Do Vacant, Run-Down Buildings Impact Your Life? We Need Your Story…

The West Virginia Community Development Hub and the Abandoned Properties Coalition (APC) understand that vacant, abandoned, and dilapidated buildings affect residents in communities across West Virginia.

This is an issue not just of dollars and cents, but also of health, safety and pride of place.

In order to develop actionable solutions, we need to better understand how the state’s residents have been personally impacted by these problem properties.

If you have a story to tell, please take a few moments to share via this Google Survey.

No story is too small.

By collecting these stories statewide, The Hub and the APC hope to demonstrate the ways in which West Virginians have been impacted by vacancy and abandonment despite the population, capacity, or resources of their community.

This project is part of The Hub and the APC’s larger engagement with the Center for Community Progress’ Technical Assistance Scholarship Program (TASP), along with the Huntington Urban Renewal Authority and the Northern West Virginia Brownfields Assistance Center.

Community Progress, a national nonprofit, will focus its efforts on delinquent tax enforcement systems, public safety, and neighborhood stabilization in Huntington and across West Virginia.

The goal is to better understand the costs of vacancy and abandonment, raise awareness of the solutions in rural communities, and develop legislative options to establish additional solutions to mitigate problem properties at the state-level.

More information about the Technical Assistance Scholarship Program is available on the Center for Community Progress website.

Once again, please take a few moments to share your story about how you’ve been impacted by vacancy and abandonment.

If you’d like to share any photos that help illustrate your story or would just like to chat, reach out to me at n.marrocco@wvhub.org.