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Our community reporting fellows are finishing up their projects on disaster issues in their communities. A theme has emerged in several of them: housing access, affordability, and safety. One is focused on immediate recovery after the floods in eastern Kentucky this summer, and the others are looking at long-term impacts in North Carolina. What does housing and city planning look like six years after a hurricane? How does a rural community cope with the constant threat of flooding, with few resources to build on higher ground or more resiliently?
These issues are playing out in so many places hit by storms or other extreme weather, where there are now more unhoused people or people living in unstable or unsafe conditions.
Hurricane Ian, which hit in October, "exacerbated an existing affordable housing crisis and is driving low and middle income families" out of southwest Florida, according to Tampa Bay Times. There are fewer places available, and they're more expensive—a pattern we reported on after Hurricane Laura hit southwest Louisiana (that hasn't improved much in the two years since).
In 2020, we had a story about the challenge of building affordable housing in Miami. About a year ago western Kentucky was hit by a huge tornado, and many are still without homes. "The community has a long way to go with 190 families still labeled 'homeless,'" reported WHAS11. In southeast Louisiana, residents are still displaced and trying to return home after Ida, which hit in 2021.
As it gets colder, rainier, snowier, and more grey, I'm thinking of unsheltered and houseless folks who, whether because of extreme weather or any other circumstance, are living outside, in tents, or in places that are uncomfortable or stressful. For instance, according to the annual Point-In-Time count, the number of unsheltered people in West Virginia climbed 133% between 2016 and 2021—the bulk of those in urban areas. Many unsheltered people are trying to figure out how to handle the extreme cold this winter. As Mountain State Spotlight reported, "while there are warming centers in Huntington, Charleston and Morgantown for unsheltered people during the winter, they don’t all provide the same services or receive the same level of city support."
If you have reads, resources or places to donate to support unhoused people this winter, send us a note. And in the meantime, you can donate to mutual aid funds like this one, check in with local nonprofits and shelters, or give directly.
Hoping you all are safe and warm,
Lyndsey Gilpin
Founder, Executive Director
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