Asheville City Council (May 9th meeting) allocation of Community Development Block Grant and HOME Investment Partnerships Program in the Annual Action Plan for Fiscal Year 2023-24 (documents)

The Asheville City Council voted last week to award roughly $3.8 million in federal grant money, supporting a wide range of local programs “to create affordable housing and jobs and to make positive impacts in our low and moderate income communities.”

Reading through the list of organizations receiving funding last week, we noticed that all or almost all of them were white-led groups. We are confident that the City of Asheville would welcome the opportunity to fund more Black-led groups, but aren’t aware of what the City is doing to move in that direction. In past years, the Housing and Community Development (HCD) Committee and City Council emphasized capacity-building for Black-led organizations, so that more of them could apply for and receive this kind of funding. We were curious whether that effort has continued, and in what form. We reached out to HCD Chairperson Sage Turner several times last week, but received no response. We will continue to ask her and her HCD colleagues this question, and would encourage you to do the same.

Follow Up: Community Responder Pilot Program Racial Equity Training

Last month, we raised questions about this pending program, based on a presentation by Asheville Fire Department Assistant Chief Captain Patrick Crudup at a recent Environment and Public Safety meeting. The stated goal of the program is “to focus collective efforts to assist persons that are unsheltered and/or experiencing addiction or experiencing behavioral health issues.” We asked whether the folks being placed in these new positions were going to receive any racial equity training, and if so, how that training would be implemented.

As we reported to you back on April 10th, GAP subscribers received similar responses from Council Members Sandra Kilgore and Maggie Ullman, and also from Chief Crudup, all asserting that the Community Responders would be receiving racial equity training from the City’s Office of Equity and Inclusion. Wanting to know more about the nature of this training, GAP reached out to the Equity and Inclusion Director Brenda Mills for more information on multiple occasions, without success. Last week, we invited you to join us in making this information request, and your efforts paid off. Public Records Officer Allison Byers sent us the results of a public records request from last summer, which included three racial equity training presentations developed by the City. (You can see these documents by clicking on the “documents” tab here.)

We appreciate this response from Ms. Byers, and have reviewed the documents she shared. We still have questions, which we sent to her and Director Mills, and we have yet to hear back. The racial equity trainings that were shared with us appear to be the same ones offered to all City employees. We wonder what additional training the Community Responders have received, since their work as first responders will likely put them in very unique circumstances as they interface with community members of color who are struggling with addiction and/or homelessness. We plan to keep asking Ms. Byers and Mills for a response, and will also reach out to Chief Crudup. We will share what we learn in a future GAP Report.