CHARLESTON, W.Va. — More than 200 people attended a symposium Tuesday evening on issues connected to the homelessness issue in Charleston and ways to address the matter.
Community leaders spoke at “Facts and Fiction: A Community Discussion of Homelessness in Charleston” about the city’s homeless population, in addition to unveiling a new program aimed at dicouraging people from donating money to panhandlers.
The Charleston Homeless Task Force hosted the meeting to share information about its discussions over the past year.
Charleston City Councilmember Becky Ceperley said what the task force thought about homelessness changed from its inception in October 2016.
“We had not a clue,” she said. “We heard from our constituents very concerns and issues, and we thought we need to make sure the whole community understands it the way we did.”
A presentation from Traci Strickland, director of homeless programs at the Prestera Center, said according to a survey around 65 percent of the homeless population in Charleston is white and 69 percent of the population is male. Twenty-eight percent of homeless people came to the Charleston for its services, but it was because their original locations did not have adequate programs. All but one of those individuals were from West Virginia.
The task force announced its Give Where it Belongs campaign, which is aimed at encouraging people to donate money to joint social services fund rather than give it to panhandlers.
“We’re not helping them, and we’re not helping the issue at all,” Ceperley said. “If you give to the panhandler, you may or may not feed that one person. If you were to give to the social services folks, they could feed three people with that same amount of money.”
Ceperley said her group plans on holding a second meeting in the future.