Morgantown should discover a warming shelter earlier than winter

Whereas we applaud Bartlett Home for including beds to its shelter for the winter, we’re dissatisfied that nobody has stepped as much as present a warming shelter for the chilly months.

We perceive that Hazel’s Home of Hope could not have been the most effective match for the warming shelter, although it did an admirable job final 12 months. We’re stunned, although, that not one of the organizations and church buildings that beforehand hosted warming shelters have volunteered once more, on condition that Hazel’s Home is now not an possibility.

The Metropolis of Morgantown has allotted $30,000 for a chilly climate shelter this 12 months, and the county has provided $10,000 for the endeavor. Bartlett Home will possible obtain a small portion of these funds to cowl the prices of the 12 beds it is going to add this winter. Nonetheless, final 12 months’s emergency shelter commonly noticed 60 folks or extra are available in from the chilly. Bartlett’s 40 beds will certainly not be sufficient.

Greater than cash, the first impediment appears to be lack of an company or facility prepared to host the chilly climate shelter. In winter 2019-20, the Spruce Avenue United Methodist Church acted as an overflow shelter when nights dipped under 34 levels, and it was staffed by a mixture of volunteers and Well being Proper workers. In 2018, Caritas Home on Scott Avenue crammed the function.

What modified?

Have the rules turn out to be so strict that nobody can meet them? Have the authorized necessities turn out to be so onerous that nobody is prepared to tackle the legal responsibility? Has staffing the shelter fallen solely on untrained volunteers who don’t really feel snug persevering with the work? Or is it a difficulty of cash, in any case?

One factor is for sure: Morgantown wants a warming shelter come winter. It’s too harmful to go away people outdoors in freezing temperatures in a single day. We all know many individuals labored behind the scenes to attempt to safe a chilly climate shelter. Nonetheless, since these efforts failed, we have to convey the difficulty middle stage. Extra consideration is prone to result in new concepts, and from these new concepts, we could discover a workable answer.