By Henry
Hurricane Helene destroyed running water, electricity, cell phone, and wifi services in Asheville, North Carolina, original home of the Cherokee. It suspended gasoline supplies and threatened food, shelter, and in many cases caused complete devastation to homes, businesses, beloved parks, and public spaces.
As I talk with fellow residents in a makeshift version of the ice cream shop where I work, one of them exclaims they’ve just found their first hot shower in a week at an emergency station down the road. Due to the destruction from the hurricane, the water system was no longer able to deliver water to our pipes, showers, and sinks.
I was surprised by how quickly emergency shower stations appeared. I couldn’t help but wonder, “If we can get aid to people in the midst of crumbling infrastructure, then why weren’t we doing this before for our unhoused community members, people who have lived this way for years? Why are more vulnerable people treated as less worthy of basic vital services than homeowners and renters?”
Asheville is a city, like many cities, that faces an extraordinary, yet oddly common, homelessness crisis. Our streets, nooks and crannies are strewn with encampments of people surviving, many struggling with mental health issues; addiction, psychosis, transition from incarceration, and lack of family support. Because our shop is a place who greets all with a friendly welcome and open arms, it often serves as a place of refuge for those living on the street and I get to know many unhoused folks’ struggles and stories. They, too, had found these emergency showers.
While many were devastated in this disaster, so many of the unhoused people I know suddenly had an improved quality of life, care they had gone without for years — access to hot showers, hot meals, and essential supplies, and even free therapy on the street. It begs the question: Why isn’t homelessness treated as a crisis in the way that natural disaster is?
I was surprised at how quickly help arrived and touched by how much it impacted the lives of the unhoused people who I am familiar with. The aid given after the storm also provided something beyond physical value: I saw hope and relief melt hung heads and cold nights. For the first time in such a long time, these unhoused people felt cared for. They were reconnected to our community.
And weren’t we all reconnected to our community in that same moment? There is no one in Asheville who has been untouched by this crisis. We came together and fought to care for our immediate needs. Many people in my life have noted how much the efforts of everyone around them personally got them through, physically and emotionally, the darkest days they had seen in a while. We let less fortunate survivors stay in our homes, we showered at friends of friends’ homes, we shared any extra food or water we had with our neighbors, we brought each other gasoline, carpooled, and offered rides. We checked on people’s family members, some hiking miles to inaccessible areas for wellness checks. We even asked strangers if they were okay and had everything they needed. We went out of our way to try to account for everyone. It was the one silver lining to a complete catastrophe. The consensus at that moment was that we hoped to never forget how that connection felt. Remembering still brings tears to my eyes.
After the storm, we now collectively share the experience of both the vulnerability of going without, and the power of community to solve a problem together. We successfully prevented many cases of exposure, malnutrition, dehydration, health consequences due to lack of hygiene, and catastrophic mental health consequences through this epic act of mutual aid. Why stop there? Unhoused people still need access to these critical resources. My hope is that this new awareness can open our hearts to those who have been living without for years.
We must respond, organize, and create systems, whether governmental or social, to ensure every person is accounted for and these basic needs are met, or the homeless crisis will only worsen. May we take our experiences from this disaster and empower ourselves to advocacy and action that will allow unhoused people the same peace that was restored to us so quickly. I know we can do this, but we have a choice: Will we end the suffering for everyone, or just let ourselves take what we need and let things get “back to normal”? What kind of community do you want to live in?