Don't Just Override the Veto. Pay for It.
Stop at the light where East Dixie Drive meets Highway 42, and residents will see it most days: someone at the intersection with a cardboard sign. This has become a familiar sight across Asheboro’s shopping centers as well as intersections.
Unmanaged homeless encampments don't just sit quietly out of sight. People living in them need money, food, and supplies, and without a stable address or shelter placement, the nearest intersection becomes the easiest place to ask for help.
Panhandling has become one of the most visible signs that Asheboro isn't immune to what state lawmakers were trying to address with House Bill 437, and residents don't need a policy briefing to notice it. They see it every time they run an errand.
Lawmakers passed HB 437 to bring regulation to homeless encampments and steer people toward shelters, sanctioned campsites, and services instead of sidewalks and intersections.
It's worth noting that Rep. Brian Biggs represents Randolph County and he is a co-sponsor of the bill. He's said publicly that the moment crystallized for him during a dinner out, when a stranger walked into the restaurant with a needle still in his arm.
HB 437 wouldn't ban homelessness, and it wouldn't criminalize the people living through it. It requires cities and counties to stop allowing encampments to spread unchecked in public spaces and move people into areas where they can be reached by outreach workers, case managers, and treatment providers. It's hard to help someone you can't find, and it's hard to find someone who's scattered across a dozen unofficial sites rather than a known location where services can meet them.
He's not wrong that the bill has real gaps. A mandate that isn't paired with funding risks becoming just another item small towns can't afford to implement and leave Asheboro right back where we started. But funding gaps are a reason to fix the bill. HB 437 doesn't create a single new housing unit or treatment slot on its own. It was never designed to. What it does is stop treating unregulated public camping and street-corner panhandling as an acceptable permanent condition.
Rep. Briggs (R-Randolph) argued this bill could provide access to federal funding that would address the unfunded mandate. “If Gov. Stein was serious about helping homeless people, he would have signed this legislation into law,” Briggs told CBS 17. “His veto puts North Carolina at risk of missing out on critical federal funding that would help move people out of unsafe encampments and into stable housing and supportive services.”
Sanctioned sites with water, security, and a fixed address aren't a punishment. They're a starting point for outreach, services, and eventually, something more permanent than a cardboard sign at an intersection.
Asheboro residents shouldn't have to choose between a law with no funding and no law at all. But that's the choice the veto system gives us. An override vote is an up or down, take it or leave it. So let the override happen. Then hold the legislature to the harder promise: funding it. Not next session. Not buried in next year's budget fight.
A law this state doesn't pay for isn't a real solution. It's a mandate with Asheboro's name on the tab.
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