diff --git a/src/fileio.c b/src/fileio.c
index 59446ac1833..d9795715f9e 100644
--- a/src/fileio.c
+++ b/src/fileio.c
@@ -1663,7 +1663,7 @@ get_homedir (void)
   /* getpw* functions return UTF-8 encoded file names, whereas egetenv
      returns strings in locale encoding, so we need to convert for
      consistency.  */
-  char homedir_utf8[MAX_UTF8_PATH];
+  static char homedir_utf8[MAX_UTF8_PATH];
   if (home)
     {
       filename_from_ansi (home, homedir_utf8);