HUD Officials Tour Life Hub in Wheeling
Shelley Hanson Trending
WHEELING -- United States Department of Housing and Urban Development officials toured the Wheeling Housing Authority's properties Monday -- including the new Life Hub, which houses the area's homeless during the winter months.
Matthew Heckles, HUD's regional administrator for Region 3, Office of Field Policy and Management, and Richard Monocchio, HUD's principal deputy assistant secretary, Office of Public and Indian Housing, both were led on a tour of the Life Hub by Joyce Wolen, executive director of the Wheeling Housing Authority.
Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron was there briefly to meet and talk to the men and then excused himself to attend a meeting.
The Life Hub is located at the former First English Lutheran Church on 16th Street downtown. The HUD officials got to see the separate sleeping rooms for men and women inside the church.
The third-floor sanctuary is being used by the Street Moms volunteer group for sorting and organizing the many donations for the homeless from the community. Stacks of clothing, shoes and more were on the church pews.
"We're seeing more and more shelters like this having to open in the summer because of the extreme heat," Heckles said. "Having a resource like this in the community is important for that kind of cold, heat and other natural disasters that can affect those who are homeless more than those who are housed."
Heckles said HUD has competitive grant funding, but also provides funding through the Continuum of Care.
"It's important for us to come and see what the local challenges are and match them up with resources," he said.
The main need in Wheeling and communities across the country continues to be the demand for housing.
"It's always supply," Heckles said. "Supply across the country is always difficult. There hasn't been enough housing built over the last 20-30 years. So prices have gone up. And if you're someone who's on a fixed income, Social Security, you can very easily get priced out of a place that you've been living in for years -- that's something we're seeing.
"We're trying to build as quickly as we can to get out of that supply crisis and bring that pricing, both in the rental and homeownership, back into balance," he added.
Heckles said that is something HUD is trying to do in Wheeling as well.
"The properties that exist are in great shape and they're full," he said. "And so obviously we need more resources across the country and here in Wheeling as well."
Wolen said HUD announced recently that it wants housing authorities to work on the homeless issue across the country. She noted the Life Hub tour allowed the housing authority to show the HUD officials how it is collaborating with the city of Wheeling, Catholic Charities and other community groups to operate the Life Hub homeless shelter.
"The ultimate goal is for them to have a safe place to be. If they can start here then they can start working through and then perhaps go home, or find permanent housing or find another solution to living in the street," she said. "I wanted to show them this. It's a rare opportunity to have (Monocchio) here. ... I wanted to showcase the good things Wheeling does because Wheeling is amazing. And I believe that."
Wolen said the Life Hub is looking into applying for a variety of funding sources to eventually have the shelter open year-round. She said there are plans to have the shelter partially open later this summer thanks to a $100,000 U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources grant already received.
"When you're talking about staffing something, paying the electric, it goes very quickly," Wolen said of the money. "That is not enough to last a year, but it's a start. And we're hoping to leverage that with other grants and programs so that we can start the process of keeping this open."