The Issues
Independent background reads, briefs, and stories on housing, homelessness, and food insecurity in Western North Carolina.
Start here · Housing
How to Think About Homelessness
Six short essays · the place to begin
Start here · Food
How to Think About Food Insecurity
Five short pieces · the place to begin
Browse the whole library as a map44 reads & pages, by topic
Housing & homelessness21
History & origins
How Modern Homelessness Was Made
It Wasn't the Asylums
The Shortage Was Made Here
America Didn't Always Have This Problem
How it works
Who, and How Many
That Wouldn't Be Me
Which Came First
Housing First evidence
What Housing First Can and Cannot Do
The 92 Percent Who Stayed
The Count Is Rising. The Money Is Already Here.
Cost & employer case
The Business Case for Housing
1,700 New Hotel Rooms. Nobody to Staff Them.
Same Neighbor. Different Money.
Two Buildings, One Block Apart
Policy & law (2025-26)
The Housing Law and the Flood
Strings Attached
Can They Charge the Shelter?
A Ban Is Not a Bed
Local institutions & news
What Happened to Asheville Housing
The Cooldown That Skips Us
More
The Tax No One Can Count
Food & hunger12
Primer & scale
How to Think About Food Insecurity
Why Food Banks Can't Fix Hunger
The People Just Above the Line
Who & where it hides
Rural Hunger Is the Real Story
Hungry Kids Don't Show It
The Last Mile to a Senior's Door
Aid & data
29,000 Neighbors, One Pause
When the Aid Stops
Why the Hunger Numbers Are Two Years Old
Resilience case study
The Day MANNA Lost Everything
More
Who Loses SNAP Now
What SNAP Actually Is
The bridge: both at once7
Systems & data
Food and Shelter Are the Same Emergency
Before the Tent
Two Shortages, One Budget
Myth vs. Fact: Housing and Hunger
Composite stories
Rent or Eat
Between Jobs
By the Time You See Me