MORGANTOWN – Four hours.
That, Mindy Thorne explained, is about the maximum amount of time a bed stays open at Grace Shelter, where she’s served as director since November.
“We are consistently full. We stay full,” Thorne said of the 19-bed emergency shelter operated by Catholic Charities West Virginia in Hazel’s House of Hope.
Asked how many people are turned away, she quickly responds, “five-plus, daily.”
“I consistently stay full, and in the most extreme temperatures, it’s even worse. In the hottest of the hot, the coldest of the cold, we get anywhere from 10-plus people a day who are needing space,” Thorne said. “I know consciously that I will never be able to have enough beds to serve every individual, but when we initially took over the shelter in 2024, we had 28 bed spaces, and it’s been progressively pulled down for occupancy limits.”
Catholic Charities has operated the space since the 2024 financial collapse of Bartlett Housing Solutions. The agency stepped in to keep the shelter operational with financial backing from the city and county. Both provided $150,000 in the 2025 fiscal year; $125,000 in the 2026 fiscal year; and $100,000 in the current fiscal year.
More than 200 people passed through Grace Shelter in 2025.
“At the time of my takeover, our average turnaround time with a client in the shelter space was in excess of six months. Through some increased partnerships and things like that, we have gotten that average down to less than four months. So it is decreasing. We do not have a time limit on shelter stay,” Thorne said. “That is one thing that I pushed really hard to make a change for because this journey looks different for every one of our clients that we serve. A timeline for somebody that is simply looking for employment to get back on their feet, to get housed, is much different than somebody else that is suffering from, say, substance abuse, mental health disorders. That path looks very different.”
Of the 19 clients in the shelter as of July 21, Thorne said 11 were employed and more than 50% were residents of Monongalia County.
Asked under what circumstances individuals find themselves in the shelter, Thorne said it varies, but she prioritizes people who are unhoused and actively living outdoors.
“Those are the most immediate need. We also get a significant number of our clients from other mental health facilities. We get quite a few from Ruby. We get them out of the jail systems, out of incarceration. We have a little bit of everywhere,” she said. “The majority of our need is direct to door, where they’re showing up.”
Looking ahead a few months, talks are currently underway about returning the temporary cold weather shelter back to Hazel’s House of Hope.
Catholic Charities partnered with the West Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness to operate the warming shelter out of the former Bartlett Housing Solutions apartment building at 10 West Run Road last winter.
WVCEH has been operating that facility through a rental agreement with Bartlett House since October 2024, when it stepped in for the financially failing Bartlett House at the request of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Last month, the agency announced it was relocating 18 individuals in its Permanent Supportive Housing program out of the facility due to a pending foreclosure on the loan obtained by Bartlett House.
The property is slated to be sold at auction Aug. 5.
According to Thorne, last winter’s shelter served 70 people, all but five of which ended up in more stable housing situations when the seasonal refuge closed in March.
That was the first time the temporary shelter was located somewhere other than Hazel’s House of Hope. The change came about after concerns were raised over alleged activity taking place on the campus that could endanger individuals working with addiction recovery agencies housed within the building.
“As of right now, there’s a pretty positive outlook for that shelter to return to Hazel’s House of Hope. We have the space to continue to operate it. I’ve also built a really good relationship with the other service providers in our building. We’ve opened up those lines of communication. So that way, when they have questions, when they have concerns, they come directly to me,” Thorne said, explaining the biggest question remaining is one of funding.
Currently, $40,000 from the city of Morgantown represent the only funds secured for the warming shelter. Thorne said last year’s shelter had a budget of $68,000.
