Karen Lippowiths, a documentary photographer out of Detroit, has been on a mission to share with the world an exhibit documenting the truth behind housing insecurity and homelessness crises across the Appalachian Region. Her first stop for this exhibit, “Extended Stay”, was in Jamestown, where she visited in July, working to document the lives of homeless individuals living out of hotels.

“Extended Stay” will feature a roughly 1,200 square foot replica motel that will be built in Huntington, W.V.. As of right now the exhibit is expected to open sometime in October 2027, and it will be an immersive exhibit allowing people to travel through the rooms and experience the different facets of living in a motel and living with housing insecurities. Each room will have a theme such as dreams, weather, movement, physical objects, and the work Lippowiths is doing is fashioned to fit within those themes.

NEW YORK’S ‘UNIQUE SYSTEM’

Jamestown was Lippowiths’ first stop along the way for this project, which she said was for a few reasons.

“New York has a unique system that I learned more about when I was there, in that you guys have a very robust voucher system, placing people in motels and hotels,” Lippowiths said. “Most states don’t have that, or have a leaner system in terms of that service or government subsidy. So, I wanted to see what that looked like.”

Jamestown, Lippowiths added, is similar to Detroit in that it is an older, Rust Belt, type town that falls within Appalachia, specifically falling under the Appalachian Regional Commission’s map that Lippowiths is using, staying in the counties considered most distressed in the 13 states that she is visiting.

Now that her visit to Jamestown is finished, there were a few things that Lippowiths said she found to be interesting.

“Initially, what I found to be interesting was before I even left when I tried to find a motel within Jamestown,” Lippowiths said. “Typically what I do is I look for the marginal motels, two-stars if you will. What I do is I look at the reviews and I’m looking with a different eye. Most people of course are looking for tourist attractions and cleanliness and proximity to fun things like restaurants and whatever else is going on; they want to ensure it’s a ‘good’ place to stay. But, when I look at the reviews I am looking essentially for complaints.”

Specifically, Lippowiths looks for bad reviews such as rude management, the hotel being unclean or “a dump”, or people just “milling about”; things along those lines. She identified a few hotels in Jamestown that fit that bill, and found that they were both fully booked.

“When I called the Budget Inn, they just very summarily told me, ‘we’re booked’, and didn’t give me any more information,” Lippowiths said. “It didn’t occur to me until I was in Jamestown that the reason for that is because they’re voucher-filled.”

‘NOT A TYPICAL HOTEL’

Lippowiths did receive an invitation to stay at the Falconer Hotel, which was formerly known as the Quality Inn, paying her own way as she did not take anyone else’s subsidy or voucher to be able to stay there. When spending the night there she spoke with multiple residents, management, and “really experienced what it would be like to stay in a place like that.”

“It’s not a typical motel; they’re not really frequented by travelers, and if they are it’s not the kind of place a traveler would choose to stay, necessarily,” Lippowiths said. “It was fascinating, I found it very clean, very secure, but it felt much more like a residence than a motel. People moved around very fluidly, everybody knew everybody. People were outside playing on the lawn, families were out riding bikes and playing with kids on the lawn. It just had a much more familial sense to it.”

The hotel, she added, also had a more institutionalized sense to it as well, in that people have ranges of need when finding themselves in a place such as that; anything from needing a little bit of help financially such as needing help with the first month’s rent, to people who really need supportive care such as with severe medical or mental disabilities.

“That was what I found interesting,” Lippowiths said. “Everyone gets a room and a key. There’s no differentiation among these people. But, there’s a population with widely divergent needs in there.”

CONTINUING TRAVELS

After her visit to Jamestown, Lippowiths is continuing her travels and loops to specific areas, leaving Saturday for Pittsburgh. Having already driven more than 2500 miles, she said she has to revise her original planned miles of 7,000. With that being the original estimate as to how many miles she would travel, Lippowiths said she has already reached 9,000 miles with more to go over the next few months.

“What I will be doing is consecutive loops out from the Detroit area, going farther and farther south as it gets colder here in the winter,” Lippowiths said. “So, as you kind of imagine Appalachia, going up north towards you guys, New York was the first, then through like Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, down to the Carolinas and Tennessee. I will be going all the way down to Mississippi, in February I think at this point.”

The field work is expected to be done by March and at that point Lippowiths will be compiling her content and creating the exhibit. Also, she just released a book, “Extended Stay Field Notes: Rooms, Roads and Revelations”.

“It’s a process book, sort of how I’m experiencing this,” Lippowiths said. “It’s some stories of the road, a little bit of policy, a little bit of my experience and personal reasons why I want to do this.”

The book is also meant to work as a marketing vehicle before the exhibit opens next year, so people are already aware of it. The book is set for release October 1.

‘TIP OF THE ICEBERG’

One of the most important things Lippowiths wants people to know when it comes to this project is that the shadow housing market, which is a market of people pinched out of or barred from traditional housing, due to reasons such as unaffordable rent, is becoming an overflow market. This market itself is becoming untenable, she said, citing again that hotels are completely full with people who are living there. This also pushes people up the price chain, she added, giving an example of if the $79 a night room hotel is full then people go to the $84, $100, or up to $120 a night hotels. Lippowiths said some people are spending $4,000 a month to live in hotels, something that is not sustainable. This is something she added that is a harbinger and emblematic of the larger housing crisis.

“I want people to look at people who are experiencing housing insecurity, whatever that means, and understand that the person on the street pushing the shopping cart, or the person living in the tent under the underpass is the tip of the iceberg,” Lippowiths said. “Those are the visibly unsheltered, that is not the same as someone living unhoused. Those people are hidden; they’re hidden in cars, they’re hidden in encampments, they’re sleeping on friends’ couches, they’re living in motels. I want people to realize what is visible to them is just one small facet and one small part of what’s really happening up there.”

For more information on Lippowiths and her “Extended Stay” exhibit, visit karenlippowiths.com.