Tipsheet

Here's How Democrat Policies Drove Asheville, NC Into the Ground

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  April 27, 2026 8:30 AM

Ashville, NC, was in the news frequently at the end of 2024, after Hurricane Helene slammed into the state and left residents without drinking water, power, and infrastructure. The Left used Asheville as proof that communities needed the feds to fund NPR, calling the biased outlet vital in terms of emergency broadcasting (spoiler alert: it wasn't).

Instead, Asheville has become yet another cautionary tale of what happens when you let Leftist Democrats run your city. In 2021, Asheville's police department announced it would no longer respond to service calls for certain crimes, saying it would be "better equipped" for serious calls. They blamed "staffing shortages" for the problems, but coming just a year after the BLM riots and Defund the Police movement, we can all draw our own conclusions about that.

Now it seems the Democrats' policies have transformed the city into what some are calling "nasty, crazy, and scary."

Here's more:

For years, Asheville, North Carolina, marketed itself as a mountain escape known for breweries, boutique hotels, and Blue Ridge views.

But residents and critics say a different reality has taken shape in the wake of Hurricane Helene: panhandling at intersections, public intoxication, encampments, and an unsafe downtown.

Carl Mumpower, a private practice clinical psychologist, lifelong Asheville resident, and former City Council member who served from 2001 until 2009, said the city’s current challenges stem from decisions made over decades.

“Asheville began its efforts to address homelessness at least three decades ago. This effort accelerated in the early part of this century with the first ‘Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness,’” Mumpower told Fox News Digital.

“That plan was ill-advised but passed with a super-majority. At the time, I suggested to the council that any plan that removed personal accountability from the helping equation was doomed to fail.”

Mumpower said the city has continued down the same path ever since.

“That plan and subsequent plans have failed with equal enthusiasm. Homelessness, drug abuse, and related crimes have increased relentlessly under the watch of local homelessness experts and a governing body that is dominated by liberal Democrats and those with an even more extreme view to the Left. That lack of balance — the last conservative on the council was in 2009 — has led to a myopic repeat of errors.”

Democrats ruin everything they touch.

The handling of Helene was awful, if we think back on it.

Sad, really. North Carolina is a beautiful state.

Until the Left accepts that the solution to homelessness involves addressing the mental illness and addiction that drive the vast majority of homelessness, nothing will get solved. But they like the decline.

And this resident says the problem has been going on for years.

The post reads:

Back then, Asheville was a hillbilly Mecca. Old men sat on benches outside Hardee’s with their sausage biscuits and coffee to gossip. Bluegrass played on gas station speakers. People clogged on weekends. Folks sounded like they’d never left WNC—the accents were thick.

By the time the city ended Belle Chere in 2013, Asheville had become a place I didn’t recognize.

Transplants had flooded out the locals, who escaped to Madison and Haywood counties. 

Local accents? Gone. Bluegrass and clogging? Bastardized by people with zero ties to the traditions. The old men at Hardee’s? Replaced by homeless junkies nodding off and drooling on themselves.

It’s so bad that I’ve avoided Asheville for more than a decade. Only one of my children has ever been to the city, and she only went so I could take her to the Biltmore House.

Asheville is like an infection—and as much as it pains my heart to admit it, that infection is spreading.

The last time I was in Canton, we went out to eat. There wasn’t a single person in the restaurant with a local accent. Women in Lilly Pulitzer and men in dock shoes walked the sidewalks where overalls and work boots once ruled. 

It won’t be long before the same policies that created this new Asheville turns the rest of WNC into a shell of its former self.

Sad, really.

What could possibly go wrong with that combination?

Turns out the answer is "everything."

This decline is a choice, and other cities are choosing differently.