Asheville Reporter

City of Asheville issued the following announcement on Feb. 4.

Homelessness is bad for our community: people who experience it are community members in dire need, and people not experiencing it are often negatively impacted by its effects.  Whether we’re experiencing homelessness, frustrated by what’s happening around our businesses or in our neighborhoods, or seeking to advocate and take action, we all want the same outcome: zero homelessness in Asheville.  By focusing on that shared goal and working towards it together, we can build a strategy and a community-wide response that ends homelessness and fosters a community where all of us can thrive.

The City of Asheville Homeless Strategy Division’s role is to partner with and convene individual  organizations to develop a collective vision and an effective and streamlined community-wide collaboration to maximize resources and efforts to best respond to homelessness together as a unified Continuum of Care

Each year, the Continuum of Care, in collaboration with a number of local organizations that focus on housing insecurity, collects data on the people in our community that are experiencing homelessness in the annual Point in Time (PIT) count. The data collected are aggregated with identifying information removed, and then are reported to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which requires that all communities that receive HUD funding to address homelessness conduct an annual PIT Count. This count is a one night “snapshot” that, when taken each year, can provide an overview of the population and trends over time.  The 2023 Point in Time Count was carried out January 31,  by 75 community members, including City and County staff as well as elected officials.

Next Steps:

1. Data entry is underway in the Homeless Management Information System, which will be used to develop PIT reports.
2. Data submitted to HUD – approximately April 2023 – and reported to the Homeless Initiative Advisory Committee and community 
3. Submitted PIT results will be posted on the City’s PIT Dashboard .  You can see the 2022 results posted there now.

Original source can be found here.