Photographer takes on county housing insecurity | News, Sports activities, Jobs

Karen Lippowiths, pictured, will start a 7,000-mile, 30-city venture documenting housing insecurity that may start Monday in Jamestown.

A documentary photographer’s 7,000-mile, 30-city venture documenting housing insecurity will start Monday in Jamestown.

Karen Lippowiths is within the midst of her latest venture, Extended Stay, an exhibit that may cross 13 states and 30 cities throughout Appalachia, from New York to Mississippi. As a part of the work, Lippowiths will stay and work in low-budget motels and motels, documenting what Lippowiths described as America’s shadow housing system and the folks counting on momentary rooms, long-term stays, shelters, and different unstable preparations as everlasting housing prices proceed to extend.

Lippowiths instructed The Post-Journal she chosen Jamestown and Chautauqua County as a result of it’s among the many Appalachian Regional Commission’s group of communities outlined as “at risk” and dealing with financial misery.

“I chose Jamestown and Chautauqua County because they sit within the Appalachian Regional Commission’s designated county of “distress” whereas additionally reflecting many pressures I’m seeing throughout post-industrial communities like my residence of Detroit: restricted inexpensive housing, poverty, growing old infrastructure, momentary shelter programs, and folks dwelling in preparations by no means meant to grow to be everlasting,” Lippowiths mentioned Thursday. “I also have a personal connection to the Southern Tier, having lived in Ithaca, where I will travel after Jamestown. I’m interested in how housing insecurity appears in smaller cities and former industrial communities, not only in the places people traditionally associate with ‘Appalachia.’ Jamestown will be my first official stop along my 7,000-mile, 30-city route.”

The venture will culminate in a large-scale immersive exhibition in Huntington, West Virginia, deliberate for October 2027. The exhibition is supported by Coalfield Development Corporation, West Edge and Recreate Appalachia. It will mix images, oral historical past, sound, recreated motel-room environments, and interactive parts. Lippowiths started Extended Stay in 2025 whereas documenting housing insecurity in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and later in higher depth in her residence area of Detroit. Over six months, she carefully documented the compelled evacuation of the historic Detroit Leland Hotel, the place tons of of residents had been displaced and denied entry to private property, pets, and important gadgets for months. She continues to help the Detroit Tenants Union and doc the tales of these affected.

“What moved me to expand Extended Stay was the realization that motel living and temporary housing are not isolated emergencies,” the photographer mentioned. “They are a part of a a lot bigger shadow housing system. I started documenting housing insecurity in 2025, together with work in Santa Fe and Detroit, and shortly understood that the disaster was not about one metropolis or one constructing. It was concerning the programs folks enter when steady housing disappears.

What I’ve realized to this point is that housing insecurity hardly ever appears like one factor. Many unhoused folks work, usually a number of jobs. Many are displaced from “somewhere else” for one motive or one other. I met Michael Spencer in a Days Inn in Huntington, W.V. He is a disabled amputee veteran dwelling within the Philippines however has been within the Days Inn since November awaiting VA medical care. Motels, shelters, and weekly rooms are sometimes handled as invisible locations But for too many individuals, they’ve grow to be a everlasting lifestyle. This venture is about making these hidden lives seen.”

The price of housing has been a recurring theme in Jamestown in recent times. Those who’ve discovered themselves homeless, a inhabitants that has exploded in recent times, have discovered themselves housed in motels all through the county. Two of these motels have been both totally or partially closed this 12 months as a result of uninhabitable circumstances, whereas the situation of tons of of homes in Jamestown over the previous twenty years has led to their demolition. Rents for remaining rental properties have elevated exponentially over the previous decade, with incomes or applications meant to assist these struggling to afford housing not retaining tempo.

During her travels, Lippowiths seeks to attach with residents keen to share their tales, in addition to housing advocates, tenant organizers, service suppliers, motel house owners, outreach employees, journalists, and group members who perceive the native housing panorama.

“Hotel rent is almost always unaffordable, creating a subterfuge effect that traps people,” Lippowiths instructed The Post-Journal on Thursday. “I met a couple, Natalie and Chris, who spend $4,000 a month in a Wyndham in Santa Fe, N.M., leaving almost nothing for food, transportation, or daily expenses, let alone savings to get ahead. I also have learned that when I try to book low-budget hotels, many are already full. Some are full with voucher placements; others are full with long-term residents. That pushes people up the price chain into more expensive rooms, making transition even harder.”

Lippowith’s time in Jamestown will embrace visits to voucher motels, working with Bruce Beahr on the UCAN City Mission and a gathering with Scott Linden at Chautauqua Opportunities Inc., the group which homes the Chautauqua County Homeless Coalition. Lippowith mentioned she can be interested by assembly and listening to the non-public tales of metropolis residents. Those can e mail karen@karenlippowiths.com or name 248-320-1943.

While the exhibit will start in Huntington, W.V., in October 2027, Lippowiths mentioned those that have an interest can observe her journey on-line at www.karenlippowiths.com or www/extendedstayproject.com.and, doubtlessly, see the exhibition if it turns into a touring piece.

“I also hope there will be opportunities to exhibit the work and bring the installation to other locations,” Lippowiths mentioned. “People can follow the journey through Room Service, a subscriber-based part of the project that provides exclusive access to field notes, images, dispatches, and a more complete art experience as the work unfolds. The project is ambitious, and funding will be essential to complete the travel, production, installation, and public programming at the level the stories deserve.”

ABOUT KAREN LIPPOWITHS.

Karen Lippowiths is a Southeast Michigan-based documentary photographer with 21 years of PPofA award-winning skilled images expertise. Her long-term initiatives give attention to American social and civil rights points, together with housing insecurity, labor, psychological well being, habit, and the precarity of the American dream.

For interviews, group contacts, pitch deck, and venture inquiries:

Karen Lippowiths

248 320 1943

karen@karenlippowiths.com

karenlippowiths.com/extended-stay-appalachia