photo by: Eric Ayres

Dr. William Mercer, who helped develop the street outreach clinic Project HOPE, recently stepped away from the program, which continues to operate as a service of the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department.

WHEELING — Medical professionals and volunteers with Project HOPE in Wheeling are redirecting a focus of their outreach services to the local shelters now that the city’s homeless encampment has been closed.

It had been estimated that as many as 70 people were staying in Wheeling’s exempted homeless encampment on the Maintenance Trail near the entrance of the Peninsula Cemetery before the city shut down the camp last week.

Before the camp closed, Project HOPE (Homeless Outreach Partnership Effort) had been making regular stops there to help bring medical services to some of the city’s most vulnerable people.

A collaboration of medical, nursing, social work, pastoral care and other health care professionals and volunteers operating under the umbrella of the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department, Project HOPE provides basic medical care, food, water, clothing, follow-up appointments and information on agencies and services to those who need it.

Howard Gamble, administrator of the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department, this week said the paid staff and many volunteers with Project HOPE have had to make adjustments in the past when the more centralized location of the city’s homeless population was shifted.

“The closure of the camp … it does disrupt a few things,” Gamble said. “But the project and the staff operate the same way – you just have to work where those individuals are now, which are the shelters.”

Gamble said the Project HOPE crew is still making regular visits to reach as many unhoused individuals as possible, and at this time, most of them can be found in the city’s homeless shelters – at The Life Hub, at Northwood Health System’s residential facility in East Wheeling and at the Salvation Army’s newly reopened shelter on 16th Street, which is operating a new 30-bed women’s shelter through a partnership with The Life Hub.

“They’re still going out twice a week,” Gamble said of the Project HOPE team. “They’re still going out on Wednesdays and Saturdays now. And the truck is still there if they need it. It’s a mobile clinic, so it’s meant to go where the staff is needed and where the people are.”

The Project HOPE staff began adjusting their plan after the city had announced its intention to close the homeless camp on Dec. 1. The area that had been exempt from the city’s relatively new ordinance – one that bans camping on public property – was simply exempted from the ban and not set up as a “managed camp.” Over the past year, city officials noted that the site had gotten out of control with mounds of trash and debris, despite the availability of dumpsters and portable toilets. Business owners and residential neighbors impacted by their proximity to the encampment made numerous complaints to the city, and Wheeling leaders earlier this fall eventually deemed the camp a “failure” and moved to close it down and clear the property of literally truckloads upon truckloads of debris.

With the camp now closed, Gamble said the outreach clinic now focuses more time bringing health services to the shelters, although the truck may likely make stops elsewhere if an unhoused individual is in need of medical attention at another location.

“They know that every once in a while, they’ll probably have to go where individuals have gone – if they can find them or if they have heard about where they are – to see if they can follow up with them on the services that they need,” Gamble said. “We all know that the homeless population will not necessarily all go to the shelters. They may go back into the woods, or under a bridge and into other areas. But the staff will focus more on the shelters because it’s a little easier to work with people in that setting.”

Even if an individual Project HOPE has been treating has found housing, the staff can do follow-ups with them specifically at their new residence, Gamble indicated.

This fall, the man who founded Project HOPE — Dr. William Mercer — stepped down from the program, along with former Project HOPE Medical Director Chrystal Bauer, who had left the agency as a paid employee but had come back to the program as a volunteer.

Gamble credited Mercer for bringing the concept of Project HOPE to fruition.

“He was the health officer at that time. It was Dr. Mercer’s idea to come up with it, and we put it together under the county health department to make it work – because you had to have people covered with insurance run funds through correctly,” Gamble said, noting that Project HOPE became an operation under the county health department similar to other outreach programs it conductions. “It just made things a little easier in terms of insurance, paying invoices for expenses and for other operations purposes.”

Over the past year, Mercer had been working to separate Project HOPE from the health department in hopes to expand the operation. Gamble noted that efforts to find another entity to take over Project HOPE’s operation were unsuccessful.

“When you have a program that is solely owned by a public entity, you can’t just say ‘fund the whole program,'” Gamble said, noting the logistical challenges of separating a publicly operated clinic. “You can’t just turn over a $200,000 vehicle.”

Requests for proposals were sent out to entities that might have been able to take on such a task, and the health board members planned to review proposals and make a determination about the matter.

“Unfortunately, no entity in our area came forth with a proposal, so it remains with the county health department,” Gamble said.

“Chrystal Bauer and I resigned from Project HOPE because we had some differences on how it should be run,” Mercer said. “Originally the plan was – because things were getting so big, we wanted to have some full-time people and move it to another agency. It would still be involved with the health department.”

Mercer said that aside from the operation in San Francisco, Project HOPE has remained the only street medicine outreach clinic of its kind associated with the local health department.

“It’s not a great fit, but finding another agency proved to be difficult,” Mercer said.

Subsequently this year, Mercer asked the board of health if he could run the program, and that request was declined. More recently, he and Bauer decided to step away from Project HOPE.

“We knew that the volunteers with Project HOPE were still going to be there and provide care,” Mercer said. “But it was more kind of a statement.”

Both Mercer and Bauer are still involved with their work serving those in need. In fact, Mercer is vice chairman of The Life Hub and helped serve as a catalyst to bring Salvation Army and The Life Hub together on last week’s re-opening of the Salvation Army shelter facility.

Project HOPE continues to work well with The Life Hub, officials noted. Last week, The Life Hub applauded Project HOPE for bringing their services directly to the shelter location at the former First English Lutheran Church facility on 16th Street in Wheeling and the new Salvation Army site.

“They are a wonderful community partner,” The Life Hub team said in a statement posted and shared on social media. “The street medical outreach stewardship they have been providing over the years for our unsheltered neighbors has saved many lives.”

The Life Hub thanked Project HOPE for their regular weekly visits to the shelters and for their “life-saving services” and partnership.

“When medical teams show up for our unsheltered neighbors, they strengthen the whole community, reminding us that compassion is powerful, healing is possible and every life has value,” The Life Hub team noted.

Amy Martinkosky is the new Project HOPE coordinator, working along with Dr. William Przybysz and others on the staff, along with several volunteers.

“The Life Hub did a very big lift to bring this program where it is right now — to be able to service those individuals who had to leave the camp,” Gamble noted. “The Life Hub has done the heavy lifting on this to try to make this transition smooth. I think they’re doing a great job. Project HOPE is just there to provide one part of the care and services that make up a larger effort … . Project HOPE is just a small part of that doing the health and medical side.”