‘We’re at a crisis:’ Asheville service workers demand action on unaffordable rent prices

By Kimberly King

Click here for updates on this story

    BUNCOMBE COUNTY, North Carolina (WLOS) — Service workers from Asheville’s tourism industry spoke before the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority Board Wednesday, Jan. 25.

Those who spoke Wednesday shared personal examples of the inability to afford a decent place to live, echoing what many Ashevillians have expressed for years about the way millions of dollars from the city’s hotel tax are spent mostly on advertising to bring in more tourists.

A new fund called the Legacy Investment from Tourism (LIFT) is earmarked to go towards improving Asheville’s infrastructure and other projects deemed vital to sustain what continues to be the precarious balancing act between locals’ quality of life and affordability versus the tourist demand.

“Last year, I was forced to move out of my one-bedroom apartment into a two-bedroom apartment with a roommate,” said Carli Schwartz, who spoke on behalf of Asheville Beverage and Food United.

“I, myself, live in a situation in public housing, in a building that is so infested with bugs, I have to keep all of my dishes and cutlery in the refrigerator,” said Jen Hampton, who works at Ben’s Tune-Up and has worked in Asheville’s service industry for decades. She and others are speaking out, calling on leaders to continue to focus on the service industry workers who can’t afford Asheville’s rents.

The seven members and representatives from the service industry watched the new TV spots Explore Asheville produced. One promotes Asheville in 2023 as a city to put on one’s bucket list. The ads will run in global markets to entice tourists to book trips.

“Asheville is already on people’s bucket list,” one of the seven people who spoke to the TDA board.

“It’s clear we’re at a crisis,” said Ben Williamson, an organizer for advocacy group Buncombe Decides. “We’re talking about sending two-thirds of our TDA revenue to marketing.”

The LIFT fund is expected to get $7 million in 2023 from a cut of the lodging tax revenues. Workers who spoke Wednesday are lobbying for that money to go to build denser, realistically smaller, affordable rental units.

“The scarcity here, in part, is caused by the added demand that comes from tourism and marketing,” said Andrew Paul, organizer for Asheville for All.

Hampton said, more and more, people are moving into the city from out-of-state with the ability to afford properties that local workers can no longer afford.

“So many people moving here with money and able to buy up all the properties,” said Hampton.

“We want the tourists to keep coming,” said Hampton, who loves her job working in the hospitality industry in Asheville. But she like other workers are struggling with the cost of living and she sees workers migrating, along with locals who came to Asheville to be part of its unique community of often eccentric creatives choosing mountain life.

Hampton, along with others who have spoken with News 13 about the city’s changes, said she feels Asheville is, in some ways, losing its essence of the groovy earthy town it once was.

“What I’m seeing is all these outlying cities and towns — they’re starting to become what Asheville used to be,” she said.

Vic Isley, CEO for Explore Asheville, responded with a statement to News 13 following the TDA’s meeting Wednesday:

“As a public authority, the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority provides the opportunity for public comments at its board meetings and welcomed input from several community members in its meeting this morning. Last week at The Year Ahead event, the Tourism Development Authority awarded its annual Superstar awards to Congressman Chuck Edwards, Senator Julie Mayfield, and Senator Warren Daniel for their bi-partisan support of making changes to the Buncombe County lodging tax legislation. Long before the pandemic, local hotel leaders, Buncombe County Commissioners, and our local state delegation advocated for a change in lodging tax allocation, increasing investment in community capital projects, and decreasing funding for the promotion of Asheville and Buncombe County to visitors. The bi-partisan bill filed on June 1, 2022, by Senators Chuck Edwards, Warren Daniel, and Julie Mayfield passed and became law on July 1, changing the lodging tax split from three-quarters to be invested in tourism promotion and one-quarter for community capital projects, to a split of two-thirds/one-third, increasing investment for community capital projects. For those who think that might have been an easy feat, lodging tax had not been moved as a subject matter since 2017, and Buncombe County was one of only three counties whose lodging tax changes passed the North Carolina General Assembly last session. Explore Asheville and the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority are grateful for the steadfast leadership of then-Senator, now Congressman Chuck Edwards, in shepherding the Buncombe County lodging tax changes through Raleigh. The teamwork demonstrated by filing the initial bill with Senators Daniel and Mayfield, as well as the support of local hotel leaders and the entire local delegation, was heartening. The changes enable additional investment in capital projects for our community. Establishing the Legacy Investment from Tourism (LIFT) Fund creates new avenues to invest lodging tax dollars in more community efforts, including Financial investment through grants for tourism-related capital projects, including capital maintenance and project administration, design, restoration, maintenance, and rehabilitation, as well as enhancement of natural resources and expansion of necessary infrastructure. Policies and guidelines are being established for the LIFT fund this year. The Explore Asheville and BCTDA team implemented these changes in its current fiscal year, and we look forward to more positive impacts this additional investment will have in our community for years to come. In this fiscal year, the tourism development authority is forecasting roughly $12 million dollars between the Tourism Product Development Fund (TPDF) and LIFT fund.”

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.