May 10, 2013 3 min read

As Karen Bennett stood in a reception room of the new transitional house called Whitehill Place on East High Street in Waynesburg last month, she had a glint in her eye that confirmed her efforts and the hard work by many more had finally paid off.

The six single-occupancy apartment complex was officially completed four months earlier, thanks to the $750,000 renovation by Waller Corp. that began in May 2012, an innovative design by Kenneth Kulik, the principal architect, and funding from a host of sources.

There is no question Whitehill Place will make a difference, but in the overall scheme of housing issues in Greene County, it will, unfortunately, make a small difference. It’s a start, said Bennett, executive director of the county Human Services Department. But the county has a long way to go before its housing situation, not just for the homeless or near homeless, but for seniors as well, can be called “adequate.”

One significant issue in Greene County is that there is no emergency shelter. People needing immediate placement are taken either to Washington or Morgantown, W.Va. “Is having no emergency shelter a problem?” Bennett asked. “Sure, but it’s more of a concern than a problem. Certainly, we could use an emergency shelter, but to be honest there is no funding stream available.”

She said she loves the family shelter idea because the minute you go in, a treatment plan on how to get you back out is developed. She noted that the county has vouchers available for people who might need to spend a night or two in area motels, which function as the nearest things to emergency shelters.

But exacerbating that as a possible temporary solution is the lack of available rooms. “The drillers have rented motel rooms for a long period of time. The rooms are paid up and rented, so even if they are vacant we can’t use them,” Bennett said.

While homeless prevention is the key in Greene County, Bennett said the state of hopelessness is growing. “It is growing because the housing stock is old and the housing issues were here before the Marcellus Shale boom arrived,” she said. “But now that they are here, they seem to be taking up all the housing and paying more money than local residents can pay to be housed,” she said. “Landlords have evicted people to get drillers in who can pay more money.”

The profile of the typical homeless in Greene County is a family living in substandard housing that soon discovers they can’t live there anymore. “They are not the chronic homeless living off Dumpsters behind Aldi’s,” Bennett said. “They are intergenerational welfare people who have been kicked off welfare, moved in with family members who eventually get sick and tired of them and ask them to leave.”

Fortunately, Bennett and her agency are not alone in addressing this problem. “We have partners, people we can count on no matter what,” she said. She cited the Salvation Army, the Corner Cupboard Food Bank, senior services, Waynesburg Borough Police, Catholic Charities, Jacobs Oil, Zappi Oil, Caprini’s Oil and several motels in the area.

“When people walk through our doors,” Bennett said, “our first job is to make an assessment. Can we help you? What are your issues? Where can we refer you?”

To not be able to help someone can be so heartbreaking, she said.

“My biggest challenge, our biggest challenge, is to establish permanent housing for low-income people. By doing so, we just might cut back on our homeless population.”