With homeless shelter filling up sooner than expected, officials work on these options
The plan to use the Motel 6 on Byron Avenue as a winter shelter for those who are homeless continues even as a tent city in front of City Hall grows.
On Thursday, Nov. 12, there were about five tents at 210 Lottie St. By the next morning, there were at least 15 on the front lawn. And homeless advocates said they were monitoring the situation because the city wants to move the campers out.
Against that backdrop, Bellingham Mayor Seth Fleetwood told The Bellingham Herald that he would, as soon as possible, open a public space for short-term emergency camping.
The city of Bellingham and Whatcom County governments continue to work together to use the rooms at the former motel to shelter homeless families and seniors. Located off Samish Way near Interstate 5, the motel also has been serving as a quarantine and isolation center for COVID-19 since late April.
“The city is continually working, along with Whatcom County and other partners, on short- and long-term solutions to providing safe shelter for those experiencing homelessness,” Fleetwood said.
Neither the city nor the county directly provide services or housing to the homeless. Instead, they pay for or work with organizations that do.
These are the efforts and issues at a time when there are at least 700 people in Whatcom County who are homeless, according to a census that occurred in January, before COVID-19 struck and upended people’s lives and the economy.
Emergency camping
The city hasn’t finalized its plans for emergency camping.
“Though we have more details to work out, and conditions must be met to ensure the safety of both campers and community members, we spent today determining where and under what circumstances we can make a site available as soon as possible,” Fleetwood said in a prepared statement to The Bellingham Herald on the night of Thursday, Nov. 12.
Homeless advocates want officials to move faster, saying it’s taking too long during already cold weather as the emergency overnight shelter run by Lighthouse Mission Ministries at 1530 Cornwall Ave. in Bellingham, called Base Camp, is filling. It can accommodate up to 200 men and women.
Fleetwood also had the same concerns.
“With cold weather upon us, LMM’s Base Camp regularly being at or close to capacity earlier than anticipated, and our community feeling the financial strains of COVID-19, these are necessary actions to making sure options are available for those who need shelter this winter,” he said to The Herald.
“We look forward to further discussion about the details of making these short-term solutions available as soon as possible,” the mayor said.
Lighthouse Mission Ministries has announced that it plans to open additional space by operating a cold-weather shelter in December for up to 39 men.
The overflow shelter, as it’s called, will be at Lighthouse Mission’s former Drop-In Center, 1013 W. Holly St. in Bellingham.
Motel 6
When city and county officials announced earlier in November that Motel 6 was going to do double duty as a winter shelter, they said it was for a maximum of 15 rooms.
Since then, the county has renegotiated with owner G6 Properties to allow more rooms to be used for the homeless.
The motel has 60 rooms, 58 of which have been available for use as a quarantine and isolation facility. The other two rooms were set aside for support services.
“Reconfiguration to add shelter services will likely increase the number of rooms needed for support purposes and limit overall availability due to the need for functional and physical separation,” Jed Holmes, spokesperson for the Whatcom County Executive’s Office, said to The Herald.
“The exact number of rooms that will be available is not yet clear,” Holmes said.
No date has been set for when the motel could be used as a shelter. Officials said they’re working with organizations that provide homeless services on a management plan.
They’re also continuing to look at funding sources for the plan to shelter the homeless.
The County Council voted on Tuesday, Nov. 10, to extend the lease for Motel 6. The extension would run from March through May 2021, if the county needs it.
If the county does, the lease for Motel 6 would total $551,387 and come from CARES Act and/or reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency , according to Holmes.
City Hall
If people living in tents at Bellingham City Hall seems familiar, that’s because homeless protesters camped out in front of the building for 18 days in December 2017. HomesNOW! organized that event to bring attention to homelessness, and it resulted in the first temporary camping area and then a tiny homes village operated by the group in Bellingham.
This time around, there doesn’t seem to be a specific organizer so much as campers who showed up recently and a loose coalition of supporters and demonstrators who showed up on Thursday because, they said, police were going to conduct a sweep of those living in their tents at City Hall.
“This camp is an ongoing protest and has the right to petition the government for change,” a Bellingham resident and advocate for the homeless who identified herself only as “Thursday” said to The Herald.
Like “Thursday,” others said the city shouldn’t be doing sweeps, especially since there is a moratorium on such actions, and they wanted city and county officials to move faster to find shelter for those who are homeless or approve proposals for different types of shelters that have gone before them, especially since Base Camp is at or near capacity.
Kainui Rapaport, a Bellingham resident, was among those who were there to support the campers.
“This is a question of humanity. We need to support our houseless,” said Rapaport, adding that he had been homeless in the past.
Bellingham resident Michael Stoothoff, who was there to support the people living in tents, accused the city of violating a court ruling out of Idaho.
In that 2009 case, six homeless people sued the city because it prohibited sleeping in public places and cited people for doing so under its “anti-camping” ordinance. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the homeless, saying enforcement of the ordinance violated the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
It said that people who are homeless can’t be prosecuted for living in public spaces if there aren’t available shelter beds.
The court’s ruling rippled out to other West Coast cities, including Bellingham, that are grappling with homelessness.
Stephen Graves was among those who were homeless and camping in a tent in front of City Hall.
He said he’d been there since Wednesday night, Nov. 11, and heard about the camp when he was “having a really rough time.”
Graves, who was in a wheelchair and waiting for financial help for his disability to be approved, said he could stay there in a tent without fear of his things being stolen.
Bellingham officials said they did ask the campers to leave — by putting tags on the tents — because camping on parks property, which City Hall grounds are designated as, without the consent of the Parks Department director violates Bellingham code. They also didn’t have a permit to be there, according to Janice Keller, spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office.
Keller said Bellingham is complying with the court’s ruling in the Boise, Idaho, case.
As for allegations of sweeps, Keller said to The Herald: “The city doesn’t conduct sweeps, and we have curtailed camp cleanups in recent weeks.”
So why isn’t the city’s actions — tagging tents so campers leave — considered a sweep?
“A sweep is an indiscriminate action. What we do is respond to complaints regarding public health, safety and environmental issues,” Bellingham Police Chief David Doll said.
“Our response includes outreach with social services and, if necessary, a cleanup that is done in a controlled and proscribed way per our operational procedures,” Doll said.
This story was originally published November 16, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
CORRECTION: The date for when there were about five tents at City Hall was corrected Nov. 24, 2020.
