Last week’s Maggie Valley Board of Aldermen meeting was riddled with complaints from residents of a development on Jonathan Creek Road about an alleged encampment of people in the neighborhood. 

More than 18 months after its creation and just over 12 months since its first meeting, Waynesville’s Task Force on Homelessness finally has some answers on the status of homelessness in Haywood County, and the steps they’d like to take to address it. 

Just days after a local nonprofit asked the Town of Waynesville to help fund emergency overnight stays for the unsheltered, aldermen gave them an answer.

A local nonprofit group has its eyes set on funding that will be distributed to the Town of Waynesville as part of President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan .

A group of concerned citizens conducting a local cleanup effort intended to address the problem of homelessness in Waynesville inadvertently exacerbated the problem when they dismantled an elaborate makeshift residence, and now the man who’s been put out on the streets with nothing but the clothes on his back is pursuing legal action against those who threw away or gave away all of his earthly belongings. 

For more than a decade, groups serving Jackson County’s homeless population have done so on a shoestring and a thin supply of hotel rooms, but the nonprofit currently providing homeless services says the time has come for a dedicated shelter facility. 

Every year, Sylva’s department heads have a chance to tell town commissioners what they need — and what they want — in the next year’s budget. During a Jan. 28 work session, Police Chief Chris Hatton kept his list short and to the point. 

The work groups tasked with assessing different aspects of the Waynesville homelessness situation gave their reports on possible practical solutions for both homeless individuals and the community at large, and there was one  consensus — the pressing need for a low-barrier shelter.

The affordable housing crisis in Western North Carolina isn’t anything new, but it is entering a dangerous new phase due to ever-increasing home values, limited supply and a red-hot real estate market that has refused to use the Coronavirus Pandemic as an excuse to cool down.

During a time when everyone is worried about their health and the health of their loves ones, it can be easy to forget about our most vulnerable populations. One agency is trying to recruit a new ally in the fight against COVID-19 — landlords.