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Our Programs

How we prevent and end homelessness in our community
AHOPE Center from Homeward Bound WNC

Homeless Services

Homeward Bound meets people where they are –treating all neighbors with value and dignity. Homeless Services provide empathetic, respectful support while helping individuals access safe housing, stability, and the resources they need to exit homelessness. The goal is not to change who someone is, but to remove barriers and create clear pathways to housing and stability.
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AHOPE Day Center

AHOPE Day Center

Asheville Homeless Outreach Project for Empowerment (AHOPE)

Nearly everyone experiencing homelessness in our community comes through AHOPE. It serves as a starting point for finding housing and a central hub for information, connection, and support. What makes AHOPE effective is our trained, compassionate, and nonjudgmental staff, who are skilled in diversion, harm reduction, motivational interviewing, and Homeward Bound’s case management standards.

Services at AHOPE include showers, bathrooms, lockers, mail receipt, coffee, food, clothing and hygiene items, case management, and access to housing resources.

Outreach Services Volunteers

Outreach Services

Outreach Services brings support directly into the community, connecting one-on-one with people living unsheltered. Our trained teams build trust over time while helping individuals access medical care, mental health and substance use services, emergency shelter, and pathways to permanent housing.

Through our Library In-Reach program, we also support individuals and families experiencing housing instability. Services include case management, housing navigation, coordinated entry access, assistance with IDs and benefits, resource connections, and advocacy.

We also work alongside community members and businesses, offering guidance and tools to support people experiencing unsheltered homelessness with care and respect.

Coordinated Entry Program Participant

Coordinated Entry

Homeward Bound partners with the Asheville-Buncombe Continuum of Care to provide Coordinated Entry services, which help ensure people experiencing homelessness are connected to the most appropriate housing resources. This process includes diversion, housing assessments, verification of homelessness and disabilities, and referral into available housing programs.

Before assessments begin, our team works with individuals to explore immediate, problem-solving options that may resolve their housing crisis more quickly.

Using the Vulnerability Index-Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool (VI-SPDAT), our intake team assesses each person’s level of need. This helps prioritize those most vulnerable and match them with housing interventions based on eligibility and availability.

Housing Services

Just as no two people experience homelessness the same way, no two people follow the same path out of homelessness. The one commonality of people experiencing homelessness in the need for safe, stable, and affordable housing.
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Permanent Supportive Housing location showing library, sitting area, and computer space for residents

Permanent Supportive Housing

Our Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) program provides safe, stable homes paired with supportive services to highly vulnerable, chronically homeless individuals. These individuals typically need a higher level of care due to the length of their homeless experience and complex, long-term health conditions, including physical disabilities, mental illness, and substance use disorder, and they often need extra support to remain in housing.

At Homeward Bound, PSH includes our Scattered Site program, which houses people across Buncombe County, and long-term residences at Homeward Bound’s Key Commons and Compass Point Village. Key Commons is a small apartment community with 13 units. Compass Point Village converted a local motel into 85 units for our community’s most vulnerable individuals, offering on-site medical and behavioral health services, case management, substance abuse peer support, and more.

  • Our Properties: 
    • Compass Point Village: 85 studio apartments
    • Key Commons: 12 apartments
  • Scattered Site through landlord partnerships

Homelessness Prevention

Homelessness Prevention (HP) is designed to help individuals and families remain stably housed and avoid entering homelessness in the first place. Because the impacts of losing housing can be long-lasting and difficult to overcome, our team intervenes early to prevent evictions by covering rental arrears, assisting with utility payments, and working alongside households to stabilize their housing for the long term.

Rapid Rehousing

Rapid Rehousing (RRH) provides short-term rental assistance and supportive case management services to people experiencing or at risk of homelessness. Unlike Permanent Supportive Housing, which provides long-term assistance, the goal of Rapid Rehousing (RRH) is to help community members secure housing quickly, stabilize, and increase their ability to maintain housing independently. Homeward Bound can provide rental assistance for up to two years, but many clients successfully graduate from the program within 6 to 12 months of entry.

Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF)

Supportive Services for Veteran Families, funded by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, offers Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Rehousing services to Veterans and their families. This includes:

  • Temporary financial assistance (rent, utilities, deposits) to help Veterans secure or retain permanent, stable housing
  • Individualized needs assessment and housing stability plan that includes specific goals toward securing and retaining stable housing
  • Assistance in searching for and applying for housing in Buncombe County, and move‐in support
  • Linking to community resources for individual needs

Housing Placement & Landlord Partnership Program

Our Housing Placement & Landlord Partnership program offers a full supportive staff to partner with private landlords (including individual property owners, large developers, and property management groups) in the community to house hundreds of clients in both our Permanent Supportive Housing and Rapid Rehousing programs.
Learn more about our Landlord Partnerships

Welcome Home Donation Center

The Welcome Home Donation Center ensures each client moving into housing with Homeward Bound receives full furnishings and household items, donated by our community.