Benny Westcott
Sweet Home city councilor Lisa Gourley expressed a desire at a Nov. 15 Community Health Committee meeting to get a homeless shelter “up and going” on the city’s Public Works property by Dec. 1.
“I hope we are able to meet those hard-weather deadlines,” she said. “People are going to be wet and cold if we don’t.”
City staff have been preparing to establish a “temporary” homeless shelter on the site, with hopes of building a more permanent “sleep center” on the former Willamette Industries mill site behind Bi-Mart in the coming months.
A key step toward that goal was taken at a Nov. 9 meeting between city councilors and Linn County commissioners, where the county gave the city two acres of the old Willamette Industries site for the development of a homeless project.
Like other communities across the state, Sweet Home has grappled with the issue for quite some time. Last winter, volunteers built platforms outside the Church of Nazarene, where tents were erected to provide shelter during the colder months. They weren’t available this year, and, according to councilors, homeless people have gravitated into the downtown business area, where they sleep in doorways or bus stop shelters.They’ve also set up in the lot across from the Sweet Home Public Library as well as in the parking lot outside of the former City Hall building. Their belongings and scattered trash have prompted consistent clean-up efforts, leading to public complaints about health and safety.
Over the past year, the health committee, along with representatives from the Lebanon-based Family Assistance and Resource Center (FAC), have collaborated on a plan for a central site where homeless people can receive assistance and transition back into society. This approach is heavily indebted to information gleaned from an Aug. 12 visit to the Walla Walla Alliance for the Homeless in Washington. The health committee and FAC have already compiled a policy manual that outlines rules for their own 1.9-acre center, which is nearly double the size of the one in Walla Walla.
Community and Economic Development Director Blair Larsen said, “I have no doubt that it will be big enough.”
Plan amenities include a county operated RV-dump facility, which Larsen called a “desirable amenity to have in town” that would also “help pay for the extension of utilities to [the homeless shelter].” It also incorporates space for head-in parking on the facility’s north and west side.
The timetable for site construction is currently unclear. FAC program manager Brock Byers explained a property “snag” that may result in a multiple-month delay, because “based on the recommendation from the county commissioner’s lawyer and how the land is defined, they may have to go through public comment and things like that.”
“I can’t speak to what would take that long on the county’s end,” Larsen replied. “The splitting of a lot doesn’t take that long.”
He advocated for a temporary lease from the county “to start occupying the property as soon as possible, so we can get work done,” expressing trepidation about investing too much into a temporary site at the public works facility.
“Even with the public works site, we are talking about a fair amount of work being done for something that’s only going to be used for two months,” he said. “That’s a concern when it comes to the use of public resources. I would hate to go forward and put down a bunch of rock and grade parts of the public works yard and put up fencing, only to uproot and move over just a little ways away.”
“I can’t imagine why the county would have a problem with [a lease] unless it’s an insurance question, some sort of liability issue,” he continued. “And we could probably mitigate that.”
According to Byers, an average homeless shelter requires about $1.25 million annually to operate, based on information he gleaned from a meeting with spokespeople from shelters in Linn and Benton counties. He suspected, however, that such a large figure was for shelters with 60 to 80 clients, which he didn’t expect for the Sweet Home facility. That number would be considerably less, he said, citing the FAC’s estimate of around $329,000, which did not factor in startup costs.
Byers discussed proposed center amenities, such as a building that would serve primarily as an intake center, but also be used by the FAC and its partners for consultations, counseling and advocacy. Another room would contain a community center area. The FAC, Byers said, was working with the city on a possible plan to move the former police station behind the old City Hall to the sleep center site and repurpose it as a community center. The group is actively fundraising to ensure that the overall project is “fully funded at no cost to the city,” according to Byers.
In the meantime, two FAC-acquired 20-by-40-foot event tents arrived Nov. 17 at the Sweet Home Public Works building for use as a temporary shelter, along with hand-sanitizing stations, kennels (for pets), personal tents, and bedding, the latter of which is being acquired with the assistance of the Help and Hope to Others (known colloquially as H2O) nonprofit in Dallas, Oregon.
“Other communities also want to see the success of this project, and are working with us,” Byers said.