Both Pittsburgh and Morgantown are pretty prosperous, yet remain affordable enough for blue-collar workers to own homes close enough to the center of the city to commute by foot, bus, streetcar, funicular, PRT pod, or bike. The neighborhoods I posted are a bit rundown, but perfectly livable— I'd live in any of them.
The schools aren't necessarily great in the Pittsburgh neighborhoods but they usually aren't in rural Appalachia either.
I don't disagree that moving is hard when one is poor and one relies on one's social connections for a lot of support. It's just not because of a lack of houses in the prosperous parts of Appalachia.
Housing shortages on the coasts are a huge issue, and a huge issue for national inequality— but overbuilding and inner-city abandonment remain a bigger issue in a lot of cities in the middle of the country.
A basic house is $65k in Morgantown: https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Morgantown-WV/22898744...
And a nice house with a 10 minute funicular commute to Downtown Pittsburgh (the Paris of Appalachia) isn't too much more: https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/11363350_zpid/globalre...
And one can pay much less if one wishes: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2040-Lowrie-St-Pittsburgh...
Scarcity-driven housing costs are one of the biggest problems in a few coastal cities— but in much of the country, the problem is poverty.