From Staff Reports

ASHEVILLE — The 2025 Continuum of Care Point-in-Time count in Buncombe County “found a record number of homeless people, and officials say it’s all due to Helene,” Asheville television station WLOS (News 13) reported on March 27.

“The report showed a total of 755 homeless people, a figure that’s slightly up from 2024’s count, which was 739,” News 13 noted. “But the final count is much larger, 2,303 to be exact.”

That final count — to be reported to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — will include an additional 1,548 people, since they were being sheltered in hotels or motels paid for by an agency, a March 28 press release from Continuum of Care stated, which added that all of those people were without housing due to Tropical Storm Helene.

The count was conducted by Continuum of Care, which coordinates the homelessness response in the Asheville and Buncombe County area.

“We saw a significant increase in the number of folks who were unsheltered, people outside camping, in cars, that number is 328 of that 755,” Emily Ball, the Homeless Strategy Division Manager for the City of Asheville, said in the release, noting that “the key difference this year is that it’s all related to Helene.”

Meanwhile, City of Asheville spokesperson Kim Miller told News 13 on March 27 that, since the count was taken in the last week of January, the number of people in hotels and motels through FEMA has decreased significantly.

From Staff Reports

ASHEVILLE — Buncombe County’s unemployment rate continued to jump in early 2025, “marking the start of a ‘choppy’ period of economic recovery after Tropical Storm Helene decimated the region and caused unemployment to spike in the fall, regional experts say,” a March 24 report in the Asheville Citizen Times stated.

“Data from the North Carolina Department of Commerce indicated Buncombe County’s unemployment rate rose by 0.8 percentage points between December and January, bringing the county’s rate up to 6.8 percent, which is a 13 percent month-over-month increase, making it the fourth highest rate in the state,” the ACT noted. “Over 9,800 people remain unemployed in Buncombe County.”

The newspaper added, “The statewide unemployment rate rose from 3.4 percent to 4 percent between December and January, though the year-over-year rate change only saw a 0.3 percentage point increase from 3.7 percent to 4 percent.

“Most counties in Western North Carolina outpaced the state’s rate increase, with Mitchell County unemployment rising 0.8 percentage points in January to 7.3 percent. In Henderson County, unemployment rose 0..6 percentage points to 4.0 percent. Around 2,300” people in Henderson County remain unemployed.

When Helene wreacked havoc on many of the region’s businesses and public infrastructure in September, Buncombe’s unemployment rate skyrocketed to more than 10.4 percent — the highest in the state at the time. Before the storm, Buncombe’s unemployment rate was — as per its tradition — the lowest in the state.

“As businesses work to reopen in Asheville’s commercial corridors, re-establishing some higher-paying jobs in the hospitality and food and beverage industries may be more difficult, said Nathan Ramsey, executive director of the Land and Sky Regional Council, an economic and community development organization,” the ACT reported.