MORGANTOWN – Trey Kay, host of the West Virginia Public Broadcasting podcast Us & Them – told a group of nearly 100 people gathered in the Mountainlair Gluck Theater about a homeless man named Randy he met in Charleston.
Randy told him he’d been imprisoned twice and returned to society twice. But his third imprisonment and release happened during COVID and was unable to return this time. He’s been homeless for two years.
Randy and Kay talked about the tensions rising because some homeless meal services were being delivered near a private school and parents were concerned for their children.
Randy told Kay, “They think we’re serpents or monsters.” It was a tale of two different countries. “I feel like we’re in one country and they’re in another.”
Kay described what he learned from that encounter: “It wasn’t about homelessness. It was about who we’re willing to be close to.”
The gathering was for a roundtable discussion titled “Unhoused in Morgantown: Barriers & Solutions.” It was organized by the WVU law school Community Service Council and the Mountaineers Indivisible Citizens Action Group.
Panelists were Zac Morton, pastor of First Presbyterian Church and co-lead of Morgantown RAMP, which advocates for homeless services; Milan Puskar Health Right Executive Director Laura Jones; Erin Shelton, director of Rainbow House, which provides services for the LGBTQ homeless community; and Catholic Charities Grace Shelter Director Mindy Thorne.
Discussion focused on barriers to service for the homeless, some of the issues behind homelessness and public perceptions of the homeless, among other topics.
Thorne said Grace Shelter is a low-barrier shelter, meaning people seeking help don’t need to provide identification, proof of income and sobriety, and a criminal background check – all things that block them from receiving help.
“These people are walking in our doors at that time in crisis,” she said, “Our priority at that point is to intervene. They deserve dignity regardless of what their history is.”
A fundamental problem, though, she said, is lack of bed space. Grace has only 19 beds. During the past two winters, they partnered with other providers to open emergency warming shelters, and opening another 63 beds. But the demand topped 100.
Kay and all the panelists discussed the issues behind homelessness. It’s not just fueled by addiction, though that is widely believed to be the cause, they said. Other factors are low or lost wages making housing unaffordable, mental health, disabilities, and government regulations that make it hard to deliver services.
“There’s no one way that people behave,” Jones said. “There’s no one reason that people end up in this situation.”
A common thread among many of the homeless, she said, is trauma. Trauma can lead to homelessness, and becoming homeless adds another level of trauma, making it that much harder to do what’s needed to obtain housing.
The public often fears and distrusts the homeless, the panelists said. Sometimes the fear is understandable because many homeless are wrestling with mental health issues. Other times, the fear isn’t justified and efforts to promote community connection can help alleviate that.
“It is on us,” Jones said. “We’re not doing a good job of compassion.”
Sometimes government actions and policies exacerbate the problems, they said. For example, the Mountain Line Community Access Pass program, intended to provide transportation to social services, will expire in June, preventing the homeless from getting from downtown to Hazel’s House of Hope on Scott Avenue – where Grace Shelter and other services are based.
And, they said, the statewide camping ban considered by the Legislature earlier this month would have cleared homeless camps downtown, but provided no safe alternatives for them to find shelter – especially since Grace is already full every night.
What are some solutions? They all revolve around one word.
“Funding,” Morton said, “I think that’s the shadow issue.”
At the citizen level, he said, “There’s incredible passion, incredible energy, incredible work and collaboration that’s being done to meet the needs with the resources they have. The failure is coming from what we’re choosing to fund on higher levels. If we don’t have have serious funding and make it somewhat of a priority … then we’re just not going to have enough to achieve the solutions that we need.”
For instance, government policies could incentivize affordable housing. “That’s just what we need.”
Shelton agreed. “Funding for social services can create substantial change. I think lasting change is going to come from more development of affordable housing.”
That might require local governments, she said, to create policies to require developers to make a certain percentage of new housing units affordable, or zoning reforms to allow for different types of housing to be built.”
Funds should also be available, she said, for eviction prevention funds and defense for people facing eviction.
