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Home My WebLink AboutShelter Coalition Meeting 091625 notesShelter Coalition Meeting September 16, 2025 Present: Greg Brotherton - facilitator, Julia Cochrane - scribe, Derek Fierenze, Peggy Webster - Olycap, Alex Frick - Leader, Dawid - IE, Talon - Recovery Cafe/Dove House, Scott France - Beacon, David Ehnebuske, James Holthaus - Bayside, Michael McCutcheon - Reach Out, Trevor Breland - Shelter manager - Bayside, Viola Ware - Olycap, Renata Mungrada - City of PT, Lisa Crosby, Debbi Tesch - Dove House, Josh Peters - County Administer, Bill Volmot - Bayside, Emma Bolin, Debbi Tesch - Dove House Emergency Shelter - American Legion - Trevor Breland 24 people open beds for men and women, looking for cooks, and volunteer drivers from Bayside. Viola asked if these openings can be part of the Coordinated Entry process. The Housing Fund Board recommended to maintain a reserve for the first 6 months of 2026 till CB 3 - is ready. Taking the shelter out of the RFP process and setting needed funds to the side. CB 3 - new congregant shelter - evergreen standards from state - is the step they are in now. Latest date would be to close in December, and Jan. will be the difficult month for digging septic. Worse case modular is done be May - all finished June or August. ESDS - made them slip about 4 months. Bayside - submitted the outdoor caravan event - medical, mental, testing and screening, hoping our health dept can join the event to give vaccines. Planning to reach out to the encampment. October 3rd. “Care-A-Van event at Woodley Place/JC MASH. (OUTDOORS) Please spread the word to help make this event prosperous. This event is open to all public. ~J Woodley Address: 175 Chimacum Rd. Port Hadlock, WA 98339 (11am – 3pm)” from email. Encampment - Sani-cans - there was a fire at sani can down town that affected the cotton building - Emma Bolin Heather - E Jeff Fire will do training and provide some safety equipment, Viola - how to get more lived experts - LE. Dawid - free pallets build composting toilets. Not much funding. Used in Rochester NY - each camp had a designated homeless person to take care of the camp sites, and a city manager who would visit and see what the camp site needed. Individuals and organizations brought food. Not positive about government support. Deal with the residents as people. Could become a self sustaining camp site. Greg - why wouldn’t the same problems happen as in the porta-potties. Derek - know people who are very adept at composting toilets and willing to volunteer to help with it. Heather - great project to explore. Practically need to get porta potties back as quickly as possible and maybe then look at alternative systems. Need to find a permanent location. Which do you prefer - a bucket system with sawdust for the short term? Yes, porta potties for the short term might be okay. Would like to continue to work with Goodman Sanitation to get them back as quick as possible, and getting mental health people to manage a behavior. Emma - some sensitivities to having people on this site. Getting sani cans on the site for the short term. City will have to abate the site due to sensitive infrastructure. This is not a suitable site. Derek - Mauro mentioned last night that they will be closing the site by November. Heather - will be talking to Mauro. And work on the longer term plan while meeting the short term needs. Greg - a non-profit or faith based organization would figure out management so the porta potties are not abused. Heather - if there are agencies, trusted people, to help the community that is living there to manage this. Greg within a month and half there needs to be a new site. Are city regs similar to the county? Need a managing organization. Talon - need needle containers, needle exchange, trash cans near the porta potties. Heather - one of the preliminary requirements of Goodman. Need to deal with immediate public health concern. Toilets and garbage. Dawid - need a couple/3 cans and people with sound mind who would regularly dump the cans into the dumpster. Heather - question about where is the best place for the porta cans because members of the community are coming by and dumping their garbage. Dawid - don’t bunch up the porta cans in one spot - spread them out. Heather - this is a quick conversation between residents and Goodman. Michael - we need the toilets back as fast as possible. There is a lot of trash dropped off. Residents understand that the trash will get the city to move them. Need to look at Mill Roads 80 acres available. Believes less than 30 people would be transferring there. Could be done quickly. Peggy - is a septic system with a head count limit. Heather - porta potties or composting do not go into a septic system. Have seen progressive communities that start with minimal oversight encampment and progresses into transitional housing etc. Michael - original agreement with olycap and its transitional - so they are there for two years after they receive case management, and they move onward, new spaces open up. Viola - there is also the fact that there is not a whole lot of housing available. Not into kicking people out into homelessness. Michael - what are the people doing that is positive to get on their feet. Viola - low barrier - can not force people into programs. And if there is no housing available then pushing people on the street. Considering choice for people to come into this program. Doing outreach to people in tents, in camps, sometimes that is the best choice when there is not housing available. If we had an array of choices and pathways to those choices. Relationships take time. Change can not be forced on someone if you want it to be fair and just. Meeting people where they are at. If we are going to do the group justice we need to be there with options. Maybe a key to lock for the dumpsters. Etc. Housing is so incredibly limited we have to have an array of options. Systemic issues. Greg - need to look for more options - safe parking programs. Moving this encampment wholesale to Mill Road. Larger non-profit that will sort of own the site and the placing etc of the porta potties. Anything will be an imperfect fit for many. Need a variety of options. Heather - will talk to John Mauro later today… what are the next steps? Amanda Grace - Goodman - doing everything she can to get the toilets back, identified requirements to keep her staff safe - like a larger truck which she will subsidize. Still need to be paid by the city. Communicate - here is what it's going to take - that needs to be clearly defined. Get the toilets back for the 2 month period while we find a site. Dawid - long grabbers from inappropriate stuff in the toilets and long rubber gloves. Self management. Viola - as openings come open at CBV - staff openings every month. This is done on a vulnerability scale but we can work on options. Greg - openings at the Legion shelter. Lisa C. - don’t know how much the public at large especially people with money - need to be informed and maybe can raise needed funds. Check blaming people - have in person conversations. No divided energy. Next meeting Sept. 30 11:15 on line and hybrid at Recovery Cafe. Greg and Julia will not be at the next meeting. But Talon will support the hybrid event at Recovery Cafe and Heather will facilitate. 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