Photo by Eric Ayres A man pushes a row of metal shopping carts up the steep 12th Street hill in East Wheeling Thursday morning to help people remove personal property from a homeless encampment on the wooded hillside. City crews began cleaning up the camp Thursday.

WHEELING — There was a scramble to secure personal property Thursday morning at a homeless encampment in East Wheeling above the Nelson Jordan Center, where city crews — escorted by police — began cleaning up the site.

The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia — which this week filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the city over its new camping ban — on Thursday morning filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction in an effort to stop the city from enforcing the ban, displacing the homeless people living there and removing their possessions. However, the cleanup had already begun.

“Throughout this debacle, Wheeling has been a bad-faith actor,” ACLU-WV Legal Director Aubrey Sparks said. “The city ignored requests to talk about exemptions to the habitation ban for months, created a new process out of thin air this week and then destroyed people’s shelters anyway.”

Wheeling’s camping ban was approved by a split vote last fall after city leaders agreed that the “status quo” with the city’s growing homeless situation could not continue. The ban went into effect on Jan. 1, and on Jan. 3, two-week notices had been posted informing occupants that the camp was going to be closed and the area was set to be cleaned up.

Occupants were given until 5 p.m. Wednesday to vacate the area, according to the notices — which had a Jan. 17 deadline. Although no action was taken by the city to begin enforcement once the notice expired Wednesday night, fleets of city crews were mobilized shortly after first light on Thursday morning.

“We got a call around 8 o’clock that the city planned on removing some camps up behind the Nelson Jordan Center,” said Dr. William Mercer, who has been an outspoken opponent of the city’s camping ban. “I know that in one of the camps down below, they came there at 8 a.m. and told them they have two hours. I think it’s horrible timing, especially with the pending lawsuit. We’re trying to have other meetings with the city, and for them to do this on this horrible day, I don’t understand it.

“But we hope we could have a temporary restraining order come very quickly.”

Mercer was one of a handful of representatives from local service outreach organizations who were on hand Thursday morning as city crews began mobilizing at the hilltop campsite. He said he personally knew of at least two people living in the camp being cleared off of Sero Street — situated above the Nelson Jordan Center and just below the ridge of the hill along Grandview Street.

A backhoe, dump trucks and a fleet of other equipment was brought to the steep wooded hillside where for months several homeless people have camped. Because of the recent stretch of below-freezing temperatures, few people were actually living in the camps this week, but most of the peoples’ possessions remained at the sprawling site.

Vans from Catholic Charities and vehicles of homeless advocates lined the 12th Street hillside as a scramble erupted to salvage personal property while crews cleared the paths — cutting trees with chainsaws and using heavy equipment to navigate through the rugged terrain.

Those unhoused residents who received word about the cleanup packed items in any way they could, while others rushed to try to locate others to make sure they knew that the cleanup was underway. One man was seen pushing a row of metal shopping carts up the steep hillside to help load items and remove them before city crews dispose of them.

Crews were reportedly instructed to use discretion when cleaning the camps by clearing trash piles first and giving individuals an opportunity to retrieve items that appeared to be valuable such as packed backpacks and other personal property that could be picked up and removed.

City Manager Robert Herron noted this week that the city could not comment on anything related to the pending litigation — and that included issues pertaining to camp cleanups or the enforcement of the camping ban.

Wheeling Homeless Liaison Melissa Adams — who is also part of the leadership team for The Life Hub — did not comment on matters related to the lawsuit but explained that The Life Hub and other agencies were helping homeless individuals store some of their possessions.

“We have 50 ginormous foot lockers, and people have been given some suitcases with wheels,” Adams said. “They’ll be registered for individual totes that will be secured under lock and key, and they’ll be given the opportunity to access their things two times per week.”

Adams indicated that anytime access to the lockers would be unmanageable at The Life Hub, where frigid temperatures this week have increased usage of the overnight Winter Freeze Shelter.

“We had 60 people at the shelter last night,” she said.

There were 45 people in the beds, while others gathered downstairs to get warm and get out of the elements. Up to 30 people are permitted to rest in chairs downstairs at The Life Hub on 16th Street during shelter hours from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.

Mark Phillips, executive director of Catholic Charities West Virginia, was also on hand at the homeless encampment Thursday morning when crews began the cleanup.

“I understand that the city has been under a lot of pressure from some residents to do something about the homelessness issue,” Phillips said. “We wish that they would have worked more with providers to come up with a solution rather than continuing to enforce this ban that’s really not helping anybody.”

Phillips has been working with Herron in an effort to get an approved managed camp established. According to the city’s new camping ban, the city manager can approve one or more managed camps that must have rules in place in order to operate. However, the ban went into effect before a location was selected and before parties could establish how the camp would operate or be funded.

This week, city council members suggested that the language in the new camping ban would allow the city manager to issue an exemption for an existing camp or camps, and local service organizations were quick to request exemptions for the handful of homeless encampments in town.

Phillips said he requested that the camp along Sero Street be exempt, but the city manager denied that request on Tuesday, citing reports of criminal activity that have been associated with the camps near the Nelson Jordan Center. Phillips indicated on Wednesday that the problems can be attributed to a few individuals — not a specific location.

Some consider the city property on the hillside as a good location because of its proximity to service agencies in East Wheeling and the fact that most of the property is tucked away and out of sight from the general public.

The hillside camp, however, has been operating for many months with no trash removal or sanitation for human waste and other health hazards. The Sero Street site is also where a city worker last year was sent to clean up an illegal dumpsite associated with the camps and was allegedly assaulted by one of the residents of the camp, an incident which is believed to have helped push a majority of council members toward supporting action that became the new camping ban ordinance.

“I’ve been speaking with the city manager about the potential use of private properties, but right now, there’s nothing that exists for people to place their things,” Phillips said. “So for people who are living outside — this is their whole life. For people who are using Winter Freeze, they’re using camps for storage, and I can only assume that those things will be destroyed over the next few days as well.”

Private property is exempt from the city’s new camping ban, and Catholic Charities has allowed a handful of people to set up a small encampment behind their facility in East Wheeling. Some other private properties are being eyed as potential sites for a managed camp, but it has been unclear as to whether the city would look to purchase private property for this use or look to a service agency to purchase property, Phillips noted.

The area known as the maintenance trail — located along Wheeling Creek near Rock Point Road — is another location being considered for a managed camp site.

Many have urged the city to pause the clearing of homeless encampments until a managed camp was established and available to anyone being displaced. The ACLU-WV lawsuit against the city maintains that the camping ban itself is unconstitutional.

However, the court did not take action before the cleanup commenced Thursday. Some homeless advocates indicated that most people believed that the ACLU would be successful in getting the federal court to intervene before camp cleanups began.

“But the bulldozers are here — they’ve already cleared some of the path,” Mercer said. “They’ve had us all move. We were hoping this would stop today, because they don’t have any place else to go. Especially this time of year — especially with us trying to work toward a better solution. I just don’t know why the rush.”

“These are people who really don’t have anything,” Phillips said. “Because of addiction, mental health, trauma — they’re holding on to last threads. So to do this in the middle of winter, to me, there’s just not a great justification for it.

“On one of the coldest days of the year, to be destroying the last remaining possessions of people who have almost nothing really doesn’t seem to represent our city well,” he added. “I don’t think this is who we are. But this is where we are.”