Diamond Village: How a homeless population in West Virginia is dealing with their struggles, and their city's response
The entrance to the Diamond Village encampment in Morgantown. Photo by Joe Smith.
By Joe Smith
Appalachian Insider
July 4, 2020
MORGANTOWN — The first time you search for Diamond Village, you may get lost. It’s not an easy place to find unless you already know where you’re going.
Tucked underneath the shade of a cluster of trees, the community sits at the bottom of a hill, nestled along Deckers Creek, which winds its way through the small city of Morgantown — home to a population of 30,000 residents and the state’s flagship higher education institute, West Virginia University.
On a small section of the bank of the creek, directly across from tall hill where the Woodburn neighborhood stands tall, you’ll find Diamond Village. It sits just downcreek from the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and sparsely populated Deckers Creek Boulevard in the neighborhood of Greenmont — hundreds of yards away from any neighboring properties and existing in relative silence.
With a name like Diamond Village, one may imagine a sprawling gated community inhabited by some of the more well-off denizens of Morgantown. But what you’ll find is quite the opposite. Rather, it is an encampment populated by a community of Morgantown’s homeless and their allies, set up on private property with the permission of the owner, and designed to be a reprieve and a consistent place to stay for those who have fallen on tough times.
When exactly the encampment popped up is up for debate. Some say that people have been using the site as a base for up to six or seven months now, but Erik Edwards, who co-owns the property where Diamond Village is located, noted that he’s only been aware of the community’s presence since around April.
The encampment came into existence as a response to the homeless epidemic that has plagued one of the largest cities in one of the poorest states in the US for years, and the anger and bitterness that epidemic has spurred among the city’s police force, politicians, and residents.
But as Diamond Village grew and attracted residents, it developed into exactly what it was designed to be a reprieve from. For the majority of May and June 2020, it has become the center of attention for the residents of the Greenmont neighborhood, the Morgantown City Council, the Morgantown Code Enforcement, and the Morgantown City Police.
The future of the camp, as well as how Morgantown plans to address its homeless community in the future, are now in question. As a heated debate has roared through Morgantown about whether or not the encampment is legal and just how it is affecting the surrounding community, it has spawned a task force which has vigorously worked to find homes in the city for residents of the camp.
Losing a Home — and Finding a New One
Nicole Rose grew up in Blacksville, a rural, coal-mining community roughly 20 miles west of Morgantown. She’s never been what one would call wealthy, but 2020 is the first year she has ever experienced homelessness in her decades of living.
“My husband, he worked in the coal mines, and he worked on the drilling rigs. But things happened. The coal mines were laid off. We lost a son who was a month and a half old, and things got turned around,” said Rose.
“Things went really bad really quickly, and I decided to ask for divorce after 18 years of marriage,” said Rose. “Soon, I was in this predicament...Things were bad. I tried to self-medicate, and I knew then I had a problem. I sent myself to rehab. I’m just trying to turn the corner, but I’m just in a bad situation.”
Rose has been homeless for about a year now. At the end of May, she had been staying at Diamond Village for two months, by her estimate. She thinks of herself as the perfect example of how homelessness can affect anyone, no matter how good their situation is at the given moment, and no matter what their past background is.
“There is no face; there is no one kind of person out there,” Rose said. “There are many faces, of many different races and creeds. We’re all just individuals.”
“My father was a pastor, and he taught me not to judge anyone by their creed, color, or anything else — but by who they are as an individual. And not even then, you don’t even judge them; you work with them to see how they can overcome their situation.”
Of course, not everyone in the Morgantown area feels the way about the homeless population as Rose believes they should.
Homeless citizens hanging out and panhandling along High Street, the main downtown strip in the city, and seeking shelter along local rail-trails and underneath heavily-trafficked bridges has long been a source of contention among the community.
“The homeless population in this town have always been discriminated against. I get called a hooker every time I walk down the street,” said Rose.
Just a quick glance at any number of comment sections on social media posts about the homeless epidemic in Morgantown displays some of the local community’s outlook towards the homeless residents, and many citizens show no mercy for those affected by homelessness.
“You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped,” reads one Facebook comment from a Morgantown resident on a news story about Diamond Village from Clarksburg-based news outlet, WBOY.
“Why not make them get jobs, get off drugs, and do it the way normal people do,” reads another comment on the same post.
The comments go on-and-on, with one from a resident of Blacksville, WV suggesting someone “burn the encampment.”
According to Liira Raines, who works with local nonprofit organization Our Future West Virginia and volunteers at Diamond Village in her spare time, that type of attitude towards the homeless population is also reflected by people with a bit more power than your average Morgantown resident.
“I've talked to people who have been woken up while sleeping in a hammock well off the ground by a Morgantown Police Department cop cutting the strap to it with a knife. I know a man who had his air mattress slashed and thrown in the river. The officer who did it then laughed and said, ‘Now you got a waterbed,’” wrote Raines on a public Facebook post.
“That same officer stood in an alley downtown and casually watched a man dying of overdose,” said Raines. “Luckily, others responded and saved his life. The officer never once so much as even offered assistance.”
A comment on the aforementioned Facebook post by a man named Jim Geiger details his experience with local police when he was living in a tent alongside the Monongahela River that runs through downtown Morgantown.
“I've [had] my ID, birth certificate, and court documents destroyed when they came and tore down my tent by the river,” Geiger wrote. “Took me three years to get a new birth certificate and ID.”
Those types of stories seem to be commonplace across the city, based on man-on-the-street interviews with both members of the homeless community and citizens who have witnessed such actions by local police.
Monongalia County Commissioner, Tom Bloom, claimed in a public Facebook comment responding to Raines that the West Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness — a Bridgeport-based non-profit dedicated to helping the region’s homeless population — investigated those harassment claims and could not verify them. Raines, meanwhile, said that none of those on the receiving end of the harassment were interviewed by the WVCEH.
Despite the city and the general public’s view of the encampment and the homeless population, upon moving into Diamond Village, Rose said she found a community of volunteers and fellow homeless citizens who had attitudes that reflected what her father taught her. For her, there was reprieve from the city and community’s treatment of a marginalized group in the small encampment.
“I feel awesome here,” said Rose. “When I had an issue — I got back with an ex-boyfriend — and when he started giving me issues, they moved me into the inner circle and surrounded me with my protectors. They protect me. We’re not just a community; we’re a family. It's about bringing our humanity back into the world.”
“When I came out here, they thought I was a spoiled brat, because I’m used to the fizzies in my bath and all that,” Rose said. “I came out to this, and they welcomed me with open arms...I say I go to ‘homeless home.’ It's my tent. It's not where your home is, but where your family is.”
Appalachian Insider
July 4, 2020
MORGANTOWN — The first time you search for Diamond Village, you may get lost. It’s not an easy place to find unless you already know where you’re going.
Tucked underneath the shade of a cluster of trees, the community sits at the bottom of a hill, nestled along Deckers Creek, which winds its way through the small city of Morgantown — home to a population of 30,000 residents and the state’s flagship higher education institute, West Virginia University.
On a small section of the bank of the creek, directly across from tall hill where the Woodburn neighborhood stands tall, you’ll find Diamond Village. It sits just downcreek from the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and sparsely populated Deckers Creek Boulevard in the neighborhood of Greenmont — hundreds of yards away from any neighboring properties and existing in relative silence.
With a name like Diamond Village, one may imagine a sprawling gated community inhabited by some of the more well-off denizens of Morgantown. But what you’ll find is quite the opposite. Rather, it is an encampment populated by a community of Morgantown’s homeless and their allies, set up on private property with the permission of the owner, and designed to be a reprieve and a consistent place to stay for those who have fallen on tough times.
When exactly the encampment popped up is up for debate. Some say that people have been using the site as a base for up to six or seven months now, but Erik Edwards, who co-owns the property where Diamond Village is located, noted that he’s only been aware of the community’s presence since around April.
The encampment came into existence as a response to the homeless epidemic that has plagued one of the largest cities in one of the poorest states in the US for years, and the anger and bitterness that epidemic has spurred among the city’s police force, politicians, and residents.
But as Diamond Village grew and attracted residents, it developed into exactly what it was designed to be a reprieve from. For the majority of May and June 2020, it has become the center of attention for the residents of the Greenmont neighborhood, the Morgantown City Council, the Morgantown Code Enforcement, and the Morgantown City Police.
The future of the camp, as well as how Morgantown plans to address its homeless community in the future, are now in question. As a heated debate has roared through Morgantown about whether or not the encampment is legal and just how it is affecting the surrounding community, it has spawned a task force which has vigorously worked to find homes in the city for residents of the camp.
Losing a Home — and Finding a New One
Nicole Rose grew up in Blacksville, a rural, coal-mining community roughly 20 miles west of Morgantown. She’s never been what one would call wealthy, but 2020 is the first year she has ever experienced homelessness in her decades of living.
“My husband, he worked in the coal mines, and he worked on the drilling rigs. But things happened. The coal mines were laid off. We lost a son who was a month and a half old, and things got turned around,” said Rose.
“Things went really bad really quickly, and I decided to ask for divorce after 18 years of marriage,” said Rose. “Soon, I was in this predicament...Things were bad. I tried to self-medicate, and I knew then I had a problem. I sent myself to rehab. I’m just trying to turn the corner, but I’m just in a bad situation.”
Rose has been homeless for about a year now. At the end of May, she had been staying at Diamond Village for two months, by her estimate. She thinks of herself as the perfect example of how homelessness can affect anyone, no matter how good their situation is at the given moment, and no matter what their past background is.
“There is no face; there is no one kind of person out there,” Rose said. “There are many faces, of many different races and creeds. We’re all just individuals.”
“My father was a pastor, and he taught me not to judge anyone by their creed, color, or anything else — but by who they are as an individual. And not even then, you don’t even judge them; you work with them to see how they can overcome their situation.”
Of course, not everyone in the Morgantown area feels the way about the homeless population as Rose believes they should.
Homeless citizens hanging out and panhandling along High Street, the main downtown strip in the city, and seeking shelter along local rail-trails and underneath heavily-trafficked bridges has long been a source of contention among the community.
“The homeless population in this town have always been discriminated against. I get called a hooker every time I walk down the street,” said Rose.
Just a quick glance at any number of comment sections on social media posts about the homeless epidemic in Morgantown displays some of the local community’s outlook towards the homeless residents, and many citizens show no mercy for those affected by homelessness.
“You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped,” reads one Facebook comment from a Morgantown resident on a news story about Diamond Village from Clarksburg-based news outlet, WBOY.
“Why not make them get jobs, get off drugs, and do it the way normal people do,” reads another comment on the same post.
The comments go on-and-on, with one from a resident of Blacksville, WV suggesting someone “burn the encampment.”
According to Liira Raines, who works with local nonprofit organization Our Future West Virginia and volunteers at Diamond Village in her spare time, that type of attitude towards the homeless population is also reflected by people with a bit more power than your average Morgantown resident.
“I've talked to people who have been woken up while sleeping in a hammock well off the ground by a Morgantown Police Department cop cutting the strap to it with a knife. I know a man who had his air mattress slashed and thrown in the river. The officer who did it then laughed and said, ‘Now you got a waterbed,’” wrote Raines on a public Facebook post.
“That same officer stood in an alley downtown and casually watched a man dying of overdose,” said Raines. “Luckily, others responded and saved his life. The officer never once so much as even offered assistance.”
A comment on the aforementioned Facebook post by a man named Jim Geiger details his experience with local police when he was living in a tent alongside the Monongahela River that runs through downtown Morgantown.
“I've [had] my ID, birth certificate, and court documents destroyed when they came and tore down my tent by the river,” Geiger wrote. “Took me three years to get a new birth certificate and ID.”
Those types of stories seem to be commonplace across the city, based on man-on-the-street interviews with both members of the homeless community and citizens who have witnessed such actions by local police.
Monongalia County Commissioner, Tom Bloom, claimed in a public Facebook comment responding to Raines that the West Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness — a Bridgeport-based non-profit dedicated to helping the region’s homeless population — investigated those harassment claims and could not verify them. Raines, meanwhile, said that none of those on the receiving end of the harassment were interviewed by the WVCEH.
Despite the city and the general public’s view of the encampment and the homeless population, upon moving into Diamond Village, Rose said she found a community of volunteers and fellow homeless citizens who had attitudes that reflected what her father taught her. For her, there was reprieve from the city and community’s treatment of a marginalized group in the small encampment.
“I feel awesome here,” said Rose. “When I had an issue — I got back with an ex-boyfriend — and when he started giving me issues, they moved me into the inner circle and surrounded me with my protectors. They protect me. We’re not just a community; we’re a family. It's about bringing our humanity back into the world.”
“When I came out here, they thought I was a spoiled brat, because I’m used to the fizzies in my bath and all that,” Rose said. “I came out to this, and they welcomed me with open arms...I say I go to ‘homeless home.’ It's my tent. It's not where your home is, but where your family is.”
Liira Raines, who volunteers at Diamond Village, pictured down the street from the encampment on Deckers Creek Boulevard. Photo from Facebook.
A Community’s Solution, and a City’s Response
For a good chunk of time, it seemed as if Diamond Village would sit in peace on private property, unbothered by the vitriol the homeless community had encountered from city officials and police on city property, and relatively unnoticed by the local residents of Morgantown. But Raines, who has been volunteering at the encampment for about two months now, said that things escalated and it quickly became a big deal in the city.
“All the ruckus began when the cops were pursuing someone who didn’t live down there, but had been through the area,” Raines said. “Those officers stumbled upon it, and once they found it, they began harassing it.”
The residents at Diamond Village hoped that would be the end of it, but unfortunately, city officials returned and attempted to force them out.
“When we first started monitoring it was when we were notified that Code Enforcement had been down there with some cops and told them they had to move out by nine o’clock the next morning,” said Raines. “So we got a bunch of us together, including myself, Dani Ludwig from [Milan Puskar] HealthRight, and a couple legal observers, and we went down about seven the next morning and waited until about ten. Nobody came.”
“They rolled in about three o’clock that evening and we immediately were all back down there. The police officers were giving false information to the residents, telling them they couldn’t camp within city limits, stuff like that,” Raines said. “They were apparently quite hostile until we showed up and started filming them, and they started to calm down a whole lot. We were standing there when one of the officers got news over the radio that the landowner had given them permission to be there.”
According to Raines, the majority of the encampment originally sat on the private lot it is currently located on, but it also spilled partially onto a city lot. The camp was redesigned by those involved with the project to make sure it sat solely on private property that Edwards had given them permission to use. But due to an outdated map, local law enforcement had another gambit they decided to try.
Raines said that the land had just been bought by Edwards a few months before that, so on the county parcel map it still said it belonged to United Bank, the previous owner.
“So the police called the United Bank out of their own initiative to get permission to run people off there,” said Raines. “The bank said they hadn’t given anyone permission to camp there. I thought that was a pretty shitty move on behalf of law enforcement.”
After the police and city officials were notified the camp was indeed on private property and the residents of Diamond Village had permission for their encampment, the community became a constant stop on the route of some Morgantown Police officers and Code Enforcement workers. Eventually, the volunteers involved decided to take the issue to the Morgantown City Council and The Dominion Post, the city’s local newspaper.
“They were down there at 4:30 in the morning for a period of about a week, and on-and-off pretty regularly harassing the village. But once we made a huge stink with the city council and the local newspapers, all that stuff was pretty much ended. We also put a 24/7 watch on the village for two weeks,” Raines said. “The only time law enforcement has been down there since then that we know of for sure is the Friday before last. Myself and two lawyers were down there within about 12 minutes, and the police pulled out right as we pulled in.”
Micah Mason-Mileto, who heads the Movement for People’s Democracy branch in West Virginia and lives in Grant Town, a small community in neighboring Marion County, has also been a consistent volunteer at Diamond Village. While he declined to share the full video file with Appalachian Insider, he showed a portion of a video clip to a reporter that revealed a police officer coming down the hill into the encampment unannounced to do a sweep of the area.
“They treat this location with the most absolute suspicion, and this is private property,” Mason-Mileto said “I want you to imagine you’re just sitting in your house and the police open the door and enter, and they might not be going through your drawers, but they’re looking around and trying to see if they can find anything incriminating.”
“That happens a lot here. And you’ll see Code Enforcement driving by every day, multiple times a day, trying to rubberneck the camp and seeing if they can find anything wrong with it,” said Mason-Mileto.
In response, those involved with Diamond Village did everything within their power to keep the encampment clean, liveable, and up-to-code. As of late May, the hill leading to the living areas had been filled with gravel, a portable toilet had been brought in to properly dispose of any human waste and keep it off the ground, and the property appeared clear of excessive garbage when Appalachian Insider visited the premises for interviews.
For a good chunk of time, it seemed as if Diamond Village would sit in peace on private property, unbothered by the vitriol the homeless community had encountered from city officials and police on city property, and relatively unnoticed by the local residents of Morgantown. But Raines, who has been volunteering at the encampment for about two months now, said that things escalated and it quickly became a big deal in the city.
“All the ruckus began when the cops were pursuing someone who didn’t live down there, but had been through the area,” Raines said. “Those officers stumbled upon it, and once they found it, they began harassing it.”
The residents at Diamond Village hoped that would be the end of it, but unfortunately, city officials returned and attempted to force them out.
“When we first started monitoring it was when we were notified that Code Enforcement had been down there with some cops and told them they had to move out by nine o’clock the next morning,” said Raines. “So we got a bunch of us together, including myself, Dani Ludwig from [Milan Puskar] HealthRight, and a couple legal observers, and we went down about seven the next morning and waited until about ten. Nobody came.”
“They rolled in about three o’clock that evening and we immediately were all back down there. The police officers were giving false information to the residents, telling them they couldn’t camp within city limits, stuff like that,” Raines said. “They were apparently quite hostile until we showed up and started filming them, and they started to calm down a whole lot. We were standing there when one of the officers got news over the radio that the landowner had given them permission to be there.”
According to Raines, the majority of the encampment originally sat on the private lot it is currently located on, but it also spilled partially onto a city lot. The camp was redesigned by those involved with the project to make sure it sat solely on private property that Edwards had given them permission to use. But due to an outdated map, local law enforcement had another gambit they decided to try.
Raines said that the land had just been bought by Edwards a few months before that, so on the county parcel map it still said it belonged to United Bank, the previous owner.
“So the police called the United Bank out of their own initiative to get permission to run people off there,” said Raines. “The bank said they hadn’t given anyone permission to camp there. I thought that was a pretty shitty move on behalf of law enforcement.”
After the police and city officials were notified the camp was indeed on private property and the residents of Diamond Village had permission for their encampment, the community became a constant stop on the route of some Morgantown Police officers and Code Enforcement workers. Eventually, the volunteers involved decided to take the issue to the Morgantown City Council and The Dominion Post, the city’s local newspaper.
“They were down there at 4:30 in the morning for a period of about a week, and on-and-off pretty regularly harassing the village. But once we made a huge stink with the city council and the local newspapers, all that stuff was pretty much ended. We also put a 24/7 watch on the village for two weeks,” Raines said. “The only time law enforcement has been down there since then that we know of for sure is the Friday before last. Myself and two lawyers were down there within about 12 minutes, and the police pulled out right as we pulled in.”
Micah Mason-Mileto, who heads the Movement for People’s Democracy branch in West Virginia and lives in Grant Town, a small community in neighboring Marion County, has also been a consistent volunteer at Diamond Village. While he declined to share the full video file with Appalachian Insider, he showed a portion of a video clip to a reporter that revealed a police officer coming down the hill into the encampment unannounced to do a sweep of the area.
“They treat this location with the most absolute suspicion, and this is private property,” Mason-Mileto said “I want you to imagine you’re just sitting in your house and the police open the door and enter, and they might not be going through your drawers, but they’re looking around and trying to see if they can find anything incriminating.”
“That happens a lot here. And you’ll see Code Enforcement driving by every day, multiple times a day, trying to rubberneck the camp and seeing if they can find anything wrong with it,” said Mason-Mileto.
In response, those involved with Diamond Village did everything within their power to keep the encampment clean, liveable, and up-to-code. As of late May, the hill leading to the living areas had been filled with gravel, a portable toilet had been brought in to properly dispose of any human waste and keep it off the ground, and the property appeared clear of excessive garbage when Appalachian Insider visited the premises for interviews.
Micah Mason-Mileto, a volunteer at Diamond Village, pictured at the top of the entrance to the encampment. Photo by Joe Smith.
Residents Express Concerns about Increase in Crime
Around April, there also seemed to be a large blowback from certain members of the Greenmont community as well. In a post to a Facebook group for members of the South Park neighborhood, which borders Greenmont, a profile under the name Thomas Cartman posted that those living in the community should be on the lookout for a large homeless population that seemed to be increasing. He also insinuated that a pair of burglaries on Cobun Avenue, a street which stretches through the lower portion of South Park, may be connected to the population.
“Just a heads-up for folks in lower South Park and Greenmont. There has been a significant increase in homeless individuals prowling around our neighborhoods. There are at least two dozen new ones in town who appear to have just been dropped off here. So if you see something, say something.”
Cartman directed neighbors to post photos and videos of “any suspicious person.” He noted that the stay-at-home orders are not deterring “junkies” from breaking into homes, citing the burglary of two apartments in the area.
Other comments on multiple city forums have implied an increase in crime since the homeless population began to move into South Park and Greenmont. Mason-Mileto said that there’s a small group angling to be an official neighborhood watch in Greenmont that has been quite consistent in directing its anger towards Diamond Village. “They blame all their problems on this camp. They see a needle on the ground, they say it must be this camp. They smell something, it must be from this camp. [Diamond Village] has become their scapegoat for everything,” Mason-Mileto said.
“I’ve lived here at the same house for 15 [years] now and the crime didn’t start happening till this homeless situation, or drug epidemic came here a few years ago,” reads one comment on a post in the aforementioned South Park group. “I know a few homeless that aren’t drug addicts and the other 99% are. They don’t work or have anywhere to live and I haven’t met one who wants to get off the drugs so this is what happens.”
The Morgantown Police Department provided Appalachian Insider with their activity statistics from Greenmont from January — over two months before the encampment was noticed and neighborhood residents began complaining about an increase in crime — through May, and noted seven specific categories that are the most common calls they receive regarding the homeless population. Of those categories, only five had detailed numbers for every month: burglary, disturbance, petit larceny, suspicious person, and trespassing.
In those five categories, the amount of reports for all five months fluctuated between 13-17. While the highest number of reports was seen in May, the numbers went down from 15 in February to 13 in the months of March and April, which is the time period during which citizens of the neighborhood brought concerns of increased crime due to the homeless population to social media.
Developing a Plan
Once Diamond Village began drawing attention and the situation was taken to media outlets and the city council, numerous members of the community decided to take action to try and develop a plan. According to Raines, some of those plans were being developed by those who were most involved with the encampment, but others were not.
“The city has been cooperative enough,” Raines said. “A few weeks ago we had the first meeting to get a good plan together for the village at HealthRight, with a bunch of community leaders and people from Diamond Village and others, and it went alright. Immediately the next week, Tom Bloom called his own meeting to decide what was going to be done, without anybody who had been within three blocks of it invited.”
“We crashed that meeting,” said Raines. “Tom went in with the determination that he was going to have the whole thing shut down within four weeks no matter what, and they’ve worn down the landowners to the point where they are ready for it to end. But they want it to end in a way that is good for the folks staying down there.”
The official step taken was the formation of an Encampment Task Force, which included members of numerous local organizations, including the WVCEH and the property owners, which was dedicated to helping people housed at Diamond Village take the next step towards getting back on their feet and making sure that the encampment was a clean, healthy, and safe space.
“Now what came out of that is that we were going to try and get 10 people housed by the third of July, and as of May 24 we’ve got that done,” Raines said. “And that’s through the Coalition to End Homelessness, and then they’re gonna revisit the matter on July 15th to see what needs to be done. Tom Bloom was never involved in any of the work.”
But despite the formation of the task force and the added attention to the situation, Raines hasn’t perceived the city of Morgantown or any of the local officials as being on their side. They continue to find new ways to try and end the encampment, she said, and she feels as if the city wants to make the point that no matter how it is done, they don’t want encampments like this inside of city limits.
“At the meeting we had, Emily Muzzarelli, the city manager, pushed back against the idea the camp was being harassed. She said code enforcement just responds to the calls they get, and I asked, `How many calls for sanitation code do they bring three carloads of cops with them?’ and she didn’t have a good answer for that,” Raines said.
“It’s been pretty clear in my opinion in dealings with the city, and with Tom Bloom, that they’re less concerned about the safety of the folks living down there than they are keeping up the impression that this isn’t something that can be allowed in Morgantown, which is something that was explicitly stated several times in the meeting by various officials,” said Raines. “The truth is, though, that the traditional housing models we have in town, a lot of folks don’t fit into those. All these people we’re helping right now have been around town for a year, some of them for five or six years.“
Currently, the city has taken the issue to the Monongalia County Health Department, and together they’re pursuing a path to force the owners of the property where Diamond Village sits to file paperwork for a permit to keep the encampment legal.
“The tool they’re currently using is the health department, who wants to require them to get a campground permit,” said Raines. “That can be fought legally, because the law for that said it's specifically for paid campgrounds, but the owners just don’t want to go that route. The statute pretty clearly, at least in the opinion of our lawyers, applies to for-profit campgrounds. It's meant for commercial use.”
Those involved with Diamond Village don’t feel any pressure from the owners of the property to leave, which conflict with reports in local media. Edwards himself declined to do an interview, but Raines publicly stated on Facebook following an article published in The Dominion Post that statements from Morgantown Communications Manager Andrew Stacy regarding “the property owner” were false, and that one of the owners himself reached out to her to debate the article’s veracity.
Stacy said in the Post’s article published on June 6th that the owner wanted to work with the City to address the health and safety concerns and have the individuals off the property as it was beginning to cause a disruption, and also wanted to work to make sure the unsheltered individuals had somewhere to go.
“The owner reached out to me after this was published to say the statements attributed to him are incorrect. The paper didn't consult him,” said Raines in a Facebook comment.
The multiple paths taken by those in the city to interfere with Diamond Village have taken a toll on the owners, however, according to Raines, and she believes the encampment will come to an end in the near future because of that.
“There are two co-owners and one is more ready to get them out of there, but Erik is the main one we’ve been dealing with and he’s been very friendly. But I think he doesn’t want to anger the city because he owns a bunch of rental properties in town,” Raines said.
“The landowners have been worn down — the city, the county, the constant bothering. When we talk about harassment, there was a time the landlords were getting a call from the city every day. One day Dani made a deal with BOPARC (Board of Parks and Recreation) that she’d bag up any trash and put it up by the road and BOPARC would haul it off. She even had the green BOPARC trash bags. We did that, and the city called the landlords threatening to fine them for the trash sitting on the road. The breaking point now is the county trying to do the campground permit, and the landlords are not at all interested in doing so because that might come with a lot of extra liability,” said Raines.
Around April, there also seemed to be a large blowback from certain members of the Greenmont community as well. In a post to a Facebook group for members of the South Park neighborhood, which borders Greenmont, a profile under the name Thomas Cartman posted that those living in the community should be on the lookout for a large homeless population that seemed to be increasing. He also insinuated that a pair of burglaries on Cobun Avenue, a street which stretches through the lower portion of South Park, may be connected to the population.
“Just a heads-up for folks in lower South Park and Greenmont. There has been a significant increase in homeless individuals prowling around our neighborhoods. There are at least two dozen new ones in town who appear to have just been dropped off here. So if you see something, say something.”
Cartman directed neighbors to post photos and videos of “any suspicious person.” He noted that the stay-at-home orders are not deterring “junkies” from breaking into homes, citing the burglary of two apartments in the area.
Other comments on multiple city forums have implied an increase in crime since the homeless population began to move into South Park and Greenmont. Mason-Mileto said that there’s a small group angling to be an official neighborhood watch in Greenmont that has been quite consistent in directing its anger towards Diamond Village. “They blame all their problems on this camp. They see a needle on the ground, they say it must be this camp. They smell something, it must be from this camp. [Diamond Village] has become their scapegoat for everything,” Mason-Mileto said.
“I’ve lived here at the same house for 15 [years] now and the crime didn’t start happening till this homeless situation, or drug epidemic came here a few years ago,” reads one comment on a post in the aforementioned South Park group. “I know a few homeless that aren’t drug addicts and the other 99% are. They don’t work or have anywhere to live and I haven’t met one who wants to get off the drugs so this is what happens.”
The Morgantown Police Department provided Appalachian Insider with their activity statistics from Greenmont from January — over two months before the encampment was noticed and neighborhood residents began complaining about an increase in crime — through May, and noted seven specific categories that are the most common calls they receive regarding the homeless population. Of those categories, only five had detailed numbers for every month: burglary, disturbance, petit larceny, suspicious person, and trespassing.
In those five categories, the amount of reports for all five months fluctuated between 13-17. While the highest number of reports was seen in May, the numbers went down from 15 in February to 13 in the months of March and April, which is the time period during which citizens of the neighborhood brought concerns of increased crime due to the homeless population to social media.
Developing a Plan
Once Diamond Village began drawing attention and the situation was taken to media outlets and the city council, numerous members of the community decided to take action to try and develop a plan. According to Raines, some of those plans were being developed by those who were most involved with the encampment, but others were not.
“The city has been cooperative enough,” Raines said. “A few weeks ago we had the first meeting to get a good plan together for the village at HealthRight, with a bunch of community leaders and people from Diamond Village and others, and it went alright. Immediately the next week, Tom Bloom called his own meeting to decide what was going to be done, without anybody who had been within three blocks of it invited.”
“We crashed that meeting,” said Raines. “Tom went in with the determination that he was going to have the whole thing shut down within four weeks no matter what, and they’ve worn down the landowners to the point where they are ready for it to end. But they want it to end in a way that is good for the folks staying down there.”
The official step taken was the formation of an Encampment Task Force, which included members of numerous local organizations, including the WVCEH and the property owners, which was dedicated to helping people housed at Diamond Village take the next step towards getting back on their feet and making sure that the encampment was a clean, healthy, and safe space.
“Now what came out of that is that we were going to try and get 10 people housed by the third of July, and as of May 24 we’ve got that done,” Raines said. “And that’s through the Coalition to End Homelessness, and then they’re gonna revisit the matter on July 15th to see what needs to be done. Tom Bloom was never involved in any of the work.”
But despite the formation of the task force and the added attention to the situation, Raines hasn’t perceived the city of Morgantown or any of the local officials as being on their side. They continue to find new ways to try and end the encampment, she said, and she feels as if the city wants to make the point that no matter how it is done, they don’t want encampments like this inside of city limits.
“At the meeting we had, Emily Muzzarelli, the city manager, pushed back against the idea the camp was being harassed. She said code enforcement just responds to the calls they get, and I asked, `How many calls for sanitation code do they bring three carloads of cops with them?’ and she didn’t have a good answer for that,” Raines said.
“It’s been pretty clear in my opinion in dealings with the city, and with Tom Bloom, that they’re less concerned about the safety of the folks living down there than they are keeping up the impression that this isn’t something that can be allowed in Morgantown, which is something that was explicitly stated several times in the meeting by various officials,” said Raines. “The truth is, though, that the traditional housing models we have in town, a lot of folks don’t fit into those. All these people we’re helping right now have been around town for a year, some of them for five or six years.“
Currently, the city has taken the issue to the Monongalia County Health Department, and together they’re pursuing a path to force the owners of the property where Diamond Village sits to file paperwork for a permit to keep the encampment legal.
“The tool they’re currently using is the health department, who wants to require them to get a campground permit,” said Raines. “That can be fought legally, because the law for that said it's specifically for paid campgrounds, but the owners just don’t want to go that route. The statute pretty clearly, at least in the opinion of our lawyers, applies to for-profit campgrounds. It's meant for commercial use.”
Those involved with Diamond Village don’t feel any pressure from the owners of the property to leave, which conflict with reports in local media. Edwards himself declined to do an interview, but Raines publicly stated on Facebook following an article published in The Dominion Post that statements from Morgantown Communications Manager Andrew Stacy regarding “the property owner” were false, and that one of the owners himself reached out to her to debate the article’s veracity.
Stacy said in the Post’s article published on June 6th that the owner wanted to work with the City to address the health and safety concerns and have the individuals off the property as it was beginning to cause a disruption, and also wanted to work to make sure the unsheltered individuals had somewhere to go.
“The owner reached out to me after this was published to say the statements attributed to him are incorrect. The paper didn't consult him,” said Raines in a Facebook comment.
The multiple paths taken by those in the city to interfere with Diamond Village have taken a toll on the owners, however, according to Raines, and she believes the encampment will come to an end in the near future because of that.
“There are two co-owners and one is more ready to get them out of there, but Erik is the main one we’ve been dealing with and he’s been very friendly. But I think he doesn’t want to anger the city because he owns a bunch of rental properties in town,” Raines said.
“The landowners have been worn down — the city, the county, the constant bothering. When we talk about harassment, there was a time the landlords were getting a call from the city every day. One day Dani made a deal with BOPARC (Board of Parks and Recreation) that she’d bag up any trash and put it up by the road and BOPARC would haul it off. She even had the green BOPARC trash bags. We did that, and the city called the landlords threatening to fine them for the trash sitting on the road. The breaking point now is the county trying to do the campground permit, and the landlords are not at all interested in doing so because that might come with a lot of extra liability,” said Raines.
A photo of the amenities set up at Diamond Village, including a lawn chair, a portable toilet, and a trash can. Photo by Joe Smith.
Playing the Hand You’re Dealt
On June 28th, Bloom made a public Facebook post updating his constituents and friends on the developments at Diamond Village, on which he provided a definitive date the camp will close and the progress made in helping the residents of that community find some footing.
“The goal is to move everyone out of the private property by July 15th and then the encampment (which was now agreed upon by the owners of the property) will be closed,” the post read.
“A total of 14 people have been moved into rental units, [four] people have left the encampment on their own, [five] are still interested in working with the WVCEH staff for rental units, and possibly up to [five] others that will have to make some decisions by July 15th or move into the Bartlett House temporarily.”
But according to Rose, the encampment isn’t something that needs to be disbanded, but rather something that has helped those living there develop a sense of community and an opportunity to better themselves, which she thinks should be available for everyone that finds themselves in her situation.
“It’s nothing that should be ripped apart, we just want to come together,” said Rose. This isn’t about us; it's about the world and about bringing awareness. This is us and we’re not going to be quiet. It's not unsafe down here. I feel safe.”
For her part, Raines has witnessed the stability and benefits brought by Diamond Village, and sees such a community as something desperately needed in the city and the state of West Virginia as a whole. And she expects the need to be exacerbated soon due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“These folks get kicked from bush to bush and from curb to curb every night,” said Raines. “Just having the extra stability and the added emphasis on it, we’ve got ten people into housing in the past two weeks, and several more into treatment...I’ve worked with a lot of great folks in the past couple of months, and just a few weeks of having a place to sit and think and for service folks and case managers to reach them on a regular basis has turned the lives around for a lot of people.”
Raines feels that Diamond Village is a model they need in Morgantown. She said there are a lot of places like it in other states, where people can come and get stable. “We really need something like that in West Virginia, and there probably isn’t any better place to put it in the state than here,” said Raines “And it’s going to be a continuing, ongoing need. The WVCEH is predicting we’re going to soon see a 50-60 percent increase in homelessness due to the pandemic. It's going to get real rough real soon.”
One potential positive heading down the line in Morgantown, in Raines’ opinion, is that they have managed to get the point across that inside city limits, there’s not much that can be done about camping on private property, which opens a pathway for others with land of their own to begin a similar encampment in the future.
“One good thing that we have established through this, at least in writing, is that there’s nothing in statute that prevents camping on private land in Morgantown. There’s no city ordinance that applies to this,” Raines said. “So if there is anyone out there you know who wants to host people on their land, they’re free to do so.”
And at least for now, Diamond Village still stands in Greenmont, on private property and providing a reprieve for the homeless population of Morgantown that they may not otherwise get. And with the law seemingly providing the opportunity for future communities to develop around the city, those involved are hopeful the homeless population of Morgantown will have a bit more of an equal playing ground to make the best of their situation — which according to Rose, is all they want to do.
“My dad always said, ‘Nicole, you play the hand you're dealt. It may not be the best hand, but you play it out until the end.’ That’s what we’re trying to do,” said Rose. “We’re going to stand together, and if we can’t change this generation, maybe that little sparkle we can put in the eye of the next, it’ll be worth it to me.”
On June 28th, Bloom made a public Facebook post updating his constituents and friends on the developments at Diamond Village, on which he provided a definitive date the camp will close and the progress made in helping the residents of that community find some footing.
“The goal is to move everyone out of the private property by July 15th and then the encampment (which was now agreed upon by the owners of the property) will be closed,” the post read.
“A total of 14 people have been moved into rental units, [four] people have left the encampment on their own, [five] are still interested in working with the WVCEH staff for rental units, and possibly up to [five] others that will have to make some decisions by July 15th or move into the Bartlett House temporarily.”
But according to Rose, the encampment isn’t something that needs to be disbanded, but rather something that has helped those living there develop a sense of community and an opportunity to better themselves, which she thinks should be available for everyone that finds themselves in her situation.
“It’s nothing that should be ripped apart, we just want to come together,” said Rose. This isn’t about us; it's about the world and about bringing awareness. This is us and we’re not going to be quiet. It's not unsafe down here. I feel safe.”
For her part, Raines has witnessed the stability and benefits brought by Diamond Village, and sees such a community as something desperately needed in the city and the state of West Virginia as a whole. And she expects the need to be exacerbated soon due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“These folks get kicked from bush to bush and from curb to curb every night,” said Raines. “Just having the extra stability and the added emphasis on it, we’ve got ten people into housing in the past two weeks, and several more into treatment...I’ve worked with a lot of great folks in the past couple of months, and just a few weeks of having a place to sit and think and for service folks and case managers to reach them on a regular basis has turned the lives around for a lot of people.”
Raines feels that Diamond Village is a model they need in Morgantown. She said there are a lot of places like it in other states, where people can come and get stable. “We really need something like that in West Virginia, and there probably isn’t any better place to put it in the state than here,” said Raines “And it’s going to be a continuing, ongoing need. The WVCEH is predicting we’re going to soon see a 50-60 percent increase in homelessness due to the pandemic. It's going to get real rough real soon.”
One potential positive heading down the line in Morgantown, in Raines’ opinion, is that they have managed to get the point across that inside city limits, there’s not much that can be done about camping on private property, which opens a pathway for others with land of their own to begin a similar encampment in the future.
“One good thing that we have established through this, at least in writing, is that there’s nothing in statute that prevents camping on private land in Morgantown. There’s no city ordinance that applies to this,” Raines said. “So if there is anyone out there you know who wants to host people on their land, they’re free to do so.”
And at least for now, Diamond Village still stands in Greenmont, on private property and providing a reprieve for the homeless population of Morgantown that they may not otherwise get. And with the law seemingly providing the opportunity for future communities to develop around the city, those involved are hopeful the homeless population of Morgantown will have a bit more of an equal playing ground to make the best of their situation — which according to Rose, is all they want to do.
“My dad always said, ‘Nicole, you play the hand you're dealt. It may not be the best hand, but you play it out until the end.’ That’s what we’re trying to do,” said Rose. “We’re going to stand together, and if we can’t change this generation, maybe that little sparkle we can put in the eye of the next, it’ll be worth it to me.”
