Will Whatcom County operate a year-round homeless shelter? A proposal is in the works
The Whatcom County Council is exploring options to expand year-round shelter capacity for unhoused individuals, including by operating a permanent county-managed shelter.
The Council discussed a draft resolution on Tuesday, June 4, requesting that County Executive Satpal Sidhu prepare a proposal for this expansion and establish a homelessness and shelter subcommittee to focus on the effort by Sept. 10.
The draft resolution also declares a goal to achieve and maintain functional zero homelessness within 10 years — meaning that the community has measurably solved homelessness but that, when it does occur, it is rare and brief.
“Councilmembers Buchanan, Scanlon, and I were starting to think about how Council could engage in the priority around expanding capacity for shelter, taking some of the lessons learned from last winter,” Councilmember Kaylee Galloway said at Tuesday’s Committee of the Whole meeting.
The county is seeing an increase in homelessness every year. The county’s temporary severe-weather shelter was at or near capacity for 20 nights this last winter along with several other winter-weather shelters operated throughout the cold season. The county operation provided shelter for 947 guests, averaging 47 people per night.
“There’s demand in the community. There’s a need in the community for increased access to shelter,” Councilmember Jon Scanlon said at the meeting.
The Whatcom County Coalition to End Homelessness (WCCEH) 2023 Annual Report shows that the likely reason for the increase in unsheltered individuals is that homelessness is increasing, and available shelters are near or at capacity or do not offer the services in a way that will meet the individuals’ needs.
Although many council members expressed support for the draft resolution, several shared concerns about moving forward with a plan to operate another shelter without also providing the other necessary resources to lift people out of homelessness.
“One of my colleagues at the city of Bellingham said it best — that shelter builds a bigger lobby. But it doesn’t get people out of the lobby,” said Whatcom County Health and Community Services Director Erika Lautenbach during the council discussion.
“So what are the areas within that continuum that we’re missing besides shelter? What are the opportunity costs given a very finite set of dollars of engaging in different interventions along that continuum? What are we missing now in our community and how do we build those things together without overemphasizing one part of that continuum over the others?”
Whatcom County’s 2023 Point-In-Time survey counted 1,059 individuals from 850 different households experiencing homelessness. That was a 27% increase from the counted number of individuals experiencing homelessness in 2022.
The numbers of both homeless individuals and households counted in 2023 are the highest reported since counting began in 2008.
Results from the 2024 Point-in-Time count are expected to be released this month.
Lighthouse Mission Ministries currently operates Base Camp, a year-round, low-barrier 24-hour emergency shelter that provides space for up to 200 adults.
Base Camp has struggled, however, to meet the current shelter needs of the community. So Lighthouse Mission Ministries is in the process of replacing the shelter with a new 300-bed facility later this year with the potential for an additional 100 beds during extreme weather.
The draft resolution will likely go to vote in the coming weeks after the council seeks more community input on the proposal.