MORGANTOWN — The house on the hill.
High ground.
Refuge.
It may seem like the experiment of transforming an old hotel into a centralized campus for the area’s social services has been going on forever.
Truth is, the former Ramada Inn on Scott Avenue officially became Hazel’s House of Hope and welcomed its first tenant, Bartlett Housing Solutions, just over two years ago.
Since then, Salvation Army, United Way of Monongalia & Preston Counties, Catholic Charities of West Virginia, Hope Hill Sobering Center, Lauren’s Wish Addiction Triage, Child Care Resource Center, Helpful Harvest and Wellspring have made the 140,000 square foot building their home. Soon, the veteran-focused Aspire will join that list.
And they would all appreciate it if you’d come for a visit.
Morgantown Community Resources, the volunteer board that serves as landlord and facilitator of the property, has organized an open house from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday.
Lyn Dotson is a member of that board.
“I think people hear about it and know it’s here, but we want people to start having good feelings about it, and they will when they learn about everything happening in this place,” he said. “People ask; they see and hear different things, so we thought, ‘wait a minute, let’s just let people come see for themselves.’”
The open house will include tours, a barbecue lunch prepared by the Salvation Army and available staff from each of the on-site agencies ready to provide information and answer questions.
Danielle Trumble, Morgantown’s deputy mayor and the city’s MCR representative, said there is no template for what’s taking place at HHH.
“We are figuring it out as we go, but I can tell you as an elected official here in Morgantown, I get contacted by folks from Charleston, Elkins, Martinsburg, who are all watching closely because they’re very interested in the possibility of replicating this model,” she said.
At present, the building is full, save approximately 15,000 square feet on the second floor. The rest of the space has been, or is being, renovated to meet the individual needs of its tenants.
Dotson said the purpose is to provide facilities at the lowest possible cost for nonprofits, noting the only money MCR takes in is used for building maintenance and utilities. The board has two employees, Facilities Manager J.T. Straface and Business Manager Maureen Tennant.
“I think we’re showing what can be done with a building like this. It’s all a combination of public and private dollars that started with the [Hazel Ruby] McQuain Trust buying the property.”
The project got a huge boost in October 2020 when Gov. Jim Justice announced it would receive $3.5 million in CARES Act money.
Even so, it remains a work in progress.
There are portions of the building, the main entrance for example, that still look like an old hotel.
Going forward, a $1.2 million federal earmark will be used to turn that space into a proper welcoming center. Some of the money will also be used to paint the building’s exterior, pave the expansive parking lot that serves the 10-acre property and install a generator.
Standing in the building’s lobby, Trumble said she’s proud of the work that’s been accomplished the last two years, especially considering a large portion of the building’s roof peeled off during a brutal windstorm in May 2021.
“Thirteen months ago, I was standing here. It was raining there,” she said. “We’re on the first floor of a four-floor building and it was raining right there. So, when you think about some of the things this building has overcome, we’re making a lot of progress.”
Both Dotson and Trumble say the building took another hit, this time in perception, when it was forced into service as a warming shelter this past winter.
“It was not meant to be a warming shelter and it overwhelmed everybody. As you see, it’s a big building, but the space is occupied. We did it because there was nowhere else to go. People really took shots at us over that, but nobody died in this county from exposure that I know of because they never shut the doors on anybody,” Dotson said, adding that the facility will not house the warming shelter this winter.
“To be fair, this facility is so much more than a homeless services center,” Trumble added. “This facility serves a lot of different demographics within our community and it’s actually being very successful at serving those folks. It really is a benefit to the community, and we hope folks will come see all the progress that we’ve made.”
