Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Homeless Services topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Public commenter disputes county focus on shelter residency; commissioners cite Catholic Charities intake data
Summary
A Morgantown resident challenged the county’s emphasis on whether people using the warming shelter are Monongalia County residents, and the commission cited Catholic Charities intake data and warned about stewardship of local funds.
During the Jan. 8 Monongalia County Commission meeting, one resident urged commissioners to stop treating residency status as a central criterion for providing shelter services and warned that focusing on residency could jeopardize federal funding.
“Why do we care where people are from? They live here. They're here now. They're members of our community,” said Lindsey Jacobs, who identified herself as a Morgantown resident. Jacobs cited how intake forms ask for last known address and said that approach can misrepresent long-term presence: “If you ask me that question, my last address was, you know, 52 Glen Street, Greenville, South Carolina, but I've lived in Morgantown for 2 years.”
Jacobs said the county’s framing of residency can be a “straw man” and urged officials to treat people who are currently in the community as neighbors deserving services. She praised Catholic Charities’ operation of the shelter and said she would register shelter residents to vote to counter arguments about residency.
A county representative responding during the correspondence portion said Catholic Charities provided data for December showing 34 individuals served at the shelter, with five identified as from Morgantown/Mon County and 17 listing an unknown address. The representative emphasized that the county’s emergency funding for the shelter comes from city and county dollars rather than state or federal sources and said the commission wants data to ensure local taxpayer funds are prioritized for county residents.
Commissioners reiterated that the county will not deny services. One commissioner said the county’s aim in collecting residency and service data is “to be good stewards of our taxpayers' dollars” and to understand who is using services, noting prior county data collection such as the bus-pass program.
The county also received a written report from Catholic Charities on warming-shelter statistics for December 2024; the commission noted that correspondence on that report was on the meeting agenda.
Ending
Public comment closed after Jacobs’ remarks; commissioners discussed the correspondence and affirmed that they would not deny services while also requesting clearer data on shelter usage to guide county spending decisions.
