Winter homeless shelter opens early

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The adult homeless shelter in the basement of the American Legion Post #26 started its winter hours last week, eight days earlier than it has in previous years. 

Operated in partnership by Olympic Community Action Programs, Community Outreach Association Shelter Team and the American Legion, the winter shelter is open from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. every day and can house a total of 34 people 18 and older, with 12 women’s beds, 20 men’s beds and two sick rooms. The shelter opened on Oct. 23.

Shelter Supervisor Michael Johnson said the facility housed an average of 26 adults each night, and the number of senior citizens has increased.

“This season, our largest population growth is seniors," Johnson said. "We’ve had 14 people over the age of 62, with four over the age of 70."

The shelter increased the number of women it can serve when it opened another room and added five beds. Now it can serve 12 women simultaneously, twice the capacity of last year. 

Of the 23 women who were housed at the shelter this summer, eight were older than 62, Johnson said. 

With a more vulnerable population, the shelter has changed its care, including an increase in help from Jefferson County’s free clinic, MASH, which was providing free flu shots last week. 

“These are extremely vulnerable people who are having a hard time trying to figure out what their life is like now that they’re 62 and they’re not getting what they need,” Johnson said. “We also have to be a little less strenuous on the rules. We still want to follow them. But when you’re dealing with a 20s-and-30s population, you can simply say, ‘OK, you’re not following the rules. Get out.’ But if I’ve got a 74-year-old woman in here, and this is all she’s got, we have to be more careful.”

Kathy Morgan, director of housing and community development at OlyCAP, said the homeless population in Jefferson County has changed in the last few years. 

“The population that we’re seeing now are primarily seniors that are being priced out of their housing,” Morgan said. “The price of housing is exorbitant. Anybody on basic service wage cannot afford the housing here unless they double up. … We have a high population of seniors living in our shelter now that never have been homeless in their life.”

The median age in Jefferson County is 58, according to OlyCAP’s 2017 Community Needs Assessment. At the same time, rent in the county has increased 40 percent since 2000, the assessment found. The percentage of both homeowners and renters who are spending more than 30 percent of their monthly income on housing costs is increasing, making affordable housing one of the top three issues in the assessment. 

“We’re no different from most communities across the country,” said Dale Wilson, OlyCAP executive director. “You have this influx of property values going up, income security going down, and less housing assistance available. The cost of housing has far exceeded what people can afford and has gotten to a breaking point.”

While rent can be difficult to afford for those who have a reliable income, Wilson said some seniors don't have a reliable income if their spouse recently died, or if they are not receiving Social Security. 

The shelter doesn't have the capacity to serve families, and Johnson said that's an issue that needs to be addressed.

“It’s a definite need,” he said. “I can tell you that there are more than 100 families that need housing in the winter. We’ve got families living in cars.”

One in 27 students countywide are considered homeless, OlyCAP's needs assessment found. 

“Everybody is in crisis,” Wilson said. “Communities are really having hard discussions right now across Washington. And they’re not easy. I don’t hear a lot of really good answers yet. I’m hoping for good answers and good solutions.”

This year's single-day homeless count found fewer homeless people in the county than in previous years. The count took place between Jan. 21-27, and 41 homeless people were located. During the 2017 count, 232 homeless people were located during a similar timeframe. 

Johnson said the shelter is doing better than it ever has, with the added women’s room, new rules that promote a safer environment, and the joint effort between COAST, OlyCAP and the American Legion. 

When it first started in 2005, the shelter operated for only a few months a year. Now, thanks to a pilot program the county funded, it can operate year-round. 

Johnson said said this is the shelter's second full-year cycle. It offers summer hours of 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. from April to November. Winter hours will run from Oct. 21 to April 15.

“Homelessness doesn’t go away during the summer, it was just relocating,”  Wilson said. 

OlyCAP helped 17 people in the shelter find permanent housing last summer, Johnson said. Part of the reason is because a better environment has led residents to becoming more successful when they move to the next step in their lives, such as finding jobs and temporary homes, he said.