City building won’t be used until first of year, but then will offer overnight shelter for 90 days straight
By Morgan Rothborne, Ashland.news
A series of technical restrictions that has long bedeviled Ashland city staff seeking to stand up a winter shelter may be solved enough to provide an interim shelter as soon as next week, according to a presentation by City Manager Sabrina Cotta at Tuesday’s council meeting. Opening of a shelter would be supplemented by additional services for homeless people, she said.
“We will be updating council as soon as we know that we have that resource available and how we will be moving forward. We did not realize when we started this conversation back in August with service providers that we would not have a space or a service provider set by now. It has been difficult,” Cotta said.
Addressing city council at the close of a protracted meeting Tuesday, Cotta stated city staff are in discussion with “some faith-based groups to utilize their spaces” with hopes to be able to provide the city’s severe weather shelter by the end of the following week at the latest. But until and unless those negotiations are successful, the city does not have the resources, Cotta said.
During public comment, longtime city shelter volunteer Karen Hill-Wagner offered a plea to see the shelter open.
“Right now, with this weather, we need a shelter. … I’m a retired nurse and I see some of the suffering of our unhoused people. I’ve seen black noses, I’ve seen missing fingers,” she said.
Cotta made an address to the public during the meeting, which she stated she also recently shared in an interview with Medford news media.
“The city’s ability to call a shelter is predicated on having the resources. One of those is a service provider, one of those is having a space. … If you have an organization that has space and is interested in partnering with the city, please contact the city manager’s office. We would love to have that discussion with you,” she said.
A building such as a large hall or a gym would be ideal as a place to provide shelter until Jan. 1, when the city plans to open a winter shelter every night from 6 or 7 p.m. to 9 a.m. for 90 days at the 2200 Ashland St. property, Cotta said. Staff are now in negotiations with a third party provider to operate the city’s severe weather shelter in the new year.
Due to fire code restrictions, the building cannot be used for sleeping without renovations such as sprinkler systems, as previously reported by Ashland.news. The code does allow a 90-day emergency window for such use, but it also restricts the number of people who can shelter in the building. Cotta said this number is 28, if 14 of these people are not sleeping. Under the fire code, there can be 14 sleeping if the others are not sleeping.
Mayor Tonya Graham, also a non-voting member of the 2200 Ashland St. Ad Hoc Committee, expressed desire for another council conversation about the potential for walk-up, first-come, first-served congregate shelter, she said, since a committee just spent six months in discussion to create a report “that says that type of shelter outside of the emergency weather shelter is not an appropriate use of that space.”
Holding the shelter only when the weather dictates makes it nearly impossible for service providers to staff such an operation, Hyatt said.
“If you’re, like, ‘maybe it won’t work tonight or it might have to call or we may not have to call’ — people cannot live their work life like that. I understand that’s why the service provider wants every day. I understand why that doesn’t work for us, but what really doesn’t work for us is having no shelter option,” she said.
Graham posited the idea that 28 people could be somehow selected and offered shelter for the duration of the 90 days “so that people are not standing out there who are not able to get in.” Hyatt responded that a bird in the hand is better than nothing and if the city insists on dictating the terms of operations, the provider may walk.
Councilors took turns expressing frustration at the building’s limited capacity and the city’s inability to use its own building until after Jan. 1. Councilor Eric Hansen stated he comes from the private sector, “where we just do reasonable things.” Kaplan asked for and received confirmation the city’s 3,000-square-foot building can only accommodate 28 people.
“I think there’s some facts about the building we need to accept due to the fire code. … If we do not want to provide every-night shelter, we can go back to the service provider and let them know. But we will run the risk of losing the service provider. If you want to dictate how they run the operation, we run that same risk,” Cotta said.
Cotta stated, while she was not comfortable revealing the provider’s name until negotiations are complete, the organization in question has seen success in using shelter services as a conduit to more stable living situations.
“We will be moving people out of situations into better situations by using the service provider,” she said.
Kaplan stated the city could make a suggestion of how the shelter should operate as part of the negotiations, but let the provider ultimately decide. Graham asked for and received consensus through head nods for this plan.
“I think it would be prudent and frankly irresponsible if we didn’t, to take up direction to staff to fix that building so that it can support more than 14 sleeping and 14 awake. … It’s evident we need the building to work for us and in its current state it can’t do what we need it to do,” Hyatt said.
She proposed using as much of the Community Development Block Grant funds as the city could to make the necessary renovations to bring the building up to fire code to operate the best possible shelter and to complete the work before the opening of the winter shelter at the first of the year.
Councilor Gina DuQuenne seconded the motion before Hyatt could finish speaking.
“We are committed to that building,” she said.
Community Development Director Brandon Goldman stated the city could access around $114,000 of only tentatively allocated funds from the previous CDBG cycle, and it could capture another $125,000 from the upcoming award cycle without disrupting the work of providers who typically receive CDBG funds from the city as part of their operational dollars. But the upcoming award would likely not be available to the city until July.
Kaplan asked if the timeline proposed by Hyatt should be modified to accommodate the smoke and heat shelter in the same building during the summer months. Cotta stated staff could do preliminary work in the building now and during the day even after it begins hosting the winter shelter.
Council also voted unanimously to support the proposal of a six-month pilot program to provide long-awaited storage facilities for the dusk-to-dawn sleeping area. The storage facility will be one of the city of Ashland’s pallet houses and managed by nonprofit Southern Oregon Housing for All (SOHFA) with a generous use of waivers to protect the city from liability while providing the requested storage, Cotta said.
“They can then go and you know, look for employment and not have to take their belongings. … A lot of what we see is people who have disabilities and are really incapable of carrying their belongings around,” said Helena Turner, representing SOHFA.
Councilor Dylan Bloom stated he hoped the public understood their council shared their frustration the shelter has not been reliably available yet.
“The blame doesn’t lie on any one person, it lies on all of us. … I hope that people know that we do care, and we are trying to find a solution,” he said.
Additional information on the history of the purchase of 2200 Ashland St. with state funds and the efforts to stand up the shelter were included with meeting materials.
Email Ashland.news reporter Morgan Rothborne at [email protected].
