ASHEVILLE – The floodwaters receded, but Western North Carolina’s affordable housing crisis has not.
“It’s hard. It’s super hard,” Maryjo Tucker told the Citizen Times Sept. 9. “I have car problems, and it’s hard to save up for a deposit or even a down payment to buy a home. I have co-workers whose rent is more than they make a month, so they have to get a second job. I don’t know what it was like to live in Asheville before Helene, but I think it must be way harder now.”
More than 7,000 households entered the state’s repair program, fewer than 100 projects were complete by early summer and hundreds of storm-damaged properties are being considered for permanent removal from the housing market. Those losses are piling onto a regional shortage estimated to be more than 30,000 homes.
Can’t find my way home
Tucker was sleeping in her car when her dog woke her before dawn Sept. 27, 2024. She heard a splash when he jumped out. Water was already at the car door. Tucker had just arrived in Asheville — EMT license in hand — and was preparing to move into a place near Swannanoa. With floodwater rising fast, she began driving and at one point chose to turn right toward the Asheville Mall parking lot, rather than left toward Swannanoa. The rental she was moving into was destroyed…