Photo by Eric Ayres Christina Pritt has lived in Wheeling's exempted homeless camp for a little over a year. Some individuals keep the camp clean, while others do not. City Councilman Ben Seidler this week said nonprofits that work with the homeless population need to help keep the camp clean or he will recommend closing the camp.

WHEELING – City Councilman Ben Seidler this week asserted that local nonprofit agencies that help Wheeling’s unhoused population need to better manage the city’s exempted homeless camp, and if not, he plans to recommend its closure.

While not an agenda item during this week’s regular meeting of Wheeling City Council, Seidler mentioned during the meeting that the encampment along Wheeling Creek near the Peninsula Cemetery has been strewn with trash – despite the availability of dumpsters on site – and is not being managed.

Since the city of Wheeling passed its ban on camping on public property in the city, an exemption was granted at a location along what is known as the Maintenance Trail across Wheeling Creek from Tunnel Green. That exempted camp was relocated for the winter to its current location near the cemetery, which is easier for vehicles, emergency medical personnel, law enforcement and representatives of local service agencies to access. The camp is expected to be moved back to the Maintenance Trail location this spring.

The camping ban ordinance allows for a managed camp, but no agreement has ever been solidified to officially establish such a camp. Wheeling leaders have indicated that the city should not be the lead agency in charge of a managed camp. Hence, the exempted camp has been the only place where homeless individuals can stay outside of a limited amount of available shelters or the winter freeze shelters, which are only open in the evening and are expected to close in the spring.

“We started this homeless camp as an exempted property – as a place where we could use as a triage for homeless individuals while they find the services that they need,” Seidler said during this week’s council meeting. “The intent was that the nonprofit agencies in the city that help our homeless individuals would be able to go to one central location and really give them resources and help them through the process of getting them on the right track to end their cycle of homelessness.”

Seidler said he was not sure that this is happening for individuals who are at the encampment.

“I’m a little bit disgruntled to continue to see trash everywhere at these camps when we provide dumpsters,” Seidler said. “I drove by the other day, and I literally saw port-a-johns upside down, laying on the side, and trash all over the creek.”

According to Seidler, nonprofits are expected to help with keeping the camp in order.

“When Counselor (Jerry) Sklavounakis and I personally negotiated this with the nonprofit folks at the Continuum of Care meeting about a year and a half ago, we had a unanimous – almost a unanimous, except for one person – agreement that the nonprofit agencies would manage that camp,” Seidler said, “keep the camp clean, police the camp – not from a police perspective, but figuratively speaking in terms of just camp rules – and make this thing decent.”

However, the camp is not being managed by the nonprofit agencies, Seidler asserted.

“That’s not what’s happening,” he said. “This place is rife for drugs, abuse, human trafficking … the list goes on. I’m not sure exactly what’s going on or why these nonprofits aren’t stepping up and taking care of business. But I don’t have a whole lot of length left in my buffer for this camp at this point. So we need to either get these nonprofits to step up, get it together and do what they committed to do, or I’m going to start recommending that this camp go away.”

Dr. William Mercer of Project HOPE (Homeless Outreach Partnership Effort) on Wednesday said he was just at the camp on Saturday and did not see the mess that was described by Seidler. Mercer said he has reached out to Seidler since hearing about the comments the councilman made at this week’s meeting, but he had not yet heard back from him.

Mercer noted that he was not present at the Continuum of Care meeting a year and a half ago that Seidler mentioned, but the doctor noted that the exempted camp is not the kind of managed camp that is outlined in the city’s ordinance. Mercer said the city needs a property managed camp — or even two — to help address the homeless situation in Wheeling.

“There was never an agreement with the nonprofits that they would manage this,” Mercer said. “Our goal was to have a managed camp, which I still think can be successful. But as I told them, the city needs to pay the nonprofits to do this. No nonprofit has it in their budget to all of the sudden take on another project.”

Although assisting the homeless population is something that a number of local service agencies do, these outreach efforts are just part of the work they do in the community, Mercer indicated, noting that managing the homeless camp would be a significant task to be added to any of their plates.

“The city needs to help with that,” Mercer said, noting that Wheeling’s opioid settlement funds from the state could help. “The opioid money I think would be a good place to start. We’re not talking about a lot of money.”

Mercer said threatening to close the exempted camp is not helpful.

“I think it would be horrible to shut it down – I don’t know where they would go,” he said, noting that the practice of “sweeping” or displacing homeless individuals is traumatic for individuals who are already in a traumatic situation. “Everyone in public health feels that this is not good. It’s never been shown to be helpful to our homeless.”

Closing camps would result in homeless individuals scattering back into the streets and probably even deeper in the woods where it would be more difficult for service providers and street medicine personnel to reach them.

There are several people in the homeless camp who are trying to help themselves and take ownership in their situation, Mercer said.

“We have success stories, but it does take time,” Mercer said, noting that talks between city leaders and service agencies about an officially managed camp need to be rekindled. “It seems like the discussions need to be restarted. We would like to have a managed camp, and there are templates for that.”

Christine Pritt has been living in Wheeling’s exempted homeless encampment for a little over a year. She noted that Mercer and the Project HOPE team come to the camp and the city crews service the portable toilets and trash bins, but not a lot of others come on a regular basis.

“They’re not doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing,” Pritt said, noting that the dumpsters and port-a-johns are usually cleaned on a regular basis. “They were supposed to be here once a week. When it was snowing and stuff, they didn’t come and clean them for two or three weeks.”

Pritt said representatives of local nonprofit agencies that used to come to the Maintenance Trail have not been around as much at the new site over the winter.

“I haven’t seen a lot of them that were coming down to the other end,” she said. “I think they’re scared, because there are a lot of people here that aren’t right.”

Pritt said there are individuals who try to keep their camps clean, but they are intermingled with people who do not care for themselves or their living situations – many of which are active drug users who are mentally ill. One individual is reportedly schizophrenic, has a habit of tipping over the port-a-johns and its difficult to be around, Pritt indicated. Few camp residents feel completely safe there with the mix of individuals there.

“They need to filter out some of these people,” Pritt said. “I think that people who keep their campsites clean, nice and neat should be able to all camp together. But the ones who can’t take care of themselves or their camps, I don’t think they should be allowed there, because they’re giving everybody bad names by not keeping their place clean.”

Pritt said she would look forward to having the camp moved back to the Maintenance Trail and added that closing the camp would not be good for anyone.

“There would be a lot of problems,” she said. “I didn’t do anything wrong to end up outside except for falling in love with somebody. I’m almost 60 years old, and I do better than a lot of these people who have been on the streets for 15 years. They don’t care – they just do their drugs, go dumpster diving .. do whatever they do. What they need to concentrate on is trying to find a place, trying to find a job, getting clean … and none of them want to do that, because they’re not made to.”