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A roof isn’t enough

In our hills and hollers, our homeless neighbors need support, safety and compassion

by

Margaret Hester photo

Since homelessness began growing in the 1980s, churches, nonprofit organizations, and civic groups have been filling in the gaps as government services for the poor have decreased. Today, those gaps are growing wider and wider: job growth is stagnant, federal stimulus funds are gone and budgets for social services continue to be slashed. More than ever, mountain people are called upon to take care of our own.

In October, John Withington, who used to be homeless and is now president of the Asheville Homeless Network, asked this question: “Does Asheville need another shelter?”

“No,” answered Ron Stimson, who currently lives in a tent. “I don’t think that another temporary shelter is going to solve a permanent problem.”

Just Because You Don’t See It…

Well, chances are that the rising homelessness in Appalachia is a largely unseen problem. The homeless—that’s anyone spending nights in places not meant for human habitation, according to the federal definition, whether in a car, on a park bench, on the streets, in abandoned buildings, on a friend’s couch or in homeless shelters—are just as likely to be in rural areas as in urban areas; they’re just not as visible.

In northeast Tennessee, “we have a lot of people on the street in our cities, but the homeless rate per capita is about the same throughout each rural county,” said Dreama Shreve, executive director of the Appalachian Regional Coalition on Homelessness, the Continuum of Care (CoC) group for northeast Tennessee. “They say around here that our people take care of our own,” she said. Families might let someone stay in a camper in their backyard, or in a barn. “We see that a lot in the rural counties. These people are still homeless by all definitions. They do have a roof over their heads, but it’s not a place meant for living.” Mason said, “We know people who … [are] camping; they may stay in their cars. They also stay in storage sheds,” she said. “Fortunately, we don’t see people out on the streets and under the bridges.”

While many factors leading to homelessness are the same in both urban and rural areas, there are notable conditions related to homelessness in rural areas and in our mountains. 

For some time now, poverty levels have been higher in rural America than in urban centers. And throughout Appalachia in particular, the poverty rate was 15.4 percent from 2005 to 2009, while the U.S. average was 13.5 percent during that time, the Appalachian Regional Commission reported. Several counties along the North Carolina-Tennessee border saw even higher rates; Johnson, Carter, Greene and Cocke counties in Tennessee and Watauga, Jackson, Swain and Graham counties in North Carolina ranged between 19 and 25.8 percent poverty rates in those years.

With the loss of manufacturing, many mountain locales depend on tourism and second-home markets to drive their economies, and those who once earned respectable wages on the textile and furniture assembly lines are left with low-paying service jobs. “The No. 1 issue is the lack of affordable housing in our communities,” said Mason. A number of factors have inflated housing prices in some mountain areas, including demand from gated communities and second-home markets and topography. HUD defines housing as affordable when no more than 30 percent of a household’s income is spent on housing-related expenses, which includes utilities. In May, the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the North Carolina Housing Coalition released a report revealing that an estimated 50 percent of renters in the state do not earn enough to afford a two-bedroom apartment at fair market price. Meanwhile, there are long waiting lists for Section 8 housing subsidies.

Amy Cantrell, a community organizer who helped create the Beloved Community House in Asheville, said that while the 30 percent of income standard for housing was created to protect people, it is now used as a “gatekeeper” to keep people out. Even though many families would be willing to pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing, many apartment communities will not rent to folks who cannot provide proof of sufficient income.

“We spend a lot of time thinking about how to attract tourists and development,” she said. “But people here have been left behind.”

Among women, family conflict is a primary cause of homelessness—homelessness, for women who are victims of domestic violence and who lack support networks, becomes a survival strategy. And rural areas are enduring strongholds for patriarchal family structures. 

“That’s a cultural thing around here,” Shreve commented. “There’s never enough services or shelter space [for domestic violence victims].” Some studies suggest that about 90 percent of homeless women have been traumatized in some way, Mason said.

That’s how Venus, 46, who chose not to disclose her last name, and her son ended up in Boone’s homeless shelter, the Hospitality House. “I met a guy online,” she said. After seven or eight months, he convinced her to move to Wilkes County, N.C., from Pennsylvania. Then he spanked her son, “and that was it,” Venus said. She stayed at SAFE, Inc., the women’s shelter in Wilkes for 60 days, and she was then sent to stay at the Hospitality House, where she and her son, who just turned 6, have been for a year.

In the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Smokies, winters can be cold and harsh, and on top of struggles for food and a place to sleep, the homeless must fight to stay warm and dry. “Every year we find at least one person frozen to death under a bridge,” Shreve said. “We hate that. We truly hate that. This winter really scares me because we do have a lot of families. They camp on the riverbanks. It just really worries me about kids sleeping in a tent in the winter.” 

In Asheville, agencies who serve the homeless have a procedure in place called Code Purple—when the temperature drops below 32 degrees (or the equivalent wind chill factor), shelters will open their doors to anyone who needs a warm place to stay, even if they’re at capacity. 

“We will not turn anyone away,” Kennedy said, even if people have to sleep in the dining room.

The Helpers Need Help

The Hidden America, published in 2001, claims that those at risk for homelessness in rural areas are at a disadvantage because of limited services and resources, negative attitudes toward public social services and geographic dispersion and lack of transportation. Jonathan Jones, development coordinator for Western Carolina Rescue Ministries in Asheville, said his organization serves clients from throughout rural areas in the region who come to the city for better availability of services and job prospects. 

“We’re seeing a number of needs from the surrounding counties,” Jones said.

But Mason doesn’t see it that way.

“In a community like this, we can take care of individuals who need that assistance,” she said. “I think there’s something to be said for rural areas. There is a greater sense of community, people working together, and that includes different agencies.” 

Boone is fortunate to have a free public bus system, but even clients from other counties are able to arrange rides to Hospitality House to access its food box program and other services, she noted.

“I’m always amazed that transportation is rarely an issue,” she added. “They find a way. People still know people here.”

Marty, 48, who chose not to disclose his last name, came to the Boone area from Fayetteville. He’s been homeless since December 2010 and said the access to services is much better in northwest North Carolina than in Fayetteville. “I got more help than I’ve had in 48 years,” he said.

CoCs work together with various agencies to provide a multitude of services for the poor and homeless, to varying degrees: meals and food boxes; rent, mortgage or utility assistance; access to mental health and substance abuse treatment; health care; clothing; computer classes; and job skills training. The VA offers some of these services to veterans, as does the ABCCM in Asheville. ABCCM’s Veterans Restoration Quarters, a former Super 8 hotel building, has capacity for 225 veterans, who are permitted to stay at the facility for up to two years while they receive health care services, work to secure jobs and permanent housing. Kennedy said the average stay is around 13 to 14 months, and the program has a waiting list of 30 to 50 men. The campus is located beside the Swannanoa River, with park benches, a vegetable garden, a cafeteria, a workout room, a library and computer room, a disc golf course, a meditation hill and a barbecue pit. 

“We want the men to feel that this is their home,” said Kennedy. 

ABCCM also offers the Steadfast House, a shelter for homeless women and children.

As governments continue to reduce funding for social services, it’s nonprofits, churches and private donors who have stepped in to care for the most vulnerable people in our society. “To me, that’s not good,” lamented Spitzberg, adding that in cities where governments take an active hand, the programs work well: Seattle. Portland, Ore. Minneapolis. Driving down an Asheville highway, Spitzberg pointed out areas where his homeless friends often congregated, and, spotting a couple, pulled over and offered to give them a ride to where they were going. Spitzberg rattled off his version of a quote from social work researcher Bryan Lipmann: “Homelessness, to some extent, is the mark of a society in decline.”

More people are being underserved in an age of mental health reform, Mason said, and as a result, those who work at homeless shelters find themselves overwhelmed with the level of personal problems they’re expected to address. “Homeless shelters have become agencies serving mental illness,” she sighed. “It just takes so much more.”

Will the U.S. eliminate chronic homelessness in four years? That seems improbable. Yet, that’s the stated goal of the U.S. government, and it has affected policies and programs for the homeless. Since 1995, HUD has urged cities and regions to adopt Ten-Year Plans to Prevent and End Homelessness. Basically, these plans aim to significantly reduce the amount of time individuals and families spend on the streets or in emergency shelters by putting more people in permanent supported housing. Housing is certainly important. “It’s a lot easier to stay sober when you’re in housing than when you’re in a tent,” said Bill at a Asheville Homeless Network meeting in October. Bill, who struggled with a drinking problem and chose not to disclose his last name, became homeless when his company moved operations to Mexico.

But these initiatives fail to address the needs of the chronically homeless, said Spitzberg. 

“About 20 percent of the homeless are chronically homeless and will never get into housing for one reason or another,” he said, often due to substance abuse, mental illness or both. What these people need are “wraparound” services: not only food and shelter, but also medical treatment, life skills training and therapy provided in a seamless and complementary manner. Sticking them in housing without wraparound services won’t solve the problems that caused their homelessness in the first place, he indicated.

Cost savings is a stated reason for the emphasis on supportive housing; a bar graph on the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness website, for example, depicts the amount of money five states have saved when clients entered supportive housing. In 2006, Asheville’s Hospitality House, a long-term emergency shelter since 1988, changed its name to Homeward Bound and shifted its focus “from managing homelessness with shelter to ending homelessness with permanent housing.” It ended the Safe Haven program, which provided shelter to people with mental illnesses, and opened The Woodfin Apartments, an 18-unit affordable apartment building. But Homeward Bound says its housing focus has been successful: the program has helped move 329 individuals into their own homes, its website states, and 89 percent are still stable in their housing.

In northeast Tennessee, the local VA hospital system offers beds for homeless veterans but recently reduced stays from long term to no more than 90 days, Shreve said.

Mason said the Northwest NC CoC has not developed a 10-year plan. 

“It’s a laudable goal…but I think we’ll always need homeless shelters,” she said. “Every person comes with a unique journey. That can’t be remedied in 30 days or less in many cases.” 

The 2009 economic stimulus package designated $1.5 billion to the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing program. The funding was used for financial assistance with rent, utility or security deposits and moving costs and was credited with keeping homeless numbers down in the wake of the economic recession. Now, these programs are winding down as funds have been depleted. The Appalachian Regional Coalition on Homelessness is appealing to the community to pick up where government funds have ended.

 “We no longer have the program to help with rent,” Shreve said, adding that on average it costs $1,300 to stabilize a family’s housing costs to prevent them from becoming homeless. “That’s not a lot of money to keep a family off the street,” she remarked.

For varying reasons, some homeless people choose not to stay in shelters. One man, speaking from the Beloved Community House in Asheville, said he would rather camp in the woods than stay in shelters, which he described as “oppressive” and “forceful” with regard to rules and religion. Others struggle with community living situations, fearful of getting into fights or of having their things stolen—“it comes down to a trust factor,” Kennedy noted. A place to store possessions is a major reason the homeless may prefer camping in tents or vehicles to staying in shelters, as many shelters provide overnight stays only and don’t allow clients to leave anything behind during the day. To address this, some locations, such as the new Hospitality House shelter in Boone, provide storage lockers. Another area of need is money management, said Shreve. “We have 600 veterans on our streets in Johnson City who all have income. There’s no reason for them to be homeless if they could manage their income.” She would like to see expanded programs that control paychecks for homeless people by paying all of their bills and giving them a weekly allowance.

Some organizations have taken new approaches. The Asheville Homeless Network is “for the homeless, by the homeless”—according to its bylaws, 25 percent of its officers must be homeless, 50 percent must be formerly homeless and only 25 percent may be supporters who have never been homeless. Spitzberg is the network’s secretary. It’s a grassroots organization with no paid employees that holds meetings every Thursday at 2 p.m. at Asheville’s Firestorm Café. “We thought what we needed here was an organization that was made up of people who are volunteers who are not tied to any one ideology that wasn’t beholden to any group,” Spitzberg said. “To the best of my knowledge, none of the agencies have any homeless people working for them, because then they wouldn’t be homeless.”

The network works to address specific needs of the homeless, such as providing active members with a free monthly bus pass and distributing used clothing.

And on 39 Grove Street in Asheville, you won’t find the stiff and quiet atmosphere of many homeless shelters. It’s exactly the opposite at the 1.5-year-old Beloved Community House, a project of Amy Cantrell and Lauren White; it’s loud, people are everywhere, laughing, relaxing on couches. Instead of providing services to people who are seen as a client or a number, Beloved is focused on relationship building. The most vulnerable homeless people—the sick or disabled—are given transitional housing at the home, and anyone is welcome to gather there for friendship, food, clothing and rest. “You have heard it takes a village to raise a child,” reads a brochure about Beloved. “We believe that everyone needs a village.” 

Community members provide help to one another as they are able. When a local homeless agency stopped its laundry program, Beloved picked it up. There’s an open kitchen. A media project. A summer camp. A school supplies drive. “We allow our relationships to dictate the things we get into,” Cantrell said. The willingness to build deep relationships with people who are vulnerable inevitably means there will be pain—five members of the community died in June alone. “We lose people,” Cantrell said. “You have to be ready for a lot of heartbreak, but a lot of joy also.”

Cantrell said the art of neighboring and communal living is embraced by other cultures but has recently been lost in our society.

“People don’t know their next-door neighbors,” she said. “It’s something that now more than ever we have to look at. I think we have a lot to teach.”

Homelessness trends

“We went from 30 to 180 homeless families in a 12-month period, which is huge,” said Dreama Shreve, executive director of the Appalachian Regional Coalition on Homelessness, the Continuum of Care (CoC) group for northeast Tennessee. 

Counties or regions must establish CoCs to be eligible for federal funds for homeless programs, which can then be allocated to various agencies that serve the homeless. “We help the helpers,” Shreve put it more simply.

The growing number of homeless families is a statistic troubling those who work with indigent populations in Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina. In two years, the reported number of homeless households (at least one parent with dependent children) jumped from 78 to 296 in the seven-county Northwest North Carolina region—and the number of homeless children multiplied more than four times during that time span, from 132 in 2009 to nearly 600 this year. The number of homeless children, in fact, matched the total number of homeless adults, and 93 percent of these kids weren’t staying in shelters. These figures are derived from an annual Point-in-Time Count, mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). One night each January, agencies that serve low-income populations work together to provide a “snapshot” of homeless numbers.

“The number of families we’re serving has increased dramatically,” said Lynne Mason, executive director of Hospitality House, a Boone-based shelter and crisis agency serving the seven-county region. The organization moved to a new, larger shelter facility in March—one with spaces designated for families. But already, she noted, “we’ve been averaging six or seven families at any given time when we were planning for three.”

The Tennessee Valley Coalition to End Homelessness, coordinator of the Morristown/Blount, Sevier, Campbell and Cocke counties CoC in eastern Tennessee, reported 29 homeless families in 2011, down from 78 the year before. “The [Point-in-Time] committee questioned service providers and reached the conclusion that the numerous [American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] programs available throughout the region (particularly rental and utility assistance and foreclosure prevention) prevented the usual increase in winter homeless numbers,” said Melanie Cordell, administrator for the coalition. 

In the Asheville/Buncombe County CoC, the count for families also decreased from 2010 to 2011, from 40 to 24. North Carolina’s eight most southwestern counties—Cherokee and the Cherokee reservation, Clay, Graham, Haywood, Jackson, Macon, Swain and Transylvania—reported 39 homeless families in 2011.

“We all know when we go to the grocery store we’re spending two to three times more,” Shreve said. “People who have $10 an hour or less jobs, even with two people working, is not enough. Wages are just not inflating like the cost of living is.” And then there are the people who had good jobs—but layoffs have hit them, too. 

“Those are the hardest people to assist,” explained Shreve, because “one, they don’t want people to know that they’re struggling, and two, they don’t know where to go [to get assistance].”

There are other trends. Veterans can suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and brain injuries, and some turn to substance abuse as self-medication; both mental illness and substance abuse are common factors contributing to homelessness. A joint report from HUD and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) released earlier this year found that 16 percent of homeless adults were veterans, while the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans’ estimate is higher, at one-third.

“A veteran who has served his country honorably should not have to live that way,” remarked Ron Kennedy, intake coordinator and front desk supervisor for Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry (ABCCM) Veterans Restoration Quarters, while shaking his head. 

The image of the homeless veteran isn’t new, of course. But the numbers are rising.

Kennedy said the average age of homeless veterans served through ABCCM’s Restoration Quarters is about 52, and generally, most fought in Vietnam. But the area is seeing more and more vets from the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and Kennedy expects those numbers to grow ever larger as the U.S. continues troop withdrawals from the Middle East. “That seems to be picking up quite a bit,” he said. 

Recent veterans are having a harder time finding work than the civilian population, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics: 11.7 percent of veterans who left the service since 2001 were unemployed in September 2011, compared with 8.6 percent of non-veterans.

Within that segment, the incidence of female homeless veterans is becoming more prevalent. Veteran women are nearly four times more at risk for homelessness than their male counterparts, reports the VA. In September, the VA estimated there were 55,000 homeless female veterans, representing 3 percent of the 1.8 million veteran women in the country. The numbers correlate with increased deployment numbers, as more women are sent to war zones than ever before in U.S. history. 

“What we’re seeing now are more and more women who are homeless veterans as the military has liberated its policies to allow women to serve in combat,” said John Spitzberg, a member of the Asheville Homeless Network. 

And much more often than men, women in the military encounter yet another factor limited to homelessness—sexual abuse. Government-funded studies have concluded that between 20 and 28 percent of women are raped or sexually assaulted while in the military.

Know someone at risk?

Following is a list of organizations in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee that can assist those at risk for homelessness or provide referrals to other agencies.

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