West Virginians have a honey-do list for their newly elected officials

Up in Taylor County, Carolyn Wilson has a daughter in prison and another whose whereabouts are unknown to her, both as a result of drugs. Down in Logan County, residents see drugs driving homelessness and senseless deaths. Over in Nicholas, Sasha Hayes works at a thrift shop while rebuilding her life in recovery.

But far too many West Virginians like Hayes don’t have easy access to treatment and recovery options as they struggle with substance abuse disorder. 

In 2023, 1,300 died from drug overdoses, preliminary numbers show. People in rural communities, like Wirt County with only one doctor, don’t have any options for treatment. The beds aren’t meeting the demand. There are about 1,700 licensed treatment beds in the state, according to the West Virginia Office of Drug Control Policy. But nearly 265,000 adults in the state have a substance abuse disorder, according to Centers for Disease Control estimates. 

In recent years, state lawmakers are making things worse, by passing a law that caps the number of beds in any given community.

The consensus from your constituents everywhere: Y’all have got to fix this!

Even before the paper mill across the river in Luke, Md., closed in 2019, many people in Mineral County had to drive long commutes to the Washington, D.C., area for a decent job. People in the Northern Panhandle have felt plant closures for years, including the near miss with Cleveland Cliffs this year. And down in southern Wayne and northern Mingo, the decline of coal has caused hope to dwindle like the opportunities. 

The state’s poverty rate is still above the national average, and the median household income is $22,000 below. West Virginians who have to rely on minimum wage jobs, haven’t seen a raise since 2014, when the Legislature raised their pay to $8.75 an hour. 

West Virginians work or look for work at one of the lowest rates in the country. A key to fixing that issue is to provide more child care while parents work, according to the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy. 

It would take around $100 million to fully fund child care in the state, according to the Center.

Cost of housing and rent is rising in West Virginia, but the factors at play vary from region to region. 

In Berkeley and Jefferson counties, people moving in from the D.C. metro area are driving up costs, with homes selling north of $300,000 – much higher than the state average. Over in Tucker County, the market has tightened because people are either buying second homes or locking up properties as Airbnb short term rentals. 

Legislation tailored to help low-income West Virginians has stalled. Past legislators failed to act on bills that would have: doubled a fee collected for the affordable housing fund, offered a tax incentive for landlords renting to vulnerable people or established a tenant’s right to be offered first dibs on their place if a landlord was looking to sell. 

Every single political campaign is bound to say, “Think about the children!” 

For the West Virginians we talked to, this means education. 

People in Morgan County wanted better pay for teachers because so many hop the border to Maryland for a pay raise.

Teachers in West Virginia are some of the lowest paid in the nation despite multiple pay raises passed by legislators since the 2018 teacher’s strike. Legislators have passed bills to create charter schools and a school voucher program, all of which critics say rob public education of needed money.

Jeff Davisson, a retired bus driver in Clarksburg, pays $800 per month for his prescriptions. In Wirt County, Jackie Davis couldn’t get a ride to her eye doctor appointment and had to reschedule. In Nicholas County, the health department can’t afford to test for HIV. On his porch in McDowell County, Thurman Chapman said his wife has to be driven over an hour to Princeton to see her doctors. 

The state funding for Medicaid — a key reason for keeping low-income folks insured — is up in the air in the face of tax cuts. About 476,000 West Virginians rely on the program for their health care. 

Bipartisan plans to fill in the gap for low-income West Virginians who might not qualify for Medicaid have not been supported by legislators in the past.

In Dunlow, the edge of Mingo and Wayne, Bill Likens runs a community center that sees 500 people come out for a monthly food distribution. In downtown Bluefield, Martha Jones lives in a low-income apartment and struggles to get to the grocery store. In Elizabeth, a man needs a ride to Parkersburg because the Piggly Wiggly in town charges $4 more for sugar than the Walmart. 

People are hungry. Nearly 270,000 residents in the state live in communities with high rates of poverty and far from grocery stores, according to West Virginia University. 

While the legislators have allocated limited funding for food banks, they have not supported efforts like establishing a food desert pilot program to have producers sell fresh foods in these areas.

In Wheeling and Wellsburg, some people don’t trust the water. In Ritchie County, people packed a meeting hall to raise concerns about arsenic in the water. Drinking water in Wyoming County has a brownish, yellow hue. In McDowell County, people have been on boil water advisories for months. 

Thirty-six of West Virginia’s 55 counties were among the worst in the nation for drinking water quality, according to one report. Almost 200,000 West Virginians aren’t being served by a water system at all. They either use a well on their property, or haul water from elsewhere. 

Since 2017, the state has allocated about $960 million in its own dollars for water line improvements. Additionally, at least $515 million in federal money has come from Biden administration programs like the American Rescue Plan. 
The state is catching up. The percentage of failing systems has gone down by 84% since 2002. It still has a long way to go. A 2023 estimate showed the state’s water and sewer needs would cost closer to $16 to $20 billion.

Nick Dalton works the register at a hardware store in Union. He said his grandmother, who can’t drive anymore, has a hard time making it to doctor’s appointments because there’s no bus to take her there. In Clay County, businesses and services are so spread out, people without cars are hard pressed to get to work.

On paper, there are 19 transit systems across 33 counties in the state. In practice, lines in the rural areas are limited. 

In 2023, the president of the state’s public transit association told lawmakers if the state upped its contributions by $7 million, they could expand public transportation to all counties. Legislators haven’t increased funding in the last three years. 

And for those with a set of wheels, the roads themselves are a sticking point. 

Lucas Ashworth, 34, has spent most of his life in Lincoln County. He left for the military and came back because it was home. For him, there’s not much to fix, except for one thing: 

“The best thing the state can do is update the road system,” he said.