Complaints are being voiced by residents, business-owners and tourists about the proliferation of homelessness and panhandling that has transformed Asheville, long-known as the “Paris of the South,” to  “Trasheville,” and triggering justified concerns about a likely jump in crime and public safety.

The problem especially is evident in and around downtown, but, like a spider web, it spans out in every direction, including busy thoroughfares just outside the city limits.

As one worried Asheville native — speaking on the condition of anonymity —  told the Daily Planet, “It is just a problem — we have too many problem homeless people. And we have too many panhandlers.”

What’s more, our source, who has been a long-time observer of Asheville, added,  “The problem isn’t local homeless. It is people coming from other places who are the chronic homeless.”

Indeed, members of this newspaper who have traveled recently to surrounding communities (that also could be considered rivals for visitors) have agreed that they rarely — if ever — see people in those nearby cities that appear to be homeless or panhandlers.

The rivals to Asheville that we visited include nearby neighbor Hendersonville, as well as Greenville, S.C., and Spartanburg, S.C.

In each of the three cities, we (known Ashevillians) asked a few residents — on a casual basis — where their homeless people and panhandlers were ... and every single one laughed and said their cities discouraged such people from hanging around.

So they “sent them” — or the homeless and panhandlers traveled on their own —  to Asheville, where, it is widely known throughout the region, if not the nation, that they would be welcomed with open arms.

Those we spoke with also said they had heard about (or seen) Asheville acting as an “enabler,” giving them three square meals a day, a room at the Ramada, free medical care (including free needles for illegal drug use) — and that the virtue-signaling residents will hand them free cash for no work (and with no questions asked) at every intersection.   

Plus, it must be said that most of those with whom we spoke said that they used to love to visit Asheville, when it was a safe, clean and happy place, but they rarely if ever visit any more because of the widely reported jump in crime and other problems.

Moreover, we hear from busines-owners, who have shared examples of the homeless defecating on neighboring property, sleeping on the premises, and intimidating customers.

To resolve the problem, we think Asheville needs to stop — at once — enabling the bad behavior by its proliferating homeless folks and panhandlers by axing the taxpayer-paid “benefits.” Further, the city needs start sending those from elsewhere back to the city they left to make Asheville their new home.