COMMENTARY
Conversation on the best way to deal with homelessness and the problems associated with it has reached a fever pitch in Morgantown. City Council is considering an ordinance that would ban encampments throughout the city. Petty crime, open drug use, property damage, and a general perception that downtown is unsafe are all frustrations that have been expressed. It feels as though the problem has grown to the point it could be impossible to get a handle on it.
However, it was not that long ago that Morgantown was on the verge of declaring the homelessness problem solved.
In 2010, Morgantown City Council and the Monongalia County Commission created a joint homelessness task force that jumpstarted the efforts to find solutions. By January 2016, John Sonnenday, then the Executive Director of the Coordinating Council on Homelessness told the Dominion Post:
“It is actually reasonable to say we are going to end it here. I didn’t dare say that when we started this whole process five years ago. It seemed like such a huge reach to do that.”
Sonnenday’s optimism was based on the success of the CCOH placing people into stable housing. In 2013, 120 people were identified as being homeless. By October 2015, the number had been cut in half. The success of the program helped secure additional funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development with the allocation to the CCOH jumping from $85,000 to $200,000.
“We were all working together, moving forward and we thought we had the problem under control,” said Monongalia County Commissioner Tom Bloom.
By August 2017, CCOH had been so effective in weaving existing services into a coordinated network, that it merged with the Community Housing Action Partnership to focus on affordable housing.
Sonneday retired.
As it turned out, that period was the peak of the city’s efforts to address homelessness.
Within two years, of CCOH ceasing independent operations, residents and business owners were in front of Morgantown City Council expressing their frustration with open drug use, sleeping in doorways, and even physical assaults in broad daylight.
There have been multiple efforts to bring local governments and nonprofit agencies to the table to develop programs to provide housing and necessary wrap-around services. However, those efforts have been largely ineffective.
Local leaders, working with the West Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness developed a program in December 2019 dubbed “Homes for the Holidays” and successfully placed 15 families into housing. They tried to replicate the program during the COVID pandemic and house people at an unoccupied local motel. The effort had to be abandoned when the motel reportedly sustained upwards of $60,000 in damages.
A homeless encampment known as Diamond Village, divided the community later that year. Homeless advocates fought to preserve the encampment while nearby residents pleaded with the city to dismantle the camp where drug use and crime were rampant.
Another effort to form a community-wide committee to develop solutions for homelessness came in August 2020 but meetings devolved into complaint sessions and finger-pointing. Local governments, such as the Monongalia County Commission, and social service agencies eventually quit attending. The committee fizzled out with nothing to show for the efforts.
Now, Morgantown City Council is considering an ordinance that will ban encampments in the city and the community remains divided. Frustrated residents and business owners continue to share graphic stories of the toll the problem has taken on their properties and businesses. Homeless advocates have vowed to fight the ordinance and have even asked the city to establish a permanent homeless camp.
Homelessness, addiction, mental illness, and affordable housing are indeed all factors that are intertwined in this complex issue and there are no easy solutions.
However, the city of Morgantown proved for a brief time, that through collaboration and strong leadership, the problem is not insurmountable.
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