Email to City and County
Emergency Meeting
PNW Winter Climate Hazard
Persons residing in the PNW require sheltering during the wintertime as a public health and safety prerequisite. Living in the PNW climate during cold months poses endangerment to all persons who are unsheltered.
DATA from Citizen Outreach Reports
Local shelter reports do not parallel or match testimonials from participating guests and visitors to shelters and service providers (such as Base Camp, NW Youth Services, Opportunity Council, HOT, GRACE, and coordinated entry providers), therefore resulting in inconsistent response measures based on occupancy statistics rather than guest needs and concerns.
The definition of available space needs to be articulated clearly and designated to appropriate guests.
The NEEDS ASSESSMENT is lacking because the DATA COLLECTION is inconsistent or nonexistent.
PERFORMANCE
The vestment of local sheltering provides a network to assist citizen need. Philanthropic and charitable agencies oversee rules of engagement at local shelter(s), however transparency that would magnify flaws and afford tangible evidence of standardized practices derogatorily impacts community sustainability when absent. Guest reports of sheltering experiences need to be considered as vital data for review if authorizing a setting as the sole provider for city and county sheltering (Base Camp for example).
Whatcom County Public Alert System for
PNW Climate Hazards does not exist.
Persons visiting the area are not made aware of the substantial impact the PNW can inflict when exposed to outdoor conditions for long periods without shelter.
Persons in crisis without shelter have little to no means of modifying their circumstances without public point of contact with a public health agency.
Recommendation for a PUBLIC KIOSK and local registrar has been repetitively recommended by Citizen Outreach Volunteers as a means to provide homeless citizens a roster of our local network information of public health agencies in the area, who to contact, where to go.
An optional citizen registrar app located on the KIOSK would provide a hemisphere for crisis intervention as well as a database to evaluate citizen needs, such as the Homelessness Survey and Questionnaire some local services use. Services needed would be evidence-based data similar to the waitlists for housing only with considerations of special circumstances. Services to assist data collection are also vital to this effort.
Utilizing college student programs (such as social services, administrative) with capstone projects and internships can maximize results for data collection.
Priority of care is a matter of equitable access for all persons residing in Whatcom County no matter their timeline of residence, economic status, sobriety, or ability.
The purpose of providing a WARMING CENTER is to enable probable life-sustaining conditions to the public.
The purpose of a citizen KIOSK is to register citizens in crisis and connect citizens to local service providers. Needs assessment cannot be acquired without the DATA from a public source available to the public 24/7
The purpose of a NAVIGATION CENTER would be to allow all service providers an access point to promote the general welfare of citizens in distress.
Current agencies making provisions are designated as coordinated-entry for sheltering. The enormous strain on these services have challenged agencies to maintain relatively low retention of data with limited waitlists.
Point-of-entry requirements to determine homelessness status and receive assistance sometimes pose further health risk to persons with severe chronic illness, disability, and sensitive mental health. Ideally, a navigation center provider would consist of clinically trained volunteers and professionals prepared to oversee medical concerns of vulnerable high-risk populations.
FINANCIAL BURDEN
Sponsorship programs can alleviate costs if orchestrated from a participatory objective by the community and spearheaded effectively by local government. Groups and collectives hosting guests can maximize housing responsibility as neighbors.
GUIDELINES provided by city and county using TOOLKITS for operations can guarantee partnership success. Operators such as Homes NOW! Not Later... have demonstrated the basic outline of utilizing alternative affordable housing mechanisms such as tiny home villages to provide short and long term housing options in various neighborhoods in Bellingham.
(EXAMPLE) Prepare a seminar to invite local churches to view tiny home villages, examine vetting process, introduce volunteer coordinators. Invite congregations to host 4-5 tiny homes as a mini-village on their church lot. Involve community neighborhoods to sponsor and host similar sites. Integrate service providers for special needs to residential home settings, tiny home villages, and cooperatives to facilitate settings for individuals requiring daily assisted living and long term care with neighborhood support. Utilize a platform or network to link all service providers together including EMS, social services, and city and county department for public health and safety. The more we amplify alternative housing and community living, the less burden will be placed on shelters who provide critical ongoing interim relief.
Homelessness is fundamentally a crisis point for our city and county because it is a crisis point in a person's life after experiencing loss, trauma, or unprecedented difficulty. Homelessness is the intangible transition of instability in a person's life when a home is absent. This can be temporary or prolonged depending on opportunity for recovery.
Chronic homelessness can extend beyond temporary instability if physical and mental ability to sustain livelihood depends on considerable daily care and assistance. Who are our local assisted living providers?
Differentiation of instability factors that afflict people experiencing homelessness is significant to providing the level of public access to care citizens need, including the type of sheltering required.
Improving our standards of practice is a work in progress that begins with all of us being honest about what that looks like now and what we want it to look like. Mostly, it comes down to
1) meeting your neighbors
2) collecting data of their conditions
3) reducing biases that prevent progressive action
4) devising a plan of action short and long term
5) implementing agreed plan(s) of action
These are all the points reiterated for the past 4 years, and now, again in this meeting...
The urgency this winter 2021 is for immediate sheltering to safeguard approximately 100 people from PNW winter exposure who are currently camped outdoors at Bellingham City Hall. BOP Mutual Aid is a citizen protest for citizen housing relief measures to ensure citizens who are unhoused have direct housing.
What is the City and County prepared to do to oversee transition to sheltering this year? Is the City and County prepared to relocate this camp setting to firmer ground, parking lots with pallet shelters to replace tents, a parking lot with service providers as hosts to evaluate human need in real-time until each person is connected to a primary shelter provider? Sweeping these campers from City Hall onto the streets is the objective being protested.
FACTS
Over 100 people are on City Hall lawn because all options available to them have been exhausted.
PNW winter climate poses health risks and possible fatality from exposure to cold, wind, rain, and snow.
Winter county alert system to warn the public of PNW cold climate risks and open city warming centers during wintertime is an absent directive.
The endangerment of unhoused residents using public access points because they are exposed outdoors is GREATER than the temporary inconvenience to the housed public's routine access to these shared public settings; until safety of our unhoused residents can be determined. The ledger of inconveniences and inequality is blatantly obvious.
It is a measure of CIVIC duty and response to ensure all citizens have equitable access to basic needs.
Please provide a level of minimal access to life-sustaining conditions for the 100 individuals in distress to the best of your ability this winter 2021.
Please respond with compassion and haste,
JC Mansfield
Whatcom County resident