Residents worried about trash piles, safety as homeless camp grows in North Carolina

By Kimberly King

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    ASHEVILLE, North Carolina (WALA) — Another homeless camp is growing in Asheville, this one along the French Broad River Greenway.

Homeowners on Riverview Drive in West Asheville said they’ve reached out to Duke Energy repeatedly over the last few months, trying to get the power company to do something about the homeless camp that has been growing along a flat ridge on the utility’s property. The camp is visible from the River Arts District.

“See all the trash,” said Cory Marcon, who lives on Riverview Drive across from the path that goes to the encampment. “There’s another big trash pile over on the other side, and then in between are all the tents.”

Marcon bought his home on Riverview Drive four years ago. He said the camp has grown larger in the last six months to a year.

”It’s started to accelerate in terms of just how many camps are concentrated at the top of the cliff. I saw two kind of undercover guys come in here and arrest somebody, but it was all very peaceful,” Marcon said.

That happened a few weeks ago. Marcon isn’t concerned about crime, which he said he hasn’t seen tied to the camp. But Marcon and his neighbor Mark Rosenstein want Duke to address large stretches of trash along and around the ridge where the encampment is.

“They set a huge fire burning trash,” Rosenstein said.

He said he called Duke and was routed to public affairs and never got a return call.

“They shouldn’t be penalized for being homeless,” Marcon said. “But they should be penalized for excessive accumulation, whether they’re shopping carts or clothes or trash.”

Marcon wants Duke to provide a dumpster and allow area residents to help clean up the area.

A homeowner who lives directly above the homeless camp said she’s called Asheville Police Department’s non-emergency number repeatedly during the past year. She said police have been responsive, but she is still worried about her children playing in the family’s backyard with the camp only 500 yards down the ridge.

A spokesman for Duke Energy said the company is working with the city to address the camp, which is on property the utility is leasing to the city. The city is working on a greenway below it and along the French Broad River.

“The city has been messaging about this situation since March of this year,” city of Asheville communications specialist Polly McDaniel wrote in an email. “As you can see from reading the information, this is now an active construction site for a greenway. The city has done extensive outreach through the Street Coordinator positions the city funds, who are employed at Homeward Bound. They go into the camps and provide information about resources, also convey information about the need to move. The city has done extensive outreach to the people in this encampment area explaining that they must move, that this is a construction zone. However, sometimes when people are moved, they return, or others move into the area.”

McDaniel didn’t say why the city has allowed the encampment to remain open, while clearing other encampments in the city over the past year.

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