The return of warmer weather means that Jackson County’s cold weather homeless shelter has been closed for two months, but commissioners have some tough discussions ahead as they plan what to do when the weather turns chilly once more.

The longstanding brouhaha over a makeshift dwelling near Frog Level has escalated to the point where enforcement action is likely in the coming days. 

Huddled together in the dark near an old wood stove beneath an elaborate rigging of tarps and tents on a debris-strewn mucky dirt lot they’d called home for nearly a year, Susan “Sassy” Fulp and her fiancé Ronnie Hicks watched the heavy wet snow fall and felt the waylaid limbs of weary trees crash to the ground until Sassy finally noticed an unusual silence rising from the town around them. 

A genuine dilemma, or merely some people grousing? You tell me.

We’ve been hearing complaints for months now that the homeless situation in and around Frog Level and the Pathways Center in Hazelwood is causing problems for locals and businesses. And that it is spreading to other parts of town.

A beef between the Town of Waynesville and local property owner Ron Muse over an ersatz dwelling on an otherwise vacant, garbage-strewn Church Street lot is about to heat up again. 

The homeless shelter in Jackson County is full up with a waiting list 12 deep, shelter managers told Jackson County Commissioners at a Dec. 11 work session.

As many residents of Southern Appalachia stocked up on necessaries in advance of a powerful winter storm that ended up leaving thousands without power, governments and nonprofits across the region scrambled to open shelters and warming stations that wound up being, for some, more of a necessity than milk and bread. 

Not far from the historic homes nestled along Waynesville’s Church Street sits a small plot of land that’s home to a typical Haywood County family — Ronnie Hicks, his girlfriend Sassy and their dog. 

It was a journey I thought would last three days but has already lasted a year, with no signs of stopping.

It was 50 miles in 60 hours, all on foot. It was two sleeps outside, and one in the shelter where I ate my Thanksgiving dinner. 

Before Jackson County commissioners can answer the question of whether Jackson should have a permanent, year-round homeless shelter building, they’ll have another decision to make: if such a shelter existed, who would manage it?