Gov. Kotek tours homeless shelter

Ethan Hoagland

Tucked off of Main Street against a backdrop of jagged hills and the town’s silver water tower, Sweet Home’s shelter for those experiencing homelessness received a visit from Governor Tina Kotek. The quiet, modest visit is part of Governor Kotek’s initiative to meet with local leaders and solve Oregon’s housing crisis.

“It was a very sobering conversation when leaders in that room tell me that, in Sweet Home alone, there are 400 homeless children,” Governor Kotek said during a press conference later in the evening.

During the tour, the governor met with organizers from Family Assistance and Resource Center, including founder Shirley Byrd. Byrd guided Governor Kotek through the shelter’s community space and into an empty conestoga hut where a shelter occupant would sleep. The tour finished with a closed discussion involving Sweet Home Mayor Susan Coleman, City Manager Kelcey Young and others.

“This is the first time I’ve seen the conestoga huts that they have. I really like that model,” the governor said. “For them to manage 30 huts there, and allow pets and allow couples, that is really important.”

However, shelter rules prevent children from staying onsite, due to the shelter’s low barrier for access. That poses another challenge for city officials and FAC organizers.

“We had a lot of conversation around homelessness of our youth and school children,” Brock Byers, project manager for FAC said. “We have a lot of families not just in Sweet Home, but in a lot of rural communities that are sleeping on couches, with friends and things like that, who don’t have housing they can afford.”

Byers said the FAC is working closely with Young, Mayor Coleman and city council to find ways to support families and children.

“That was actually my main topic that I wanted to discuss with the governor,” Young said. “So I’m very happy to hear that she took it that seriously and is hopefully gonna work with us, or find funding for us or something.”

Young said in the past few months, Linn County Commissioner William Tucker tried to help get manufactured houses for unsheltered children and families into Sweet Home.

“So, we thought we were going to get a few houses that we could just have as emergency family housing while we worked on finding them ongoing permanent housing,” Young said. “But unfortunately that fell through.”

Mayor Coleman expressed excitement about the governor’s attention.

“It is an honor that Governor Kotek has heard about the work Family Assistance Resource Group (FAC) is doing in our town and the efforts our community put into establishing a managed facility,” she said. “In 2022, Sweet Home signed an Memorandum of Understanding with FAC. Since then, the City, our Police Department, and our Community Service Officer, have established a close connection with FAC and will continue to maintain that relationship.”

The memorandum puts into writing various agreements between the city and FAC, such as FAC providing quarterly reports about who’s using the shelter, or the city of Sweet Home providing nighttime security.

Byers said the shelter continues to get attention from politicians outside of Sweet Home, curious to see what they can learn about solving homelessness in Oregon and beyond. In the meantime, the FAC’s conestoga huts will continue to offer low barrier refuge to adults in need of a place to stay the night.

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