Asheville Housing · At a Glance

Same Federal Promise. Different Money.

Two HUD-subsidized buildings, both housing low-income residents. One was just gut-renovated; the other is stuck in a national repair backlog of about $169 billion. The difference is the funding stream each one can tap, and how much repair money the public has actually put in.

By Step Up AVL · stepupavl.org

Battery Park

Public Housing

Who it houses

Low-income seniors (age 62+)

Families and individuals, all ages

Ownership

Nonprofit-owned (National Church Residences)

Publicly owned (usually a local public housing agency)

How it gets federal money

Project-based Section 8 + Low-Income Housing Tax Credits

HUD Operating Fund + Capital Fund

Can it raise private capital?

Yes: a Freddie Mac loan refinanced it in 2023

Rarely: federal grants are its main source of repair money

Recent investment

$17.6M Freddie Mac recap loan (2023); ~$13.4M set aside to renovate all 122 units

National repair backlog $169.1B; ~$3.2B/yr Capital Fund; ~10,000 units/yr lost to demolition or sale (HUD, 2010 est.)

Condition today

Recapitalized in 2023, with its renovation funded

Deferred repairs nationwide

These are legal categories, not descriptions. All are defined, with the governing law where one applies, in Words the Agencies Use.

Capital dollars per unit

Money set aside to rebuild vs. money still needed to catch up, shown for scale, not like-for-like.

Battery Park: set aside per unit (2023)≈ $110,000

U.S. public housing: needed per unit just to catch up≈ $188,090

Battery Park's figure is what was set aside to fix it; the national figure is the average estimated repair need per public-housing unit. One building got its money; the public housing system is still waiting for its share.

The point

One building got its roughly $110,000 a unit. The wider system needs an estimated $188,000 a unit to preserve, and in 2010 was losing about 10,000 homes a year to demolition or disposition. The difference was never the residents; it is which financing platform a building sits on, and how much repair money the public chooses to spend.

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