Central Appalachia — and Eastern Kentucky in particular — is running out of time to turn a century of decline into a future worth staying for. Population loss is now the coalfields’ defining trend, and in some counties it’s accelerating toward collapse.

Data from the Kentucky State Data Center’s “Kentucky: By the Numbers” series shows that Kentucky’s coal counties — including Letcher, Knott, Perry and Harlan — are among the fastest-shrinking in Appalachia.

By 2050, Harlan is projected to lose nearly half its people (-44.6%), with Breathitt (-39.4%), Martin (-33.0%), Floyd (-30.5%), and Leslie (-29.5%) not far behind.

The pattern stretches across both coal and non-coal counties in Eastern Kentucky: Pike (-26.3%), Knott (-25.6%), Bell (-23.2%), Perry (-22.0%), Whitley (-17.2%), Owsley (-16.4%), Letcher (-14.4%), Lee (-13.9%), Johnson (-12.5%), Knox (-8.9%), Magoffin (-7.6%), Lawrence (-6.2%) — with Wolfe a rare outlier projected to grow slightly (+3.0%).

All the data are from 2010–2050 projections. We are 15 years along now and the economic and social conditions in these counties have only grown more dire as flooding becomes more frequent and more damaging and the Trump administration makes cuts in health care, FEMA and development programs like the Appalachian Regional Commission.

We’re not just losing numbers — we’re losing the critical mass that keeps communities alive. Shrinking tax bases strain schools and clinics. Volunteer fire and rescue squads struggle to replace aging equipment. Local businesses close earlier, then for good. And after every flood, more families ask if it’s sustainable to rebuild at the bottom of a hollow while idle acreage sits on benches and ridgelines above town.

Floods made the land problem impossible to ignore.

The 2022 Eastern Kentucky floods killed 45 people, destroyed hundreds of homes, and forced many survivors into a wrenching choice: rebuild in the same floodplain or leave the region altogether.  As one flood victim said, “I can stay and face the next flood, or I can leave the county my family’s been in for 200 years.”

Gov. Andy Beshear’s answer has been bold and right: build high-ground neighborhoods. His administration is creating eight such communities across Breathitt, Floyd, Knott, Letcher and Perry counties, with more than $8 million allocated to Perry County alone.

This pioneering effort is the seed from which a much more comprehensive vision of change for Eastern Kentucky and Central Appalachia can emerge.  The model works — but scaling it up runs straight into a century-old barrier: who owns the land. We’ve tried everything but changing who holds the deed.

Corporate control keeps safe ground off limits in much of Eastern Kentucky; coal and timber companies still control huge tracts of the high, safe ground needed for climate-resilient rebuilding. Where companies don’t hold title, heirs’ property disputes and clouded deeds make assembling parcels nearly impossible.

That’s why I’ve spent nearly a decade arguing for an Appalachian Homestead Act — and why the version we need now must do more than hand out parcels. This was my argument nine years ago: “A Homestead Act for Appalachia” in The Daily Yonder. I’ve recently updated the concept with more detail in a new Daily Yonder article: “A Revised Appalachian Homestead Act – Reclaiming Land and Restoring Hope.” 

The act should combine two proven tools:

• Community land trusts (CLTs) are nonprofits that hold land permanently for community benefit, leasing it for housing, farming and local businesses. CLTs keep housing affordable, ensure local control and prevent speculative resale. Tennessee’s Woodland CLT, created after the 1977 flood, has secured hundreds of acres for housing and community use.
• Land banks  are public entities that acquire problem properties — tax-delinquent, abandoned or distressed — clear the title, and transfer them to CLTs or other community-controlled groups. Kentucky’s successful Louisville Landbank Authority demonstrates scalable models for rural applications.

Financing a modern Appalachian Homestead Act should begin with funds already on the table. The federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) has committed billions to environmental remediation, mine land reclamation, broadband expansion and resilient housing. Much of that money is flowing piecemeal through existing agencies, but a Homestead Act would braid those streams together, targeting them to high-ground relocation, land acquisition, and community land trusts.

The Act wouldn’t require a wholly new appropriation so much as a coordinated strategy to direct IIJA funds, Appalachian Regional Commission investments, and USDA rural development programs toward a single end: putting safe, usable land back into community hands.

Private and philanthropic capital can multiply the impact. Foundations already funding climate adaptation, rural development, and land conservation could partner with land banks and community land trusts seeded by federal dollars.

States could provide tax abatements and bond financing for infrastructure in high-ground communities. Local ownership of renewable energy projects on reclaimed mine lands can generate lease income that is recycled back into housing and job creation.

In short, the Homestead Act’s financing rests on a federal spine of infrastructure funds, reinforced by state incentives and private capital, making it both feasible and scalable without requiring a massive new federal bureaucracy.

Linking cleanup to new uses

The biggest challenge to reusing former mine lands is environmental liability. Federal law allows “bona fide prospective purchasers” to acquire contaminated sites without becoming liable for the original pollution — but only if they follow strict cleanup and monitoring rules. A Homestead Act should fund that cleanup before land is transferred to communities, and pair it with environmental insurance for added security.

Once land is remediated and held in trust, it can become the base for a diversified local economy:

• Sustainable agriculture to rebuild Eastern Kentucky’s historic orchards and vegetable production.
• Renewable energy on reclaimed mine lands, generating lease income and skilled jobs.
• Outdoor recreation on trust-owned trail networks that attract tourism without displacing locals.

Rebuilding in the same flood-prone hollows is not resilience; it’s roulette.  Much of the coal, timber and land company property in the mountains remains undisturbed with gorgeous vistas, clean water, and good land for agriculture, housing, and business ventures.  Will those companies sell?  It’s time to ask, checks in hand.  The original purpose of assembling the 1.3 million acres coal companies own in Eastern Kentucky — coal — has little or no future.

Kentucky can lead, but it needs help

The Appalachian Homestead Act I’m calling for would:

• Fund and expand Kentucky’s land banks to acquire and clear safe, high-ground parcels.
• Transfer those parcels to CLTs with strong community governance.
• Provide relocation grants, tax abatements and broadband for homesteaders.
• Link land reuse to job training in sustainable agriculture, renewable energy and cooperative business.

Skeptics may call such proposals unrealistic. But history offers precedent: Before the Tennessee Valley Authority became law in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous first 100 days of 1933, U.S. Sen. George Norris of Nebraska — who had no direct political stake in the TVA region — introduced or supported 19 different bills over 12 years to address flooding and navigation on the Tennessee River. Persistence paid off.

A 21st century Homestead Act offers compelling advantages for political leaders across the spectrum. For conservatives, it emphasizes individual responsibility, property ownership and free market solutions while reducing long-term government dependency. For progressives, it addresses inequality, environmental restoration and climate adaptation while empowering marginalized communities. Few things are more American than homesteading.  For those who insist the poverty wars and heavily diluted development funding for agencies like the ARC have done little to change the prospects for the region, a homestead act is a bold new vision from which to learn from past failures.

A chance to reverse the tide

For too long, Eastern Kentucky’s wealth — coal, timber, gas — has flowed out of the mountains while the damage stayed behind. Now, as climate change makes other regions hotter, drier and less livable, we have a chance to make our hills and hollows a place people come to, not leave. Over half of America’s fruits and vegetables are grown in California and trucked east at a time when the Colorado River is shrinking. That makes no sense when the mountains can prosper with traditional and vertical farming and plentiful water. For those who argue farming is impossible in the mountains, I suggest a visit to all the farmers markets in the region. To those who say farming on steep slopes is impossible, I suggest a trip to Asia where it is common.

If we don’t secure the land and put it in community hands, we’ll watch more floods take more homes and more young people take the road out.

A Homestead Act for Appalachia — starting in Kentucky — could turn safe ground into a foundation for a new economy. It could keep the young ones here, beckon “come home” to the mountain diaspora, welcome newcomers and rebuild communities that can survive the next hundred years, not just the next storm. Eastern Kentucky doesn’t need another study or another handout — it needs its land back, its voice restored, and partners willing to work as hard as mountain people do to build a future worthy of these hills

The land is there. The tools are there. What we need now is the will to put them together.