The WNC Desk · Buncombe County
What the county funds for housing and food, and what it turns away
Where the FY2027 budget invests in housing, food, and the safety net, and the requests it leaves unfunded.
Budget adopted June 2, 2026 · Prepared 2026-06-30
Buncombe County's FY2027 budget puts real money into affordable housing, food access, early childhood, and behavioral health. The county also runs a competitive grant process where the requests outrun the money, and the same budget that funds millions in help marks a long line of requests "not recommended for funding." Both halves are the story.
What the county funded — housing
The Affordable Housing Services Program authorized about $13.4 million, paid from a mix of the affordable-housing bond (about $9.9M), the general fund (about $2.3M), money left unallocated in two earlier rounds of the program (about $0.7M), and housing-trust program income. The largest awards:
| Project | Authorized |
|---|---|
| Harmony Housing, Coxe Avenue construction loan | $9,800,000 |
| Urban Atlantic, Ferry Road II senior housing | $1,250,000 |
| Asheville Habitat for Humanity, home repair | $600,000 |
| Asheville Habitat for Humanity, Tried Street construction loan (converts to down-payment assistance at sale) | $500,000 |
| Mountain Housing Opportunities, home repair | $400,000 |
The five largest awards total about $12.55M; the rest of the $13.36M goes to smaller home-repair grants, rental assistance, a shelter expansion, and a land-trust down-payment loan. Separately, the City of Asheville is managing roughly $225M in federal disaster-recovery (CDBG-DR) Helene money, a far larger pool covered in the city brief. Most of it goes to infrastructure and economic recovery; the plan HUD approved in May 2025 set aside $31 million for housing. In June 2026 the council voted to move $10M of the infrastructure money into home repair, pending HUD's approval.
What the county funded — food, the safety net, and education
- Food access: Bounty & Soul ($85,000, food and health equity in post-Helene food deserts), MANNA FoodBank ($85K, "Rooted in the Southside"), Food Connection ($60,000), Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project ($84,975).
- Early childhood education grants: about $4.05M.
- Safety net and behavioral health: about $1.2M (Haywood Street Respite, All Souls Counseling, WNC Community Health, and others).
- Isaac Coleman economic community grants: $500K.
The gap — "not recommended for funding"
The county's grant rounds draw far more in requests than the budget can cover, and the budget book marks many requests "not recommended for funding." A few that went unfunded in the FY2027 round:
- A $75,000 kitchen launch for early-childhood meals (Growing Meals).†
- An $85,000 early-childhood program (Montessori Learning Community).†
† On these figures, and why to read them carefully: the county's grant tables list each request on its own line, and a single organization often files several requests, some funded and some not. So an unfunded line is a verdict on that request, not on the group, and an org-level "they got nothing" reading can be wrong. We removed three organizations from an earlier version of this list after finding each was funded for other work. Tracking many applications per group is genuinely error-prone; we reconciled every figure here against the county's appendix, but treat any single line as "check it against the source."
How to read this honestly
"Not recommended" does not by itself mean the county judged these asks unworthy. Both sit in the county's early childhood grant table; the strategic-partnership round, where a committee scored each application, excludes early-childhood programs. Requests exceed the dollars across the county's grant tables, and in that round the scoring committee recommends which to fund. Even after $13.4M for housing and more than $1.4 million for food and the safety net, the region's nonprofits asked for more than the budget could fund. That gap is where housing and food insecurity lives.
The bottom line
If you want to know what your county dollars do for your neighbors, this is it: millions into housing, food, and the safety net, and a competitive line behind it of requests that did not make the cut. The funded list shows the county's priorities. The unfunded list shows the size of the problem, and where donations, volunteers, and advocacy still have the most room to matter.
Sources: Buncombe County FY2027 Adopted Budget in Brief (affordable-housing authorizations p.30; Strategic Partnership / community-grant appendices) and Annual Funds Budget Ordinance; Buncombe County budget news releases. The $225M figure is the City of Asheville's CDBG-DR allocation (ashevillerecovers.org); the $31 million housing share is from the city's May 2025 announcement that HUD approved its CDBG-DR action plan. Grant amounts are the figures shown in the county budget book; an unfunded line reflects that specific request, not the organization overall. Independent summary; not affiliated with Buncombe County.