Dan Ferrell

In one word, what is the top issue that is motivating you to run for Asheville City Council?

Affordability

The region is still recovering from Hurricane Helene — and likely will be for a long time. Considering that resources will be limited, where do you prioritize putting the redevelopment funds?

Housing. It's housing. If we have one choice. I would pick housing over and over again. Our city is being crushed by an affordability housing crisis. We don't have a city to recover from if our neighbors aren't here for it. I'm here for working to help the small businesses, for fixing our infrastructure and parks, but if we cannot keep our neighbors in town, then who is this recovery for? It's picking and choosing who gets to be here to benefit from the recovery if we do not prioritize housing.

One of the biggest issues facing Asheville is lack of affordable housing. What is your top policy change that you think would help address the situation?

The root of our housing crisis is wealth extraction; the wrong people are profiting from our basic need for a roof over our head. So we must stop relying on extractive banks and instead establish a local cooperative credit union dedicated solely to financing Asheville’s housing. This allows us to pivot from a rental-heavy market, which siphons millions out of our economy, to wealth-building models like cooperative housing. Renting sends wealth right out of Asheville, while ownership keeps money circulating at our small businesses. Finally, the City and County must stop selling public land to private developers who prioritize profit over people. We should be aggressive in acquiring land and act as our own developer to ensure housing permanently serves the community's best interests.

The city is facing a budget deficit of at least $30 million. How would you prioritize allocating what funds the city does have? Is there a section of the budget where you would make budgetary cuts, or would you choose to raise property taxes? 

In Currituck County in the Outer Banks, they can spend TDA money on police and EMS; here in Asheville, the law blocks that, leaving a massive hole in our budget. We are currently subsidizing the tourism industry daily through APD overtime, downtown sanitation, and the maintenance of the Thomas Wolfe. That is a subsidy that my neighbors don't get, but the hotels do.

To close the deficit, I would prioritize cutting the General Fund expenditures that specifically service tourism. If the TDA cannot legally pay for the operational costs of the industry it promotes, the City should not step in to fill that gap at the expense of our neighbors. Period.

The City of Asheville and Buncombe County spent years working on a reparations plan for Black residents. Now the federal government is withholding funds from any entity that refers to DEI or that singles out a specific race for any special consideration and is actively discouraging DEI initiatives in local government. What is your feeling about the work the Community Reparations Commission produced?  Would you implement its recommendations considering the federal restrictions? How?

For those who are unfamiliar with the work that the CRC produced, let's start with some history: In the 60's & 70's the city used 'urban renewal' as to bulldoze over 1000 homes in Southside, seizing Black wealth for private development. This isn't just about slavery, it's is for damages inflicted in living memory. So, if the feds want to block 'race-based' funding, we simply pivot to the truth: we're resolving a property rights violation. We create 'Infrastructure Restitution Zones' for neighborhoods like Shiloh sliced by I-40 and 'Right to Return' policies for displacement centers like Hillcrest because their parents were kicked out of Stumptown.

We're not targeting based on race, but on geography, economic displacement, and property theft. It's what Evanston, Illinois, who did reparations before us, did successfully, and we can do it too.

Do you think the current City Council has prioritized the right issues?  If yes, why are those the right issues?  If not, where would you re-direct the focus?

No, I believe the current City Council has prioritized the comfort of tourists and developers over the survival of our neighbors. I would redirect our focus entirely to decommodified housing, specifically Community Land Trusts and cooperative models, because housing is the root of every other crisis we face.

Our small businesses are struggling primarily from a critical labor shortage caused by the fact that workers simply can't afford to live and buy here. We must stop subsidizing the operational costs of the hotel industry and instead invest those resources into housing that remains permanently affordable for locals. By fixing housing, we fix the labor crisis, improve affordability, and stop the displacement of Black families. It is not just about buildings; it's about ensuring Asheville remains a home for the people who make it work.

What do you love about Asheville that you want to see more of?

It's community; I love the way we showed up for each other after the hurricane. The storm stripped away the artificial urgency of the daily grind and we were left with work that was undeniably real. There was a deep, unexpected joy in that in cooking for our neighbors, delivering water, shoveling mud... and I think it's because, for the first time in a long time, we knew our labor actually mattered to the human being standing next to us. We rediscovered a sense of agency that the regular world often suppresses. I want to build a future on that clarity: where we value the essential work of care over the hollow productivity of the status quo.