Asheville-Buncombe Continuum of Care

The Asheville-Buncombe Continuum of Care (CoC) is the collaborative planning body responsible for developing and overseeing a comprehensive and well-coordinated system of effective services designed to prevent and quickly resolve occurrences of homelessness in Asheville and Buncombe County. The CoC has four components:

A membership body of individuals and organizations with an interest in understanding homelessness and taking action together to address it. There are currently over 400 members of the Asheville-Buncombe CoC.
A board elected by the membership body, from the membership body, to set strategy, priorities, and performance metrics. The CoC board brings together leaders of partner systems of care with fiscal and program authority. The first board of the CoC was elected on April 25, 2024 at a meeting of the full membership.
Committees and work groups of members, appointed by the board, and given clear scopes of work, duties, deliverables, and time frames. Much of the substantive work of the CoC will happen in committees.
A Lead Agency designated by the membership body to provide strategic and administrative support to the CoC. The City of Asheville’s Homeless Strategy Division serves as the CoC Lead Agency. The CoC is not an initiative of the City of Asheville, but is community-based work with staff support from the Homeless Strategy Division.

Become a Member of the CoC

Anyone with an interest in understanding homelessness and taking action to address it can become a member of the CoC! Members can be individuals or organizations and staff of member organizations are encouraged to become individual members. CoC members are eligible to serve on the board, committees, and work groups.

Click here to complete the membership form.

You will receive an email confirming receipt of your membership form. Please email homelessstrategy@ashevillenc.gov or call 828-747-8168 if you would like a paper copy of these forms to be mailed to you.

Request for Proposals

Fiscal Agent Partner

The Funding Committee of the CoC is issuing a Request for Proposals (RFP) in order to identify an organization to serve as fiscal agent for the CoC. The main role of this partner organization will be to receive, manage, and disburse funds at the direction of the CoC Board. Proposals must be submitted by April 8, 2025. All questions should be directed to homelessstrategy@ashevillenc.gov by March 24, 2025. Please click here to read the full RFP and submit a proposal.

Upcoming Events

CoC Board Meeting (in-person)

When: April 9, 2025 | 4:00 – 5:30 p.m.

Where: Harrah’s Cherokee Center of Asheville, Banquet Hall (87 Haywood Street)

Meeting materials will be available seven (7) days ahead of this event.

Parking + Transportation for CoC Meetings

Parking for CoC meetings and events can be validated. Please plan to park at any of the city-owned parking garages and request a validation form when you arrive at the meeting. You will need to have a paper ticket from the garage or the ability to pay with a credit card. Transportation assistance is available in the form of transit tickets only, please reach out to homelessstrategy@ashevillenc.gov or call 828-747-8168 to coordinate accessing these tickets. If you have questions or need additional assistance, please email homelessstrategy@ashevillenc.gov or call 828-747-8168.

Take Action

Board Applications are now open!

The Nominating and Membership Committee is working to fill the remaining four vacant representative Board seats:

Local Non-Governmental Funder
Business Community (a representative of a collection of businesses)
Faith Community (a representative of a network of faith communities)
Community Member (a representative of an organized group of community members – one of two seats)

Interested and qualified CoC Members should review the CoC Governance Charter and Board Member Role Descriptions for additional details and expectations. Applications are due by Friday, April 18, 2025 at 5:00 p.m. The Nominating and Membership Committee will review applications, conduct interviews, and develop a slate of candidates to recommend to the Board on June 12, 2025. Board-approved candidates will be presented to the Membership for a vote on June 18, 2025.

Reminder: all applicants must be members of the CoC and submit three (3) letters of support from other CoC members with their application. CoC members can connect with each other at in-person CoC meetings and every CoC member has access to the Membership Directory.

Please click here to complete the CoC Board Application.

Email homelessstrategy@ashevillenc.gov with any questions.

Emergency Shelter Development Work Group Interest Form is now open!

During strategic planning the Board, using feedback from the Membership, identified emergency shelter as a top priority. Additionally, the City of Asheville has identified emergency shelter as a possible activity under infrastructure in their current draft plan for CDBG-DR funding, which is a very exciting opportunity for the CoC and the community as a whole!

The Shelter Planning Work Group, which was formed outside of the regular CoC process for establishing committees and workgroups, was necessary to quickly utilize a time-limited funding opportunity – the remaining County ARPA funding. Because of the strong interest from the membership and the Board on developing more emergency shelter capacity and utilizing this possible new funding opportunity, the Board decided at their meeting last week to disband the current Shelter Planning Work Group and open a process for the whole CoC membership to express interest in participating in the Emergency Shelter Development Work Group.

Please click here to complete the interest form. All forms should be submitted no later than 12:00 p.m. on Friday, April 4, 2025.

Attend New Member Orientation

All new CoC members are required to attend a one-hour orientation in order to be eligible to vote as part of the full membership body. Orientations happen on an ongoing basis and dates are announced as orientations become available. Please fill out the orientation registration form to see available dates and sign up.

Stay Engaged

The Continuum of Care takes all of us! Your active participation helps the CoC grow and change in ways that will better serve our neighbors experiencing housing insecurity and the community as a whole. Use the Member Engagement Form or call the Member Engagement Voicemail at 828-271-6161 to share reflections, ask questions, make suggestions, and indicate your interest in getting more involved with the work of the CoC. All information collected through this form and voicemail box will be channeled through the CoC Board. Lead Agency staff may also respond when appropriate.

Background

What is a Continuum of Care?

The CoC is a formally structured planning body, not an incorporated organization like a standalone nonprofit or business, that allows our community to share responsibility, accountability and make decisions together. It is voluntary, participatory, and self-governing, and consolidates the efforts of nonprofits, governments, housing providers, landlords, funders, advocates, and experts to build a coordinated approach to addressing homelessness.

The CoC does not provide direct services (like rental assistance or shelter) to people in crisis, nor does it provide direct funding to service providers. Instead it is a way of convening people and organizations already taking action in those areas to facilitate collaboration, collect and review data that measures the service system’s effectiveness, and provide evidence-based recommendations to adjust the system when necessary. It is a federal framework to guide local communities in effective and collaborative homelessness response.

The CoC is solutions-oriented with a common goal to resolve the crisis of each person experiencing homelessness. Trust and transparency are critical to develop a collaborative and unified approach to respond to these crises efficiently and effectively.

In Asheville and Buncombe County, the Homeless Initiative Advisory Committee (HIAC) has traditionally served as the CoC Board. Based on recommendations from the National Alliance to End Homelessness about how to improve unsheltered homelessness in our community, HIAC initiated a process to create a new community-based membership body and elect a new CoC Board for more widespread participation and improved results.

The restructured CoC has recently been established and is governed by a charter adopted by its membership body on February 29, 2024. The charter outlines roles and responsibilities of the CoC membership, board, committees, and Lead Agency. It also details the spirit of the CoC’s collaborative work through agreed-upon Shared Values and Guiding Principles:

Value the voice of people with lived experience
Be bold
Create accountable and transparent governance structures
Build trust through unity, collaboration, and performance
Focus on our future
Promote equity to advance change
Politics will not drive policies

What does homelessness look like in the CoC?

Each year the CoC conducts the Point-in-Time Count during the last 10 days of January. This year, the count took place on January 28th and 29th to get a “snapshot” of homelessness data in our community. The CoC saw 135 volunteers participate in survey administration over the two-day period, 60 of whom were CoC members. Teams canvassed 27 geographic areas across Buncombe County in addition to being stationed at various service locations to support survey collection. Local service providers also provided data for the night of the 28th to ensure as many people could be counted as possible.

Participation in the Point-in-Time Count is voluntary and the dataset is imperfect, but it can show trends over time that help inform the community’s overall strategy and collective response to homelessness.The 2025 count identified 755 people experiencing homelessness, including 116 who reported that their homelessness was a result of Tropical Storm Helene. Full results from the 2025 Point-in-Time Count were shared during the March 26, 2025 CoC Membership Meeting, and can be viewed here.

CoC Board and Membership

Asheville-Buncombe Continuum of Care Board

Elected April 25, 2024

CoC Board Officers
	Representative Seat	Candidate	Affiliation
Chair	Healthcare System	Melina Arrowood	Mission Hospital
Vice-Chair	Victim Service Provider	April Burgess-Johnson	Helpmate
Secretary	Shelter and Transitional Housing Provider	Christian Chambers	Safe Shelter

CoC Board
Representative Seat	Candidate	Affiliation
Subject Matter Expert with Lived Experience of Homelessness	Josh Morrow	Sunrise Community
Subject Matter Expert with Lived Experience of Homelessness	Karen Hayes-Roberts	Umoja
Behavioral Healthcare System	Celeste Ordiway	Vaya Health
Unsheltered Service Provider	Scott Rogers	ABCCM
Permanent Housing Provider	Jenny Moffatt	Homeward Bound
Public Safety	Mike Lamb	Asheville Police Department
Community Member	Rick Freeman	Coalition of Asheville Neighborhoods
Supportive Provider Network	David Bartholomew	Pisgah Legal Services
Appointed Seat	Appointee	Role
Asheville Housing Authority
Buncombe County Staff	Lacy Hoyle	Homelessness Program Manager
City of Asheville Staff	Debra Campbell	City Manager
Veterans Administration	Katie Miller	Grant and Per Diem Liaison
Non-Voting Liaisons
Buncombe County Commissioner		Jennifer Horton
Asheville City Council Member		Mayor Esther Manheimer