Asheville completes sale of Ramada Inn for veteran, homeless housing

ASHEVILLE - The city's sale of a Ramada Inn to be converted into 100 permanent supportive housing units, specifically focused on housing homeless veterans and the chronically homeless is now complete.

The motel at 148 River Ford Parkway in East Asheville, was purchased by Shangri-La Industries, Inc., on Sept. 15 for $9.75 million, according to Asheville's Community and Economic Development Director Nikki Reid. The rooms will be converted into studio apartments and are in the final stages of design, with construction set to begin early next year, Reid said.

"It means that is 100 people who are currently homeless in our community that will no longer be homeless. That is a really significant impact," Asheville's Homeless Strategy Division Manager, Emily Ball, told the Citizen Times.

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According to Asheville's point-in-time count in January, 637 people were identified as homeless while 232 were identified as unsheltered, meaning they have nowhere to go and live outside. With this project and Homeward Bound's Days Inn renovation on Tunnel Road, approximately 185 new units of permanent supportive housing will be available in the coming months.

"The staff at Homeward Bound are excited about additional permanent supportive housing in Buncombe County, and we support initiatives that will end homelessness for our neighbors who are living unhoused," Senior Resource Development Director at Homeward Bound Eleanor Ashton told the Citizen Times.

Shangri-La has partnered with the nonprofit Step Up on Second Street, Inc., to manage the property and provide onsite supportive services to new residents once the renovations are complete, according to the news release. Last December, City Council approved $1.5 million to fund the first three years of supportive services, according to past Citizen-Times reporting.

“Housing ends homelessness, and ending homelessness is our #1 goal,” Ball said in a news release. “We’re excited to welcome an experienced partner to our community’s homeless service system and grateful to have this new solution coming soon.”

Permanent supportive housing is different than the transitional housing of homeless shelters because it does not set a time limit on how long people can stay, Ball said.

"Creating this dedicated housing capacity in our community for folks who might otherwise have a difficult time getting into permanent housing on their own, that's the goal of these projects," Ball said.

The city's goal is to have a "diverse portfolio of housing interventions across the community" because different people have different housing needs, Ball said. Transitional housing and permanent housing, she said, respond to two different segments of the homeless population.

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According to Ball, the city partners with many organizations, not just shelters or housing projects, with the goal of ending homelessness. To do this, the city facilitates collaboration between these partners, such as healthcare providers and Goodwill for employment support, which Ball said will include Step Up on Second Street when the site is up and running.

The inn previously served as a "crisis response" homeless shelter until it closed in March, sending some homeless residents back onto the street, according to Citizen-Times reporting. The city originally planned to convert the inn into a low-barrier homeless shelter but abandoned plans last December after stakeholders were unable to come to a consensus about the project, past Citizen-Times reporting shows.

Christian Smith is a general assignment reporter for the Asheville Citizen-Times. He can be reached at 828-274-2222 or at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville Ramada Inn to be converted into 100 permanent housing units