For years, Jessie Mace moved her four children between apartments and single-wide trailers across Western North Carolina, searching for a safe, affordable place to call home.

Through every move, Mace kept her children enrolled in the same Buncombe County schools. She was determined to give them as much stability as possible, even when it meant 5:30 a.m. wake-up calls and long commutes.

“My kids were tired. I was tired,” she recalls.

Eventually, Mace began receiving rental assistance through the Housing Authority of the City of Asheville’s Housing Choice Voucher Program, which helps low-income families afford housing in the private rental market. The assistance made housing more affordable while giving Mace the opportunity to strengthen her credit, reduce debt, and work toward a more permanent future for her family.

A Path to Homeownership

As a Housing Choice Voucher participant, Mace also became eligible for HACA’s Homeownership Program, which helps families transition from renting to owning by allowing them to continue receiving housing assistance as they build equity in a home.

Through the program, Mace partnered with Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity to purchase an affordable home. Along the way, she completed weekly homebuyer education classes and contributed 200 hours of “sweat equity” building Habitat homes alongside staff and volunteers.

In April 2026, that hard work paid off when Mace closed on a newly constructed four-bedroom home in Arden. Although she and her children had watched the house take shape—even writing their names on the framing before the drywall went up—it didn’t quite feel real until move-in day.

“My oldest daughter is 11 and never had a room of her own,” Mace says. “When she walked into the house, she literally broke down in tears. She was so happy.”

A Foundation for the Future

Today, Mace and her family are no longer planning life around their next move. Instead, they’re settling into a community they can call home. The children ride their bikes through the neighborhood, catch the school bus instead of leaving home before sunrise, and spend time with friends who live just minutes away.

For Mace, homeownership has done more than provide stability. It has given her the space to think about the future—not just meeting her family’s day-to-day needs, but pursuing new opportunities for herself.

“It was always go, go, go,” she says. “Now I’m able to think, ‘Maybe I want a promotion. Or, maybe I want to go back to school.’ Life feels settled.”