Sorting meat and going up the mountain

Tuesday, March 21st

The answer to “What Percent of Discarded Food is Responsible for Greenhouse Gases?” is C: 8%. 

Our last day of the trip was a lot different than the rest, but helped us get a fuller picture of the realities of poverty and homelessness in Asheville. We began our day at Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry, a faith-based social service organization. They are supported by over 300 local church communities as they seek to provide food and clothing assistance, medical care and referrals to other services to their neighbors throughout the Asheville area. We helped at the crisis center in Arden, less than a mile from the camp where we were staying. We helped sort clothing and shoes and organize their freezers full of meat. Not glamorous work, but necessary to let the staff focus on helping neighbors.

The afternoon brought us to the AHOPE Day Center of Homeward Bound. The Day Center serves as a first stop for those experiencing homelessness and is intentionally a low-barrier center housed in a recently renovated home. And that also means that things were a bit raw there, as people were dealing with active addiction and mental illness and the acute challenges of life on the streets. This certainly wasn’t joyful like the relationship-based work we’d done the past 2 days, but was important to understand the harder parts of navigating homelessness.

We met with Marcus Laws, Homeless Services Director, to get an overview of the center. The AHOPE Center provides showers and nap rooms, serve as a mailing address for those without one, and offer lockers for folks who are unhoused. They also document each person’s experience of homelessness, which is crucial for getting folks into housing, which is their main mission. For things like permanent supportive housing, there needs to be a year of documented homelessness to be eligible. They also offer referrals to folks navigating the system of finding shelter space (but there are only about 200 beds a night, some with significant qualifications needed to get in), medical care and food.

Marcus says there are about 600 folks who come through the center each year, but that is probably less than the total number of folks experiencing homelessness in the area due to an expensive housing market (nearly twice as expensive as the rest of the state.) They are currently renovating a former hotel to provide Permanent Supportive Housing for 85 folks, with medical and case-management services, meals and other supports to support residents. Although it will be much needed, it still won’t be enough given the need in the area.

While we were there, tensions flared between guests, which is seemed was a common occurrence. Marcus said that overdoses were also far too common, as employees walked around with naloxone at the ready. It was a hard place to be, to see so much need and to work with so few resources. We asked Marcus why he does this work and he said for him, this was a ministry. God gave him gifts and he uses them as best he’s able. The light he brought to difficult work was inspiring.

For the rest of the afternoon, some walked around downtown Asheville- looking at art, stopping by the Basilica and winning a free soda at a candy shop. The rest of the group went up a mountain to enjoy the natural beauty that Asheville is well-known for.

We got to skip preparing dinner tonight and instead feasted on pizza for our Last Supper, thanks to a gift from our former Episcopal chaplain at UMBC, who was a part of so many previous Spring Break trips. She knows well how tired we become by the last day and how much of a treat a take-out meal can be!

And we ended the night around the campfire, reflecting on our week, gathering for Night Prayer, and then singing old hymns around the fire, reading words off our cell phones. When we asked students what they’ll be taking back with them from the trip, most of them said the stories of the people they met. And what it felt like to gather with neighbors different than them. And new perceptions of those facing homelessness. They hoped to find ways to stay engaged once they returned- through volunteering or continuing to learn more. And they all hoped to find ways to continue to look past the exterior to get to see their neighbors for who they are.