While Lonny Klugman was homeless in Vancouver, he got good at doing nothing other than “feeding the beast” that is his drug addiction. Everything else came second. But as winter wore on, staying dry and warm became more pressing and labor intensive.
People living outside the men’s homeless shelter downtown, in what was called “tent city,” became a growing burden on each other and themselves, he said.
“I was trying to keep my tent together, keep my spot on the block,” he said.
Although Klugman never entered an official, publicly funded shelter, he eventually moved underneath a bridge to stay dry. And after a couple of weeks there, he was told to move.
“I don’t know how I stayed alive, maybe divine intervention,” Klugman said.
He said he’s since been to treatment, stayed clean and got housing through Share’s ASPIRE program. Still worried about those who remain outside, Klugman got involved in a plan to improve the severe weather response system.
A meeting Wednesday at Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church was the start of determining how to help homeless people when temperatures drop below freezing next winter. About two dozen people attended, including representatives from 211 Info, Friends of the Carpenter and Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency.
While it may seem bitterly ironic to plan for severe cold on the cusp of a summer heat wave, the nonprofits spearheading the effort, Council for the Homeless and Concerned Humans Against Poverty, say now is the right time.
“We recognize that summer is also a severe weather event,” said Kate Budd, deputy director of the Council for the Homeless.
“The key thing to keep in mind when it comes to the heat compared to the winter is that things are open in the heat — the library, the community center, other resources — which is not always the case during the winter weather. If we recall, during the huge storm during last winter, everything shut down. … The fact is, there were no options for folks during the day and during the evening.”
She said it makes sense to start winter planning well before winter hits to create infrastructure and secure local government assistance, and shift focus to summer later. The Council for the Homeless is Clark County’s coordinated entry system, so people seeking shelter call its housing hotline to find out where space is available.
There are 178 publicly funded shelter beds available year-round. After Nov. 1, that number rises by 99 additional beds through March.
And then, when temperatures fall below 32 degrees, an additional 33 beds open up — an amount that proved woefully insufficient last winter.
“It was very clear last winter that we needed to be more formal with our planning,” Budd said.
Nearly a foot of snow fell between 7 p.m. and midnight on Jan. 10, blanketing and in some cases flattening tents of people who lived outside.
Nobody died from exposure over the winter in Clark County, according to the Clark County Medical Examiner. In Portland, four people died from hypothermia within the first 10 days of 2017.
“I think we all got lucky with Living Hope last year a couple of times,” said Vancouver police Officer Tyler Chavers. “People were really kind of sheltering in place, which isn’t a bad thing if you’re equipped to do that, but for some folks, you can only do that for so long.”
Officers like Chavers were called upon to sometimes transport people to shelters or hand out vouchers for motel stays.
Living Hope Church off Andresen Road opened during severe cold and snow, sheltering 145 people on its busiest night, Budd said. The church’s Live Love Center regularly serves the homeless from its location across the street from Share’s Fromhold Service Center.
“The challenge last winter was, the additional capacity didn’t even begin to meet the need unless Living Hope was open,” Budd said, adding that the church committed to providing shelter again next winter.
There were 54 severe-weather days last winter. The county’s definition of “severe weather” is when the outside temperature is below 32 degrees or there’s going to be a major weather event, such as snow.
At Wednesday’s meeting, people debated the merits of this standard and whether it should consider wind chill, rain or other factors.
“Thirty-five (degrees) and rain is the worst. If you’re wet, you’re done,” Klugman said.
“When we talk about these rules, I just don’t want to make them sound like they’re locked in stone and can’t be changed,” said Bill Judd, the call center coordinator at the Council for the Homeless.
The definition of severe weather in Multnomah County, Ore., is more detailed: The Portland Housing Bureau calls a severe-weather alert when the forecasted temperature or wind chill is 25 degrees or below; there’s 1 inch or more of snow sticking to ground; or the temperature is 32 degrees or below with driving rain of 1 inch or more.
When forecasted weather meets Clark County’s threshold, a severe-weather alert, along with a list of open shelters, is emailed to a distribution list that includes service providers, hospitals, police, county and city contacts. Whenever the Council for the Homeless learned that additional severe-weather beds opened up, the distribution list was notified, regardless of whether that night’s temperatures were above freezing.
“Just because we call severe weather, there is no obligation for anyone to react. It’s still each organization’s choice,” Judd added.
Those organizations have to decide whether they have the capacity and availability. Severe-weather shelters, sometimes called overnight warming centers, are primarily staffed by volunteers.
“The more often severe-weather options are open, the more likely they are to burn out,” Budd said. “There are no additional financial resources. We want to keep that in mind, too, as we’re thinking about what is realistic and reasonable. It is simply about what are the kind folks in Clark County willing to do in a horribly awful severe weather event.”
That makes providing different kinds of shelters more ambitious and difficult. Judd said he couldn’t place families at certain shelters because they were unable to screen for sex offenders. In other cases, people staying at Living Hope had to leave when a family arrived because they are not allowed to be around children.
The church didn’t have a screening process that would have vetted out people who were under the influence or had criminal backgrounds.
Other churches may not want felons or addicts on their property.
At minimum, a shelter provides a warm place to sleep and restrooms, and has accessible exits. Showers are a perk, along with food, storage facilities and the ability to bring in pets.
The purpose of the planning meetings is to enlarge the network of severe-weather shelter providers so that different options can be offered, said James Tolson, co-founder of Concerned Humans Against Poverty. Besides shelter, transportation to those shelters is a big issue.
The usual outreach work his group and other grass roots organizations do was made much more difficult by the weather. Driving around to deliver hand warmers to people was dangerous if a volunteer didn’t have an all-wheel-drive vehicle.
“Simple logistics can be a big problem,” Tolson said.
Jamie Spinelli, a caseworker with Community Services Northwest, said grass-roots groups used Facebook to connect with a larger network of helpers who would drive people to shelters during winter and deliver supplies. While those groups don’t have buildings, they have people willing to help.
During a brainstorming session, one of the more popular ideas was to have C-Tran provide transportation to shelters and store belongings people may not be able to take with them.
People also liked the idea of city and county buildings, such as Vancouver City Hall or the Public Service Center, being used as a shelter.
Clark County By the Numbers
749 homeless people counted on Jan. 26.
178 year-round publicly funded shelter beds.
145 people stayed at Living Hope Church on its busiest night.
99 additional winter beds open November through March.
54 severe-weather days last winter.
33 additional shelter beds during severe weather.
32 degrees: temperature at which a severe-weather alert is issued.
Lots of questions were raised during the meeting. Could granges or high school gymnasiums become shelters? What does building code allow? How do places providing shelter deal with background checks? What about people who refuse to go to a shelter?
“Right now, we’re just in our fact-finding mission,” Budd said.
What’s next is figuring out how viable some of the ideas are, and then taking the next steps.
