Cieara Saunders remembers one winter night in 2019. As she was sitting on her couch, rain began leaking through the living room of her mobile home.
“When you’ve worked your whole life working and trying to provide for your family, it really takes you down,” Saunders recalled.
Saunders is a single mom. She worked to put herself through college, but a divorce, and a disability, left her in her 30s without money to repair, or replace, her dilapidating home. The roof, even the walls, were soggy and soft. She was terrified the electrical system could become damaged too.
Then she learned about a local volunteer organization, called Floyd Initiative For Safe Housing, or FISH.
“They made me feel that it was safe and that I could show them what was going on,” Saunders said.
Volunteers made a few repairs on her house, but they told Saunders, her home really needed to be replaced.
There are thousands of mobile homes throughout the New River Valley. Many, like Saunders’ aren’t safe, said Susan Icove, one of the volunteers with FISH.
“Holes in floors. Rain coming in through windows. Roofs caving in, plumbing bursts,” Icove said.
It’s not only mobile homes. Big repairs, like a new roof or windows, are out of reach for some families with older homes.
Residents in Floyd County earn some of the lowest wages in the state, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
And because residents are scattered and spread out, it can be challenging to get government funding through traditional neighborhood revitalization grants.
Similar struggles are true across many rural communities.
In Floyd County, the community made the case for a rural revitalization project.
The FISH volunteers teamed up with the New River Valley Economic Development Commission, as well as eight other organizations, and received a million dollar grant from the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development.
“There are folks known to all of us right now with dire housing need,” said Jennifer Wilsie, housing director with the New River Valley Regional Commission “And we cannot get to them fast enough.”
Wilsie said they’re hoping to repair or rebuild 15 houses by the end of next year, but higher construction costs mean they may not get to all 15 homes by the end of this grant cycle.
Saunders and her mother were the first ones they helped. Their dilapidated homes were torn down, and new homes were built in their place.
“Sometimes I can’t believe that it’s mine,” Saunders said. “Because during the process you almost feel like it’s not true.”
The land where they live is the same property that Saunders’ great-great grandfather bought in the early 1900s.
“In those times it was uncommon for a Black man to own as much land as my family owned,” Saunders said.
Her ancestor bought this land by working in the coal mines of West Virginia, sending money back to his mother.
“This spot is a way of honoring the past of what my ancestors had to go through in order to make this happen. It’s not a big place, but it sure is beautiful just the way that it sets.”
Every morning, Saunders goes to her kitchen to do dishes. The sink overlooks a window where she can see the woods behind her house. Often, she stands there for several minutes to collect her thoughts, and pray, before waking her daughter.
She likes to open the back door to feel the air from the mountains surrounding her home.
