About Us
The West Piedmont Better Housing Coalition, Inc. provides resources for continuum of care in Danville, Martinsville, and Franklin, Henry, Patrick and Pittsylvania counties in Virginia. The Continuum of Care is a set of three competitive programs based on the law of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act to address the problems of homelessness in a comprehensive manner in concert with other federal agencies.
In the West Piedmont region, we have learned there is need for such services because…
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3% live in hotels/motels or apartment voucher arrangements (paid by public or private agency)
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32% reside in homeless shelters
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2% reside in substance abuse resident programs
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16% live on the streets (outdoors, abandoned buildings, automobiles)
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49% pending eviction
(based on 2013 Point-in-Time Survey - 174 adults, and 107 accompanied children)
What does this mean?
Most people who are homeless in the West Piedmont service region are doubled up with relatives or friends, or are living in cars and do not even consider themselves "homeless". The West Piedmont area is economically distressed with 13.5% of persons living below the poverty line. (Census 2000 U.S. Census Bureau)
The education levels of persons 25 years and older with high school diploma is 67.6% for the region, compared with 81.5% for the Commonwealth of Virginia. (Census 2000 U.S. Census Bureau)
