Facility not up to code for overnight sleeping, unless there’s a declared emergency — which city might declare for January through March 

By Morgan Rothborne, Ashland.news 

As the weather chills, the city of Ashland continues to wrestle with how to best operate its severe weather shelter in and plan the overall future of its building at 2200 Ashland St.. 

While the city’s threshold for calling the severe weather shelter in winter is 32 degrees, there is some room for variation depending on accompanying weather conditions, duration of conditions and available resources, Ashland City Manager Sabrina Cotta said in a Wednesday morning phone call. 

“It’s a softer threshold than 25 degrees, which is what I believe the other communities around us have. That represents a resource challenge and that gets many more days. We’re hitting that threshold through the winter that we have to find assistance and funding for,” she said. 

The variability of calling for shelter based on the ever-shifting weather necessitates temporary staff capable of answering calls to work with little notice. The nature of the shelter also means staff should be capable of answering to safety conditions such as the fire watch or, ideally, being trained in how to connect those in shelter with resources, Cotta said.

City staff are seeking a third party provider to operate the shelter. Last year, Opportunities for Housing, Resources & Assistance (OHRA) was that provider, but this year they have declined to do so, citing limits to their own capacity at this time, she said. City staff previously sent out a request for proposals for a service provider to operate both the shelter and the city’s dusk-to-dawn sleeping area by the city civic center on East Main Street. The RFP response window closed in May with no responses, as previously reported by Ashland.news. 

Staff will now be seeking to enter into a professional services contract through directly contacting providers specifically for the severe weather shelter. 

“We’re in discussions with some other folks and we’re hopeful we can get something figured out in the next couple of weeks,” Cotta said. 

In emails obtained by Ashland.news, Jason Houk, an organizer with Nonprofit Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice, thrice queried the city manager’s office and Ashland City Council to offer the nonprofit’s volunteer services or enter into a contract and operate the shelter. 

“Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice, a nonprofit with over 2 years experience running shelters, would like to officially apply to facilitate this winter’s Emergency Weather Shelter,” Houk wrote in an Oct. 30 email. 

In an Oct. 29 email, Houk noted it was his second inquiry. 

“We still have not been given instructions or updates about the winter shelter program. … We have freezing temps predicted this weekend on top of rain and winter storm. If this is going to be a volunteer-powered shelter again it is critical that we start getting folks trained and ready.  Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice and our network is standing by to assist to help manage these shelters,” he wrote. 

When asked about the offers, Cotta responded the nonprofit does not seem to have the requisite experience to fulfill the city’s intent. 

“We would like to have an experienced provider overnight helping us with that … Their main mission doesn’t typically involve emergency sheltering,” she said. 

The 2200 Ashland St. building also faces regulatory limitations because it was purpose-built as an office building, according to Ashland Fire Marshal Mark Shay. 

Sleeping puts a person in a state of increased vulnerability and, with respect to fire, building code has requirements to protect people while unconscious, Shay said. Akin to smoke detectors in bedrooms and hallways outside a sleeping area in residential buildings, commercial buildings are not built with the same scale of safety measures for fire as buildings designed for habitation. 

Alterations such as fire suppression systems, fire alarms, improved egress or exits and changes to the windows would all be required to make the 2200 Ashland St. building a place where people could be allowed to sleep, he said. 

When asked about the city’s previous use of buildings such as churches for the severe weather shelter, Shay said this could be a gray area, as buildings designed for larger gatherings of people may have better fire suppression systems, ingress and egress than a building purpose built for office space, though he could not comment directly on the matter as he was not fire marshal for the city until early this year, as previously reported by Ashland.news. 

The building code does allow emergency temporary use of a building not designed for sleeping, but the emergency allowance is restricted to 90 days within a 12 month span, Shay said. The governor’s emergency order for homelessness last year temporarily suspended such limitations, allowing the building to be used for overnight shelter into the beginning of this year. 

Cotta stated herself and Emergency Management Coordinator Kelly Burns will come before council at the Nov. 19 meeting to declare that emergency. There is a staff discussion of making the shelter nightly from January to March, she said. This would fit within the code’s 90-day emergency allowance and ease staffing issues. It would also keep the shelter open during the period of the year when day time temperatures don’t rise as high and are consistently low overall. 

The city intends to work with nonprofits and community partners to stand it up intermittently until the January timeline, but there are many unknowns, she said. 

The city intends to continue using 2200 Ashland St. as its severe weather shelter. Cotta said in the future, she would hope to obtain funding to make the necessary improvements for sleeping in the building. But until the 2200 Ashland Street Ad Hoc committee finishes its master plan, it’s difficult to make long-term plans for the building. 

The ad hoc committee is expected to bring its report to Ashland City Council at the Nov. 19 meeting, as previously reported by Ashland.news.  

The building’s future is also under constraints from the state grant funding used to purchase it, which dictates there be 10 years of homelessness services in the building acquired largely with state funds. 

“The state spent $1 million for capital investment and operations and what it got was six months of shelter,” said state Rep. Pam Marsh in an Oct. 8 interview with Ashland.news. 

Marsh also stated the grant funding does not support using the building only as a severe weather shelter. 

“For this emergency period there was no discussion of a severe weather shelter,” she said. 

When asked about this statement, Cotta stated, per the city’s contract with ACCESS to obtain the funding, the agreement was the severe weather shelter. That contract was signed before the severe weather shelter was precluded from the grant money, as it was explained to her by the state. 

“There is kind of that situation where there was a lot of things changing very quickly over a short period of time. I think that’s where a lot of the confusion is coming from,” she said. 

When asked, Cotta confirmed she was deputy city manager at the time of the contract and the building’s purchase; the previous city manager was the one “driving” that transaction, she said. She stated she appreciated the state’s patience in working with the city and the work of the ad hoc committee members. 

 “It’s not lost on me that they’re volunteers volunteering their time for a very important reason,” Cotta said.  

Marsh said the state is willing to work with the city of Ashland to a reasonable extent. 

“We’re very willing to allow the city as long as it needs to find the purpose of the building. I think there could be some flexibility in that. But the state has a certain responsibility for seeing that it meets the original intent. … We’re looking for permanent shelter beds, for real support for people. The state is interested in moving people into permanent supportive housing. We’re not interested in developing more poor quality services, we’re interested in developing minimum quality services that move people on,” she said. 

The city could also choose to pay back the grant funds and use the building for other purposes, Marsh said. When asked about this potential, Cotta stated there have been no formal conversations within the city to take this course of action, but she anticipated any repayment would be a negotiation process between the city and the state. The city did invest in the shelter with the grant funds and additional funds. 

When asked if the state has been kept abreast of the committee’s developing recommendations, Cotta stated, to her knowledge, state staff were invited to attend the committee’s Oct. 9 forum event presenting its preliminary recommendations. To her knowledge no one from the state attended. Marsh stated in an Oct. 30 email she was not aware of the latest recommendations as the committee’s activities have been a “moving target as of late.” 

The city is also considering hiring a dedicated homelessness services coordinator to better manage the services it has taken on, but until the ad hoc committee’s work is completed and unknowns are better known, Cotta said she would be not comfortable putting out a job opening or accepting applications for the position. 

“We’re going to do our best to find a good partner for the severe weather shelter and work that out, that’s our priority right now,” she said. 

Email Ashland.news reporter Morgan Rothborne at [email protected].

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Public forum planned regarding plans for 2200 Ashland St. (Sept. 26, 2024)

No easy answers: 2200 Ashland Street ad hoc committee parses through the possibilities (Aug. 26, 2024)

‘Already the 11th hour of crisis’: Ashland council reviews Homeless Services Masterplan (Aug. 7, 2024)

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Ashland City Council declines funds for emergency shelter (March 6, 2024)

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