“Like in most cities, transportation is part of the heart of our city."

We must be constantly telling the stories of those we love and are in community with to advance everyone's understanding of this problem as one that the community must bear—and not a failing of any particular individual.

As dawn broke over the city of Wheeling on Thursday, January 18, on the heels of a statewide emergency declaration related to a massive winter storm, city officials mobilized dump trucks and bulldozers to a hillside in the neighborhood of East Wheeling.

Put simply, the city’s shutting down of the East Wheeling encampment and its forced evictions of dozens of residents who were not provided with any practical alternatives has been wholly unnecessary, senselessly destructive and totally unjustifiable.

For a woman, life on the streets offers no glamor or beauty. Surviving outside amongst the elements takes grit, strength, and a special kind of resilient spirit that many of the unhoused women in Wheeling possess.

In our street medicine program, Project HOPE long recognized that there were three times as many males experiencing homelessness as there were females. Or so it seemed.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs for humans is shown as a pyramid.