JACKSON, Ky. (LEX 18) — If you drive across Breathitt County, you’ll find trailers scattered on the sides of the road. They're parked just about anywhere landowners will allow them to be.
The trailers are the temporary homes for people like Kendra Napier, whose family lost everything in last summer’s deadly flooding, which took place almost exactly a year ago. She hopes it will be temporary.
“We make do the best we can,” she said. “Last winter, we almost froze to death. Wind will come through there and shake you to the core.”
She’s far from alone. Tracey Hardesty lives in a FEMA trailer which is parked next to 20 others at a former industrial site in Jackson. She, too, lost everything she had in the floods, along with the man who raised her and her cousin.
“It’s small, but it’s home,” she said of her trailer.
Both Napier and Hardesty haven't had much of a choice but to live in the trailers. Like many families in Eastern Kentucky, they’ve been stuck after the floods. They have no money to rebuild, nowhere to rent, and no homes they can afford to buy.
Napier tried to look for a place to rent but had no luck.
“There’s nothing, not for three or four counties surrounding, there’s nothing,” she said.
The Numbers & The Problem
The challenge facing Napier and Hardesty highlights a much larger issue facing eastern Kentuckians who lost their homes in the floods.
In Breathitt County, the floods destroyed 749 homes, judge-executive Jeff Noble said.
Since the floods, at most, 10-12 homes in the county have been built, Noble said.
About 90 mobile homes have also been installed, he estimated.
“It’s just gut-wrenching to know how many homes we had, how many homes got destroyed, and how many people are still pretty much homeless,” Noble said.
Calling it a housing crisis, Noble said he has begged landlords and people with capital to build new housing. But, he said, the obstacles to actually get that housing built are immense.
Their biggest problem lies in the very land itself, Noble said. Most of the flat land in the county lies along the rivers and creeks that snake through the mountainous region. It’s the very same land where homes were washed away and where it’s now, for multiple reasons, impossible to rebuild.
“We just ain't got any [land] that’s got water and electricity that you can build on without almost makin’ a place,” Noble said.
Effectively, people with money come in, look at the land and decide it’s not worth it to invest their time and money to build there. The county has relied on grants to build homes, but has often faced the same issues.
A stack of pictures of properties sits on Noble’s desk. He’s been looking for properties where they could build.
“We've had meetings after meetings after meetings just trying to find pieces of property that we can submit to the governor's cabinet, and they go check it out; it's just hard to land a piece,” he said.
They have prospects, but getting anything actually built is the hard part, he said.
Time Crunch
A new rental property coming online couldn't come soon enough for Hardesty, She’s running out of time to find someplace to live. She can only live in the FEMA trailer for a limited period before having to turn it back over to them. She has just months left.
“My hands are tied. I don't know what to do. I've looked everywhere,” she said. “All I can do is pray.
Making things tougher for her is her criminal record, she said.
Tasha Johnson, whose family lost their home to the flood, said her mom lives in a FEMA trailer on the same property as Hardesty. Her mom was recently given six months before she has to move out, she said.
Tasha is also looking for somewhere to move to. She’s been one of the lucky ones, living in a rental property that wasn't destroyed by the floods. But, she’ll too have to move out soon. Her landlord sold the property to the government as part of the program that allows people to sell flood-prone properties to the government.
148 homes have been sold as part of the government buyouts in Breathitt County, Noble said.
"We don't have the money to rebuild or just go out and buy a trailer," Johnson said.
Noble said he knows what’s facing people like Johnson, Kendra and Tracey.
"When you lose everything you got, it's hard to start with nothing when you aint got nothing to start with," he said
Unfortunately, it doesn't appear likely any newly-built homes would come online for them, unless they are very lucky.
Despite the challenges of getting new housing built, Noble does say the tide is turning in the positive direction, just slowly.
"It just takes forever to get things in place to be able to do stuff — that's what's so disappointing — I mean, come in and work 12 hours a day, 14, trying to make something happen, and then it kinda falls through," Noble said. “I’m in no way going to give up on asking for help from anybody that we can or any place we can get funding.”
Noble said “KY Safe” funds have been very helpful for them. State and federal funding is the only way things will get built, he said.
People are Leaving
In the meantime, with nowhere for people to stay, Noble said many people have left the county, and in some cases, eastern Kentucky altogether.
"It's kind of heartbreaking to see them leaving, but you know, you don't want them to go back in harm's way," Noble said.
With time running out for her stay in the FEMA trailer, Hardesty said she’s now facing that very decision. She told us she once lived in Lexington and hated it.
“I was born (just south) in Perry County, and I was raised here,” she said. “This is home. I don’t want to leave here, but it’s looking like I’m going to have to because I’ll have nowhere to stay.”
She’s now strongly considering living in a nearby homeless shelter if they have a space for her, or simply out of her car, which she’s lived out of before.
“I hate that it’s got to be like this,” she said. “But I understand, you know, there’s no place to go.”
