Floyd's Village: How FISH works to address housing needs
According to FISH’s most recent newsletter, volunteer hours have added up to over 1,000 just this year alone.
Floyd Initiative for Safe Housing (FISH) assisted 20 families throughout 2025 with improving the safety of their homes either by rehabilitation, rebuilding, or connecting the homeowners with resources such as grants and loans. This all happens because of hundreds of hours of local volunteers and regional donors.
Project Coordinator Joshua Boothe explained that FISH "started out as a volunteer awareness group" and now works as a hub for connecting various groups that make the bigger projects work.
"We are helping people locally by repairing their homes," Boothe said. "That is the urgent need. It is the safety, the warmth, the accessibility; but at the same time, not forgetting that there are bigger pictures. We are here to help with whatever we can." He noted that paperwork – particularly government paperwork related to funding for repairs — can be a barrier. "Filling out government applications isn't easy if you are trying to get a government grant or loan," he said. "Some people in Floyd County still don’t have internet, a computer, or may not have a vehicle to drive to the library to use their services.”
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According to Data USA summary 11% of the population of Floyd County experienced severe housing problems this year, and 8.29% of the population (about 1,300 adult residents) are considered to live in poverty.
In Floyd County, dilapidated housing is not a newly discovered problem: safe housing has been a long-standing issue, according to FISH founder Susan Icove.
“We started in 2017 off of the New River Community Action group. The board at the time was doing a "needs assessment" for the county," Icove said. "Outside of transportation, housing was a problem, and it was something that we could address.”
Finding inspiration in Plenty!'s methods of operating without barriers to receive help, the board decided to use volunteers to assist those in need. Icove, who was on the NRCA board at the time, said that the initial meeting of what would become FISH "was much larger than expected."
“The first meeting 40 people showed up, 90% were from different agencies, churches, council members, Habitat for Humanity,” Icove explained. She said there were so many people that wanted to come together, not to ask for help for themselves, but to willingly give their time and skills to those community members who needed assistance.
Occasionally, Icove said, FISH has to decline a project because it would risk volunteers' safety. "We can’t send most volunteers into hoarding situations. I would say that half the houses have hoarding issues," Icove said.
"We are always keeping in mind safety. Habitat took us under their wing. We have to follow their guidelines, which is no roofs, no kids on ladders.” Boothe said that the FISH team always takes into consideration if a project is a good fit for volunteers. "There are a lot of people in Floyd who want to help their neighbors — we just have to do it in a smart way.”
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According to FISH’s most recent newsletter, these volunteer hours have added up to over 1,000 just this year alone.
The volunteers represent a wide range of ages, backgrounds, and skillsets. Some people have years in the construction industry under their belt; for others, volunteering with FISH might be their first time picking up a hammer.
Anyone under the age of 18 needs parental permission to volunteer with FISH. Boothe emphasized that working with local students – such as students from Springhouse who helped to replace a deck over the summer — provides a valuable experience.
“Over the course of the many weeks, you see that the kids are learning," Boothe said. "You can see every week, they are picking it up. It is about partnership and education.”
The education portion is vital to having sustainability in homeownership. It is all with the hope that they will become community leaders and continue to serve and assist, and also be able to take care of their own homes, while helping and teaching others.
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Finding safe, affordable housing is a multi-faceted issue in Floyd County. There are limited affordable housing apartments and building apartments outside of town limits has proven to be difficult because public water and sewer services are currently only available in the Town of Floyd and its immediate proximity.
According to YesFloydVA.org, the county's Economic and Community Development website, “the county is actively working to expand that system to support business sites as well as areas for workforce housing developments. Housing is at a crisis point in the County with prices far outpacing local wages…There is no zoning in this live-and-let-live community. Over the generations, many people built their home with their own hands. With local wages among the lowest in the state, 19% of households live in manufactured housing.”
Floyd County has also been working on the housing difficulties locally. Lydeana Martin, Floyd County's Community and Economic Development Director, said the Community Development Block Grant funding has allowed the county to to assist 14 income-eligible home-owners with housing rehab work in recent years.
Due to the success of the program, Martin added, the County was awarded another round of funding and will be able to help eight more households in the next couple years.
Martin said, "Floyd County is also considering pursuing grant funding that could support private development of good homes for sale. If this "workforce housing" project happens, priority given to would-be buyers living or working in the County and those working in public safety, education, healthcare, and production, for example."
The lack of infrastructure in the county makes planning any type of housing, other than detached single family homes difficult to navigate, but with recent changes to local code, the potential for townhouses might be in the future.
Icove noted that this upcoming year, FISH expects to have “a lot of single-wide trailer repairs. They are not meant to be permanent homes. We have a lot that are coming up on 50-60 years old.”
Renovations that FISH takes on can vary drastically from quick, one-day fixes to weeks of work on a single project.
Boothe said that having “safe, warm, affordable housing are the three goals that we work on. Part of safety is accessibility, like stairs that are deteriorated or need a ramp. When a person cannot safely access their home, that is probably one of our biggest ones.” Boothe added “the second biggest and most often issue is water damage – the bathrooms not working, holes in the floor, roof damage."
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"We have on average 50-70 contacts a year, reaching out to us for assistance," Icove said. “We try to help anyone who we can, but the wait list is long. Things that are water related usually get a bump up. If you are out of water, or do not have hot water, heat — those things get moved up. After that, access is a second tier after an emergency. After that it is a weatherization category, like leaky windows."
She explained that "Floyd's need is such that although I am part time, it is mostly all-volunteer run. But we need full-time help. We all just work to chip away at it, and we help where we can, and if we can't help, we try to get severe cases into the hands of other assistance programs.”
Icove said that more awareness has been raised about the housing complications in the area, but there are few plans to fix these difficulties as of right now. “There are a few acres near the school, but there are some neighbors concerned with the potential of workforce housing in their neighborhood,” she said.
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In the past eight years, FISH has created priceless connections in caring for the community. Icove expressed her gratitude for all the partnerships “coming together to make all the projects work. It takes a village. So many organizations contribute to this happening, to name a few — New River Regional Commission, SERCAP manages and hires the contractors, Community Housing Partners, Renovation Alliance," and more.
After these years of helping the community with safety focused home improvements, FISH remains a volunteer-driven organization that relies on the "can-do" attitude of the Floyd community. Susan explains that “because we are volunteer based, with limited staff hours, it means we can’t handle more- so we can't grow. One thing that she would like the community to know is that FISH's mission is funded by donor dollars. "There are some very generous folks in Floyd that have consistently supported us," she said.
If you need assistance you can call this Citizens-provided answering service where you can leave a message (540) 745-3315 or email safehousingfloyd@gmail.com.
If you are interested in volunteering or making a donation, email safehousingfloyd@gmail.com or contact them on Facebook.