7 replies to this topic

[Zihuatanejo]

What can you guys tell me about the homeless situation in Asheville?  Some friends and I are considering moving to Asheville from Columbia, SC to open up a nonprofit homeless cafe.  We're doing a scouting trip this weekend and would love to know where the homeless in Asheville typically hang out.  If you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them!

[archiham04]

Zihuatanejo, on Feb 4 2008, 04:26 PM, said:

What can you guys tell me about the homeless situation in Asheville?  Some friends and I are considering moving to Asheville from Columbia, SC to open up a nonprofit homeless cafe.  We're doing a scouting trip this weekend and would love to know where the homeless in Asheville typically hang out.  If you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them!

go to Haywood St near Montford.  Salvation Army (during the day) is a pretty good place.  Near the end of Haywood street on Patton Ave is the ABCCM soup kitchen and then on i think ann street, which runs between Haywood and Patton, behind jan davis tire is a women's shelter.  Other than that all over uptown is a good place to find homeless that are pan handling.  Pritchard Park and Pack Square are good starting points.

[Raintree21]

I was just in Asheville over the last 3 days and there seemed to be quite a people who appeared to be homeless in the downtown area as we drove through.

[rooster8]

Three things you're guaranteed to see when driving around downtown Asheville:

1)Hippies
2)Floridians
3)Homeless folks

If you don't see them, you're driving with your eyes closed.  

Edited by rooster8, 26 June 2008 - 09:32 PM.

[RaleighRob]

^Of course on occasion you might find a three-for-one: a homeless Floridian hippy.  

[mh10809]

I used to live and work in downtown Asheville and I don't know if I have ever been to a city with a concentration of homeless people like Asheville.  They are everywhere downtown and they are a real burden on the downtown businesses IMO.  I would constantly have to work to move them out of my place of work and I have a college friend that works in a gallery downtown that spends a good part of her day dealing with the homeless in the gallery.  I am sympathetic to the plight of the homeless but it doesnt seem that the City of Asheville has done an acceptable job to deal with the homeless population there.  For such a small city it really has a larger than normal and highly visible homeless population I hope that the city can do a better job of meeting the needs and getting these individuals off the streets.

Edited by mh10809, 11 July 2008 - 01:59 PM.

[archiham04]

Zihuatanejo, on Feb 4 2008, 04:26 PM, said:

What can you guys tell me about the homeless situation in Asheville?  Some friends and I are considering moving to Asheville from Columbia, SC to open up a nonprofit homeless cafe.  We're doing a scouting trip this weekend and would love to know where the homeless in Asheville typically hang out.  If you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them!

Did anything ever come of this scouting trip^

[RaleighRob]

mh10809, on Jul 11 2008, 03:58 PM, said:

For such a small city it really has a larger than normal and highly visible homeless population I hope that the city can do a better job of meeting the needs and getting these individuals off the streets.

My theory is that, even though Asheville is a relatively small city, there is a large homeless population for two reasons
1) Small, but still the largest city in the entire western third of the state.  No other city in the mountains comes close.
2) Dense, pedestrian-friendly downtown.   Similarly, Chapel Hill has a good number of panhandlers for this reason, and it's smaller than Asheville.