Asheville expands police patrols in public housing, seeks round-the-clock coverage

Asheville City Council approved a new agreement Monday that will put supplemental Asheville Police Department officers in public housing neighborhoods around the clock, a step officials tied directly to resident fears at Pisgah View Apartments and other Housing Authority of the City of Asheville properties.

The memorandum of understanding authorizes APD personnel to patrol HACA sites using overtime, and the council paired it with a $33,000 budget amendment for revenue tied to the deal. A later report said the overtime arrangement could cost as much as $200,000 a year, underscoring how expensive the new coverage could become if the city keeps it in place.

Interim Chief Jackie Stepp said APD previously had a team dedicated to public housing, but the department lost 152 officers between 2020 and 2024 and had to suspend that program. Stepp said the city plans to relaunch a full-time public housing team this summer, with the overtime patrols filling the gap until then.

Housing Authority of the City of Asheville President and CEO Ella Santos said the push came after HACA surveyed residents and heard repeated concerns about safety and security. City officials cast the partnership as both a crime-fighting measure and a trust-building effort in neighborhoods where public housing residents have long said police attention has come and gone.

Pisgah View Apartments has been one of the clearest pressure points. Residents and staff there described shootings, drug activity and wider safety fears, and APD Deputy Chief Sean Aardema said some parents had told officers their children were sleeping on the floor because they were afraid of gunfire. A site manager said families needed a safe place to be outside and enjoy the community, a basic expectation that the new patrol plan is meant to restore.

The agreement fits into a longer Asheville debate over whether more visible policing can reduce violence in public housing, and what it takes to sustain that presence. In August 2024, APD Chief Mike Lamb said there was a nexus between violent crime and public housing, while also noting that three of Asheville’s seven homicides at that point had happened in public housing complexes. Reporting from the same period said a police substation in Hillcrest closed in the late 1980s, a sign of how public housing patrols have risen and fallen with funding over decades.

The issue has stayed active into this spring. APD said calls for gun violence at public housing complexes continued to increase even as citywide gun violence fell 8% from 2023, and officers recovered 24 shell casings after shots were fired at Pisgah View Apartments in March. For Buncombe County, the question now is whether Asheville’s new 24/7 footprint can do more than reassure tenants, and whether the city can afford to keep it staffed.