{"id":16257,"date":"2021-02-25T09:00:15","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T14:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=16257"},"modified":"2022-10-09T06:32:57","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T10:32:57","slug":"hidden-homelessness-is-on-the-rise-in-rural-eastern-kentucky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/hidden-homelessness-is-on-the-rise-in-rural-eastern-kentucky\/","title":{"rendered":"Hidden Homelessness Is on the Rise in Rural Eastern Kentucky"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After Hazel Reed\u2019s mother passed away, family members sold her mother\u2019s house, which stood in a rural eastern Kentucky county. Reed had been living there but soon found herself on the street with nowhere to go. She ended up in a psychiatric ward but desperately needed housing. She was eventually placed on a shelter waiting list. When her name was called she had hours to respond, and it was either the street or the shelter.<\/p>\n

Homelessness is often seen as a problem endemic to the nation\u2019s urban centers, but it has insidiously evolved in rural America. The difference is the nation\u2019s rural homeless aren\u2019t in plain sight. Eastern Kentucky is a prime example.<\/p>\n

But the homelessness in this region of Appalachia, once known for its prodigious coal mining industry but regarded as one of the country\u2019s poorest areas, is clearly not as noticeable as it is in downtown Los Angeles. This makes homeless or housing-insecure people in eastern Kentucky hard to see and count. They are easy to miss in counts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe point-in-time count does not work in rural areas because rural homelessness looks very different in rural areas\u2026people aren\u2019t out on the streets, sleeping on the streets,\u201d April Ballard told Invisible People<\/em>. \u201cThey\u2019re living place-to-place, they\u2019re couch surfing, they\u2019re living in trailers or houses that don\u2019t have running water or electricity, they\u2019re living in RVs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ballard is an Emory University doctoral student who works on the CARE2HOPE project undertaken by the University of Kentucky and Emory University to improve the health of rural Kentuckians impacted by opioid abuse.<\/p>\n

The primary driver for homelessness in eastern Kentucky is the lack of affordable housing, said Adrienne Bush, executive director of the Homeless & Housing Coalition of Kentucky (HHCK).<\/h4>\n

\u201cI think the narrative around housing and high cost of housing focuses a lot on our coastal cities and that\u2019s not wrong. That\u2019s accurate. But the lack of affordable housing is a nationwide issue, and eastern Kentucky is not immune to it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates<\/a> that Kentucky is about 75,000 units short in terms of affordable low-income homes. None of the counties in the state have a sufficient supply of low-income housing, Bush added.<\/p>\n

Other contributing factors are:<\/p>\n