Wealth and Income Inequality in Hopkinsville, Kentucky

We’ve been here 6 years. It’s a very friendly place if you are around your family or church friends. Step outside of that bubble and go shopping. You’ll hear cursing and constant fighting in the parking lot and stores. People yelling and screaming at each other and police arresting people as you come back out of the store. Just get on the WHVO news site and count the number of crimes. There were 25 reported in the last 8 days. (That doesn’t include any that weren’t reported by the news) These reports include murder, neglect of children, drug busts, kids bringing guns to school, kids shooting each other at night, etc. We work with a church, so this is a mission field. We have cameras around our home and have called the police several times due to crimes being committed. We don’t even live in a bad neighborhood. If you have kids, there is a good Christian school in town. The public schools are absolutely vulgar. Not the teachers and staff. The students are horrible to each other.

There is a large homeless issue, gang issue, poverty issue, and serious crime issue. Anything downtown or near a street that’s a number, you’re asking to be a victim. If you live in a surrounding community like Cadiz or Murray, it would be different. I feel bad for the people who’ve lived their whole lives here. It didn’t used to be this way, but it’s not getting better, only worse. I would NOT recommend living here or Clarksville either. Clarksville is a lot like Hoptown in crime, except bigger. If you live on base, that would be different as well and safer.