On a rainy Wednesday morning, dozens of people piled into Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in North Asheville. Many came on a word of mouth recommendation: the church would help them pay overdue rent and utility bills.
Jefferson Bravo, a handyman, heard the news from a friend and came to the church for assistance.
“The storm took away the little savings we had,” Bravo said. “A friend who had already come here told me that [the church] was providing food, clothing, and all that, along with help with rent. So I had to come.”
Bravo applied for the rent relief program to cover his October rent at his home in the Deno Mobile Home Park in West Asheville with his wife and two children. Ten days later, he got a call that his application was successful.
While he waited at the church, he perused a collection of free supplies. He grabbed paper towels, applesauce pouches and some anti-itch spray for his dog.
After about half an hour of supply shopping, a volunteer handed Bravo his check for $1,100 – enough money to cover all of the rent he missed in October. Bravo smiled in relief.
A ‘relational model’ helps lower some bills
Grace Covenant’s rapid rent relief program has paid nearly $600,000 in overdue rent and energy bills since the storm hit – and will continue to do so for as long as it can, the church’s pastor Marcia Mount Shoop told BPR.
The low-barrier program receives most of its funding from the “pastor’s discretionary fund,” which Mount Shoop is allowed to distribute at her own discretion, she explained. The program operates without much of the bureaucracy that burdens other assistance programs.
“When somebody comes here to Grace Covenant, we're asking for their name, their address, their phone number and their landlord’s name and address,” she said.
Residents do not need to be legal citizens to receive assistance, and there are translators available to help serve Spanish speakers.
“It’s a very relational model. We call the landlord and talk to them personally and say, ‘Is there anything you can do to work with us? Are you willing to discount the rent and waive late fees? Are you willing to waive late fees?” Mount Shoop said.
READ MORE: After Helene damaged thousands of homes, renters are still evicted
Not every landlord will waive late fees or negotiate with the volunteers, but some do, Mount Shoop said.
“There's so many great people out there that are now like our friends, you know, that are working with us,” she said.
Other landlords, particularly the more corporate offices, can be more difficult to work with, she said.
“They’re not taking anything less than the full amount. They’re not waiving late fees in November and they’re moving forward with evictions.”
Service industry workers make up a large portion of the people that volunteer Jasmine Moore sees seeking rental assistance. An estimated 12,000 people have filed for unemployment in Buncombe County alone, BPR previously reported.
“A lot of the folks here are the folks that worked at restaurants that were destroyed,” she said. “A woman came in this morning seeking assistance because the hotel that she worked at downtown is not going to reopen until January. And she came with an eviction notice.”
Jen Hampton, a representative of Asheville Food and Beverage United, said that she surveyed 100 service industry workers in the area. Of those surveyed, 75% are currently unemployed, she said.
Marta Segura spoke to BPR while she was waiting in line for help. After losing her job as a cleaner, she sought $1,500 in rental assistance. Around the same time that she lost her job, her car also broke down, forcing her to pay for daily transportation.
The church put her on a list to receive some help.
“I feel very grateful,” she said. “It's a great help for families who have lost their homes and can't afford rent.”
The operation is ‘on a razor’s edge’
Unlike governmental agencies, Grace Covenant can operate quickly, getting funds to residents before eviction proceedings progress.
While the City of Asheville and Buncombe County have allocated several millions in rent relief, the distribution requires more reporting and processes required to distribute that money. Most of those funds – $1.5 million from Buncombe and $1 million from Asheville – are still getting finalized and won’t be available until early December.
Funds are limited at the church which has an annual budget of $1.2 million. Mount Shoop said they rely primarily on donations to continue the work.
“We're on a razor's edge every day,” Mount Shoop said. “We're trusting in God's economy that somehow we're going to get what we need.”
“We're on a razor's edge every day,” she said. As soon as the church gets money, “it’s gone out the door,” she said. “We're trusting in God's economy that somehow we're going to get what we need.”
Some relief is on the way. This week, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners voted to allocate money to the church for rapid rent response.
The public funds will be managed differently than the pastor’s fund, Mount Shoop said. Only families who make 80% of the Area Median Income or less will be eligible to receive them – and they will have more rigorous reporting requirements.
An eviction moratorium is necessary, community leaders say
As long as money keeps flowing in, relief organizations like Grace Covenant and nonprofits like Eblen Charities will continue to write checks to cover the rent. But Mount Shoop said she worries if programs like hers will be enough to stop evictions in Buncombe County.
She has been “begging” the governor’s office for an eviction moratorium, she said.
Mount Shoop is not alone. In an open letter to state leadership, more than 400 elected officials, faith leaders, business representatives and community organizers pleaded for “an immediate eviction/foreclosure moratorium for 90 days and adequate rental assistance from the state of North Carolina.” Signees included elected officials from Buncombe, Watauga, Rutherfordton, McDowell, Henderson, Transylvania and Jackson counties.
READ MORE: City says it supports an eviction moratorium
So far, the requests have yielded no results. Since Helene hit, the NC General Assembly has only allocated $1 million in rental assistance for the entire region, NC Health News reported. The latest so-called relief bill passed by the General Assembly includes zero funding for rental assistance.
“The scope and scale of this disaster is unfathomable. We need more time. I don't understand why we can't do that,” Mount Shoop said, her voice choking up.
Mount Shoop was brought to tears considering the consequences of inaction.
“The scope and scale of this disaster is unfathomable. We need more time. I don't understand why we can't do that,” Mount Shoop said, her voice choking up.
“There's nobody here that wants to not pay landlords. We want everybody to be able to stay in business and get our economy back going. But if you're going to lose a whole sector of the workforce because they can't live here and they don't have housing, that's not good for our economy.”
Gerard Albert III contributed to this report.
