Bellingham seeks to open day shelter for unhoused people. Not everyone is happy
City officials are pushing ahead with a plan to operate a daytime shelter for unhoused people in a mixed residential-industrial area at the south end of the Roosevelt neighborhood, despite pushback from some neighboring businesses and others nearby.
Mayor Kim Lund’s administration said they’ve agreed to buy a building at Kentucky and Pacific Streets and are close to finalizing a deal with an agency to run the shelter.
“(A day shelter is) critical social infrastructure that’s been missing in our community,” Lund told The Bellingham Herald in an interview last week at City Hall with other members of her staff.
Such a shelter is even more crucial for serving the nearly 350 people living unsheltered when the Bellingham Public Library starts a year-long closure for renovations later this year. The library has become a gathering place for many people living on the street, and the city offers crisis services though the library, according to previous Bellingham Herald reporting.
Details about the shelter operation are still being planned, and it might be three months before its full scope is made public.
Deputy City Administrator Forrest Longman said the city is still negotiating the details of how the shelter will work and what services will be provided. They’re hoping to be open daily from 7 or 8 a.m. to 5 or 6 p.m.
“We’re looking to provide a place where people can feel safe and secure and out of the elements,” Longman said. It’s believed that 50 to 100 people could be served daily at the site, which is one block north of the Iowa Street car dealerships.
It could also be a site where the city’s community paramedics and Whatcom County’s Street Medicine teams could meet patients, and where mental health services and housing assistance could be provided.
Several of those who operate neighboring businesses are worried about the influx of people, and they told The Herald that the process felt rushed to them. A recent community meeting and a discussion with Lund provided few answers, said Will Hilbert, who operates Alchemy Bike Shop directly across Kentucky Street from the proposed day shelter.
“It’s something that our community needs, definitely. (But) I don’t see a world where that doesn’t directly affect my business,” Hilbert told The Herald in an interview.
Kentucky Street is bustling during the day, with customers steadily coming and going to bike shops, auto-repair garages, brew pubs, offices and light manufacturing businesses. It’s the nighttime hours that concern Hilbert and Steve Fisher, owner of The Lost Co. bikes next door.
“It’s immediately going to affect (our customers’) comfort level. It will change our business experience dramatically,” Fisher said in an interview.
Hilbert and Fisher said that city officials assured them that shelter visitors will be supervised — Longman said the grounds will be fenced, and that the Public Works and Parks and Recreation department offices are two blocks away, providing extra eyes on the site. The City Council will be asked to enact an exclusion zone similar to the ones established for the mission and the Way Station.
Many neighbors are unconvinced, however. Burglaries and fuel thefts from cars on the street happen regularly, Hilbert said.
“Overnight camping, gas siphoning — that’s already been happening, even before gas prices went up,” he said.
Lund said she understands neighbors’ concerns, but she wants to “lean in” to the growing need for social services in the current economy. The city has hired a health and human services manager using part of the city’s share of funds from the new jail tax.
Transportation for shelter clients to and from the site could be an issue as well because the location is four blocks from the nearest bus stop that connects to downtown and services such as the Lighthouse Mission and the Way Station, where showers, medical care and laundry services are available. Lund said the city was looking for a site that was “downtown adjacent,” rather than in the city center.
Lund agreed that there are several uncertainties regarding the shelter project, but the city has been learning through its collaboration with Whatcom County on recent severe weather shelters and its own operation of a daytime shelter in Old Town last winter.
“While we figured out a path forward we felt compelled to act. (The daytime winter shelter) really underscored the value of that kind of service,” Lund said. “There’s some nervousness (but) we have a commitment to making it work for all of us.”
