photo by: Eric Ayres (file)

Wheeling Councilmen Tony Assaro, left, and Ben Seidler attend a city council meeting earlier this year.

WHEELING — Members of Wheeling City Council are responding to those who in recent weeks have criticized the city’s efforts in dealing with the homeless situation, clapping back at suggestions that the city should be providing more funding to address lingering issues.

Much of the recent debate stemmed from comments made by one city councilman during a public meeting earlier this month. Councilman Ben Seidler mentioned that he planned to suggest closing down the city’s exempted homeless camp if local nonprofits that provide services to the homeless do not step up and help keep the camp clean.

Since those comments were made, a myriad of editorial opinion pieces and social media posts on the topic have emerged.

This issue came to the floor in council chambers last week when members of Wheeling City Council met for a budget work session, crunching numbers for what promises to be a tight fiscal year in 2025-26.

“A lot of people who are speaking out about the homeless camp are writing that the city is not helping the nonprofits,” said Councilwoman Connie Cain, who represents the Ward 3 neighborhood of East Wheeling — where many social service agencies are located.

Cain noted that the city tries to help local nonprofits by providing funds to help them deliver needed services to the community. The city distributes chunks of its federal Community Development Block Grant funding on an annual basis to eligible local agencies that apply for allocations. Significant portions of the city’s federal pandemic relief via American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds were also distributed to local nonprofits in recent years.

“There’s a certain percentage that the city can allocate towards nonprofits,” Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron explained about federal funds made available through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to assist communities in low- to moderate-income neighborhoods. “Council usually does the maximum. The nonprofits submit applications, which are reviewed against the CDBG regulations to make sure that they qualify, and then those applications are forwarded to city council, which ultimately makes the decision as to whether or not to fund those.”

Some directors of local nonprofits make comfortable salaries, Cain noted, expressing concerns about the specific use of funds that the city distributes to nonprofits.

“When we’re talking about our money going to the homeless camps — what portion of it is going to salaries versus what is actually going to the camps or helping people with their electric bills or whatever at these facilities?” she asked.

“Our application process makes them indicate exactly where the funds are going to go,” Herron explained. “Most of it is for programs or equipment or supplies. I’d have to go back and look — I don’t know that any of the CDBG funds go toward salaries. I’m sure some of it does.”

Many homeless advocates have criticized the city’s actions in recent years to prohibit camping on public property — with the exception of the exempted camp — and to ban hand-to-hand exchanges between pedestrians and motorists traveling in a lane of traffic. These measures essentially made it illegal to panhandle and for homeless individuals to sleep on public property, aside from in the exempted camp.

But city leaders have noted that homelessness is a nationwide dilemma that is not unique to Wheeling, and many have conceded that municipal governments do not have the expertise needed to spearhead effective solutions for these matters like the social service agencies do. However, city council members have stressed that they are doing what they can for the unhoused individuals in the community and for the agencies that offer services to them.

“We are providing dumpsters and bathrooms and everything,” Cain said. “I would like for us to get together and talk about the trash, because if they can put a mattress on a bicycle and ride it around and get it to the place, they can surely throw the trash out.”

Despite the availability of dumpsters at the homeless camp near the Peninsula Cemetery, council members often field complaints about the trash that can be seen around the encampment from Interstate 70.

“As I understand it, simply going to clean up and dump the garbage generated by the homeless costs the city $100,000,” said Councilman Tony Assaro. “That’s just the garbage — that’s nothing else. We’re spending an incredible amount of money on this.”

Other city leaders agreed.

“That’s a lot of money,” Cain said. “For our Operations Department to go out there and clean up so many times — that’s money from our budget.”

Seidler noted that regardless of whether the trash is on the ground or in a dumpster, the city pays for its disposal through dumping fees.

“I think this is something we need to talk more through at a council meeting versus a budget meeting, but those things do absolutely impact our numbers here on our sanitation and operations,” Seidler said.

“Plus the amount of time our safety forces spend doing rounds there,” Mayor Denny Magruder added.

“I’m willing to meet with the nonprofits,” Cain said. “They’ve been calling in like crazy, but I’m going to meet with them. To ask them to maybe help clean up — I don’t think it’s asking too much. It’s affecting our budget, and it’s a lot of money coming out.”

Dr. William Mercer of Project HOPE, which coordinates street medicine outreach via teams that regularly visit the camp, reiterated his desire to see the local agencies and the local governments work together to establish a coordinated solution.

“I still feel that the city and/or county should be helping fund the nonprofits to have a managed camp,” Mercer said on Saturday. “An exempted camp is just — they are staying there. It’s just the property. We need to have a managed camp.”

The current homeless encampment is considered an exempted camp — simply allowing people to camp at this site despite the citywide camping ban on public property. A managed camp, which is permitted in the language of the camping ban ordinance, would have to have some entity in charge.

As city manager, Herron could authorize such an arrangement, and city leaders have expressed the intention of allowing one of the agencies to spearhead this effort if a plan was agreed upon, but the lead agency is not expected to be the city, and funding would be needed to properly staff a managed camp.

“You can’t really expect the nonprofits to fund that — it’s not in their budgets,” Mercer said, noting that opioid settlement money from the state could help in this effort.

There is a good template for a managed camp in Seattle, Washington, Mercer reiterated, but parties need to work together to make such a model applicable in Wheeling.