Craggy Correctional Center to shut down as housing costs bite Asheville

A north Asheville prison built around reentry work, treatment and classes is headed for a shutdown, with state officials saying Craggy Correctional Center will close in late summer 2026 because Asheville’s housing costs have made it difficult to recruit and keep staff near the site.

The North Carolina Department of Adult Correction said the facility’s roughly 250 incarcerated men will be transferred to other prisons over the next few months. The department also said 77 employees will be offered positions elsewhere in the agency, either at other prisons or at work locations in western North Carolina. In Buncombe County, that means the affordability crisis is now reaching deep into one of the region’s most essential public systems.

Craggy is a sizeable operation, not a satellite unit. The state describes it as a male medium- and minimum-custody reentry facility with capacity for 416 men in medium custody and 182 in minimum custody. Its programming includes substance-abuse treatment, counseling, vocational classes, adult education and GED preparation. The current Woodfin and Asheville site opened in 1991, while the older Craggy prison was dedicated in May 1924.

The closure comes after years of staffing strain in Asheville-area prisons. In August 2021, the state temporarily reconfigured two local facilities, moving 25 correctional staff from Swannanoa Correctional Center for Women to Craggy and transferring 64 offenders out of a suspended unit at Swannanoa. That response showed how quickly vacancies can force the system to reshuffle people, posts and housing on short notice.

Statewide staffing data point to a wider problem. North Carolina prison staffing figures cited by NC Health News found that about one in four state prisons had half or more correctional officer positions vacant in December 2025. Craggy’s shutdown, then, is not just a local personnel move. It sits inside a broader labor shortage that has affected prisons across the state.

Buncombe County’s housing market helps explain why recruitment has become so difficult. A 2024 living-wage estimate put the amount needed to comfortably rent a one-bedroom apartment in the county at $22.10 an hour, or about $45,968 a year before tax. County and housing-sector sources continue to describe Buncombe as facing a severe shortage of affordable housing, a pressure that lands hardest on workers who need to live within commuting distance of jobs like corrections, health care and public safety.

Craggy also has already shown how vulnerable the region’s correctional system can be when outside shocks hit. During Hurricane Helene in 2024, state officials moved 248 men from Craggy to Alexander Correctional Institution in Taylorsville. The planned shutdown now raises a different kind of logistics challenge, with inmate transfers, employee placements and the knock-on effects for Woodfin, north Asheville and the surrounding correctional workforce all coming into view at once.