Charleston officials have established procedures for how future homeless encampments in the city should be dismantled.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that City Council passed the resolution Monday, nearly a year after Mayor Danny Jones ordered the dismantling of the makeshift camp known as “Tent City.”
Under the new resolution, the city will provide at least 14 days’ notice to those staying at a homeless encampment if it’s on public property. Within 48 hours of that notice, the city also will provide notice to groups that assist the homeless.
The city will also increase its annual contribution to social services agency Prestera Center from $48,000 to $75,000. The money will go toward hiring two full-time outreach workers who will be liaisons between law enforcement, homeless individuals and the business community.
Officials say homelessness alone isn’t automatically an exemption from work or training requirements for food stamp benefits recipients.
State Department of Health and Human Resources spokeswoman Allison Adler tells The Charleston Gazette-Mail that regulations for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program don’t allow for blanket exemptions based on homelessness.
Adler says beginning Oct. 1, exemptions for the chronically homeless will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Officials say homelessness isn’t a cause for exemption but can be an indication that a person is “unfit” for work and thus not required to.
The state announced last year it would reinstate a requirement for SNAP recipients to meet a monthly work or training requirement of 20 hours per week, or lose benefits after three months.
West Virginia will use federal money to provide assistance to homeless veterans and their families.The West Virginia Community Action Partnership has been…
West Virginia will use federal money to provide assistance to homeless veterans and their families.
The West Virginia Community Action Partnership has been awarded nearly $2 million by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Roark-Sullivan Lifeway Center has also been awarded about $300,000, while Helping Heroes has been awarded about $188,000. The Greater Wheeling Coalition for the Homeless has been awarded about $133,000. The funding will become available in October.
The funding will help organizations permanently house homeless veterans, engage in outreach to serve veterans in need and assist veterans with obtaining public benefits.
Housing facilities across West Virginia will receive a total of $6,749,574 under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Continuum of Care (CoC) Program for projects with the goal of ending homelessness. The funding was announced Monday by U.S. Senator Joe Manchin’s office.
“In West Virginia, we understand the importance of helping those who have fallen on hard times,” Senator Manchin said in a news release.
“These funds will help care for those who are struggling, including seniors, children and veterans, and it will ensure they have a roof over their heads and access to the support they need to get back on their feet. Because of this funding, West Virginians in need will also have the opportunity to develop specific skillsets to help them return to the workforce, provide for themselves and their families, and contribute to our communities.”
According to a news release issued Monday, the Continuum of Care (CoC) Program is designed to promote communitywide commitment to the goal of ending homelessness by providing funding to organizations and State and local governments to quickly rehouse homeless individuals and families and improve self-sufficiency among individuals and families experiencing homelessness.
The following housing facilities/projects were awarded grants:
Bartlett House, Inc./West Run Permanent Supportive Housing – $109,918
Cabell-Huntington Coalition for the Homeless, Inc./CHW CoC Planning – $13,713
Cabell-Huntington Coalition for the Homeless, Inc./Housing First (SSO) – $107,595
Cabell-Huntington Coalition for the Homeless, Inc./Project Hope – $208,175
Cabell-Huntington Coalition for the Homeless, Inc./Safe Quarters – $127,066
Caritas House/Colligo House Renewal – $134,820
Charleston-Kanawha Housing Authority/Shelter Plus Care 1 – $115,946
Charleston-Kanawha Housing Authority/Shelter Plus Care 2 – $124,205
City of Charleston/KVC Collaborative Supportive Services – $91,713
Clarksburg Housing Authority/PSH-1 – $175,301
Clarksburg Housing – $195,410
Community Action of South Eastern West Virginia/CASE Kennedy/Hinton Centers 15-16 –$52,710
Community Action of South Eastern West Virginia/CASE Preston Place 15-16 – $41,091
Community Networks, Inc./BCLP – $81,456
Community Networks, Inc./JCLP – $242,880
Covenant House, Inc./Housing First I – $67,105
Covenant House, Inc./Housing First II – $90,058
Covenant House, Inc./Housing First III – $73,891
Covenant House, Inc./Housing First IV – $43,586
Covenant House, Inc./Housing First V – $44,862
Greater Wheeling Coalition for the Homeless/FY 2014 WV-500 HMIS – $11,200
Greater Wheeling Coalition for the Homeless/FY 2014 WV-500 Planning Grant – $7,557
Greater Wheeling Coalition for the Homeless/FY 2014 WV-500 RH – $257,698
Greater Wheeling Coalition for the Homeless/FY 2014 WV-500 SSO – $135,796
Greater Wheeling Coalition for the Homeless/FY 2014 WV-500 TH – $25,273
Greenbrier County Housing Authority/Greenbrier Rapid Rehousing – $134,783
Greenbrier County Housing Authority/Permanent Supportive Housing Expansion – $49,553
Greenbrier County Housing Authority/Permanent Supportive Housing Family – $46,268
Greenbrier County Housing Authority/Renewal PSH2014 – $158,858
Housing Authority of Mingo County/CAREWOOD – $67,269
Huntington West Virginia Housing Authority/HMIS Expansion Renewal 2014 – $34,853
Huntington West Virginia Housing Authority/Shelter Plus Care Renewal Project #10 – $26,542
Huntington West Virginia Housing Authority/ Shelter Plus Care Renewal Project #11 – $26,669
Huntington West Virginia Housing Authority/ Shelter Plus Care Renewal Project #2 – $369,632
Huntington West Virginia Housing Authority/ Shelter Plus Care Renewal Project #21 – $65,271
Huntington West Virginia Housing Authority/ Shelter Plus Care Renewal Project #3 – $319,606
Huntington West Virginia Housing Authority/ Shelter Plus Care Renewal Project #5 – $66,673
Huntington West Virginia Housing Authority/ Shelter Plus Care Renewal Project #6 – $74,997
Huntington West Virginia Housing Authority/ Shelter Plus Care Renewal Project #7 – $66,673
Huntington West Virginia Housing Authority/ Shelter Plus Care Renewal Project #8 – $120,011
Huntington West Virginia Housing Authority/ Shelter Plus Care Renewal Project #9 – $33,177
Huntington West Virginia Housing Authority/Shelter Plus Care TRA #11 – $77,502
Huntington West Virginia Housing Authority/Shelter Plus Care TRA #22 – $48,879
Integrated Community Services of Parkersburg Inc. – $114,050
Kanawha Valley Collective, Inc./Homeless Management Information System – $63,999
Kanawha Valley Collective, Inc./KVC Planning Project – $16,816
Logan-Mingo Area Mental Health, Inc./LMAMH Permanent Supportive Housing – $83,425
Mid-Ohio Valley Fellowship Home, Inc./MOVFH Women’s Recovery House – $10,025
North Central WV Community Action, Inc./North Central WV Community Action Agency, Inc. SHP Permanent Project – $53,544
North Central WV Community Action, Inc./North Central WV Community Action Association, Inc. SHP Transitional Program – $28,765
More than $2.6 million in federal funding has been approved to help homeless military veterans and their families in West Virginia.
U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Jay Rockefeller and Congressman Nick Rahall announced the funding Monday from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The program will provide outreach, case management and assistance in obtaining VA and other public benefits. It also will provide rental, utility and moving assistance.
The nonprofit West Virginia Community Action Partnerships will receive $2 million in funding for statewide use.
Nearly $300,000 was awarded to the Roark-Sullivan Lifeway Center serving Cabell, Kanawha and Wayne counties.
Helping Heroes will receive $189,000 and the Greater Wheeling Coalition for the Homeless will receive $133,000. Both serve Brooke, Hancock, Marshall, Ohio and Wetzel counties.
David Sneade works as the director and minister at a homeless shelter in downtown Charleston. He was homeless himself, off and on, for about 19 years.
“I wouldn’t be afraid to say there’s at least 2,500-3,000 homeless people just in Charleston,” said Sneade, who has spoken with many of those people.
He works with Union Mission, a Christian organization that receives no government assistance and serves about 30,000-40,000 men women and children a month across West Virginia. Union Mission receives about $7 million a year from private donations.
Sneade’s job and life’s mission often includes going out in the middle of the night, offering people water, hot soup and sandwiches.
“The people that you see in Charleston, just Charleston alone, during the day are not the same people you will see walking around Charleston at night,” he said.
On an extremely hot and muggy night a few summers ago, Sneade and another chaplain from Union Mission were handing out water and sandwiches to people. Two blocks from the shimmering gold of the state capitol building, they saw a woman who was leaning against a fence. They offered her a bottle of water and two sandwiches.
“And she asked for 3 more bottles of water and 6 sandwiches and we gave it to her and she started crying and saying now she wouldn’t have to go out and prostitute her body, she could stay home and feed her kids.”
Another night last summer, Sneade and another chaplain were on the West Side giving out water.
“One of the little kids was a little girl about 2 years old. Her mom gave her that little 8 oz. bottle of water, and she was just gulping it down, she was so dehydrated.”
That girl finished the water and began to cry. When you haven’t had enough to drink, you can’t make tears. They gave her another bottle of water, and then another. It was so hot and muggy and she was so tired, that she continued to cry as she drank about four bottles of water.
Credit Roxy Todd
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Carl is one of the chaplains at Union Mission Crossroads.
Credit Roxy Todd
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Chaplain Carl (middle) and two of the men who are staying at the Union Mission Crossroads shelter.
Sneade has worked in the Union Mission Crossroads shelter for about 10 years. And in the last two years, he says the number of people in need has increased as the economy in West Virginia has suffered many job losses. Since 2012, the number of men staying at the shelter has doubled.
Like many of those who work at the shelter, Sneade used to be homeless himself. He grew up extremely poor in a small town in Maryland. His father tried to drown him when he was just six months old.
“These people don’t know what love is. I didn’t know what love is. My father, when I was six months old, threw me in the canal. He picked me up out of the crib one morning and walked down to the edge of the canal there and threw me in and just walked away.”
As a baby, Sneade was discovered in the water and spent the next 6 months in the hospital with malnutrition and pneumonia. Not long ago, he reunited with his father.
“I love my dad. My grandmother said, ‘But he tried to kill you.’ I love my dad.”
But it took Sneade a lot of hard years living on the streets, and at least four close calls with death, before he got to this point of forgiveness. And he points out that many people who are homeless have been hurt and abused. One of the things that hurts the most, is whenever he hears people making fun of someone on the street. He knows the pain of that too.
“I guess the whole time that I’ve been saved and sober I just tell people… homeless people, they’re not the outcasts of society. I just try to hug them and tell them I love them. I believe in tough love.”
