Op-Ed by Johnny Haught: ‘It is their job to come up with ideas to help those they govern’
In a time when financial security, food security, and housing availability have come to be major concerns for the people of this country, Wheeling City Council sat Tuesday to come up with a plan for the nearly 70 people at the local homeless encampment set to be shut down on December 1st.
I went, not to speak, but to listen to what would happen. Did they come up with a plan to make sure people wouldn't freeze to death? Had they actually talked to the nonprofits at this point to find out that there weren't enough beds, contradicting Mayor Magruder's previous statements when the closure was proposed? At that point there were 5 beds open and around 70 people in the encampment. I don't know about you, but the math ain't mathing in my eyes.
Up for discussion was the proposed use of opioid settlement funds in the amount of $75,000 to open up the Salvation Army location on 16th Street to add 30 beds to help pull the homeless population into safe, warm spaces where they can be helped to get back on their feet. I will remind you that the last opioid settlement money Wheeling was granted went to buying the police department an ATV to help police the homeless encampment.
The city made it illegal to set up camp anywhere outside of an assigned area. They designated an encampment area to help keep our homeless citizens in a concentrated area, helping first responders, social workers, and nonprofits locate and help people in need. That's where the help from the mayor and council stopped. They walked away expecting non-profits with razor-thin budgets and already established mission statements to also take on a new responsibility of maintaining and governing over the encampment.
I'm not sure the governing body of Wheeling understands that all of the people who live within the city are theirs to govern. If they are in need, it is their job to help them get resources. If the resources are exhausted or unavailable, it is their job to come up with ideas to help those they govern.
The most disappointing part of sitting through Tuesday's meeting, outside of experienced council members continuously having to guide the mayor through running the meeting after a year of doing it, was the overall demeanor and tone of council member Ben Seidler. To say he was bothered by the fact that they had something difficult to handle is an understatement. To say he had prepared a plan before walking in the room (with set parameters) would be a farce. Watching someone spitball ideas during a public meeting would have been unheard of 10 years ago, but here we are. Seidler claimed that he wouldn't sign off on a blanket check to pay the Life Hub to "babysit people overnight." He went on to throw out ideas of benchmarks that the Life Hub and other nonprofits could help our homeless get to which would make it worth the city releasing opioid settlement money to help.
When the ordinance went to discussion, they called on a representative from the Life Hub to step up and explain to Council if they could start making the progress with these people that Councilman Seidler had thrown out earlier in the meeting.
She explained that's what they've been doing the entire time. They work to get them IDs, Social Security cards, birth certificates, and sign them up for housing. It's kind of weird that the councilman didn't know this, seeing as such an important vote was approaching. Come to think about it, much of Council and the mayor didn't seem to know much about what was going on or what they were going to do. Seems like something they might have wanted to look into before they disbanded the encampment. In fact, I got the feeling Councilwoman Cain was the only one who voiced any kind of knowledge on the facilities and appeared to have visited the Life Hub.
The most upsetting part to me was when the woman from the LifeHub who had just been grilled on statistics and theory, that helps when others won't, out of the goodness of her heart, with a choked up voice said to Councilman Seidler, "I do more than babysit." I want to pretend he didn't know she was sitting there, or who she was. If he did, it is highly inappropriate to be that condescending to someone who's actually trying to help you do your job.
In the end, the vote went through to open the facility on 16th street that will add 30 beds.
I left before public comments.
Seventy people and 30 beds ....
Seems like we are gonna have another problem in the near future. With it being illegal to set up shelter from the elements now, the risk of people freezing to death is rising. As you read this, people around you could be a couple of bad months from ruin and in need of help. Our community has shown that we will come together, but it is the responsibility of those that we elect to take the lead on helping make our lives better and protecting the most vulnerable of us. Only because of the amount of backlash from the community when the closing of the encampment occurred did they even entertain a solution. They were gonna shut it down with no plan. Judging by Tuesday's meeting, they still hadn't thought much of it. This is a band-aid, and until our governing bodies start getting their hands dirty and doing the work, we will never get real solutions.
I mean, come on, they could have at least reached out to the non-profits to find out what they were actively doing before saying they failed.
