MORGANTOWN — A significant portion of the unsheltered people in the Morgantown area do not trust the only shelter available to them.
That theme dominated much of Tuesday’s Morgantown City Council meeting as a dozen or so speakers, including former shelter employees, said there are major issues at the Bartlett Housing Solutions facility located within Hazel’s House of Hope.
The claims ranged from nepotism within Bartlett House leadership to open mistreatment of clients, leading City Councilor Brian Butcher to claim the shelter has fostered “a culture of abuse.”
Butcher recently attended a meeting with Bartlett House leadership along with Becky Rodd, who claims 15 years’ experience designing and consulting on the creation of programs serving the chronically homeless for a national firm.
Both walked away unsatisfied.
“I believe, based on my professional experience, that this shelter fails to meet even the minimum, basic operational standards,” Rodd said, explaining the organization needs a thorough, independent review.
While Rodd said she believes Bartlett House will make some short-term changes based on issues being brought to light, “I also believe there are deep-seated deficiencies in leadership at all levels at this agency that will require much more than that.”
Among those to speak was Mechele Pitman. She recounted an experience she and her husband had while trying to get a spot in the shelter.
“When you finally make the decision to ask for help and swallow your pride, that’s a rough one. But to be greeted with such cruelty and malice and made to feel like you’re less than a human being in the most vulnerable state in your life, I will never go back there again,” she said.
While members of council followed up with a fairly lengthy discussion of the topic as part of an update on council’s special committee on unsheltered homelessness, the city ultimately doesn’t hold any real authority.
Bartlett Housing Solutions is a private nonprofit and is not under the auspices city council. Further, it was explained that the city budget passed for the coming fiscal year will only provide $25,000 of Bartlett House’s roughly $1.4 million budget, removing any real financial leverage.
In other, albeit expected, news from Tuesday’s meeting, council passed the addendum to the White Park licensing agreement that will allow the construction of a new park trail to begin as early as this summer.
The Morgantown Utility Board and the city’s Board of Parks and Recreation approved the addendum during special meetings on Monday.
The trail is among the expenditures agreed to by MUB as remediation for the placement of a water line through the park.
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