MORGANTOWN — The expansion of city laws prohibiting sleeping and camping beyond park property was not actually on Tuesday’s Morgantown City Council agenda.
It was, however, on everybody’s mind.
A crowd well beyond the capacity of the city’s meeting chamber spilled out onto the second-floor landing as council conducted its first meeting since Councilor Louise “Weez” Michael’s July 2 comments urging the city to consider expanding sleeping and camping bans beyond its parks to include residential properties, city streets, alleys and sidewalks.
More than a dozen weighed in on the issue, including WVU and the downtown business community.
In a July 11 letter to members of council, WVU President Gordon Gee and University Police Chief Sherry St. Clair cited a recent UPD survey that indicated students, faculty, staff and parents “overwhelmingly” expressed feeling unsafe in downtown Morgantown.
They noted this marked the first occasion in more than a decade that an off-campus issue was listed as the campus community’s primary concern.
“We are listening to our campus community, and it is imperative that this crisis be addressed immediately by all parties involved,” the letter states, later endorsing “a serious and thoughtful discussion” of Michael’s suggestion.
According to The Dominion Post archive, Michael works as a non-certified campus safety officer with University Police.
For the second time in less than two years, Main Street Morgantown is adding its voice to those calling on the city to address rampant drug use and overall “lawlessness” in the city’s core business district.
While he didn’t address Michael’s proposal directly, Main Street President Mark Downs said he was speaking on behalf of the agency’s board of directors and nearly 50 business members.
“Main Street Morgantown has heard the growing concerns of those who avoid merchants in the downtown and Wharf districts because they feel unsafe, even during the day,” he said. “On behalf of our board of directors, we implore the city manager, mayor and city council to take immediate actions to make our city safer and stem the enablement of addiction and criminal activity that ensues.”
But not all the commentary was in support of increased encampment laws. The majority of speakers opposed the city taking such action, calling it a “cruel,” “ineffective” and “inhumane” move, particularly with the current state of the area’s emergency shelters.
Even if Rainbow House and the Hazel’s House of Hope triage shelter were operating at full capacity, Erin Shelton explained, they couldn’t touch the overall need in the community.
“The answer is housing, not further criminalization of our unhoused neighbors,” she said. “If we can’t give everyone a safe, accessible place to go, we need to leave them alone when they turn to surviving outside.”
Critics of a camping ban noted the only reliable and available source of water for many unhoused individuals during the recent heat wave has been the city’s dog park.
Savannah Lusk is a physician who volunteers with Milan Puskar Health Right. She said there are people living outdoors with open wounds and no ready access to restrooms or running water.
She said the question of whether somebody is “from here,” should have no bearing on whether they’re worth helping.
“They’re people. They’re here. They’re on our streets. If you people are more upset about trash on the ground and you’re not upset about human beings, people, with hearts and souls; people’s daughters, people’s brothers, people’s sisters sitting and laying on the ground, but we’re upset about cardboard on the ground, I just don’t understand that line of thinking.”
There’s been no indication whether city council actually plans to take up an expanded sleeping and camping ban.
“I’d like to thank Councilor Michael for bringing this to the forefront. It’s an important issue,” Councilor Dave Harshbarger said. “I can’t say I disagree with anyone … That said, I think sometimes we focus so intently on a small population. We serve 30,000 people and we need to make 30,000 people feel welcome downtown while also caring for our most vulnerable.”
