PORT TOWNSEND — Snow, ice and bone-chilling temperatures only serve to further drive home the point with Alison Capener — Jefferson County is without a designated homeless shelter.
“It’s really lousy,” said Capener, a member of the Community Outreach Association Shelter Team, a nonprofit group of church and nondenominational Port Townsend-area residents who are working to build a haven for those without homes.
“We’re very concerned about not only this kind of weather, but also the whole month of November has had bad weather,” Capener said.
Sunday saw an heavy, early snowfall, followed on Tuesday by temperatures in the high teens and low 20s.
A homeless shelter for up to 14 men is scheduled to open on Dec. 10.
It will open after the community outreach volunteers, the American Legion, a Boeing retirees group known as the BlueBells, and others work to remodel the American Legion building’s basement.
Work will begins at 10 a.m. Saturday to bring the Legion’s basement up to city code, so it can be officially designated as a temporary emergency shelter for men.
The shelter will provide dinner, breakfast and bag lunches to those who qualify for uses of the shelter’s mats, or possibly cots, for sleeping overnight.
Last February, a coalition of six churches, called Churches Hosting the Homeless, offered shelter, with St. Mary’s, First Baptist and Quimper Unitarian alternating as hosts.
Homeless men were transported by van to a church location, Capener said, where volunteers prepared and served a hot supper and breakfast.
Capener said the group wants to create a permanent shelter that will give homeless people a specific place to eat and sleep overnight.
“We’re just hoping to make it as accommodating as possible, and create a warm and friendly place where they don’t have to worry about getting their tarp stolen,” Capener said.
“This is a group that hasn’t been served in the past.”