EDITOR’S NOTE: The date of the next meeting for Clallam County’s Shelter Providers Network has been corrected in this report.
PORT ANGELES — Homeless people can get overnight shelter in Port Angeles again.
The hitch — which is often a hike — is getting to the shelter itself.
Serenity House opened its new overnight refuge at its Single Adult facility Thursday night but hosted only three people in quarters that can accommodate up to about 26.
On Friday night, just one person showed up.
“Things went very well,” said Kim Leach, Serenity House executive director, adding that colder weather probably will bring more clients.
Regular residents of the shelter — who include rent-paying tenants — helped settle the overnight visitors, she said.
Still, the shelter at 2321 W. 18th St. near William R. Fairchild International Airport on the city’s West End is far from most places homeless people gather.
Clallam Transit’s No. 26 bus stops nearby, but the last coach arrives at 7:15 p.m. The shelter opens almost three hours later but offers no inside space where people can wait.
Leach said the Clallam County Homelessness Task Force, which will meet at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Health and Human Services conference room in the Clallam County Courthouse, might take up the challenge of providing late-night transportation.
The county’s Shelter Providers Network, a confederation of some 50 private and public agencies that combat homelessness, also might address the question when it meets at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 21 in Room 160 of the courthouse, 223 E. Fourth St.
Serenity House has no other facility for people with emergency needs, Leach said, nor does downtown Port Angeles have buildings suitable for overnight dormitories.
The Salvation Army closed its makeshift refuge at 123 S. Peabody St. on Thursday and laid off two full-time employees there.
The facility had opened after Serenity House was forced to close its Street Outreach Shelter, 508 E. Second St., on Feb. 17 after a sewer line collapsed and the agency lacked funds to fix it.
“The alternative [to the West End facility] is that there’s no shelter at all,” Leach said.
“We don’t have another location to put this. This is what we can do at this point.”
To offer overnight accommodations at the Single Adult Shelter, Serenity House revamped its layout to place 10 two-tiered cots in one room and four more in a hallway outside.
As many as 10 to 12 more cots could be added, Leach said.
Both the dormitory and the hall are monitored by television cameras, and volunteers — drawn from the shelter’s long-term population — staff a reception desk all night.
Quarters for single male and female long-term residents — who must remain clean and sober to stay at Serenity House — are locked off from the overnight shelter after it opens. Overnight clients need not be clean and sober, but they cannot bring drugs or alcohol inside.
The overnight shelter opens at 10 p.m. for people who are ready to go to sleep. It wakes them and closes at 7 a.m.
Leach said a perfect solution would be for a nonprofit group to provide a shuttle between The Gateway center, Front and Lincoln streets, and the Single Adult Shelter.
She also said funds might be found to pay for taxicab rides to the West End.
The problems at the Street Outreach Shelter highlighted a financial crisis at Serenity House, which opened in 1982 as a shelter for chronic transients and grew into the county’s top agency to fight homelessness.
Serenity House subsequently received aid from Clallam County and raised funds to pay overdue bills through an equity loan secured by property at 577 W. Washington St., Sequim, where its thrift store is located.
Serenity House facilities remain open, Leach said, albeit with reduced programs, hours and salaries for staff. She praised Serenity House employees for “pulling together” to weather the funding shortfall.
“Ending homelessness is still the No. 1 issue,” she said.
As for how to ferry people to the shelter from the places they gather downtown, “I think all kinds of ideas should be considered,” Leach said.
“How can we network to fill the gaps of transportation between 7 [p.m.] and 10 p.m.? That time zone is the most difficult unless we can come up with something different.”
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.
