By Charles Owens, Bluefield Daily Telegraph
PRINCETON — Mercer County officials are seeing an uptick in homelessness cases.
But it’s not just people who are living outdoors. The county also is seeing more people who are living in recreational vehicles and campers along county roads and city streets. In some instances, the RVs are being parked at locations where there are not hook-ups available for water or sewer.
“We are seeing an uptick in homelessness,” Greg Puckett, a member of the Mercer County Commission, said Thursday.
Puckett said the recent closure of a homeless shelter in neighboring Raleigh County may have led to some migration of homeless individuals into Mercer County. Furthermore, public camping bans in larger, metropolitan areas, have put increased pressure on rural areas like Southern West Virginia.
“As we see crackdowns in DC and other areas, there is a migration to move them out to rural areas,” Puckett said of those individuals who are homeless or without a house.
