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WHEELING — The president of Northwood Health Systems on Tuesday presented Wheeling City Council with a proposal to provide a small village of low-barrier shelters in the city. Those shelters would be for homeless individuals and people otherwise falling through the cracks with no other option than living on the streets.
A low-barrier shelter option is a key element to the proposal recently outlined by Wheeling Homeless Liaison Melissa Adams as part of centralized services through a Life Hub. Yet this proposal was offered by Mark Games, president and CEO of Northwood Health Systems, which provides mental health, substance abuse addiction recovery and other behavioral health services.
The proposal — which council members saw for the first time Tuesday during their first July city council meeting — requires only one thing from the city: a small piece of property on 19th Street. The property Games’ proposal suggested is basically across the street from the site where, for many months, a large homeless encampment had been established between 18th and 19th streets under the W.Va. 2 overpass. The state had the encampment removed last December.
Games said the proposed property on 19th Street adjacent to the Elks Club is owned by the city and is flat, which is necessary to install these small units.
“It’s a proposal not just by Northwood, but by some other nonprofits that would be working in conjunction with us,” Games said. “We believe this would at least in part help address the problem of homelessness here in Wheeling.
“What we really need in this area is a low-barrier to entry shelter that is managed 24 hours a day,” he added, “and provides a central point of contact for social workers and treatment providers who would help those individuals with their mental health and their substance use conditions, and help them ultimately find housing. And we need a place that is sanctioned by the city of Wheeling.”
According to the proposal, a 12-shelter, temporary village of Pallet housing units would be installed at the site. Similar Pallet villages have been set up in a number of locations across the country, Games said.
“Currently, there are about 63 villages across 10 states in the U.S.,” he noted. “They consist of about 1,764 shelters. It’s not a leading-edge kind of thing, but it is certainly progressive.”
These Pallet shelters are constructed of metal and can be moved, Games said. They can be assembled and disassembled within an hour. No foundation is required, but flat land with a gravel base is needed.
“We’re proposing that we would put 12 of these shelters in a lot on 19th Street just west of the Elks Club,” Games said. “It’s a 8,400-square-foot lot. Northwood would pay to convert it from grass to gravel, which would be necessary for the units.”
According to Games, the village would be staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and the property would be maintained by staff members and the residents themselves.
“What entity is going to be in charge of managing this?” Councilman Jerry Sklavounakis asked.
“House of Hagar is going to manage it on a day-to-day basis,” Games said.
There would be privacy fencing erected, one of the units would be designated for use by law enforcement for certain cases outside of homeless needs – such as an intoxicated offender who could be placed in the shelter instead of jail.
Games said the units could be erected within four to six weeks after gravel was installed. The cost of the venture would be about $350,000. Northwood would cover these initial costs and would be assisted by other local nonprofits with ongoing costs such as electricity and other expenses.
“It would be at no cost to the city,” Games said. “We would just need use of that property.”
Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron recommended that if council chose to move forward with this proposal in the future, it should be on a temporary basis. Herron noted that directly across 19th Street from the proposed shelter village is the former warehouse site that the city purchased and paid to clear. Herron noted that once remediation is complete, that property will be marketed to private-sector investors who may be interested in building a new facility in this growing area of East Wheeling.
“The availability of marketing the 19th Street site would be somewhat limited over the next year because of environmental testing and monitoring wells,” Herron said. “Ultimately we want to market that site for economic development. If council were to agree to that site across the street, it would be temporary. Consideration does need to be given to the impact of marketing the site for economic development purposes.”
While other sites would be considered for the low-barrier shelter village, Games noted that this proposed property is not only flat, but it is only a block away from Northwood’s headquarters. It is also very close to Catholic Charities, the Greater Wheeling Soup Kitchen and other resources used by the local homeless population. Project Hope, Youth Services Systems and other local nonprofits could all easily access the site and be involved in its operation, Games indicated.
“Those folks migrate to that area because that’s where all of the resources are that they use on a daily basis,” he said.
While the Pallet units would have electricity for heat and air conditioning, there would be external portable toilets behind privacy fencing for use by the residents – who could stay there for anywhere from one night to six months or more, depending on their individual needs, officials said.
Catholic Charities, which is also located about a block away from the site, would offer personal hygiene accommodations, Games noted.
Wheeling’s homeless liaison said she was very excited to see Northwood take the lead on this low-barrier shelter proposal.
“Your opinion would be that we need this and the Life Hub?” Vice Mayor Chad Thalman asked.
“Absolutely,” Adams said. “This deals not only with mental health. If the Life Hub is something that is approved, this would be an arm of that. We have quite a few people who struggle with mental health issues who we have trouble housing. They’ve been banned from most housing places, if not all housing that we have here locally. So this would be a place for them to go where they would no longer be on the streets.”
Adams said she has been on board with Northwood’s proposal from the beginning, noting that the addition is a key piece of the puzzle to solving the Wheeling area’s complex homeless dilemma.
“Northwood operates a homeless shelter, for instance, but we are not able to take folks who are under the influence of drugs or alcohol,” Games explained of the need for a low-barrier option. “If they’re combative at all, we can’t take them in because it’s a congregate facility.”
But the one-to-two-bed Pallet shelter village would be able to accommodate these people, Games said.
“These are individual shelters, so there are very few barriers to putting a person in a shelter like this and letting them sleep if off,” he said. “They are intended to be temporary.”
Like Adams’ recent Life Hub proposal, this low-barrier Pallet shelter village was presented publicly to city council, but no action was taken. Council members perused a packet that was given to them by Games and asked a number of questions, but offered no opinions on the proposal.
At the end of Tuesday’s meeting, Wheeling resident and outspoken city council attendee Julia Chaplin took the podium during the three-minute public forum and criticized the recently proposed approaches to dealing with the city’s homeless issues.
“Faith-based institutions are successful because they teach that doing for others is more rewarding to people’s souls — his is the incentive to not stay homeless and not making it easier to stay homeless,” Chaplin said, taking issue with not only the Life Hub and low-barrier shelter proposals, but also the council’s spending habits. “You’re not only increasing our city’s government costs, but you’re enticing other homeless people to come to our city because it will be a luxury to live here without any obligation to contribute to our city.”
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