Teri Hammonds sits in a hotel room in rural Boone County. She's sociable and warm, chatting with others at the hotel and smiling. She's staying here as part of a temporary shelter program, and it's a respite for her.
When the program isn't in effect, she sometimes finds herself without a place to stay, sleeping in the lobbies of hotels, under a blanket in the woods, or in a parking lot. During the day she walks some 30 miles to her job at a McDonalds in an isolated part of the county, but she struggles to get enough consistent hours there to pay steady rent.
"Restaurants are always worried about labor costs and stuff, and if it's high, you're getting cut," she says. "Then I don't have the money for a hotel room. When I get paid I might have enough money for two or three days, and then I'm back out here."
Rural challenges
"Out here" isn't the city streets you might expect. It's the far corners of Kentucky's rural Boone County. Things get especially dangerous for people like Hammonds in winter, when temperatures can drop into the single digits and the ground is blanketed in snow.
"Being out in the rain and the cold for even just a little bit, of course it didn't help my health at all," she says. "I ended up with pneumonia and spent a week in the hospital for it."
Jenna Gurren is the homelessness solutions director at Welcome House, a nonprofit that works on housing issues in Northern Kentucky. She says the rural environment makes it harder for people without housing to get around to jobs, food pantries, medical providers, and other services.
"There's a lot to be said about Boone County that makes it different," she says. "There are just other barriers that more urban areas aren't facing, like transportation. There's a significant lack of resources. There's not a dedicated shelter."
That's where Welcome House comes in. It works with Boone County officials to operate a temporary emergency program that houses people in hotel rooms when the weather is extremely cold. But when the weather gets warmer, the program deactivates and people once again must search for a safe place to sleep.
'They know I'm not judging them'
During a recent bitter cold spell, outreach workers Amanda Booker and Robin Luken pull up to the older two-story hotel with vinyl siding and wooden stairs. They greet people by name and ask if they need anything.
About 60 people, including Hammonds, are staying here while the temperatures are in the low teens. Lukens knows what people are going through. She's lived through it personally.
"When we tell them, 'I have been homeless before, I have lived under a bridge, and I have lived in a tent,' that builds a little bit more trust because they know I'm not judging them," she says.
Bobby Rector has been homeless for four years, often sleeping outside in a sleeping bag under a tarp. Outreach workers offered him a ride to the hotel from one of his usual camping spots. He's well-known to the workers. When he's able, he helps them look out for another man who has limited mobility due to a neck injury.
Rector says he's noticed more people in the area without housing recently.
"So many new faces, so many new people in the last year," he says. "I don't know any of them."
An increasing problem
Kentucky's K-Count — the state's version of the federal point-in-time count of people experiencing homelessness on one day in January — found 68 people without housing in Boone County in 2024, up from 51 five years prior.
Federal counts estimate about 126,000 Americans were without homes in rural areas last year, more than 15% of the nation's homeless population.
Lance George is the director of research at the Housing Assistance Council in Washington, D.C. He says those counts often underestimate the problem.
"Even the numbers we know are a vast undercount are showing a dramatic increase," George says.
Leaders in rural areas are being forced to confront the issue.
"I've visited a lot of rural communities over the last few years," George says. "We never really heard that much eight to 10, to 15 years ago. In fact, we'd go to some communities and they'd say, 'Oh, we don't have a homelessness problem,' and they did, they just weren't looking that hard or that close. Now, you will hear in rural communities municipal leaders and community leaders saying they have visibly homeless persons lacking shelter on the street."
Finding stable housing
There are a number of reasons for the increase in rural homelessness, outreach workers Booker and Lukens say.
"Not all of it is because of drugs and alcohol," Lukens says. "There are all kinds of situations."
Struggles with mental health, attempts to escape abusive relationships, and cold hard economics are all at play. As Boone County has grown, housing production hasn't kept up, and what is out there can be expensive.
"Their rents have been raised and their checks haven't, and so they get evicted when they have a perfect rental history," Booker adds.
Gurren with Welcome House says the temporary shelter program is good, but it's a stopgap. She argues it's vital to move people into long-term housing.
Rector says he's hopeful he'll be moving into a subsidized apartment soon, something Welcome House outreach workers have been helping him with.
Hammonds would like the same. She's grateful for the temporary shelter program, but hopes for more stability. She worries how she'll afford her own place, though.
"When I first started living on my own, you could get a two-bedroom apartment for $600," she says. "Now an apartment is over $1,000. None of us can afford that. What's out there for us besides being homeless? And they wonder why the homeless population is getting worse than it used to be."
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