What makes someone at-risk of experiencing homelessness? Depending on what community you’re in, the list of risk factors can vary widely. For Asheville’s Right at Home team, that question sparked a much larger conversation.
Asheville is a small city in the mountains of Buncombe County, North Carolina. Known for a thriving tourism industry and beautiful vacation homes, Asheville’s cost of living is a challenge for many of our year-round residents. In 2024, Hurricane Helene hit our region. The damage was found to be the costliest natural disaster in the community’s history, leaving thousands of people struggling to find housing or repair what was left of their home.
When Right at Home conducted a national search for 10 sites to be part of their homelessness prevention program, the Asheville-Buncombe Continuum of Care (CoC) was a natural fit. Established in 2024 just months before Hurricane Helene, our CoC values the voice of people with lived experience. All CoC bodies — the Board, Committees, and Work Groups — must have an elected or appointed voting member with lived
or living experience of homelessness. We facilitate the collaboration of service providers and promote a person-centered system to ensure we address the unique needs of each community member. We have a robust system of emergency rental assistance, but our homelessness prevention services have been limited to times of crisis. Nearly two years after Hurricane Helene, the data shows our community is still in need. Asheville’s Point in Time (PIT) Count for 2026 identified 824 people in shelters, transitional housing, or unsheltered, a 9.1% increase from the year prior. This data drives us to be part of Right at Home’s mission to stop homelessness before it starts.
As Asheville’s Right at Home Project Manager, I have worked with community members, provider agencies, and LEO staff to fine tune our research design. For us, the most important component in the research is the dignity of our clients. That’s why defining the risk factors for entering homelessness in Asheville became so important.
Our randomized controlled trial tracks people’s experience of homelessness after receiving the Right at Home intervention compared to the experiences of those who don’t. Although most of our data will come from our Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), the research team will also be conducting surveys with clients. What we came to realize is each person has a different view of their own experience, and it is not for us to tell them what it was and assign the label to it; they can identify in the manner that’s truest for them. We need to use a consistent definition of homelessness across clients and even across sites in this replication study, yet acknowledge that experiences of housing insecurity are complex and deeply personal. And well-designed research can still recognize that and validate
research participants’ experiences.
Asheville-Buncombe’s HMIS inflow data from 2025 showed that of those who were experiencing homelessness, 73% were disabled as determined by HUD’s six categories: development, physical, mental, non-alcohol substance-related, or alcohol and substance related. The data also showed 66% last resided in non-permanent housing, which included staying with family and friends, a foster home, a halfway house, and other temporary locations. When our case workers administer these surveys, we want to ensure people can accurately identify their barriers to maintaining housing. The goal is to better understand lifetime interactions with homelessness prevention and homelessness interventions. In order to achieve this, we restructured the survey to give participants more ability to explain their experiences in their own wording.
The flexibility in our survey reflects our goal to meet individuals where they are during a vulnerable time in their life. We want to take the burden of navigating systems away from clients by preparing our staff to break through barriers to housing. Sometimes, the hurdles are too big for someone to jump over alone. Government identification and drivers license applications are often flagged when there is no
permanent address provided. Yet housing and job applications typically require a valid ID. Right at Home case managers will be ready to support individuals through each step on their journey to stable housing, whether that’s working together on paperwork, providing referrals to legal support, or determining their level of need for flexible financial assistance.
In our CoC, we believe that in order to create systems, policies, and programs that recognize and validate unique experiences, we have to create equity for those with lived and living experience. That’s why we hosted listening sessions and formed work groups
with several provider agencies in our region. It’s the “nothing about us without us” approach. That’s why the work groups and committees taking on the detailed work of the CoC always include people with lived and living experience; in our Right at Home design work group, four appointed members brought lived expertise to shape the initiative. One work group participant with lived experience says, “It’s so important
to have the voices of lived experience. There are many portrayals of homelessness, creating a narrative of us versus them. The people with lived experience involved in this work can share the stories of those who aren’t already seen and whose stories aren’t known, especially
for those who can’t share for themselves. We can also show where systems went wrong so they don’t have to go wrong for the next person.”
As we prepare to launch our program in a few months, we will continue to lean on our membership, work groups, and CoC board for insight. We want to continuously evaluate what works and what doesn’t. With LEO’s support, we will track and evaluate the progress of a program tailored to the unique needs of our community.
We are keeping dignity in the design. Dignity in our research. Dignity in our services. Dignity at the heart of our community.