MORGANTOWN — As of Friday afternoon, Bartlett Housing Solutions was still staffing and funding the operation of the emergency shelter in Hazel’s House of Hope.
The shelter hasn’t accepted a new intake in months and was slated to close no later than June 30 without intervention.
Morgantown City Council and the Monongalia County Commission were that intervention.
In June, both put up $17,500 to cover the nonprofit’s payroll.
In July, both put up $150,000 to fund Catholic Charities’ takeover of the shelter from the struggling Bartlett House.
Bartlett Housing Solutions Board President Nick DeMedici told The Dominion Post on Friday that he’s still waiting on details of the takeover.
The shelter never actually closed and currently houses a small number of individuals — eight or fewer according to DeMedici.
The Dominion Post reached out to a representative of Catholic Charities West Virginia for an update on the transition, but didn’t receive a response in time for this report.
Either way, the circumstances have shown how precarious the shelter situation is.
It serves as an ominous backdrop to the now larger conversation of a proposed ordinance to outlaw sleeping outdoors in city limits.
One of the consistent themes from opponents of the proposed ban is that people have no place to go.
Milan Puskar Health Right Executive Director Laura Jones put the number of unhoused individuals in and around Morgantown at approxiamtely 130.
Heath Right was one of the organizations to come out against the camping prohibition.
“As an organization, it is hard for us to justify fining people or putting people in jail when we actually have no shelter. When the existing shelter does open, it’s not big enough to manage the number of people,” Jones said.
“So, you take people who are already struggling and push them further down the hole. Many of them have already been down that road and we’re on the other end trying to lift them out of there.”
While it isn’t known when Morgantown City Council will actually take up the camping ban, what’s not debatable is that there’s not enough shelter space.
Project Rainbow Coordinator Erin Shelton said the Rainbow House shelter has been open and fully staffed since July 1.
On Aug. 4, Shelton told The Dominion Post, “We have 26 beds total, non-gender specific. Currently, we have 20 guests, so we anticipate we’ll be full soon. We accept LGBTQ+ folks and allies, and we prioritize individuals in the LGBTQ+ community as they are disproportionately affected by homelessness and particularly vulnerable.”
With the triage shelter at HHH operating normally, it has 28 beds. Last winter, it expanded to 40. Meaning — best case scenario — there’s room for 66 people between the HHH shelter and Rainbow House.
Both the city and county have committed to funding additional shelter space to serve as an emergency winter shelter, but as has been the case in recent years, they’re struggling to find someone to take it on.
The city put out a request for proposals for an agency to run an extreme weather shelter on June 18. Multiple agencies expressed interest — none put forward an actual proposal.
“As the year progresses, the city intends to work with organizations that expressed interest in the project,” Communications Specialist Hollie Gregory said.
