MORGANTOWN — While nothing has been finalized, it appears as if the community’s emergency warming shelter will return to Hazel’s House of Hope after all.
The next 14 days or so should tell the tale.
Morgantown City Council came away from a special meeting Tuesday evening with two possible paths forward.
One – return the warming shelter to the HHH facility, where it’s been every year since it opened. The space is available and Catholic Charities West Virginia, which has agreed to operate the warming facility again this winter, already runs the permanent Grace Shelter at that location.
Two – puzzle out the logistics of holding the shelter at the West Run Road apartments and transitional housing units formerly operated by Bartlett Housing Solutions and currently under the West Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.
Either way, it would be CCWV staffing the shelter and taking the lead as the responsible agency. That’s never really been in question.
But the shelter’s location has been less certain, particularly after Morgantown Community Resources — the nonprofit board that serves as the facilitator for the HHH property – expressed concerns about the prospect of the winter shelter returning in light of rising security concerns on the HHH campus.
In particular, there’s been discussion from MCR about a perceived uptick in possible drug activity endangering individuals working with addiction recovery agencies housed within the building.
During Tuesday’s meeting, MCR Chair Seth Wilson said he believes the hurdles can be overcome. He laid out what MCR wants to see to that end.
“We would like to see a definite increase in the police presence at H3, particularly during the warming shelter hours,” Wilson said, noting the board would also like to see specifics on how CCWV intends to staff and operate the shelter, both overnight and during the day.
While it was explained that the United Way of Mon and Preston Counties could help coordinate volunteers to assist with the day shelter aspect, CCWV Executive Director Mark Phillips said any additional staff brought on to oversee daytime operations would require additional funding.
“We’ve been doing this a little bit already, so it’s easy for us to put together a plan for the overnight part. I think facilitating the day shelter is just a little bit more complicated because we didn’t know … Until recently, we didn’t realize this was part of the deal,” Phillips said. “Our proposal to the city of Morgantown and to the county was just for overnight. So, right now we have no plans to staff a day shelter. You’re talking 12 hours a day, seven days a week for 12 weeks. You need at least a couple people there.”
According to Morgantown Deputy Mayor Brian Butcher, the staffing needed would likely add $30,000 to the shelter’s cost.
The city has currently allocated $40,000 for an emergency shelter this winter. The Monongalia County Commission put in $20,000 as part of its budgeting process.
While the special meeting ended with what appears to be a clear path forward, there were lingering hard feelings about how the process has played out.
“We are absolutely late to this. I would say that is definitely frustrating for us. We tried to have a plan in place, just as we try to do every year, and I thought we were very much ahead of it. I think Catholic Charities felt like they were well prepared for it, but we are where we are now,” Butcher said. “The final thing I would say about this, I worry about basic incompatibility with how people feel about how people might affect the campus at H3, and I worry about what expectations we are asking Catholic Charities and their staff to meet in a lot of different situations.”
