Asheville's public housing authority says it plans to pour roughly $500 million into rehabilitating and building affordable housing through 2031, a sweeping bet that includes more than doubling the size of Pisgah View Apartments in West Asheville. The announcement comes as the Housing Authority of the City of Asheville, known as HACA, is still working through the fallout of a landlord overpayment problem that has left dozens of voucher households facing higher rent costs.
A Five-Year Vision Unveiled
Ella Santos, director of Asheville public housing, and Marvin Jean Jacques, HACA's chief operating officer, presented the authority's five-year vision at a Nov. 6 meeting of the Council of Independent Business Owners, according to the Asheville Citizen Times. Santos said the goal is for HACA to become more self-sufficient and less reliant on government funding, a theme that ran through the presentation describing the authority as behind, with the gap growing fast.
Under the plan, $200 million would go toward rehabbing six authority projects: Bartlett Arms Apartments, Altamont Apartments, Aston Park Tower and three Southside locations. Separately, more than $100 million is earmarked for redeveloping Pisgah View Apartments, doubling its capacity to 500 units. A third piece, the Aston Garden Apartments project, would add over 60 units on South French Broad Avenue, per the same report from the Charlotte Observer, which first covered the announcement.
Widening Who Can Qualify
HACA currently serves residents earning 30% or less of area median income, which works out to $33,000 for a family of four. The new plan would add units for households earning up to 80% of area median income, or $81,900 for a family of four — a shift the authority expects will let it collect more rent. Jean Jacques said HACA can sell development tax credits to investors, leaning on its participation in the federal Rental Assistance Demonstration program, which it has used since 2014 and which the authority says provides a long-term guarantee of federal support while enabling it to seek private investment and secure tax credits on new development.
HACA leaders pointed to housing authorities in Nashville and Columbus, Ohio, as examples of success using a similar approach, the Citizen Times reported. The authority's own restructuring materials have also cited the Housing Authority of El Paso, which manages roughly 15,000 units with just 64 employees, and Charlotte's INLIVIAN has described INLIVIAN as a model built on public-private partnerships, mixed-income developments and alternative funding sources.
The Overpayment Problem Still Lingers
The ambitious plan arrives alongside an unresolved financial mess. HACA began correcting erroneous payments to Housing Choice Voucher program landlords in October, after reducing those payments left tenants responsible for a greater share of rent. As of November 4, 80 households remained adversely affected by the correction, including 32 that were rent burdened, HACA spokesperson Lauren Stepp confirmed, according to the Citizen Times.
HACA has said it still does not know the total amount of landlord overpayments made since 2024, nor the total financial impact on the households affected. The authority has said it will offer all adversely affected households the chance to request one-time hardship assistance to help cover increased costs experienced in November and December, funded through remaining grant dollars that must be spent by December 31. The underlying overpayments stretched on for nearly two years without federal approval, the Citizen Times has reported, and HUD formally denied the authority's request for a 150% payment standard in March 2025, citing a lack of supporting data.
Reade Walker, who manages five properties through HACA's voucher program, said his tenants could not cover the higher rents they were expected to pay and were not receiving utility payments or assistance, per the same Citizen Times account. HACA spokesperson Kyle Parks has said the authority is mindful of what happened in Hickory, where the city council dissolved its public housing authority after years of alleged mismanagement.
Why Self-Sufficiency Is the Goal
The push toward financial independence follows a stretch of strain documented by Asheville Watchdog, which found HACA's vacancies climbed from 50 in August 2023 to 130 in November 2025, while the count of units receiving no HUD rent payment due to failed inspections rose from 24 in 2024 to 162 the following year. HACA's restructuring announcement also cited financial pressures.
That restructuring already included a reduction in force in April that affected 34 employees and was expected to cut annual operating costs by about $1.6 million, with the authority projecting its full-time workforce will fall below 50 positions by the end of 2027. HACA's restructuring release put the reserve drawdown over the prior two years at approximately 75%, describing a sharp depletion. HACA's communities had been converted through RAD more than a decade earlier, separately from the restructuring.
