Bend councilors OK Shepherd’s House contract for Franklin Avenue shelter; dismayed by not getting state funding

(Update: COIC official says Bend's grant request was not denied; organization had more questions)

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – The Bend City Council approved a $1.3 million contract Wednesday night with Shepherd’s House Ministries to operate the former Rainbow Motel, which will reopen Monday as the 50-bed Franklin Avenue Shelter – but not, councilors learned, with help from Gov. Tina Kotek’s emergency order homeless funding.

Instead, the start-up costs will be covered with $750,000 each from city and Deschutes County shares of federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. An up to $1.2 million grant request to the multi-agency coordination group set up Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council was not approved, city officials learned at a public meeting Wednesday.

Tammy Baney, executive director of COIC, said Thursday that Bend's request was not denied, as one proposal was. Instead, as seven projects were forwarded for contract talks, 11 others remained as "Tier 1" projects, with follow-up questions to speak with applicants about.

As has been true for some time, the issue of homeless, and more particularly the homeless camp on Hunnell and Clausen roads that the city plans to move, was the focus of several impassioned speakers in the visitors’ section.

Jim Tudor, the “Coffee Dude” who serves the homeless on Hunnell, showed pictures of two residents and urged the city to delay clearing the street until they can “find a place for the 50 people at Hunnell Road to sleep before you kick them out.”

Chuck Hemingway, a service provider for the unhoused, said city Transportation and Mobility Director David Abbas had informed him the city won’t create a “special parking district” in the Hunnell Road area as requested in a petition delivered at the last council meeting two weeks earlier. He said the council is the final authority on the matter and urged them to take that action.

Two Hunnell Road residents also showed up to speak.

“It’s getting rough up there,” said Michelle Hester, noting she’d almost been struck by a vehicle Tuesday and said they are trying to survive.

“One bad apple ruins it for the rest of us,” she said. “It’s not fair. We had jobs. We had homes. I had two businesses. … It could happen to all of you guys.”

Nicholas Schindler, a pastor with Redemption Railroad Ministries, said he’s a homeless advocate living on Clausen Road and is working to collaborate with Journey Church for needed services. He recited the message on the Statute of Liberty:

'Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'

Another homeless resident, ”Smokey,“ said he pays taxes and does not steal, but that the building materials he had on hand to help others patch up their trailers were taken away.

“God said to me to take care of those people,” he said, adding that the residents won’t go to a fenced-in yard with razor wire – but need “just an open piece of land. (They) don’t need a bunch of rules and restrictions.”

John Lodise, director of emergency services for Shepherd’s House, said he learned a lot from NeighborImpact, with operated a shelter at the former motel bought by the city with state Project Turnkey funds until February while the former Value Inn Motel, now the Stepping Stone shelter, was under renovation.

While it will be a low-barrier shelter, Lodise stressed that it won’t be a “walk-up” facility but one with coordinated entry – “we’ll have significant information about the people we put there.” It will offer some of the same services as the Lighthouse Navigation Center on Second Street, “a five-minute walk away.”

But the lack of approval, at least for now, of state funding to help meet the governor’s regional goal -- to create 111 new shelter beds and rehouse 161 households from unsheltered homelessness by next Jan. 10 – upset councilors.

“I’m ready to camp out on the governor’s lawn,” said Councilor Barb Campbell.

City Manager Eric King said they had “worked to be fiscally responsible” with the funds, as staff noted the estimated cost at under $50 a day to house someone, and under $30 at the navigation center, compared to the cost that arise from mental health issues on the streets, from ER visits to irst-responder calls.

“Those costs add up,” he said. “These are really cost-effective solutions.”