Advocates say pandemic has exacerbated Appalachia’s housing crisis
February 02, 2022
Throughout Appalachia, as across the nation, we're experiencing a housing crisis.
“I think the real crisis that we’re facing in West Virginia, and Appalachia as a whole, is the lack of housing stock in general,” said Paige Looney, a housing-policy specialist with the West Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.
Emergency funding was made available in the pandemic through the congressionally approved American Rescue Plan, but while that funding was “unprecedented and huge and very, very necessary,” Looney said, it’s essentially functioned as a “band aid.”