An Open Letter to the Chair of Wheeling's Homeless Task Force
(Publisher's Note: As the members of Wheeling's new Homeless Task Force begin working together today, long-time East Wheeling resident Erik Marple has composed this Open Letter to the group's chair, Rabbi Joshua Lief. Below Mr. Marple's Letter, please find the City's press release that explains the creation of the Task Force and its goals, according to Wheeling Mayor Denny Magruder.) Subject: Strategic Framework and Mental Health Infrastructure Recommendations Dear Rabbi Lief and Members of the Task Force: First, thank you for your willingness to lead our community through one of its most complex challenges. The creation of this Task Force, blending faith leaders, business owners, public safety personnel, and healthcare professionals, represents a vital opportunity to move past historical divisions and build an accountable, results-driven system for Wheeling. While millions of dollars in federal, state, and local grants flow into our region annually, our unhoused population continues to rise, and our emergency resources remain critically strained. Local data indicates that 60% to 70% of Wheeling's unhoused population battles severe mental illness. Ever since the closure of Ohio Valley Medical Center (OVMC), which abruptly stripped 30 adult acute care beds from the Hillcrest facility and 26 youth beds from the Byrd Center, our city has lacked the inpatient infrastructure necessary to stabilize individuals in crisis. To reverse this trend, we must shift our strategy away from simply funding isolated, open-ended programs and pivot toward structural consolidation, strict accountability, and aggressive local mental health capacity expansion. I formally request that the Task Force adopt and champion the following comprehensive strategies to fundamentally change the current situation: 1: System Accountability & Structural Consolidation * Mandate a "Shared-Data For Funding" Policy: The city must tie all future municipal and Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding directly to agency participation in the West Virginia Statewide Homeless Management Information System (HMIS). Agencies that refuse to log intakes, bed availability, and long-term placement outcomes should have their funds redirected to organizations that do. This will eliminate duplicate services, track client progress in real time, and ensure taxpayer dollars yield measurable housing results. While I am aware that we have HMIS and CoC currently in place. However, I am also sure that a lot of people are not accounted for which also serves as a danger to our community regarding such indivuals with active warrants or registered sex offenders. * Accelerate Centralized Service Hubs: We must move away from a fragmented model where individuals must bounce between twelve different locations for food, clothing, and shelter. I urge the Task Force to fully support the physical consolidation of emergency services into centralized facilities. By co-locating mental health counselors, substance use specialists, and housing navigators directly inside one shelter, we ensure that immediate care is paired with an immediate exit strategy from homelessness. Sometimes the best solution is a matter of quality over quantity. * Establish Regional Inflow and Resource-Sharing Agreements: Wheeling, especially East Wheeling and Downtown, acts as a regional magnet, absorbing unhoused individuals from surrounding Northern Panhandle and Ohio counties that lack sufficient infrastructure. The Task Force must negotiate data and cost-sharing agreements with neighboring municipal leaders. If individuals are migrating into our city due to service gaps elsewhere, neighboring counties should help subsidize these regional operations or more effectively expand their own diversion programs. * Develop Supervised Transitionary Group Housing: Moving directly from a street encampment to independent apartment living is often an impossible hurdle for chronically unhoused individuals. The Task Force should advocate for the creation of supervised group homes or micro-communities. This model maintains a vital sense of community while providing a safe, sanitary, and staffed environment where individuals can stabilize and build the skills necessary for long-term independent living. * Balance Public Safety Enforcement with Dignified Exit Pathways: Maintaining the rule of law and public sanitation in our downtown spaces is essential for our local businesses and residents. However, clearing encampments without a destination simply rotates the problem. Street outreach teams must work in lockstep with law enforcement. When public spaces are cleared, individuals must be handed directly to a designated housing navigator who has an available emergency, transitional, or crisis stabilization bed waiting for them. That takes us to the most important thing that we must do. Find a way to create more mental health service beds not just shelter beds. 2: Rebuilding Wheeling's Mental Health Infrastructure To sustain these housing efforts, we must aggressively work to restore the acute inpatient and outpatient capacity lost when Hillcrest shut down. I urge the Task Force to pursue three specific avenues to bring dedicated adult behavioral health facilities back to Wheeling: * Leverage the WVU Medicine Partnership: Given WVU Medicine's massive regional footprint and ongoing redevelopment projects on the old OVMC lot, the Task Force should actively lobby their leadership to expand adult behavioral health services locally. We need a dedicated adult psychiatric ward or an integrated medical-psychiatric emergency unit attached to their primary local infrastructure to capture acute crises. * Expand Local Crisis Stabilization Units (CSUs): Instead of waiting years to build a massive psychiatric hospital from scratch, the city should look to expand what already works. Northwood Health Systems operates a vital Crisis Stabilization Unit on Wood Street. The Task Force should advocate for state grants and municipal matching funds to significantly expand Northwood's bed capacity, transforming it into a 24/7 step-down center tied directly to homeless outreach navigators. * Replicate the "Orchard Park" Re-use Blueprint for Adults: In 2023, stakeholders successfully repurposed the vacant Byrd Center building to open Orchard Park Hospital, bringing 30 acute psychiatric beds to the area for children and adolescents. The Task Force should deploy this exact same blueprint for adults by partnering with a private behavioral health operator to lease or acquire underutilized commercial space in Ohio County, retrofitting it into an adult facility backed by Medicaid and private insurance. In short, the opioid epidemic and the 2020 pandemic hit every city in America, but not every city saw the rapid street-level destabilization that Wheeling did. Our crisis over the past six years is explicitly local, and it tracks perfectly with the day the doors were locked at Hillcrest. We did not suddenly run out of compassion or funding in the last six years; we ran out of psychiatric beds. If we want the numbers to drop, we must stop treating this strictly as an economic or pandemic issue and treat it as the acute infrastructure vacancy it actually is. By implementing these structural reforms and expanding our mental health capacity, this Task Force can optimize our current funding, eliminate administrative redundancies, and build a unified system capable of attracting state infrastructure grants. Thank you for your time, your leadership, and your dedication to restoring both public order and human dignity to the City of Wheeling. I look forward to following the progress of the Task Force. Sincerely, Erik Marple https://ledenews.com/rabbi-joshua-lief-named-chair-of-wheeling-homeless-task-force/ Read the full article