Buncombe County & WNC · The shared root of two crises

Two Shortages, One Budget

Housing and hunger get counted, funded, and debated as separate problems. They aren't. They're the same gap between what people earn and what they're charged, surfacing in two different places at the bottom of one overstretched market.

By Step Up AVL · stepupavl.org

Same cause. Two symptoms. One fix.

The housing side

When the gap shows up as a roof

824people counted as homeless in Buncombe County, 2026 point-in-time count, a known undercount, pushed higher by Helene.

+9%rise in an area's homelessness rate with each $100 increase in its median rent, on average nationally from 2012 to 2018 (GAO, 2020). The GAO measured an association with rent, not a cause; its model used community-level factors and could not include mental health.

389emergency cold-weather shelter stays at one Asheville day center in a single month (Dec. 2025), on nights too cold to be outside.

The food side

When the gap shows up as a plate

220k+monthly pantry visits across 16 WNC counties and the Qualla Boundary as of mid-2026, which MANNA FoodBank calls the highest level of need in its more than four decades.

~40%increase in monthly pantry visits across the same area over MANNA's pre-Helene count, by its own figures.

25kBuncombe residents on SNAP as of July 2026 (NCDHHS): the benefit delayed in November 2025 when federal funding stalled.

The thing they have in common

The household skipping meals this month and the one losing its home next month are often the same household. And almost always the same income, doing the same impossible subtraction. The 2024 storm tightened both at once: fewer homes, emptier shelves, longer lines. Two shortages, drawn from one budget.

One shortfall funded as two costs more and fixes less. Treat it as one, and the same investment works both sides.

Affordable housing and a livable margin at the bottom of the wage scale close the gap on both sides at once: fewer people falling out of housing, fewer joining the pantry line. Nothing about this shortfall is permanent, and what we choose to spend on can close it.

Will YOU step up?

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