Getting to Know Our County
Kent County, from the perspective of a student, begins at one location. Chestertown - in all of its rurality - its shops downtown and the few eateries you can find, seem to be what students hear about. It’s not the history of Kent County - the last county to integrate. Or that it’s a county with a 12% poverty rate and placed first out of all the Maryland counties for the deep poverty rate in 2020 (deep poverty indicates a household living below 50% the region's area median income).
I initially learned these facts about the county while helping to secure funding for the Kent County Housing Survey - and still as I continue to work on it, I find it absurd how truly little we know about such a small and tight-knit community. And, what we do know from the most recent government data about housing has been proven wrong time and time again by the need for organizations like Rebuilding Together Kent County (RTKC), who have been in operation for 20 years, dedicating volunteer and contractor efforts to provide crucial home repairs for folks.
RTKC knows that the need and the census data do not match up - but does the county know? Do the people know? Visibility and representation of the true needs of the county are vital in creating necessary change. With the data we get from the survey, RTKC will have a stronger case to secure funding needed for better housing in Kent County, and it will be available for others to use in their efforts to help our community thrive.
We as a county cannot get better if we don’t know where the problems are and what our neighbors truly need. As we rely on grant funding and donations to provide critical repairs for homeowners - one of the things that goes undiscussed is the limitations of what we as a non-profit can do. Of our applicants, many of them apply multiple times. It's sometimes a consistent process of seeing what needs to be done, repairing what our funding allows us to, and making sure we keep up that relationship with the homeowner as they ask us for more repairs down the road. Our hope is one day, that we can help each neighbor to the degree that they need us during one project cycle, rather than piecemeal. Housing is an essential part of one’s livelihood. It determines not only your physical well-being, but also your mental well-being. It’s an image so intertwined with one’s selfhood.
By Caryl Townsend