SEARCHING — City Council is still working on finding a replacement for City Manager Jim Mavromatis, who is planning to retire in mid-March after 10 years on the job. Eight candidates met the qualifications as well as the application deadline. -- Linda Harris

STEUBENVILLE — With Urban Mission’s emergency shelters days from closing their doors, community advocates were at Tuesday’s council meeting to find out what the city can do to help keep the homeless population warm, fed and housed at least in the short term.

Urban Mission announced two weeks ago that due to funding cuts, its shelters were no longer accepting new intakes and would cease operating altogether on Oct. 30. At the time, board members said alternative housing had already been arranged for the women and children who were living at Martha Manor and they were working on doing the same for the homeless staying at City Rescue Mission.

“Martha Manor isn’t going to re-house anybody who becomes homeless after they’re closed,” Councilman Royal Mayo said. “They’re rehousing the people that are there now. But for the people who become homeless, the next closest place is in Wheeling but there’s no service provided to get them to Wheeling and there’s no service provided to get you to Pittsburgh. So there’ll be nowhere, effectively, for the people who become homeless after they’re closed.”

Beth Rupert Warren, who oversaw development of the Jefferson County Educational Service Center Resource Network, said they’re hoping someone else will take over the shelter operation but for now, they’re trying to organize a community response to the housing crisis.

“This is just kind of a band-aid for right now, but we need some type of warming center or a shelter that may go from like 6- or 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., something like that,” Rupert-Warren said after council addressed its agenda items. “We’re just trying to look at our options and our resources. We’re meeting again on Friday, and we’re just trying to pull together as many partners as possible, right? But you know, it’s going to take everybody in the community working together on this and kind of being open- minded and thinking outside the box to be able to temporarily address this issue.”

Rupert-Warren said they’re hoping that down the road, “Someone else will come in and eventually take over Martha Manor (the shelter for mothers and their children), and, you know, open that up again, maybe somebody else could take over the other shelter. That’s going to take time and there’s a lot of moving parts, but we know within days we’re not going to have any resources for the homeless.”

Another community advocate, Mike Thomas, pointed out “other agencies, community leaders, are coming together, trying to solve this problem.”

“You guys, as city council, I believe, are obligated to help with the homeless situation here in the city,” Thomas said. “We’re asking, is there anything you can do?”

The homeless coalition’s next meeting will be at 10 a.m. Friday in the JFK building on N. 6th Ave., she said.

“It has truly been a definition of unity in the community to see all these partners,” Rupert-Warren said. “Community Action Council, Jefferson Metropolitan Hosing, residents and professionals, the Mental Health Board…we’ve just had all these different agencies coming together, trying to see how we can work together to address this issue. It’s such a bad time as we know winter’s coming, it’s approaching, it’s here. My reality too, is the families, their babies, their kids… we’ve got to do something.”

Council, meanwhile, was told that only five of the eight remaining candidates for city manager had replied to an email requesting authorization to check their references and educational history.

“We started out with 12 candidates,” Councilman at large Joel Walker said. “But when we reviewed their qualifications, two of them (missed the application deadline) so we told them that if we reopen (the applications), we’ll let them know, and they can reapply. Out of the 10 that remained, two didn’t meet the qualifications so we’re down to eight.”

Each council member was asked to submit a question that will be relayed to the candidates still on the list. Their responses will be given to council Tuesday. From that, “we’re going to decide which ones we interview,” he said.

“We’re trying to get it done,” Walker said. “But we advertised for a month and only had 12 people apply.”

The city’s current manager, Jim Mavromatis, has announced he’d like to retire around mid-March after 10 years on the job.