Asheville debates proposed encampment ban, tougher drug zones

A proposed state law could move Asheville’s encampment fight from cleanup crews to criminal penalties. House Bill 437 would create drug-free homeless service zones and raise punishment for certain drug offenses inside them, a shift supporters say would make parks, sidewalks and other public spaces safer while critics warn it would push unhoused people farther from help.

The bill, titled the Drug-Free Homeless Service Zones Act, passed the North Carolina House 76-36 on April 15, 2025 after being filed in March 2025. A committee substitute would make some manufacturing, sale, delivery or intent-to-sell drug offenses a Class E felony when the person knows or reasonably should know they are in one of those zones, and the measure remained active in the Senate during the 2025-26 session.

In Asheville, the debate lands in a city where 755 people were counted as homeless in Buncombe County in 2025, including 328 who were unsheltered, a 50% jump from 2024. The count also found 116 people who said they were homeless because of Tropical Storm Helene, underscoring how storm damage and a long-running housing shortage have collided on the same sidewalks, park spaces and transit-adjacent areas that neighbors already see every day.

City and county leaders have spent the last year reorganizing the response. The Asheville-Buncombe Continuum of Care, the community’s formal planning body for homelessness, was reestablished on Feb. 29, 2024 and later grew to 452 members in its first year. That overhaul followed 2023 recommendations from the National Alliance to End Homelessness, as officials tried to build a system that could handle both housing placement and street outreach. Asheville police also rolled out a downtown plan that prioritizes repeat offenders and pairs enforcement with support services, including police-fire co-response and behavioral health and substance-use help through Vaya Health.

That is where House Bill 437 could hit first. Nearby residents and businesses that have pressed for more visible action around open drug use, vandalism and disorder would likely welcome a tougher tool, while outreach groups and unhoused people say the first result could be displacement, with tents and sleeping bags pushed from one block or park to another instead of into stable housing. Shelter capacity remains tight: for the 2025-26 winter season, Buncombe County’s winter shelter ran through March 31, 2026, Code Purple could be activated through April 30, 2026, and Safe Shelter said its winter setup included 10 beds for women and 40 beds for men. In a county still absorbing Helene’s housing damage, the bill would test whether Asheville can enforce its public spaces policy without simply moving the crisis out of view.