Leslie County Promise Zone Community Forum
Challenges:
- Getting people back to work (worse in leslie county, but still a regional issue)
- Terrible drug problem (meth and prescription)
- Retention of youth and population in general
- Sustainability of business
- Sustainability of school
- Housing and hotels (affordable)
- Outflow of money
- Flood insurance
Assets:
- Hospital
- Educational system –
- Dare
- Renaissance program
- Vocational school
- Music school
- Caring community
- Outdoors (park, go kart track, etc)
- HCR – Hyden
- Frontier nursing
- Available workforce (mining, transportation, suppliers)
- Fiber optics
- Youth
- Local bank
- 4h
- Cooperative extension
- Libraries
- Volunteers (big creek mission, Appalachian service)
- ATV and RV park
- Churches
- Ministerial associations
- Sheriffs camp
- Nursing home
- Future veterans cemetery
- Volunteer fire dept
- Miners memorials
- People want to stay – but they want to work
Known For:
- Best place to come for hunting and fishing (spend money on vacation – game reserve)
- Safe
- Great place to live
- Manufacturing and technology
- Retirement homes
- Tourism
- Recreational facilities
- Coals impact is huge with no replacement
- Not diversified enough
- Lack of land/land ownership issues
- Continued momentum
- Roads
- Proximity to hazard
- Technology call center (they have the equipment, building, training)
- Development of adventure tourism
- Housing
- Retraining
- Food co-op
- Tax credit lending
- Single, duplex, apartment – high quality – alternative to HUD/Section 8
Why haven’t you gotten there yet:
Ideas:
- Technology call center (they have the equipment, building, training)
- Development of adventure tourism
- Housing
- Retraining
- Food co-op
- Tax credit lending
- Single, duplex, apartment – high quality – alternative to HUD/Section 8
