Summary: On Tuesday, July 27, the Asheville City Council will consider adopting a Home Repair Policy and allocating $3 million from the 2024 Affordable Housing Bond for its implementation. The program could help lower-income homeowners address dangerous conditions, accessibility needs, weatherization, and other critical repairs that might otherwise force them from their homes. But staff estimates that the allocation will serve only 68–108 households, while as many as 4,000 Asheville homes may need repairs. Council should approve the program while requiring a transparent selection system, meaningful priority for households at greatest displacement risk, hardship protections, and public reporting on who receives assistance.

The Facts: To qualify, an applicant generally must:

• Have household income at or below 80% of area median income
• Own and occupy the home as a principal residence
• Own no other residence
• Have lived in the home for at least five years, with possible exceptions for Helene damage
• Own a home assessed at no more than $1 million
• Live within Asheville city limits

Manufactured homes would be eligible. Heirs’ property would not automatically disqualify an applicant. (Note: Heirs’ property is a family home or land inherited by multiple relatives without a clear, legally recorded title. This has been a significant source of Black land and home loss, and unclear ownership can prevent families from qualifying for conventional loans or repair programs.) 

The program would prioritize:

• Households at or below 60% AMI.
• Seniors, families with children, and people with disabilities.
• Long-term homeowners facing involuntary displacement.
• Residents of neighborhoods identified as vulnerable to displacement.

Eligible work would include critical health and safety repairs, accessibility modifications, weatherization, energy-efficiency improvements, and emergency repairs.

Assistance would be capped at $40,000. Awards of up to $25,000 would be grants. Larger awards would be structured as zero-interest, deferred loans forgiven by 20% annually over five years.

The City’s earlier $1.465 million repair investment served 52 households. Eighty percent had incomes at or below 50% AMI. Staff estimates that the proposed $3 million allocation could serve approximately 68–108 homes.

Staff recommends approving the policy and allocation. You can read the staff report and proposed resolution here and see the presentation slides here.

Our Assessment: This is an important anti-displacement investment whose equitability will depend almost entirely on implementation.

Repair assistance can help established homeowners remain in appreciating neighborhoods, preserve intergenerational wealth, reduce energy costs, prevent code-enforcement problems, and keep homes safe. Recognition of heirs’ property and manufactured housing is particularly important because those homeowners often encounter barriers in conventional loan and grant programs.

The central problem is scarcity. Even if the City repairs 108 homes, the program will reach less than three percent of the people who may need help. The stated priorities do not explain how applications will be ranked, how competing needs will be compared, or whether assistance will effectively become first-come, first-served. An equitable process is especially important because the households most in need often have more difficulties accessing assistance programs.

Council should require the program to answer several questions before awards begin:

• How will the four priorities be weighted?
• Will households at 30% or 50% AMI receive preference over those at 80%?
• How will the City reach residents who lack internet access or struggle with applications?
• What assistance will be available for heirs’ property, title problems, disability access, and language needs?
• What hardship rules will apply if a homeowner dies, becomes ill, or must move during the five-year forgiveness period?
• Does a repair costing slightly more than $25,000 turn the entire award into a loan, or only the amount above $25,000?
• Will applicants receive written reasons for adverse decisions and a simple, timely appeals process to correct errors involving eligibility, priority, ownership, income, or eligible repairs?
• Will results be reported by race, income, age, disability, neighborhood, and type of repair?

The Affordable Housing Advisory Committee recommended making occupancy by a senior, family with children, or person with a disability an eligibility requirement. Staff instead retained that as a priority for consideration, but not a requirement. Council should publicly discuss that choice and establish a selection process that does not reduce “priority” to an unenforceable aspiration.

The program also excludes renters, even though deteriorating rental housing can produce displacement through unsafe conditions, condemnation, rehabilitation-related rent increases, or removal from the market. This policy need not solve that separate problem, but Council should identify what strategies will.

Council should approve the funding while requiring transparent selection rules, hardship protections, accessible outreach, and regular reporting.

Things to do: Use the email template above (combined with the one addressing the anti-displacement resolution) to ask Council to approve home-repair funding while strengthening the program’s selection rules, protections, and accountability.

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