As Asheville City Council debates reallocating Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funding from affordable housing construction to home repair, Susan Bean spoke up during the public hearing on June 9th to explain MountainTrue’s position. You can read her statement below or watch the recording here (for her comments jump to 48 minutes in). We also hope you will encourage Council to reject the proposed re-allocation amendment by submitting your own public comment via email to cdbg-dr@ashevillenc.gov while the open comment period lasts. The deadline for comments is this Sunday, June 14th. Learn more here.
“Good evening Mayor, Vice Mayor, and members of Council. My name is Susan Bean and on behalf of MountainTrue, I join with members of the Buncombe Affordable Housing Network in asking you to reject this amendment.
At an average cost of $360,000 per single family repair, our community would be committing almost $400,000 of public taxpayer funds to support a single family staying in their home for a minimum of just 3 years.
Alternatively, If we keep the proposed $9.2 million dollars allocated to affordable housing construction, our community benefits from 200 additional homes that will serve low-income families for a minimum of 35 years. There are hundreds of storm impacted individuals and families still living in Asheville who do not own their homes, but are desperately hoping to live in a rental unit they can afford. These people and families are living in their cars, are doubled up with other families, are staying in shelters, or are even on the street after facing evictions because they lost their jobs to Helene.
The recent Point in Time count data revealed that 87 people who lost housing due to Helene are still unsheltered. These are some of the people who likely are not showing up at council to make public comment, but who are storm survivors and need housing support through CDBG-DR funds just like home owners do.
While I support shifting funds from the Infrastructure program to address our community’s housing needs, I ask that you please not support the recommendation to reallocate any funds from the Affordable Multifamily Construction Program to the Single Family Repair Program. I firmly believe that City Housing Bond dollars can more efficiently serve MORE families through locally administered repair programs and that CDBG-DR dollars are better spent on affordable housing construction. Thank you for your consideration.”