MORGANTOWN — In an Aug. 30 email to city and county officials, Catholic Charities West Virginia President and CEO Mark Phillips said his agency intends to have the former Bartlett House triage shelter in Hazel’s House of Hope running at full capacity by mid-October.
Phillips explains Catholic Charities took over the lease on the space from the struggling Bartlett Housing Solutions on Sept. 1.
“Our new director will be on site Tuesday, Sept. 3, and will immediately go to work with members of our team on evaluating operations and the current staff’s capacity to open the shelter back up to new guests,” he said.
The shelter has been closed to new intakes since March. Phillips said there are currently six people staying at the shelter “intermittently.”
He said the plan is to open the shelter gradually, taking in 12-15 guests by mid-September before moving to its full 28-bed capacity the following month.
“While I’m sure that all parties are eager to get the shelter at full capacity as quickly as possible, we want to make sure that we are paying close attention to the prior shelter deficiencies highlighted by the West Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness,” Phillips explained.
The comment refers to issues that prompted the WVCEH to bypass the Bartlett House-run shelter in the most recent competitive funding cycle. The loss of that funding was essentially the last straw in terms of the fiscal crisis facing Bartlett Housing Solutions and ultimately prompted local officials to reach out to Catholic Charities to take over operation of the shelter.
Mark Nesselroad, president of Morgantown Community Resources — the nonprofit that serves as landlord and facilitator of Hazel’s House of Hope — told local officials MCR is both pleased to see the shelter reopening and ready to do more.
“Hazel’s House is ready, willing and able to participate with the design, construction and facilitation of a new housing accommodation project,” Nesselroad wrote.
He continued.
“Hazel’s House has ample undeveloped, largely unutilized acreage on which tiny house or tiny shelter facilities (or some combination thereof) could be developed. We would welcome the opportunity to collaborate with community leaders and interested stakeholders … As an initial step, Hazel’s House intends to engage a design professional to develop a preliminary site plan laying out a prototype facility and an administrative services building providing space for management, counseling services and security.”
He said the board would provide the land for the project to the city “at virtually no cost,” and seek grant funding to support the effort.
Further, MCR is seeking funds to renovate 17 rooms in the former hotel into additional housing space.
In closing, Nesselroad requested a work session with the city, county and interested stakeholders to share ideas and strategies to help address the challenges facing the unhoused community.
