Opinion: If you witness a homeless ‘dropoff' should you call the cops? Or is that heartless? • Asheville Watchdog

I knew this one would stir up a hornets' nest. On Aug. 27, Kenilworth resident Polly McDaniel posted this on the Asheville Politics Facebook page: 'Around 7:30 tonight, as I was going down Kenilworth Knolls, there were four cars in the old O'Charleys parking lot, unloading homeless people and all their luggage. I saw it with my own eyes. I called the APD non-emergency number and requested assistance immediately. I understand they responded. Maybe we can get to the bottom of who is bringing these people in. I did not want to believe that this is true. But it is. People are bringing the homeless into Asheville.' I immediately thought, 'Brace yourself, Polly!' Sure enough, the storm of comments came quickly, some suggesting that this has been going on for years and it's not exactly news, but a lot more folks lambasting McDaniel for assuming the people were homeless and then calling the cops on them. They suggested, in so many words, that maybe this is not exactly what folks in this situation need. I should note that McDaniel is a friend of mine, as we worked together at the Citizen Times for years before McDaniel became the city of Asheville spokesperson for a half-decade. In that role she helped answer a lot of questions for my Answer Man column. So I know her pretty well. While she's certainly opinionated and a little excitable on occasion, McDaniel is not an unreasonable person. In fact, she's been concerned about the homeless situation in Asheville for years, as well as the decline of the Tunnel Road corridor, which adjoins the Kenilworth neighborhood. She is participating in the Tunnel Road Corridor Coalition, a group of homeowners and business owners trying to address public safety along the corridor, which is in east Asheville.. I don't think she had bad intentions in calling the police, particularly as McDaniel noted later in the comments that she requested assistance from the Resource and Engagement Support Team (REST) affiliated with the Asheville Fire Department. 'I know it's not against the law to be homeless or addicted,' McDaniel told me in a phone interview. 'But it's a bad situation for the people involved, and it's bad for the community.' McDaniel told me she couldn't tell what age the people were, and she did not stop because she was by herself. She did say that a friend of hers saw a similar scenario unfold the next day at the former Black Dome store on Tunnel Road involving people being dropped off with luggage, a group that left a lot of trash behind. Do homeless people get dropped off here? Did McDaniel make some assumptions here? Absolutely. Were they incorrect? It's hard to know. Does Asheville have a serious homelessness problem that's complicated by mental illness and drug abuse? Without a doubt. Homelessness keeps getting worse here, and the Tunnel Road corridor, along with downtown and West Asheville, have become focal points, although the problem appears in all quadrants of the city. The former Mountaineer Inn, which has been vacant for years, was a long-time problem spot on the Tunnel Road corridor until recently, when the city forced a cleanup. // Watchdog photo by John Boyle As we reported in June in a story about Tunnel Road problems, the Asheville-Buncombe Continuum of Care's annual point-in-time count, conducted in February, showed a 9.1 percent increase in the overall homeless population compared to early 2025. The number of unsheltered residents climbed from 219 to 334. I also wrote about Tunnel Road's woes back in February. With McDaniel's call, Asheville Police Department spokesperson Rick Rice said APD did initially receive the call but turned it over to the Asheville Fire Department's REST team. Trey Young, division chief of emergency management with the Asheville Fire Department, said through a department spokesperson that after McDaniel made her call, REST units were on the scene within five minutes. REST firefighters saw six people along Kenilworth Knolls Road but didn't observe anyone being dropped off. The folks 'left the area shortly after the team arrived, before REST personnel could make contact,' Young said. The notion of homeless people being dropped off in Asheville is based in fact, according to Micheal Woods, executive director of Western Carolina Rescue Ministries in downtown Asheville, the area's largest shelter for the unhoused. But it's not happening en masse. We talked about the notion that 'busloads' of homeless people are dropped here by other municipalities in the state, or even cities in other states. Woods said that falls in the category of urban legend. 'The whole busload thing, that whole urban myth, that's never been (corroborated),' Woods told me. 'I don't necessarily think that that's there.' Capt. Joseph Silberman with APD told me the same thing, adding that while busloads of folks aren't shipped here, they do hear about unhoused people arriving here after being provided with a one-way ticket to Asheville. Though other cities do not send busloads of homeless residents to Asheville, APD Capt. Joseph Silberman said, it does attract unhoused people because of the availability of services. // Watchdog file photo by Starr Sariego 'Asheville is a popular city for that because we have a lot of services for them,' Silberman said. Woods agreed with that assessment. 'Do I think that there are municipalities that give people bus fare, one-way Greyhound tickets to get here?' Woods said. 'Yes, I know that to be true because we have those people who have come from other areas and say, 'Yeah, they put me on a bus and sent me to Asheville.'' Asheville has multiple homeless shelters, as well as food programs and workers who help homeless people access services, employment and job training. So we're a magnet for the homeless population, Woods said. Emily Ball, manager of the Homeless Strategy Division for the City of Asheville, said from what she heard the people arriving that McDaniel saw were not without housing. Ball also has heard about the 'busloads' legend, or other alleged organized transportation incidents designed to ship homeless people to Asheville. 'I often hear concerns that there are organized efforts to bring people without housing to Asheville, which I haven't so far found evidence of,' Ball said. The mental health angle Woods told me that the biggest problem is not what McDaniel saw, or what she assumed she saw. 'The bigger problem that we're dealing with is the hospitals around the region — really around North North Carolina — are putting people in transports and sending them here, because they're needing to discharge them and getting them out of the mental health (system),' Woods said. 'That's what we deal with weekly here.' Woods said they routinely call the hospitals that people say discharged them, but by then it's really too late. It's not like the hospital is going to come here and pick them back up. They're at capacity, Woods says they're often told. But so is Asheville, he contends. 'There's no services for them,' he said. 'We're at capacity.' Sadly, the Buncombe County Detention Center has become the de facto mental health provider for a lot of unhoused folks experiencing a crisis. 'With the Buncombe County Detention Center being our largest mental health facility in our community — because they're dealing with more people that are mentally ill than any other place — that's our residential mental health facility,' Woods said. To be clear, Mission opened a 120-bed psychiatric hospital in Asheville in July 2023, and that helped, and other inpatient services are available locally. But it's not enough, so folks end up on the streets or in jail. Should you call the authorities? So, what would you do if you were in McDaniel's shoes? Honestly, I probably would not have called the cops, mainly because without stopping and talking to these folks, I wouldn't know exactly what was going on. If I saw what I thought was someone in danger, I definitely would have called. But I'm also not living in a neighborhood that's been wrestling with serious problems associated with unhoused people. In general, what McDaniel did is not harmful. Young, with the Fire Department, said reports like McDaniel's 'are absolutely valuable to us. 'This specific response demonstrates how quickly REST mobilizes when a call comes in,' Young said. 'Community reports remain a primary way our team learns about situations demanding attention.' He noted that residents can report non-emergent incidents through the Police Department's non-emergency line, 828-252-1110, or via the Asheville App. 'Encampment and homelessness-related calls, like the one you're referencing, are a routine part of REST's daily work,' Young said. Ball said she thinks it's fine for community members to share concerns with authorities, 'and I think REST is an ideal group to connect with people about their situations.' Woods also said he thinks McDaniel did the right thing. 'I mean, who else is she supposed to call?' Woods said, noting that law enforcement is here to protect and serve. Emily Ball, manager of the Homeless Strategy Division for the City of Asheville, said that calling authorities can help homeless residents connect with needed services. // Credit: City of Asheville He said he may have called Adult Protective Services or the Fire Department directly, but calling for help does make sense. 'The people that are giving her flak over that are people who are really, really uninformed — and they're really not fair,' Woods said, noting that McDaniel was not criminalizing the scenario. 'Just all of a sudden you got someone else that's now added on the street that could be victimized. What she did was probably help that person.' Now that the dust has settled a bit, I think McDaniel brought some much-needed discussion to the overall issue of homelessness and what average citizens should do. The first step, which we all need to take to heart, is to care about these folks, and try to help them if we can. I think that was McDaniel's intent. What do you think? Asheville Watchdog welcomes thoughtful reader comments on this story, which has been republished on our Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok pages. Please submit your comments there. Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Boyle has been covering Asheville and surrounding communities since the 20th century. You can reach him at (828) 337-0941, or via email at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/ .