MORGANTOWN — The hand-off of the emergency shelter in Hazel’s House of Hope from Bartlett Housing Solutions to Catholic Charities West Virginia is on pace to be complete in the next three-to-four weeks.
Catholic Charities President and CEO Mark Phillips told The Dominion Post that the state’s largest private provider of social services is working diligently to that end.
Phillips said he’s confident the shelter’s next director has been identified and employment offers will be made to the current shelter staff.
The goal, he said, is to start accepting new intakes again as soon as possible.
“We’ll definitely have to take a good judgment of what the capacity is, but our intention would be for it to be fully operational as soon as possible after we sort of take ownership of the space,” Phillips said.
“Again, we may do that a little bit slowly at first, depending on how long guests are staying there. But if it looks like we’re having good success transitioning people to transitional housing, supportive housing or independent housing fairly quickly, then we might be able to increase that capacity more quickly.”
The dire financial situation facing Bartlett Housing Solutions prompted the decision to stop accepting new intakes to the 28-bed shelter on March 15.
At that time, it was announced the shelter would close, at least temporarily, by June 30 without intervention.
In June, Morgantown City Council and the Monongalia County Commission each put up $17,500 to cover the nonprofit’s payroll.
In July, both approved $150,000 to fund Catholic Charities’ administrative takeover of the shelter from the struggling Bartlett House.
Phillips said he’s still awaiting word on the release of state funding that was not awarded to Bartlett House this year for the first time in decades due to a new competitive grant process through the West Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.
“We’re still waiting on a decision from them, but we have commitments from other entities that will help us do this for a year for sure,” he said. “We were comfortable in moving ahead knowing we had at least a year of funding in hand to be able to move forward.”
While Phillips said he believes the county and municipalities need to support their most vulnerable citizens as part of their annual budgets, his goal is to find additional partners to reduce the burden on local government going forward.
The Catholic Charities takeover of the area’s longest-running shelter comes as Morgantown City Council awaits the arrival of a law implementing a citywide camping ban on a future agenda.
Phillips said he believes the city is making a good-faith effort to look at both sides of the issue.
“We know that just putting camping bans in place does not work. Telling somebody that homelessness is illegal doesn’t automatically give them a path to being housed. I’ve appreciated the city council’s engagement with this issue and their eagerness to try to find ways to provide solutions at the same time that they recognize the needs of the community — students, business owners and homeowners in Morgantown,” he said. “It’s a tough balance. I don’t envy them.”
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