{"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":"
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 \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 Plus, “the housing that we do have, if it is aging and has plumbing issues or electricity issues then your utilities generally aren\u2019t affordable. Utilities are definitely a significant part of whether someone\u2019s housing is affordable to them or not,\u201d Bush said.<\/p>\n Nationally, private construction of homes is primarily geared for higher-end markets, as opposed to moderate or low-income housing, Steve Berg told Invisible People<\/em>. Berg is the vice president of Programs and Policy at the National Alliance to End Homelessness.<\/p>\n \u201cThe basic issue is\u2026the United States has set up a system where housing, for the most part, is treated like a commodity rather than as a public good that everyone has access to,\u201d Berg said. \u201cThe thing about treating it like a commodity is that some people don\u2019t have money. And if you don\u2019t have enough money, you can\u2019t afford housing and that\u2019s what it gets down to.\u201d<\/p>\n She indicated that the Census Household Pulse data has helped develop a somewhat accurate assessment of the housing situation. (The experimental Household Pulse Survey<\/a> is designed to quickly and efficiently deploy data collected on how people\u2019s lives have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.)<\/p>\n \u201cIt shows the number of folks who are worried about being evicted within the next two months, who are behind on rent,\u201d Bush said. It\u2019s aggregated by race and reflects the racial disparities that exist in housing security, she added. \u201cWe don\u2019t have as many shelters in eastern Kentucky. So a lot of our folks are not your literal shelter-homeless but are probably doubled-up or couch surfing. So it\u2019s harder to capture those numbers.”<\/p>\n Berg agrees that optics might be absent but homelessness in rural areas is pervasive. \u201cMaybe it\u2019s not as visible because they don\u2019t have big homeless programs or big homeless shelters a lot of times, but it\u2019s still definitely there.\u201d<\/p>\n Ballard echoes Bush\u2019s assessment of the situation in eastern Kentucky where homeless folks could be sheltering in several inconspicuous places. She said there is a glaring underestimation of homeless people there.<\/p>\n \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 Ballard said.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the Ohio Valley\u2019s profound addiction epidemic stresses the social safety net, advocates say more rural people are at risk of becoming homeless,\u201d the Ohio Valley Resource reported. \u201cBut the scattered and hidden nature of homelessness in rural places makes it an especially hard problem to measure and address.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think that it\u2019s really, really important to emphasize that not all people who are experiencing homelessness are using drugs. That sort of doubles the stigma for people who are experiencing homelessness,\u201d Young told Invisible People<\/em>. \u201cAnd then of course people who are experiencing homelessness or housing instability, they experience other challenges \u2013 stigma, employment \u2013 all sorts of things and that can stack the cards against them in a way in terms of trying to deal with their substance abuse disorder.\u201d<\/p>\n Young said the establishment of more shelters in eastern Kentucky is crucial but the current policies of some of those in existence are discriminatory and need to be changed.<\/p>\n \u201cFor example, not letting people in who have some sort of charges in their past \u2026sometimes they are not letting people in with medications for opioid use disorder \u2026 and that is really unfair because these are people using medication to get back on their feet and get into remission and yet they can\u2019t get into shelters,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Ballard is careful to point out that shelters aren\u2019t implementing these policies to intentionally discriminate against people who are simultaneously battling housing insecurity and substance abuse disorder. However, individuals in these situations are marginalized and often experience violence due to their situation.<\/p>\n \u201cThese policies are meant to protect people but they actually discriminate,\u201d Ballard said, adding more money needs to be spent on housing.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re seeing, in fact in rural areas across the U.S., there are people who use drugs that are experiencing homelessness at a much higher rate than we previously thought,\u201d Ballard said. \u201cAnd I think to then add a pandemic on top of that, I just see this crisis get much worse and I think just thinking through what the implications of that are is really important.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a big proponent of increased rental assistance, whether it is for folks who are currently housed or to get people moved from shelter into a rental home. I think with the way our housing market works now \u2026 that\u2019s where you\u2019re going to get the biggest bang for your buck,\u201d she said. \u201cFundamentally, at the base level, we need a shift in thinking about housing as a public good.\u201d<\/p>\n Programs that target the housing accessibility issue such as the federal Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program are available, Berg said. However, there isn\u2019t a comprehensive, universal policy that addresses housing insecurity in our capitalistic economy. He said it covers about 25% of the need.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you call up your local housing authority and say, \u2018I need a housing choice voucher because I can\u2019t afford rent,\u2019\u2026you get put on a waiting list,\u201d he said. \u201cDepending on where you live that waiting list will be a year or two years or five years or the rest of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n Bush said permanent housing is the ultimate solution but shelters do play a role in the homeless solution paradigm.<\/p>\n \u201cThings keep getting better,\u201d Reed said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people in the homeless situation and not enough homeless shelters.\u201d<\/p>\n The eastern Kentucky shelters that are presently operating require great support, Bush said. Many cities or areas throughout the nation receive more local and state funding than federal dollars from the Continuum of Care and Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) program, Bush continued. But not Kentucky.<\/p>\n \u201cIn contrast, if I am a provider in Hazard or Prestonsburg, I\u2019m totally dependent on the federal government,\u201d Bush said. \u201cMy local city and county are not providing general fund dollars, and the state is not providing general fund dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n Glema Ambugey has a traumatic past including molestation as a child, enduring abusive relationships, and a history of drug use. She eventually found herself at the intersection of long-term incarceration and drug court. The Perry County, Kentucky drug court, and the homeless shelter in Hazard, Kentucky, agreed to take her case, ultimately sheltering Amburgey for seven months. This led to permanent housing and enabled her to regain full custody of her son and find faith in God along the way.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it hadn\u2019t been for the homeless shelter, I would have been totally lost,\u201d she said. \u201cYou don\u2019t always have to be a drug addict\u2026things just happen and people get down on their luck.\u201d<\/p>\n Bush said when you have people in crisis with only a handful of shelters for an entire region, it becomes a serious problem. \u201cKentucky is a very poor state. That\u2019s been documented. Eastern Kentucky is the poorest part of a poor state.\u201d<\/p>\n 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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":16295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[681,389,10139,459],"tags":[13939,16105,253,832,603,515,12676,508,16104,7482,13478,8460,8919,15137,644],"coauthors":[16020],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16257"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19265,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16257\/revisions\/19265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16257"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=16257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}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
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There are also significant issues with the homeless management information system, particularly in rural regions, Bush added.<\/h4>\n
Another contributing factor to the escalating homelessness crisis in the Ohio Valley, which includes eastern Kentucky, is the opioid epidemic.<\/h4>\n
April Young, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Kentucky and a principal investigator with the CARE2HOPE project, said that homelessness is not synonymous with drug use.<\/h4>\n
Solutions are out there. Bush said rental assistance \u2014 emergency and on-going \u2014 is the most effective due to its universal components. Everywhere from rural Kentucky counties to urban sprawls need it.<\/h4>\n
Reed, the woman who found herself on the street after her mother passed away, chose a shelter over the street. It was a godsend. Located in another county, she stayed there nine months finally securing her own apartment where she has been living for five years.<\/h4>\n
Talk to your representatives<\/a> in Congress about the escalating homelessness and housing insecurity crises in their states. \u201cIt\u2019s very important that people understand the depth of this problem in rural areas,\u201d Berg said.<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"