Months into Wheeling camping ban, city’s unhoused people forced to move again

Located under a bridge in Wheeling, W.Va., the parking lot across the street from the Catholic Charities Neighborhood Center has been home to many of the city’s homeless people. That will change soon as the state plans to close and clean the spot. The city has identified another place where unhoused people can be without threat of violating Wheeling’s camping ban. (Daniel Finsley | Finsley Creative for West Virginia Watch)

WHEELING, W.Va. —  Derek Lantz and about 10 other of Wheeling’s homeless services providers packed into his office at the Catholic Charities Neighborhood Center one afternoon last week and started making plans.

A “notice to vacate” sign had been posted across the street, at a state-owned parking lot where dozens of the city’s unhoused people have stayed for weeks. They will need to take their belongings and leave before the camp is dismantled on Wednesday, April 3.

“They posted the sign up at the camp for two weeks [notice],” Lantz told people. “So [April 3] is the date we’re aiming for.”

A sign posted to a fence surrounding the state-owned parking lot across from the Neighborhood Center in Wheeling, W.Va., tells people who have stayed there in tents to vacate and remove their personal belongings. The spot was previously exempted from the city’s ban on public camping, but people will need to move a city-owned property a mile or so away. (Daniel Finsley | Finsley Creative for West Virginia Watch)

The city of Wheeling joined the growing number of cities that ban “camping” on public property earlier this year. In January, city officials agreed homeless people could temporarily sleep under the bridge across from the Neighborhood Center without fear of a penalty of up to $500. The decision followed a lawsuit and subsequent agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia.

But the situation has changed: The state Division of Highways, which owns the property, plans to close the camp and clean the spot, according to the sign. The individuals are now forced by officials to move a mile or so away to another outdoor area , away from the services they need, like food, showers and laundry services.

Wheeling City Manager Bob Herron did not respond to numerous requests for comment on this story.

Many of the individuals living outside don’t qualify to stay in the city’s available shelters. Homeless services providers are preparing to help people move even as they and encampment residents worry about the changes.

Samuel Deem has been living in the encampment for about two weeks — since his wife left him, he said. He has no other place to go now and no income. At the camp he has found a “brotherhood,” where everyone takes care of one another, he said.

He and others there do not want to move, he said. The current spot offers access to the Neighborhood Center, which provides meals and a place to get a shower and do laundry.

“It’s a blessing to walk across the street and get a shower,” Deem said. “And it’s a safe place too. And that’s what we need over here.”

Susan Brossman, a co-founder of a homeless outreach team called Street Moms , said the move will be “trauma on top of trauma” for the city’s homeless population, the majority of whom have experienced significant trauma stretching back to childhood, have mental illness or are in active addiction. A retired school teacher, she recognizes a handful of her former students among the people she helps provide services to.

“A good way to think about it would be to put yourself in that place … You have to know that there are people that don’t want to see you and that would prefer if you weren’t around at all, or to hide you. That’s really what it is,” she said.

Mark Phillips, CEO of Catholic Charities, acknowledged other West Virginia communities are dealing with homelessness — rural homelessness increased during the drug crisis — with little state help.

“The state continues to pass budgets that ignore individuals who are living on the margins, continuing to bring like a garden hose to a forest fire and then forcing counties and cities to deal with the aftermath of it,” he said. “So however upset I might get any individual city council, they’re stuck with the plan at the state level, which is no plan.”

Milly Kirkpatrick is living in a Wheeling, W.Va., homeless encampment along with her dog, Bruiser. (Daniel Finsley | Finsley Creative for West Virginia Watch)

Milly Kirkpatrick ended up on the streets of Wheeling after her rental property was condemned. She currently lives in a tent. Owning a dog complicates getting her back into housing or a temporary shelter, but Kirkpatrick is not willing to give up Bruiser, a 3-year-old Pitbull/ Labrador retriever mix, she said.

“He’s my baby,” she said. “He’s the only one who stuck with me through everything.”

As a wheelchair user, Kirkpatrick will likely move to a small camp reserved for people with disabilities and medical issues, on property owned by Catholic Charities when the parking lot camp closes soon, but the uncertainty bothers her.

“I’m not sure where I’ll end up,” she said. “It’s all up in the air and I hate that.”

Misty Gilmore, one of Wheeling’s unhoused people, said she’s concerned about losing belongings in the move to a new encampment. (Daniel Finsley | Finsley Creative for West Virginia Watch)

Misty Gilmore has been unsheltered since last August, but lived in her car previously. She ended up in Wheeling after a job fell through.

“It’s cold,” she said of living there during the winter. “You’ve got to bundle up and wear extra layers to sleep in. Sometimes you don’t even get to take your shoes off because you’re cold.”

She worries about losing more of her belongings as she previously has when the city closed camps and that the new camp location by a creek will be even colder than the current spot.

“We have to pick up and go in a hurry so we’re losing — it seems tedious to some people – but your toiletries, your things that you have to pick up again,” Gilmore said. “Clothes, toiletries, things that you just kind of have to leave behind.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Brossman said, many of the local unhoused people who could get into housing or leave the city did so. Those who remain haven’t been able to get into housing for one reason or another.

“They don’t have the proper credentials,” Brossman said. “The mental illness is preventing them or maybe felonies have prevented it. These are the people that are really struggling to obtain housing.”

The Life Hub Winter Shelter — the city’s only one without policies such as sobriety requirements and restrictions against people with criminal histories that make it difficult for people to access — is open during winter months only and recently closed for the year.

The city has a Salvation Army shelter available for single men, but criminal history and drug use can be a barrier, Phillips said. A YWCA shelter provides shelter for women who have been victims of domestic violence and another shelter serves people experiencing homelessness as a result of mental illness.

“We’re seeing a lot of folks that have multiple diagnoses, so they might have mental illness, but they also have addiction issues, which complicates things, or health problems,” Phillips said. “So there’s a group of folks that aren’t currently being served by shelter.”

Brossman and other providers plan to continue to provide services at the new location, but it will be a strain on their resources.

“This is the perfect place for them to be and to push them out again, you’re just pushing them farther away from resources,” said Lauren Kotz, an administrator for the state opioid response program. “And the farther they get away from resources, the less likely they are going to be to make positive changes in their life.”

Kotz offers naloxone and other harm reduction services at the Neighborhood Center when the community has an increase in overdoses. She said moving people to the new location is “a terrible idea.”

“You’re asking them to walk through the woods a mile away to get to resources, and in that mile time, a lot of things can happen, and it can change so rapidly,” she said. And I don’t like that they’re being pushed out to where they’re not an eyesore.”

Kotz still plans to provide naloxone and other resources at the new spot in the event of an overdose spike, but it will not be as easy as it has been when people have been in the lot across the street from Catholic Charities, she said.

“I’m going to have to physically go out to the camp and go from campsite to camp, which is not a problem,” she said. “I will get my sneakers on and we will go out there, but it’s harder to reach the people. Some of them aren’t going to be there, and maybe they don’t have their cellphones, maybe word of mouth didn’t get around. It’s going to be harder to get that Narcan into the hands of the people who are at risk and need it when you push them farther out and spread them out like that. And once again, you keep them away from resources.”

In addition to people, the encampment also has a handful of dogs living there. (Daniel Finsley | Finsley Creative for West Virginia Watch)

Kotz said there are as many as 20 organizations that have a hand in providing services to the city’s unhoused people, but that’s not their sole responsibility.

“Sure, I work with the at-risk but I also work with higher ed students,” she said. “We are in the prevention department so we’re going into schools and working with young people. We’re working with families, so we’re not going to be able to just have people stationed there all day long for their needs, especially that far away.”

Shelly Miller, who works at the Neighborhood Center as the regional homeless outreach case manager, also plans to continue offering services at the new spot, but she can’t be too far from the office.

“You never know what crisis is going to walk through the door,” she said. “So I can go close and come back. There’s no vehicle, you’re going to have to walk out there. So if something happens — you’re walking. It’s a four-mile trip.”

Questions remain about how the camp will operate in the future

Phillips, with Catholic Charities, said while providers have a loose agreement to provide services at the new location, none have agreed to manage a camp if it’s the only spot exempted from the ban.

The city’s ordinance does not refer to a “managed camp,” Phillips said, but it does say the city manager may designate one or more specific locations within the city to be exempted from the ban.

“We don’t want to be in the position of telling people they can or cannot stay there,” he continued. “Because if we have to kick somebody out then they have to choose which law to break. Do they want to camp on private property somewhere or on public property, both of which are illegal for different reasons. So especially as a faith-based organization, we’re not putting people into a situation where they have to make that kind of choice.”

They’ll need funding too, he stressed.

“Managing a camp of people living outside is not a revenue-generating enterprise. So there needs to be some support for it if the city thinks that this is one of the solutions that they’d like to continue to go with,” he said.

Dr. William Mercer is a Wheeling physician and founder of a street medicine team called Project HOPE. (Daniel Finsley | Finsley Creative for West Virginia Watch)

Dr. William Mercer, a Wheeling physician and founder of the street medicine organization Project HOPE, said he’s in agreement with the city about moving people to the new spot. The new spot offers privacy and is close to where food and other services are.

Mercer said there are two aspects to managing the camp — managing the property where the camp sits and managing the people who stay there. Both could be helpful, he said.

One possibility is to give a small stipend to a person staying at the encampment in order for them to manage it, he said. Mercer said the city’s opioid settlement money could be a source of funding for a managed camp.

Phillips emphasized that a camping ban is not a real solution to homelessness.

“We need to find meaningful ways to get people in housing,” he said. “This isn’t one of them.”

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