A book from an academic researcher covering rural Appalachia shows how marginalized rural communities can create change by forming grassroots coalitions.
A book from an academic researcher covering rural Appalachia shows how marginalized rural communities can create change by forming grassroots coalitions.
In her soon to be published book, “Hauled Away, How Rural Appalachians Leverage Place in the Face of Extraction,” WVU assistant professor of English Erin Brock Carlson balances the history of extractive industries like coal with combating a rural town’s cultural, economic and intellectual extraction.
“The mission of all of this is really that rural communities, especially in Appalachia, are painted in very one dimensional, oftentimes stereotypical life,” Carlson said. “I’m really committed to honoring the expertise of people that live in rural places, because they oftentimes aren’t viewed as experts of their own experience. This project is all about casting those people as experts in demonstrating that rural communities are capable of solving their own problems.”
In her book, Carlson showcases hometown problem solvers. For example, in a former coal hub, organizers involved the cash poor and houseless in economic development. In a town that suspected a local arms manufacturer had polluted its air and water, an environmental activist engaged residents of a Black neighborhood close to the manufacturing facility, as well as elderly white residents who valued the manufacturer’s importance to the local economy.
And in a rural area with little access to broadband, an organizer tried to build an internet network owned by the community, with support from youth.
“The project really shows how going into a space thinking you have one project and really listening to community members to see what are the most pressing needs, and then adapting based on that, is a way to sort of address these other issues, but in a way that meets community needs directly,” she said.
Carlson said successful coalitions must bring those most marginalized, the poor, elderly, young, disabled, people of color, migrant workers and more into the public conversation.
“They are the ones that are most directly impacted or most deeply impacted by these problems,” she said. “When they’re not represented, their needs aren’t heard.”
Carlson said the expertise community members possess is often overlooked in favor of technical insights from lawyers or engineers.
The “Hauled Away” manuscript is expected to be completed in 2025.
West Virginia nonprofit Advantage Valley received more than $4 million in federal and local funds to redevelop a manufacturing plant near the town of Poca in Putnam County.
Newly granted federal and local funds will allow an economic development nonprofit to redevelop a manufacturing plant in the Kanawha Valley.
Advantage Valley purchased the Putnam County building — previously known as the Vossloh Track Building and the Union Boiler Plant — in 2023. The nonprofit works with local governments to develop jobs and economic growth in nine southwestern counties.
The project moved one step forward Tuesday when Advantage Valley was awarded a $3.4 million grant from the United States Economic Development Administration (EDA). These funds were also matched by $857,750 in local funds.
With the funds, Advantage Valley will renovate and repurpose the building, located near the town of Poca. The project is funded through disaster relief funds administered by the EDA to areas affected by natural disasters like flooding or wildfires in 2021 and 2022.
The project as a whole aims to create new jobs and investment opportunities in the region, according to a Tuesday EDA press release.
Federal officials also expressed their hopes for the renovation project in the press release.
“This EDA investment will support infrastructure improvements at the former Vossloh Track Building that will grow economic opportunity, support job growth and spur private investment in Charleston,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., echoed Raimondo’s support for the project.
Capito said that she would “look forward to the positive impact it will have on the Charleston area for years to come.”
“The EDA continues to be a strong partner for bolstering West Virginia’s economy and this announcement is proof of that,” Manchin said. “Renovating the former Vossloh Track Building will create good-paying jobs and spur economic opportunity throughout the entire Metro Valley.”
Real estate developers who construct housing units in the Huntington area are now eligible for a tax credit through a West Virginia Department of Commerce program.
Updated on Thursday, April 25 at 2:57 p.m.
Real estate developers who construct homes in parts of Cabell and Wayne counties are now eligible for a tax incentive.
Last week, the greater Huntington area — including eastern Cabell County and northern Wayne County — was designated a BuildWV district by the West Virginia Department of Commerce.
Since its creation in 2022, the BuildWV program has granted developers state tax credits for creating new housing options in West Virginia.
A 2024 report on housing needs in Huntington found that many local housing units are considered substandard in quality or burdensome in cost. The report also found a particular need for the construction of affordable family and multi-unit homes throughout the city.
Developers who build six or more housing units in the region are now eligible for the program’s incentives, with additional incentives for developers renovating single-family homes for first-time home buyers. To apply, communities must submit an application alongside a $5,000 application fee to the West Virginia Department of Economic Development.
“It basically makes it more profitable for developers to build new housing within the county because it allows them to apply for and receive a tax credit that they normally would be paying the state of West Virginia,” Cathy Burns, executive director of the Huntington Municipal Development Authority, told The Herald-Dispatch last week.
With the program now established, local officials are hopeful for the new housing options it could bring.
“The establishment of the [BuildWV] district in Huntington and the surrounding region is indicative that we are taking a critically important step forward,” Steve Williams, mayor of Huntington, said Thursday. “We are now moving beyond tax policy and infrastructure development. We are now preparing our communities … to welcome the population growth that demands adequate and appropriate housing.”
**Editor’s note: This story was updated to include a comment from Steve Williams, mayor of Huntington.
With fears of a federal COVID-19 relief fund clawback quashed, Gov. Jim Justice urged lawmakers to restore funding to health and human services in West Virginia.
For weeks, the possible federal clawback of $465 million in COVID-19 relief funding for schools has loomed large in West Virginia.
But on Friday Gov. Jim Justice announced the state would not have to return the funds, which the United States Department of Education initially said were not spent according to federal guidelines.
News of the potential clawback threw a wrench into the final weeks of the West Virginia Legislature’s regular session this year. Out of caution, lawmakers ultimately approved a state budget of $4.9 billion — a figure lower than the $5.22 billion budget Justice proposed in January.
In March, Justice announced plans to hold a special legislative session in May to reexamine budget spending. With the specter of the clawback removed, lawmakers are now looking to bulk up the state budget.
And Justice has expressed a particular focus on restoring funding to West Virginia’s health and human resources.
State lawmakers significantly reduced funding for Medicaid services in this year’s regular legislative session.
This included a reduction of nearly $11 million in funding for the state’s Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) Waiver program, which provides residents with disabilities financial support and at-home health services.
During a virtual press briefing Tuesday, Justice said the dismissal of the federal clawback opens the door for restored funding.
“Where we need to concentrate our efforts right off the get-go is to restore the dollars that we pulled out of the budget … for the most needy of our people,” he said. “We didn’t need to [cut funding], and if we don’t watch out we’re going to get our really needy folks in a real mess.”
Lawmakers who supported the cuts during this year’s regular session said the reductions would increase spending transparency and limit unnecessary expenditures.
But opponents of the budget cuts have expressed concern that the lack of funding could broadly reduce Medicaid services for West Virginia residents, including individuals with disabilities.
In March, Justice announced plans to call a special legislative session before May 14, West Virginia’s primary election. He said reexamining the state budget was a top priority for the prospective session.
Meanwhile, state lawmakers have expressed a preference that the session be held later in May, to coincide with interim meetings at the State Capitol.
As of Tuesday, no date for the special session has been finalized.
Domestic violence prevention nonprofits have not received a state budget increase since 2009. Advocates hope a special session of the West Virginia Legislature could change that.
Tucked away on a side street of downtown Martinsburg, the Eastern Panhandle Empowerment Center (EPEC) is a domestic violence prevention nonprofit serving Morgan, Berkeley and Jefferson counties.
EPEC was founded in 1977 and expanded with time. Ten years ago, Executive Director Katie Spriggs said the EPEC served 250 people annually. Now, it serves more than 1,400 people each year.
Visits to EPEC may be on the rise, but Spriggs said funding has not increased sufficiently to meet them.
Looking at EPEC’s first-floor office it immediately becomes clear. Each day, staff members squeeze into corners of the room with laptops and cell phones in hand.
“We have probably on an average day 12 people that work out of this office, so it’s not large enough,” Spriggs said.
According to Spriggs, moving out of EPEC’s apartment-turned-office into a larger space would bring benefits. But a potential move and the expansion of current EPEC services are constrained by the same factor: the budget.
“We’re kind of stuck,” she said. “We haven’t seen an increase in so long that it’s really difficult to make the budget work every year.”
In West Virginia, domestic violence prevention nonprofits receive funding through a variety of sources, like private donations, federal grants and a line item included annually in the state budget.
But the state has not boosted that line item since May 2009, even as the cost of living has risen.
In recent years, Gov. Jim Justice has pursued a flat budget, which means freezing state spending so it stays the same each year. While surplus funds get redistributed, they do not supplement every budget item.
Continuing to provide resources to survivors of domestic violence requires reliable funding on the state level, she said.
Katie Spriggs, executive director of the Eastern Panhandle Empowerment Center, is in the process of digitizing decades of the center’s paper records.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Sara Belvins O’Toole, director of development at Huntington’s Branches Domestic Violence Shelter, said part of the need for additional funding stems from changing conversations around domestic violence prevention.
In the early days, Belvins O’Toole said advocates were focused primarily on removing individuals from crisis situations.
They now understand helping people stay away from abusive relationships requires more holistic assistance, she said.
“People who are just plopped out of a situation and put into another environment don’t have the resources and the skills and the support that they need to actually stay away from a person that was violent in their life,” Belvins O’Toole said. “Especially if that person was in control of the finances.”
Approaching domestic violence on a holistic level means considering other factors that put survivors at risk, like housing insecurity and child care needs.
“We have to do a little bit of that other work like housing advocacy, like legal advocacy — all of those things that are providing support,” Belvins O’Toole said. “It’s not about just getting somebody out of crisis anymore. It’s about supporting them into a life free from violence.”
But this is easier said than done. Joyce Yedlsoky, team coordinator at the West Virginia Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WVCADV), said that the state’s flat budget has also affected separate nonprofits that address these needs directly.
In turn, she said domestic violence prevention advocates must wear multiple hats, spreading their time and funding thinner.
The budget “being able to account for other aspects that survivors need” is important as well, she said.
Through the WVCADV, Yedlosky works with the 14 licensed domestic violence prevention nonprofits located across West Virginia. In February, she helped arrange a visit to the State Capitol featuring representatives from each of these organizations.
The advocates lined the Capitol’s lower rotunda with tables, passing out stickers and informational flyers to visitors and lawmakers alike.
Yedlosky also took the time to speak with lawmakers about the nonprofits’ current financial needs, and said they were generally supportive of securing new funds.
But, since then, Yedlosky said lines of communication between lawmakers and the nonprofits have all but closed.
“Since the session ended, we haven’t heard from lawmakers specifically around our funding,” she said.
Staff members Katie Brougham, Serena Hemple and Foxfire Formoso (from left) stand in the entryway of the Eastern Panhandle Empowerment Center.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
By the time this year’s regular session of the West Virginia Legislature ended, no budget line increases for domestic violence nonprofits had been passed. New funding for services like child care were also left out entirely.
Still, this year’s budget is not completely settled. Gov. Jim Justice has expressed disapproval of some funding omissions from this year’s budget, and in March announced plans to call a special legislative session to reconsider the budget.
Justice said he plans to hold the session by May 14, the state’s primary election. Members of the Legislature’s leadership have indicated they would prefer for the session to coincide with interim meetings beginning May 19.
In a dream scenario, Yedlosky said she would like to see a $500,000 cost-of-living increase to the state’s funding for domestic violence nonprofits, which currently sits at $2.5 million split annually between all 14 licensed organizations.
But Yedlosky said she’s not holding her breath for what the special session will bring.
“To be honest, I don’t think that that’s on the table for the special session,” she said. “It would be really nice if it was.”
Instead, Yedlosky said she hopes that lawmakers will reverse course and provide new funding to other services like child care.
“I do believe if they reinstate back some of the huge cuts that they made, that’s also going to help survivors,” she said. “That’s my hope.”
Back in the Eastern Panhandle, Spriggs echoed Yedlosky’s calls for a cost-of-living budget increase. She described an increase like this as a critical way to reduce the risks that survivors of domestic violence face across the state.
“A line item increase on the state budget would not only keep the lights on and give us a foundation to grow on,” she said. “It would also prevent violence. A lot of violence.”
For more information on domestic violence prevention resources in West Virginia, visit the West Virginia Coalition Against Domestic Violence’s website.
Hill Top House Hotel, a controversial luxury venue planned for Harpers Ferry, is pursuing new financing models through West Virginia’s tax increment financing program.
Overlooking the Potomac River, the future site of the Hill Top House Hotel has been blocked off with chain-link fences and sheets of fabric for years.
First proposed in 2007, the luxury hotel aimed to renovate and expand a historic nineteenth-century hotel that had fallen into disrepair.
The plan generated controversy among residents concerned about the scale of the project, which includes an underground parking garage, on-site restaurant and public green space.
For their part, representatives with SWaN & Legend Venture Partners — the Virginia-based investment group that owns the property — have maintained their intention to see the project through, even as local objections have ebbed and flowed.
But community pushback has not come without challenges, according to SWaN CEO Karen Schaufeld. The years of delays to the project have altered the project’s costs, which Schaufeld said rose significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The increase in construction and building costs due to numerous delays and, subsequently, the COVID-19 pandemic caused Hill Top’s total project cost to balloon to $150 million,” she wrote Thursday in an email to West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
To offset these new costs and help complete a project decades in the making, SWaN representatives are pursuing a new financing model: West Virginia’s tax increment financing (TIF) program.
Schaufeld wrote that admission to the program is a “financial necessity” for the hotel’s completion.
Some properties along Washington Street in Harpers Ferry have been purchased and prepared for development by SWaN & Legend Venture Partners.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The TIF program identifies areas in need of development and economic revitalization. By designating these areas as TIF districts, property developers can receive financial support for their projects on site.
When a site is declared a TIF district, its property value is frozen for a number of years, during which property owners can further develop within the district without facing increased property taxes.
On April 4, the Jefferson County Commission took the first steps toward securing the hotel its new status, voting narrowly to submit a TIF district application to the West Virginia Department of Economic Development.
This is merely a first step in the process, as the Jefferson County Commission will receive final approval over TIF districting plans.
Still, during an April 4 commission meeting, some members of the commission expressed concern over the speed of the application process, and encouraged additional time for public feedback.
Additionally, county commissioners expressed concern that the application was not complete at the time of their voting.
“I think we need to schedule another public hearing,” said County Commissioner Tricia Jackson, who voted against the application. “I think it would be irresponsible and reckless for this commission to advance this without having completed application information and [having] the public’s involvement.”
Last fall, the commission hosted a separate public hearing to receive community input over the plans. Additionally, the commission hosted a workshop on TIF districts in late March in preparation for the project.
Schaufeld said that the TIF district application “is a dynamic document, which contains values that change with time.”
This Harpers Ferry overlook has been slated for the development of Hill Top House Hotel, prompting detours for local access roads.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
“Since the progression of this TIF application was delayed by many months due to the Jefferson County Commission itself, there are certain areas that are being updated,” she wrote.
Other members of the commission said delaying the application process could have adverse effects on the project on the whole.
County Commissioner Pasha Majdi, who voted in favor of the application, added that the commission would have time to review the results from the Department of Economic Development before making a final decision.
“I’m concerned that if we delay this application, we would risk losing funding for public benefits like an underground parking garage and green space,” he said. “The project, it’s going to continue regardless. But without a TIF these public benefits could be lost.”
Ultimately, the commission voted in favor of the application 3 to 2, advancing a project characterized by years-long standstills.
In her email, Schaufeld wrote that SWaN expects a “swift turnaround” on their application, and a response from the Department of Economic Development within 60 days of its submission.
Once a response has been received, the application will return to the Jefferson County Commission for final approval. If approved, the county will then have three to six months to finalize bonds for the project.
Schaufeld added that the project’s latest advancement has brought renewed excitement.
“We hope that after many years of costly delays we will be able to bring this project to life so that these economic benefits can finally come to Jefferson County,” she wrote.
