WHEELING — Involved parties on all sides of Wheeling’s homelessness issue will come together Wednesday afternoon to discuss possible next steps.

The invitation-only meeting will be held at First Presbyterian Church in Wheeling and will be facilitated by the Community Foundation of the Ohio Valley, the Ohio County Family Resource Network, Catholic Charities West Virginia and Helping Heroes. CFOV Executive Director Susie Nelson said she was approached earlier this year by OCFRN Executive Director Claudia Raymer to help put together the meeting, along with the help of Catholic Charities President and CEO Mark Phillips and Helping Heroes CEO R.J. Konkoleski.

The meeting will bring together officials from the City of Wheeling with homeless service providers including House of Hagar, the Greater Wheeling Coalition for the Homeless, the Soup Kitchen of Greater Wheeling, the Salvation Army and others. The meeting is invitation-only, Nelson said, to allow those attending to speak freely.

“We want to look at who’s doing what and when,” Nelson said. “What I don’t think we want to see happen is that maybe one organization is becoming overly burdened with the work. We have a lot of organizations in town. How can we make the most of the services that are already offered in a way that makes sense?”

Much of the discussion, Nelson said, will involve the exempted area along Wheeling Creek that currently is being used as a homeless camp. In January, a city ordinance went into effect that banned camping on public properties within city limits, which closed down several homeless encampments around Wheeling.

The ordinance does allow for a managed camp, which can sit on an exempted piece of public land as designated by the city manager. The first exempted site was across the street from the Catholic Charities Neighborhood Center. That site was then moved to its current space along Wheeling Creek.

There have been concerns over the site’s location, as it sits farther away than previous camps from many of the services that Wheeling’s homeless population uses regularly. There also are concerns that homeless people with mobility issues could have difficulty getting to and from the downtown services.

Some of the discussion, Nelson said, could revolve around moving closer toward a proper managed camp in the city. The current site is an exempted piece of land, but no one group is managing it.

“It is a Community Foundation’s role to be a convener,” Nelson said. “And that’s kind of the role that we’re filling here, to convene these groups together with the end goal of having things be better when we’re done.”

Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron said he won’t be able to make the meeting himself, but there will be ample representation from city administration. Nelson said Wheeling Police Chief Shawn Schwertfeger and Wheeling Fire Chief James Blazier also have been invited, as was the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department.

Herron said now is a good time for all parties to come together to get things moving forward and find ways to help Wheeling’s homeless population.

“Obviously we’ve had a little bit of time with the exempted area,” Herron said. “There has been some time to evaluate how things are going. My thought is there would be a potential for permanency there (at the exempted site). That’s not a guarantee. This is a great opportunity for folks who have been assisting at that site to get together and talk about next steps, if there are any. And I believe there are, but that’s going to be up to them to decide.”