaller population. So again, not a direct comparison, but just for the sake of having a little bit of historical context and information, we did want to reuse some of those same questions so that we could draw some of those comparisons. What we did see was overall a positive perception in terms of whether or not members felt that they had received adequate orientation and training at the outset of their membership, increasing from 66 to 96% They also felt that boards are being well supported by city staff, and that was increasing from 80 to 97%. And then lastly, that the overall meeting quality, that the perception of the overall quality was also increasing from 81 to 92%. So again, not direct comparisons, but overall, if we try to take that with a little grain of salt, this does show us a little bit of progress over time in terms of process improvements in our board operations. Now that 2023 survey also showed the same level of uncertainty in terms of whether or not the recommendations of advisory boards at that point in time were reaching city council in a complete actionable form and whether or not council was valuing those recommendations in their decision-making. So it's not a new problem, unfortunately, it's something that we continue to struggle with. And that's kind of what the data is showing in both of these surveys. Now, from here, looking forward, what we intend to do with this survey data is use the information we received from the practitioners of this work, from these staff members, from these board members, to introduce improvements to board operations, our communication practices, and specifically, we really want to focus on that feedback loop. between city council and recovery boards to make sure that folks are really seeing exactly where those recommendations are being provided to city council so they can rest assured that those are being taken seriously. As I said with our timeline, we will be re-administering this same two surveys in the spring of 2027, so in a couple months. So again, we'll have this baseline of data and as we introduce some of these process improvements, hopefully we will start to see that reflected in the data of trying to address some of these pain points that we're seeing come out of the existing data right now. Again, I just want to leave you with the fact that overall, The recovery boards are doing what we hoped that they would and addressing a lot of the concerns that we had going into this two-year process of recovery where we are ensuring their alignment with both staff and council priority areas, that the cross-disciplinary composition that we created when we asked advisory board members to step forward and serve on these boards, as well as at-large members, that is paying off. We are seeing that directly result in an improvement in the quality of recommendations. And while there are still areas for improvement, we are going to do everything we can to take the information we receive and the feedback gained from this survey to improve that as much as we can.

I'll turn it over for you for questions. Council, any questions?

Well, I wanted to start with the recovery boards have been such a helpful part of our recovery process. Having folks bring their lived and professional experience to subject matter experts is always gonna be helpful to increasing our capacity. And I appreciate you doing this work to engage the members and provide this report. I've also heard some pain points when it comes to capacity, timing, and the ability for boards to get the time to get into the nitty gritty. because they're meeting every other month and the timing is really tight. So the result has occasionally been a lag in input or timing issues related to funding decisions at the council level. Like if they're not able to meet every month, but council has an important funding decision coming up, can they get a special meeting? Do they need to get another advisory board looped in? And it's created a sense of like, I think unnecessary, I'll just repeat it, pain point. Examples include the housing recommendations, as well as lacking input on the transit and urban forestry studies and the delays getting the advisory board scheduled for special meetings. So I know we didn't get into that detail here, but I didn't want to forget that those had been brought up to me as examples. We also got an email from a realignment working group member with some great recommendations. And so you mentioned that there's gonna be another survey in the spring? So we as council have been appointing people to advisory boards. The neighborhood advisory board, for example, has new members and they had a meeting. So is it possible that we can engage our new advisory board members at the same time? If we're gonna be asking the same questions, that way we're not leaving people out of the equation. That was a question that I thought was a good one. Second, asking that the annual board reports come to this group in November so that there's time to engage the regular 13 advisory boards, but also the recovery boards. And the third recommendation I heard was just around a transparent processes and not just waiting for this to sunset, but giving some more time for those recommendations. What I did hear is that from this report and the parallels with what was happening with our realignment workroom with our regular advisory boards is a consistency in the concern that the recommendations aren't getting to us. And I don't wanna hear those two parallel similar concerns and not do something about it. I'm not sure what that looks like as the liaison to advisory boards when we had our regular process. Whenever there was a recommendation, I just made a one sheet and send it to the full council and it would have, here's the archive of the meeting, here's the agenda. A recommendation was made about 20 minutes into it. You can look at it yourself, but the main point of it was this and this. I know that's more work for staff, but if staff then have to do different kinds of other work when they're hearing from somebody at the advisory board that it's not getting through, it's stuck, I wonder if that efficiency might eliminate the different kind of staff work that's happening. So it's kind of a question and a recommendation. Maybe staff will have a different recommendation. But that's just some of what I'm hearing, both from the advisory boards and the recovery boards. And I think it's possible we could loop in the advisory boards and save ourselves some time.

So thank you. Is the issue that information is not getting to council in a complete way or they're dissatisfied with our decision?

Can I weigh in on, because I asked, since as chair I meet with staff to come up with this agenda and look at this, and I asked the same question because I was, to my knowledge, the only recommendation we haven't fully agreed with them on was the single family home repair decision. So what I actually was hearing when I was meeting with Ben and DK is that it was more that the advisory boards, and correct me if I'm wrong, want to weigh in on more things than they're being asked. So they might hear about a topic, but they're not being asked to give a vote or a formal recommendation to council. And I think they're conveying to staff that they'd like to, or they want more things to send on up to us. Is that a correct way of describing it?

yeah and i would uh just want to clarify advisory boards are you saying that in reference to our four recovery boards or our 13 advisory boards that are currently on demand meeting i'm talking about the uh the four recovery boards um yeah so what we've some of the open-ended responses shed a little bit more light on that, was right now, during this recovery period, there have not been a lot of policy recommendations. We have not introduced a lot of policies for consideration by city council. And ultimately, these recovery boards, one of their main purposes is to advise on policy. And with the lack of policy, a lot of the input they've been able to provide is more based on projects. So our French Broad Recovery Project, Azalea Park, our Resilience Hub Mapping Project, these are project-based. So it's hard to provide an opportunity for the four recovery boards to conduct a formal vote where they can provide, we recommend X, Y, and Z. And more so what we have seen in meetings is overall recommendations of prioritize these different maybe concepts in the French Broad project or did we ensure that we were addressing all of the main demographics with our resilience hub mapping projects? Are we engaging with the proper populations within the city rather than formal recommendations like you would think of I make a motion to do this and providing that as a recommendation to city council. So I think there's a little bit of disconnect there which is maybe feeding into this issue. And one thing I will say that what we've been trying to introduce as an operation change is with some of the staff time, that five plus hours we saw reflected, we've really been trying to be very intentional about in our meetings with staff backing up timelines. So as we think through what items are coming to city council, um in terms of the upcoming month two months three months out backing that up when will it go to a city council committee and when can we engage these recovery boards to provide input to make sure that they are getting a voice and getting a stop along that route to council. We've actually tried in our presentations to reflect back that feedback loop to our membership to show them really this recommendation is going to council. It's going to go to the PFI meeting, PEDE, or any of the different three council committees or work session. It seems like that hasn't really had enough time to, as a feedback loop process change, we're not really seeing that reflected in the data quite yet. Hopefully, we are planning to create more ways for that to be improved to make sure that people are seeing that recommendation is going to council and whether or not they choose to follow it is different than whether or not they heard it.

Right.

Yeah, I feel like I remember in the realignment work group, there was a recommendation around that process, even if it was just a receipt. If there's information provided that, yeah, there might be a disagreement or there might be like, oh, we need more follow up. But it seems like there's a data set that we already have that could provide some solutions.

Is five hours a lot of staff time? Sorry?

Is five hours a lot of staff time? I guess it depends on what your frame of reference is. I would say five plus hours to prepare for one single meeting, again, not including other departments being reflected in that, is a pretty significant allocation of time. in terms of all of the preparation work and the brain trust that goes into crafting what agenda items can go into these meetings. Is this timing going to work out? Do we need to schedule a special meeting? As Councilwoman Roni mentioned, that has happened where we've had to schedule special meetings to make sure that we're addressing these topics in a timely manner. it's a little bit hard to contextualize, but I would say five plus hours to me at least as a staff person is a pretty significant amount of time for just a single meeting. Okay, thank you.

Good afternoon. Mayor, Vice Mayor, Members of Council, Jay Dundas. Assistant City Manager. I will have the honor of being able to present on the topic of concerns related to unhoused residents and a collaborative community response. This is a presentation that has come together to inform Council but also the community of all of the efforts that are going on there but also to relate the concerns that we're hearing from the community and how we're, as a community, as a collective, trying to be responsive to those. I wanted to start out by introducing the members that we have, my support staff, I guess, in this presentation. If necessary, we've got Melina Arrowood. She's chair of the COC. We've got a pretty good representation of the COC board here today. Christian Chambers, the board member. And then Tom Kirk Crasser, he is a member of the COC and is informed on our ride to home process and other initiatives through the COC. Also, Captain Jonathan Brown is a board member for the COC and also leads our strategic operations division, which will be highlighted also in this presentation. All right, so the presentation will cover the overview of the topic, reported challenges, community perception, and then just the general overview of the current landscape. Strategies that we are being implemented by community programs and through community partners. Specifics focus on some of the efforts of the Asheville Buncombe Continuum of Care, and then also AFD Resource Engagement Support Team, the REST team. Community connections, I want to describe how we have met and are continuing to meet with members of the community out there, everyone from residents to businesses and all those in between, really trying to get an idea of the challenges that they're facing on a regular basis and how we can be responsive to those. And then also provide some outcomes of those meetings and then also go into next steps. So for an overview, the reported challenges, I'd say there is data to support some of these items. But generally, these are things that we've heard through conversations with groups and individuals. But the challenges are drug paraphernalia, in the open, open drug use and distribution, public exposure, property crimes, loitering, trespassing, loud and aggressive behavior, litter, debris, and assault. Again, there is data which would be able to support some of these items, but generally these are taken from just community conversations. Those challenges have, I think, oftentimes lead community to perceive that there is these things. There's lack of enforcement. There's an apathy towards the challenges that the community are facing. That there are, in one area, there is a unique or more severe challenge. And that services being provided in some areas are attracting unwanted behavior. Additional attention enforcement in one area shifts the problem to other areas. That's an important one because, again, there is some evidence which would suggest that this may be the case, but we're always looking, and as I'll show you later, enforcement is pretty comprehensive across the city, so I don't think that this is being directed in any specific area. It's a community-wide challenge. Another couple of perceptions are unsheltered people don't want to be helped, and then unsheltered people are also being sent to Asheville. The current landscape. So in response to those concerns and those perceptions that are generated from those concerns, it is that we just would like to highlight, and this is also the case that we're in right now, no single entity could solve this crisis alone. There are a lot of partners out there. The COC is made up of 600 plus members, which include organizations as well as individual members. To address some of the concerns about, you know, folks coming into Asheville, as many at the most recent point in time count identified that many of the unsheltered in our community are locals. At least 60% of those surveyed in that point in time count were last housed in Asheville.

Jay. Yes, sir. Can I interrupt you for a moment? Yes, sir. Do you want to take questions now or at the end? Now is fine. What was the question that was asked?

I will have to follow up on that, but I believe it was, where were you last sheltered? Like, what was the address? I don't know the address specifically, but the general, you know, where were you sheltered? But I'll follow up with that specific answer.

So, I mean, if you're asking, hey, are you from here? I mean, I think most people know to say yes, right? But are we asking like a specific address where they came from? So maybe we can do some remedial work.

Well, when I've done the point in time, so you ask the question and it's something like, where were you last housed? But then if I turn around and go, and where are you from? Then they'll give somewhere else. It's kind of like we're a transient city. So I would say most people, if they're local, we're at a point now that they're not from here. Right?

I'm just trying to get an idea of, because folks out there aren't, they're pretty smart, right? So if they know that this is a way to get resources, I want to know what the question is that folks are asking specifically.

But probably most people, the way you're thinking, aren't from here. They've just been here a minute. Right.

That means 40%.

did not have an address here in asheville so that's at least i mean a lot of what you hear from people is i'm from shelby or i'm from black mountain or i'm from somewhere you know i mean the way homelessness services work it's like any other provider of services that they're not operating everywhere so they're people are making sure they're located in a place where they can receive services. Although it can be much more complicated than that because like in the last point in time count, I interviewed folks at the transit station and several said that they were in post-incarceration placement in Asheville. And they didn't want, they weren't from here and they didn't want to be here. But they were, you know, they'd come out of jail or prison and they were placed in Asheville in, you know, I guess what people would have called a halfway house, so to speak. And then they cycled out of that because it wasn't, you know, it's not a forever solution. And now they were... just, you know, for whatever reason, not unable to get landed.

My concern is that we have resources for the people here in Asheville and for Western North Carolina. And exactly what the mayor is saying, and this is a conversation that we need to have with the providers, because what happens is, yes, they come here to treatment. They come here to a halfway house. They end up relapsing or getting aggressive. That treatment center, that sober living house then pushes them to the street and then they become one more person that is not from here but came here for treatment that's living on our street now taking the resources from a family that lost their home during tropical storm helene and that's i think the the rub that people are are seeing here even in these numbers which i'm pretty sure that the people are led to say something but 40 of these folks aren't aren't from asheville

We'll definitely follow up the question and I hope to be able to get to some of those other items throughout the presentation, but we'll definitely follow up with the specific question. Most people are not in the situation by choice. It is a reality that there are not enough beds to accommodate all of the unsheltered population. Estimated need at this time is at least 90 additional beds. There's constantly efforts to be able to resolve that. But also, the funding is always a challenge and is becoming increasingly more challenging, given the federal resources and other resources to be able to provide these services.

But, Jay, before you move on, and I know there won't be an answer right away, so a follow-up. But this part about not enough beds and seeing that number 90, I have to ask about the status of the Ramada. because we tied some resources and timeliness into that if we could get some more information where it is in the timeline because i know that's something i'm getting a lot of questions about in the community it's like we need more capacity we know we need more beds i thought there were beds online and probably well those are those would be considered sheltered beds but the but this number is going to press upward because um

Salvation Army is closing now October 1, and that is 65 additional beds that will go offline. So that's a critical issue.

And that adds, you know, so now we're at 150 beds.

It's not, this is not, I think you're pulling this 90 beds from the original study that was done. And so some of that got chipped away, but then it ebbs and flows. And so it's probably not perfectly that number, but it'll be over 100.

I think for the Salvation Army, The Dogwood Health Trust Fund, it seems like that is a great project for them to step up to.

Yeah, I know that the Salvation Army, yeah, the command staff there are really looking into all of their available resources. Okay.

Certainly trying to pursue those. And then, I know we haven't let you finish your presentation, but current landscape. Something I am seeing because I am every day adjacent to the I-26 connector project. It does seem like a lot of people were displaced by the construction because they were living on the edge of the interstate and there wasn't a plan to connect people with resources. And so people are moving as close to resources as they can. And that happened really quickly in huge swaths of land that were forested and being used for camping. So not only do we have an increased summertime population, but we now have a construction displacement population as well. And I know it's very visibly and viscerally felt in our community, including by the people who are being displaced.

Thank you for mentioning that. These, again, are the conversations that are helping to inform how the service providers are progressing into the future. What we do know is that there's a model for when consistent federal funding is available that is a more effective source of opportunity for folks to be housed. And not having access to consistent funding creates service gaps for many providers throughout the community. All right, so the strategies, again, as I mentioned earlier, is this is not a one individual organization solution. We in the city are working through our public safety groups. We have launched a co-responder program, which launched last week. I can't remember what day of the week it is. Last Monday. And so tomorrow at the Public Safety Committee meeting, we'll have an update on this. Both fire and police will update on their week and a half of efforts in this program. We have dedicated sources of APD shift in their community resource officer focus. This is the strategic operations. They are going to have some discussion about this tomorrow as well. And then for several years, we've had the rest focus on high traffic areas, really just responsive. I'll show some maps a little bit later, which shows how they're just really spread throughout the area in their responsiveness. Transit Services, in their new contract, has required the contractor to provide a crisis counselor on buses and to be at the transit station throughout the day to help with any needs arise. Public Works and Sanitation is certainly out there trying to coordinate collection of debris and litter in areas that is throughout the community. And then downtown ambassador program is part of the bid. And they have done a great job with trying to stay ahead of litter cleanup. But some of the things that in the conversations that we've been having throughout the community that I've learned about their work is that they are engaging with the unhoused residents, and also initiating calls for service. I just spoke with Hayden Plemons before the meeting, and she informed me that there was a life saved recently because of a contact initiated through an ambassador. And so that was a pretty amazing story. I know that there are many others out there like that. COC membership is an important and big piece of the puzzle here. There are 657 members, again, ranging from organizations to individuals involved in all forms of service work, including housing, medical, behavioral health, inclement weather sheltering, and long-term solution development. To be specific about some of the activities of the BCOC is the West Asheville Street engagement, community cleanup on Tunnel Road, which was intended for last Thursday but got postponed due to rain, but I'm sure that will be rescheduled. Establishing a strategic plan was developed by the COC membership and that they are now going to produce a quarterly report on the progress towards the implementation and success of that strategic plan. Emergency shelter.

Excuse me, sorry. What will the strategic plan include?

I might have to call it. What will the strategic plan include? Could you answer it?

Introduce yourself.

Yes, ma'am. I'm Melina Arrowett. I'm the board chair for the Asheville-Bulcombe COC.

And say what else your title is.

Oh, I'm the chief operating officer at Mission Hospital.

And before that was the Chief Operating Officer at the Behavioral Health Hospital, which is how I got involved in the homeless work in the city and the county. So the strategic plan is a three-year plan that was built by the COC with a lot of community input. Each year we have different strategic priorities. We had 25 of 50 actions that we took on in year one. We of course did not get all of those done, but about half of those carry into year two. So we're just starting year two of the strategic plan. It covers, and I'm sure I can find it on my phone, but it's really high level buckets of addressing emergency shelter was kind of the biggest priority that we found. um for most for most of the people that gave us feedback rapid rehousing really the biggest buckets of work that we see causing the issues in the community and trying to address those from a systemic level does it include anything even tangentially related to public safety i believe it does but i'll have to go pull it up and reread it to be able to tell you the answer to that do you know okay

I'll find out for you.

I mean I would say the way I've seen it so far operate in the public safety sphere is that the COC has engaged in sections like the West Asheville initiative to partner with folks in West Asheville to have a community engagement team. and they were working on issues around cleanliness and those experiencing homelessness and so on and so forth. And then did, you know, similar to what you saw at the meeting with the COC members around the Kenilworth tunnel road. So that would be where I would say they intersect at this point.

So since you brought that up, since we went to that meeting, I will say having attended a couple of those meetings and gone into homes of, well, my neighbors really, There seemed to be a disconnect. I don't know if it's a philosophical disconnect between the service providers' perceptions and the business owners' and the homeowners' perceptions. If I had to sum it up, I would say they're more interested in prevention of some of those items, maybe three slides down. For example, one day I was driving down Tunnel Road and I saw a gentleman laid out on the street. I didn't know whether he was dead, OD'd, or what. Fortunately, rest was able to come through. So the community has no problem with public safety. they're trying to get to a place where they prevent that from happening in the first place. So and there seemed to be a disconnect between the service providers because the thought was we're not responsible or we can't be responsible for things that happen outside of the boundaries of the property. So I think as long as there's that disconnect, because I don't think the citizenry is upset because people are or upset with people because of their state of being unhoused. They're worried about the safety aspects that come along with certain behaviors.

Agree with you totally. And I think there's a couple of things that lead into that. And if we I will certainly talk about this way too long. So you guys tell me when I need to stop. But permanent supportive housing, we have a significant lack of permanent supportive housing, which is specifically based around those folks that behave in ways that scare others or challenging for our public safety system. Really those people are the most vulnerable and we don't have enough permanent supportive housing to house them in a way that they can maintain because a lot of those people are not able to maintain work or a home in a way that would be meaningful to, you know, someone who can maintain those things. I think what we saw in West Asheville in engaging the community is they have a certain tolerance level and they can tolerate certain things, but there's things that they, they don't, they don't want to see it. They don't want it to be visible to them. It's not as much of a problem if it's not in their backyard or not in the businesses, you know, in front of the business. And I totally understand that. I think until we kind of get the community to have a better understanding of those folks, which is challenging, because those people often are not able to behave in ways that people understand, and we put more wraparound services around them and create more permanent supportive housing, it's going to be challenging to get those people off the streets.

And those wraparound services, though, aren't required? Because actually, it may be counterintuitive, but what I'm also hearing, in addition to what you were saying, people just really don't want to see it. I think there are a lot of people recognizing that this is a particularly vulnerable population, and they're worried that we're not doing enough to protect them from predators or from becoming prey. So without naming any facilities, what are we doing to prevent folks from coming and taking advantage of people?

that specific thing i don't know is spoken to in the strategic plan i do know right at home which is six million dollars that our community was awarded is really focused on homelessness prevention trying to take it upstream that doesn't fix the problem with the people that are laying out on the street right now as much as it does in trying to reduce the number of people that land there over time so that is something that we it's grant funded we just started through the COC and it's a three or five year initiative. Three, three. Three year initiative that will put six million dollars in our community to help with homelessness prevention to try to get those people support early on when they're teetering on becoming homeless as opposed to waiting until they're on the streets which then it's much more difficult for anybody to get services because they can't get themselves to the services that they need.

You stole Jade's thunder. I know, sorry. He's gonna talk about that. It's all yours.

No, that's great.

Well, I would be remiss if I didn't mention, as a member of the nominating committee, there is a seat opening for someone who is both elected and works in the criminal legal system. So as we are having conversations with folks who are judges with our current or upcoming district attorney and other, like the sheriff, other professionals who are elected in our criminal legal system, please encourage folks to apply and get involved in the COC because we need all hands on deck. and that opening is available. It does seem like the, I'm hearing you talk about the desire for prevention and I'm hearing that from neighbors too, especially in West Asheville. There's an ask for, for more resources and care. And so when I go to cities like Chicago or Baltimore and imagine bringing those here at scale, what I hear a lot about is certified mental health professionals can provide someone's medication. Our rest team can't. So are we doing what we can to match the mental health prices with mental health professionals? In other cities, they're finding that being able to follow up with individuals over a period of time helps to stabilize folks and have that genuine sense of care, but also prevention. So that's gonna have to be a choice point, and I hope that we can hear more from the continuum of care on what that looks like.

Yes, and thank you, and thank you, Melina. As you can tell, there's, an informed and very passionate group of folks out here really involved in trying to get their arms and minds hearts around this issue, so thank you for this conversation.

Chair, I have a couple things I want to add, because thank you for the discussion here, and it's exactly right. I have one question. What is the West Asheville Street engagement, and can you give me, like, what exactly they're doing? Because I'm hearing from treatment providers and folks over in West Asheville that they never have seen these folks. So I'd like to see what's happening there. I also want to talk about this permanent supportive housing thing because I don't want us to get off into the clouds because There are solutions out there, just as Council Member Maroney was saying, that either people haven't done or we can be the leader in. And we need really all hands on deck. So we can't act like permanent supporting housing is like this, kind of like this thing that we can't have. We need Via Health to start actually licensing group homes and permanent supporting housing for our most vulnerable folks. We need them to loosen and lessen the arbitrary burdensome just regulatory hurdles that folks have to buy into in order to treat our most vulnerable folks. People can do that and we need them at the table. And that's something that, you know, I've been stressing. We we can get these folks help and served if we actually put a little pressure on our other partners.

And there will be a debrief with the COC board and the membership after this meeting, I'm sure, with all this great feedback. I'm going to ask Christian Chambers to come up and explain the West Asheville engagement.

Hi, I'm Christian Chambers, Executive Director of Safe Shelter and the Secretary on the CLC Board. And your question is, what is the West National?

Yeah, who is, first of all? And what are they doing? And can we have a list of that daily? Who are they making contact with? Are they finding out if folks need resources? Are they finding out if they need treatment? Are they finding out if they don't want any of that? Are they finding out where they're from? You know, what is it that they're doing?

Yeah, so the West Asheville street engagement team consists of five people. To be honest.

Is this from the city? Or who are they from? Safe Shelter. Okay, they're Safe Shelter staff? Safe Shelter staff, yes.

Is that the same kind of program, very briefly, when Safe Shelter was at AHOPE and at night they would have folks walking around kind of being security? Yes. Is that kind of the same thing?

It's the same organization, yeah, Safe Shelter. So we're also in partnership with Community Paramedics, unofficially, and with the R.E.S.T. team and RHA. and ADACT as well.

Some of the most overburdened treatment centers and programs that we have in the region.

Yes, but we also are working with them so closely that we can take somebody to ADACT within a couple of hours and get them totally processed. Do you have a direct admit process with them? Direct, yes. The people that work with us, the clinicians, have keys to ADEC. It's all a very comprehensive process.

Do you have any of those numbers, ones that you came across and then ones that you got into treatment?

Yeah, I mean, since we started early this year, and I'd say post-Code Purple, we've gotten about 21 people into treatment. And we know how difficult it is to get people into treatment. But yeah, we're just a comprehensive group. We go out every single day, Monday through Monday. and we're engaging with folks. We engage with the neighbors to also engage with folks. That's why it's a little more, in my perspective, peaceful, especially around the Safe Shelter Campus. We have open hours between about 10 to 4 p.m. where people can just stop by. We can do resources, all that kind of things. We engage with the businesses, see what they need. We do a cleanup every Tuesday. We did one today. We do it every single Tuesday without fail.

I've done that a few times. Yeah.

It's fun. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it happens without fail. So we're engaging with everybody. I do agree that the mental health piece, the behavioral health piece is missing. We can't accommodate all of that.

You know, it's so interesting you have a direct admit process. I would love for our co-responders and our rest team to have a direct admit process to Sweet and Creek Mental Health Behavioral Center. That would be amazing. Yeah. You know, that's great that you were able to do that with ADAT. I think we can do the same with our mission partner. Absolutely.

Okay, I want to recognize the time. I think you have a hard stop at like 4 30 and there's still a little bit to cover here and one more topic. And so essentially we are, we continue, the COC is continuing to work through the emergency planning, shelter planning effort. They will issue an RFP tentatively set for September. There was a recent vote to contract specifically for fund development because again, as I mentioned earlier, funding is definitely a thing that creates these service gaps. Building system capacity to solve the problem in efforts like the Ride at Home and the HACA partnerships. A little bit about Right at Home. I think you've had a presentation on this already with Emily, so I won't spend a lot of time, but it's 10 communities across the nation to pilot homelessness prevention. COC will receive $6 million to serve about 1,000 households over the next three years. Activities include rental assistance, case management, and creative problem solving. Examples, car repairs if necessary so individuals can get to work, continue to make a paycheck, and be able to pay rent. Requests for applications are open now, and the COC board will select providers in September with services to begin by December. Great program. So additional support services out there are the AFD Resource Engagement Support Team, or REST. This is where I'm going to provide a graphic here. This is kind of a poor representation of probably the need in 2024. This is really the first year we started providing these services and monitoring the successes across the city this is probably a good example to show how this distribution works because in that in this case over in this time period the 93 events engagements and then 30 were 30 shelter referrals This shows the entire year of 2025. This is information taken off the AFD REST dashboard. Total events were 1,500. This is engagements with individuals in need. And then that resulted in shelter referrals of 497 shelter referrals. I think in comparison to 2025, if you look at the data, year-to-date we have 1,200 total events or engagements and then also 442 shelter referrals. Essentially our year-to-date data is very reflective of the total amount of engagement in 2025. I think this represents a serious picture for us to be able to focus on and really understand the climate that we're in and how important these services are. um so community connections i think i may i think i may have like quickly went over so in last thursday uh vice mayor uh asked about the like a 30-day initiative um and and that was supported by uh councilman hess I would say that through the efforts of the strategic operations group is they're doing a different deployment of their community resource officers. And rather than focus on a specific area, those initiatives Those are really isolated. The idea of changing the way that we're pursuing the day-to-day providing services through community resource officers is we're focusing on not a part of town at a specific time, but really trying to spread those services over the areas of need.

But we did. We focused on downtown.

We did, yeah, and I think, yes, and certainly something that could be considered, but right now the idea is to be able to use these services and these operations, these services in a better way. that'll be more focused and more creative in handling the day-to-day issues.

Because you know what I think would be creative, and I don't know if they have the capacity, if what Chris was talking about, what are we calling it, the East Asheville, I mean the West Asheville engagement something. The reason I, what is it called?

West Asheville Street Engagement.

Okay. The reason I asked about Safe Shelter, I do remember when they were at AHOPE in the evening, and we, at that time, had been getting complaints from neighbors and businesses nearby about some of the same behavior we get complaints about on the tunnel road corridor in west asheville that organization came in and they in a way became very similar to the ambassadors that the bid utilizes and what those businesses and neighbors reported at that time was the activity that was concerning to them, in fact, decreased. And that, of course, is not public safety from our perspective, but I wonder if there are other nonprofits that would have that capacity, or if they don't have the capacity, would funding enable them to have that capacity? That might be...

Yeah, it's great ideas. I love the examples are fantastic. It will provide us with opportunities to meet as the COC. And then also I'll mention that we're doing internal engagement as well. to try to develop uh how we're uh moving forward uh with our you know the things that we can most control with our internal operations and how we're using data to focus those initiatives so definitely use that as an example um so really wanted to again this is amazing conversation i really wanted to highlight the uh how we are working with community uh we have a the state street walk was we that was planned for last week again postponed because of rain but we've also met just these are examples this is not a comprehensive list but we've met with the avery and the patent departments to talk to about their concerns uh we were recently at hatch co-working space uh aided uh board meetings uh various neighborhoods and individual meetings uh and then also as mentioned previously the tunnel road corridor coalition And to kind of confirm that these aren't just listening, that we are actually creating actions of this. Better connection with community. I think that the idea of being heard and having faces, face-to-face conversations is super critical. Understanding individual concerns and needs for individuals. Again, this report is largely based upon those conversations. Community member involvement in the COC. Recently we've gotten some really amazing feedback, I think because of individual connections with Emily Ball, I believe, and then also other staff members that we have members of the community that are now engaging with or becoming members of the COC or potentially kind of members. And so being able to to pull their lived experience into that and to be able to to be able to create processes around that is pretty important. And then operational changes and some of the service providers to mitigate inappropriate or illegal behavior. These are outcomes of these meetings and really people wanting to be able to provide these services, but also be a sensitive and good community member. And so really seeing changes that reflect these concerns. Next steps, I mentioned the internal working group focused on coordinating response efforts and using data. This is an internal group. It consists of REST, APD, all of our other departments that have participated in these efforts on a daily basis and really trying to strategize about how we can develop new initiatives and focus on trying to provide support services and manage these challenging circumstances. Continued support and coordination through the COC. As you've seen, we've got good participation here and certainly want to lean on that in the future. And then also planning for emergency shelters and trying to address those deficiencies in the service gaps that we have. With that, I kind of ran through those last few slides, but I just really want to take the opportunity to say thank you to the community for all the feedback, and we're really in this together to find a solution.

Thank you, Jade. Can you tell me, I know, I think we use ARPA funds for, I think we funded actually this West Asheville community engagement. Can you tell me how much we gave them, the city?

I don't think, was it ARPA? Oh, it was ARPA, yeah.

Yeah, I don't have that off the top of my head, but we can follow up on that.

Okay, I'm just curious. You know, exactly what my colleagues and Vice Mayor were saying, that I really do think we need a really, like, strategic, hands-on approach. The county, the city, a clinician, a peer support specialist. and the peer support acting as the case manager and literally going down Tunnel Road, going down Haywood, going to the camps and making contact with, like I wanna see this group of people out as much as I'm seeing everything else, making contact with every single person. What can we do? You need a license to get your antipsychotics so that you can stay in a job. I want us to make partnerships with our day labor programs. We have three of them in the city. There's no reason why we can't have partnerships with them when they say, Yes, I need a job. Okay, we got a job waiting right here for you to get you to that next step off the street. This is not rocket science. We just have to really put our heads together and get serious and the folks that are creating havoc that three percent right that don't want resources that this is the life we need to have a fund for them just as the mayor was saying when they get put out on the street but they don't want to be from Asheville we need a fund to get them back to wherever they want to be and we need to clean up this city. I drove down the road on major corridors yesterday to figure out, okay, are these emails being exaggerated? And in fact, they could have actually embellished a little bit more. And I stopped and talked, you know, these are my folks, you know, folks that deal with mental illness. I'm a social worker by trade, so I stopped and I talked to them. 100% of the people I talked to said they came here recently on a Greyhound bus to fly a sign to be homeless on the streets of Asheville. None of them said they lost their home in a tropical storm. None of them said they came on hard times. They literally said they took the Greyhound to Asheville to be homeless, because I clarified. We have an issue with Greyhound, too. Greyhound is using our city property for free, and we just signed a five-year agreement with them to keep using this property for free when other cities are charging Greyhound at the low end, I found 10,000, at the high end, 300,000, that we could be using for direct services for the people who they're bringing in. So I think we need to take a hard look at that contract as well, and really get serious about this.

Yeah, just a reminder that people use the Grand Home Bus that live here to connect. And they were meeting on the side of a road with no bathrooms, no trash cans, and no shelter from the rain. So meeting in a place where we're able to provide that dignity of service for the people who live and work here is important, too. But I am curious. Maybe we should at least charge them, though. Because we have some partners with, do you call it WASE, W-A-S-E? Because it would really sound nice to bring ease to Tunnel Road, East Asheville. Okay, wasay and ease. It would be really helpful to know what would be the connect between what our partners are able to do and what is needed so that we could be proactive partners in expanding. Because I know we're talking about it would be great to have more of what the community is doing, but the community is at capacity in a lot of ways. So some follow up on those partner relationships would be so helpful.

I do want to clarify just so that nobody has a chance to spin anything. I'm saying that Greyhound is a multi-million dollar corporation and they should be paying their fair share like they do in other cities, not using our city property for free.

I have something to add. I think the conversation is good. Every time we have this conversation, each of us brings something new to the table that wasn't known before. I'm interested in the percentage of people who are displaced by way of recovery centers, transitional housing, or some type of treatment facility. And I'm wondering if there is an early intervention or early warning signs that this individual may be violating the housing rules, therefore they could be potentially put out, therefore a part of our homeless population. and maybe we can have some type of intervention early off so that we can reroute them to another location where they can be served.

Thank you, Council Member Smith. We'll definitely get that in a follow-up for you.

and that will be incredibly challenging for you to do because, I mean, I think you make a good point because we do talk to a lot of people who circuitously ended up in Asheville. They came here through some federal program or state program. We're not aware that they're even coming here. We may not, as a city, we're not plugged into all of the different programs that exist even until, someone ends up on the streets.

But if a person is on parole or probation, sometimes they get their, I'm looking at Captain Brown, some folks may get their probation or parole transferred to Buncombe County, therefore they're served through our supervision. So there would be a little better tracking of that particular individual. But there may also be an opportunity with groups of people who house people in the transitional living community. And if they have communication with, I don't know whom, but maybe they can give us some early warning signs that individuals might be displaced, therefore, a part of our homeless population. And they may be willing to support. I mean, it's just worth analyzing and seeing what strategies we can use.

so just an observation but i you know unfortunately the way homelessness services is funded is such a patchwork and for example we have one of the best vas in the nation well but that also means they're a major service provider for vets experiencing homeless homelessness which is something congress loves to fund they will fund veteran homelessness, housing, permanent supportive housing, transitional housing. And a lot of providers will kind of piggyback on that funding and then provide services also to non-veterans. So they have to cobble together this economy of scale to be able to harness all the veteran money and then provide the service. And I don't even know if you can do the math just serving people that are only from Asheville. and still make it work. Same with ABCCM, a lot of their funding comes from federal funding available for housing around homelessness. And there's not funding for, you run a day shelter, or you run an emergency shelter, and you're just housing somebody for the night, or whatever, and there's not a funding source for that. I think sometimes what we see out there is a result of this perverse, and I'm saying the word perverse in the economic sense, incentive of the way the federal funding is structured. Mayor, you're exactly right.

And I want ABCCM to take care of the most veterans. However, I think starting the conversation with the treatment providers, kind of as Council Member Smith was saying, what can we do to prevent, if they came from Arkansas or, you know, Charlotte, what can we do to prevent them getting on the street in Asheville, and what can we do to get them back to Arkansas or back to Charlotte?

And so, I saw Bo last night. I was at an ABCCM event, Transformation Village, and they're upset about the proposed bus cuts, but that's a different story. One thing that was interesting to me was that For them, they, at least in one section, because they're gonna be able to build this beautiful add-on to their campus, they are not charging people rent. They're paying for the services. And in order to stay, you get the services. I don't know, are there other organizations that do that? in our city because I would think that would be a good tie-in for folks who are in rehab facilities or something, you know, the veterans. I don't know. That's just a, it's not the be-all and end-all, but an interesting, you know, especially with funding potentially changing coming from the feds because I think permanent supportive funding is getting ready to diminish.

Yeah, right. I think that's probably right. um i'm so glad melina's here to listen to our discussion about this that you can we can create a connection between the coc and um and this body uh to hear our concerns because i think yeah that's important to have some crossover in that conversation

Okay, well, thank you again for the discussion with the mayor to your point. It was certainly a good discussion. There are a lot of things to unpack with the COC and internally as well. So we'll certainly start to work on that and follow up with all of the information that was requested. Moving on to the final item on today's agenda is the transfer of property from 55 Hunt Hill to, my daddy taught me that, and to support their expanded afterschool and summer programs. Hopefully I can expand the, I'll just try to, Try to indicate this on the screen here. So effectively, the existing property. So in 2023, we had a transit conveyance of 300 place to my dad. Daddy taught me that in Keenan Lake to support their programing at this permanent facility. They have had success in over the years and then also with the with the closure of a recent program for youth they have this they have taken on some additional uh services and needed to i hadn't had an opportunity to build uh to place a modular school unit which is this box here represented by these number 73 by 36 on this on they're on the property the two properties uh as it turned out there wasn't sufficient space on their on their existing property to locate this this unit uh and so and if due to building code uh requirements that could not the building could not uh cross the the the existing property line And so the proposal and the creative solution that we all came up with was to move the property line of this parcel to accommodate the additional need for space on this property. This comes to council in your consent agenda tonight. We just wanted to take the opportunity to show you what the proposal was in a little bit more detail and give you an opportunity to ask questions.

I don't have a question about this, but I do have been getting some questions about the city's property on Wall Street where the climax was, especially if we're not going to be maintaining the property that's gonna go into hazard mitigation in the River Arts District where GRIND was operating. And so if we can get an update on that in a fall, it would be great. Thank you.

did you know that they've expressed interest in the wall street that's why i was making that connection or the old abc store yes i also heard that we'll provide a follow-up on that that's all from staff what i said that's all from staff oh we have a closed session oh we have a closed session yes

We need, okay, everybody good? We're gonna transition to the closed session.

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

All right. All right.

All right, I move that the Asheville City Council go into closed session for the following reasons. One, to prevent disclosure of information that is privileged and confidential pursuant to the laws of North Carolina or not considered a public record within the meaning of Chapter 132 of the General Statutes. The statutory authorization is contained in North Carolina General Statute Chapters 143-318.11 . The law that makes the information privileged and confidential is North Carolina General Statute, chapters 143-318.10 . and two, to discuss matters relating to the location or expansion of industries or other businesses in the city of Asheville, including agreement on a tentative list of economic development incentives. The statutory authorization is contained in North Carolina General Statute Chapters 143-318.11 and three, to consider the qualifications, competence, performance, character, fitness, conditions of appointment, or conditions of initial employment of an individual public officer or employee or prospective public officer or employee. The statutory authorization is contained in North Carolina General Statute, Chapters 143-318.11 .

Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

All right.

We can do this very quickly.