Wheeling Clearing Encampments Friday

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Postings took place today along Wheeling Creek reportedly today and the area will be cleared of the homeless encampments this Friday, according to a memo composed by Wheeling Police Chief Shawn Schwertfeger.

The chief included in the memo statistics compiled over a few months. Wheeling Police and members of the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department last cleared a large homeless encampment in April after a plethora of criminal complaints were found to be connected to residents of the encampment. While the encampment in question was investigated, it was found to be booby trapped.

The homeless population in the city of Wheeling has been counted to be as many as 100 individuals. Youth Services System in East Wheeling has the Winter Freeze Shelter between mid-December through mid-March, and there is not an empty bed. The West Virginia ACLU already has responded via a tweet about four hours ago:

“We told the city of Wheeling in April we would consider legal action if they continued to bulldoze encampments where struggling community members are living. Five months later, they’ve resumed those plans. Moments ago, we filed a federal class action lawsuit to stop them.”

This is a copy of the notice that was posted near homeless encampments in Wheeling.
Steve Novotney
Steve Novotney
Steve Novotney has been a professional journalist for 33 years, working in print for weekly, daily, and bi-weekly publications, writing for a number of regional and national magazines, host baseball-related talks shows on Pittsburgh’s ESPN, and as a daily, all-topics talk show host in the Wheeling and Steubenville markets since 2004. Novotney is the co-owner, editor, and co-publisher of LEDE News, and is the host of “Novotney Now,” a daily program that airs Monday-Friday from 3-6 p.m. on River Talk 100.1 & 100.9 FM.

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