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Camping Ban In Wheeling And State Lawmakers Talk DHHR Restructuring, This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, a new camping ban went into effect in Wheeling this month. But as Chris Schulz reports, advocates for the unhoused community are pushing back.

On this West Virginia Morning, a new camping ban went into effect in Wheeling this month. But as Chris Schulz reports, advocates for the unhoused community are pushing back.

Also, in this show, in our latest episode of The Legislature Today, Emily Rice sat down with Del. Amy Summers, R-Taylor, and Sen. Charles Trump, R-Morgan, to discuss why the Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) was broken up into three separate agencies and how it is going.

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.

Eric Douglas produced this episode.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning

Streetscape Construction Continues In Downtown Wheeling

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg toured the Wheeling Streetscape project in July.

Construction on a project to renew downtown Wheeling’s streets and sidewalks continues.

The West Virginia Department of Transportation is installing drainage structures along Main and Market streets in Wheeling.

The construction requires pedestrian and traffic detours but with access to all businesses.

Crews still need to install sidewalks and trees and shrubs. They will replace traffic lights and eventually mill and pave the affected streets.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg toured the Wheeling Streetscape project in July. It received a $16 million grant from a federal discretionary infrastructure spending program called RAISE, or Rebuilding America’s Infrastructure With Sustainability and Equity.

The $32 million project broke ground last year and is scheduled to be completed by the summer of 2025.

Early Intervention Key To Helping Homeless Veterans: Helping Heroes

“There are lots of reasons organizations have come up with to not shelter individuals and a lot of those conditions exist specifically in the veteran population,” he said. “So we try to reach through that.”

The struggle to help homeless and near homeless veterans often includes helping their families, too.

On Monday the Select Committee on Veterans Affairs heard from Helping Heroes, Inc., a Wheeling based center that assists veterans facing or currently experiencing homelessness, achieve housing stability.

Last year, the organization helped 56 veterans in the five counties of the Northern Panhandle. When factoring in their families, more than 300 individuals and families were affected.

Iraq veteran and cofounder Jeremy Harrison told committee members efforts to help homeless vets extends to their spouses and children.

“That’s one of the things people don’t really think about often when thinking about these veterans you’re trying to provide services for,” he said. “There are many children involved in these families; families living in vehicles or wherever they can, it often involves children.”

Helping Heroes helps veterans facing eviction with rent through the state’s Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) program.

Helping Heroes Chief Executive Officer R. J. Konkoleski said the organization also helps veterans access an emergency shelter where needed. During their stay at the shelter, veterans receive help to find a more permanent housing solution.

“Our shelter is a little different,” Konkoleski said. “As I mentioned, we meet veterans where they are. There are shelters in the area that you can’t stay in if you don’t have a driver’s license. If you’re living in a tent, or under a bridge, there’s a good chance you don’t remember where your driver’s license is, or you don’t have it.”

Konkoleski said a lot of local shelters refuse to accept veterans if they don’t pass a breathalyzer test.

The organization offers ten transitional housing beds where veterans can stay at no cost for up to 24 months. Case managers assist the veterans with benefits and employment, and ultimately move out into the community and into their own housing.

Konkoleski told lawmakers the program boasts a 72 percent success rate in helping vets find gainful employment and things like benefits which Konkoleski credits to the individual partnership between the vets and their case managers.

Many vets return from service and struggle with financial, marital, employment, mental health, and substance abuse issues.

“When we meet the veterans we serve, the first thing we see isn’t even a veteran,” he said. “It’s a human being because that’s who’s there first and that’s the first step in getting assistance from them.”

Konkoleski said the problem of homelessness is more complex than what it appears at face value. He called it a symptom of underlying societal problems.

“It’s a symptom of unemployment, it’s a symptom of mental health, it’s a symptom of addiction,” he said. “You can’t look at homelessness as the problem. You cannot eradicate homelessness, you have to meet people where they are, find out the causes and try to mitigate the causes.”

According to Helping Heroes, eleven percent of the homeless adult population are veterans. Konkoleski said prevention and early intervention are key.

“If you’ve been following the news in Wheeling, everyone is searching for a solution to the homelessness problem,” Konkoleski said. “I’m sure that it’s not unique to Wheeling, it’s probably all over the state of West Virginia. It’s probably all over the nation.”

Konkoleski said increasing engagement with at-risk veterans and providing the care they need as human beings will prevent the homeless crisis currently seen among the state’s veteran population.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could meet these veterans before they are living in a tent, or before they’re staying under a bridge, and have interventions earlier to avoid them becoming homeless,” Konkoleski said. “That is how you would solve the homelessness problem.”

New Appeals Court Improving Consistency Of Family Law

The new Intermediate Court of Appeals is creating a more consistent family law across the state.

The state’s new intermediate court of appeals has been active for more than a year now, and its effects are starting to become apparent when it comes to families.

Members of the Joint Standing Committee on the Judiciary heard an update from the new appeals court during interim meetings Monday at the West Virginia Independence Hall in Wheeling.

Intermediate Court of Appeals Chief Judge Daniel Greear said previously the implementation of family law was inconsistent and varied greatly between circuit courts in disparate counties.

“The circuit courts that heard family law appeals in Mon County might have entirely different conclusions than the circuit courts that heard the appeals in Mercer County. Or, Berkeley County might be different than Kanawha County. And they, in fact, were.” he said.

The intermediate court began hearing cases in July 2022 after being created by the passage of Senate Bill 275 in 2021. The three-judge panel hears appeals from family courts as well as other issues including civil cases from circuit courts and worker’s compensation cases.

Greear said before the intermediate court’s creation, appeals went directly to the state supreme court which could not devote as much time to issues of family law.

“We think that one of the most significant things that’s going to happen, that I didn’t anticipate or realize, from the existence of our court is the development of family law in a consistent manner throughout the state,” he said.

Greear says since its inception in 2021, the intermediate court has more than tripled the number of published decisions on family law from 22 to 65.

New Child Psychiatric Hospital Opens In Wheeling

A new psychiatric hospital focusing on children and adolescents opened Monday in the Northern Panhandle.

Orchard Park Hospital in Wheeling is for youth ages 5 to 18 years who are in immediate need of acute psychiatric care.

The 30-bed hospital will provide acute mental health care for children and teens in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Cory Carr, hospital administrator, explained that, in the event of a psychiatric crisis, the facility can provide patients 24-hour services in order to stabilize them including group therapy, individual therapy and consultations with doctors.

“The key to all of that is to find stabilization,” he said. “We want to find if medication is what they need, if a new coping mechanism is what they need, the goal is to find what they need to stabilize them and reintroduce them into the community.”

Jacquelyn Knight, Orchard Park’s CEO, said there has been a gap in service in the region for several years, and children’s need for psychiatric services has only increased since the pandemic.

“Between the pandemic and the different things kids go through with cyberbullying and social media and just societal pressures, there’s a lot of stress to be a kid. It’s very, very hard,” she said. “There are times when they just need help dealing with some of those mental health crises. We’re really fortunate that we’re able to meet that need now.”

Knight said The Children’s Home of Wheeling took over the facility of another psychiatric hospital for children and adolescents, the Byrd Center, that closed in 2019, to create Orchard Park Hospital.

She said Orchard Park Hospital is actively hiring.

“We are still actively hiring mental health technicians, nurses and kitchen staff to work here at the hospital,” she said. “It’s a very rewarding career choice, you get to make a difference in the lives of kids that are really in need. We’d love to bring some more wonderful people on our team.”

White Supremacist Admits Threatening Jury And Witnesses In Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooter’s Trial

A self-proclaimed white supremacist has pleaded guilty to charges that he made online threats toward the jury and witnesses at the trial of a man who killed 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue.

A self-proclaimed white supremacist pleaded guilty Tuesday to making online threats toward the jury and witnesses at the trial of a man who killed 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue, the U.S. Justice Department said.

As part of his plea agreement in federal court for West Virginia’s northern district, Hardy Carroll Lloyd admitted that the actual or perceived Jewish faith of the government witnesses and victims in the trial of Robert Bowers prompted him to target the jury and witnesses.

Lloyd, 45, of Follansbee, West Virginia, faces more than six years in prison if the plea agreement is accepted by the court.

The Justice Department described Lloyd as a self-proclaimed leader of a white supremacy movement. Prosecutors said Lloyd, who was arrested on Aug. 10, sent threatening social media posts and emails along with comments on websites during Bowers’ trial. Lloyd pleaded guilty to obstruction of the due administration of justice.

Bowers was sentenced to death last month after a jury determined that capital punishment was appropriate.

“Hardy Lloyd attempted to obstruct the federal hate crimes trial of the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “His guilty plea underscores that anyone who attempts to obstruct a federal trial by threatening or intimidating jurors or witnesses will be met with the full force of the Justice Department.”

In May 2022, the Texas Department of Public Safety offered a cash reward of up to $1,000 for information leading to Lloyd’s arrest after he allegedly posted a series of comments online threatening to carry a firearm onto the Texas Capitol grounds and challenge any police officer who tried to “take enforcement actions” against him. A statement from the department said Lloyd was a convicted felon.