Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency to expand homeless shelter in Woodburn

In the past six months, Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency has given assistance of some type to 228 people who are from Woodburn.

That is without the organization having much of a physical presence in the city.

Now, the Salem-based nonprofit is taking over an established day shelter for people who are homeless in Woodburn and expanding its reach to add overnight shelter for the homeless.

“There’s a lot of people here in Woodburn who want to help,” Mayor Frank Lonergan said. “Then getting with Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action is the next step. It won’t end it.”

MWVCAA on April 1 will begin operating an overnight shelter for people who are homeless at Church of Christ at 1560 Hardcastle St. in Woodburn.

That has concerned people who live around the church.

Some say the existing day shelter has brought with it a rise in crime and people hanging around the neighborhood and are worried about possibly more once the overnight shelter opens.

Krystyl Snodgrass, who lies near the church, recently told the city council she is concerned about the project's vicinity to schools.

“The neighborhoods are underprotected from crime by the already taxed Woodburn Police Department," Snodgrass said.

Homeless already in Woodburn

There is no doubt that there is a population of people who are homeless in Woodburn, as there is across much of the state.

There were 20,000 people who were homeless in Oregon in 2023, according to Housing and Urban Development data. That's an increase of about 16% from the year before.

There were 82 children in Woodburn schools who were homeless, in the 2022-2023 McKinney-Vento data.

MWVCAA also helped 176 seasonal and migrant farmworkers in the area in the past year.

“Largely they’re already here,” MWVCAA executive director Jimmy Jones said. “They’re people you went to high school with. They’re your friends and neighbors.”

Jones said MWVCAA runs a program to help people pay utility bills out of a location in Woodburn, but the majority of its sheltering services are located in Salem.

“We are serving Woodburn residents, but are transporting people who want to be in their community,” MWVCAA chief program officer Ashley Hamilton said. “We’ve been working diligently over the last year to get into Woodburn.”

Day shelter open the past four years

A Ray of Hope, Today! has operated a day shelter at Church of Christ since 2020 under the Neighbors Serving Under-Sheltered Neighbors group.

They also operate an overnight shelter when the weather gets extremely cold or hot.

That shelter is operated by volunteers and has limited funds. It operates three days per week.

Neighbors of the site say it has led to a rise in problems in their neighborhood.

“For instance, there are regular transients wandering in my neighborhood and we’ve been the victim of untargeted crime,” Snodgrass said.

Woodburn city councilor Eric Morris said he lives across from Church of Christ and said the current day program has been bad for the neighborhood.

“It’s a dumpster fire right now,” Morris said.

Morris said he thinks MWVCAA taking over operations of the site will be an improvement, and the current organizers believe the same.

“Now with Mid-Willamette Valley coming in, I think it’s a great transition because they have all of the structure and infrastructure they need and they have the desire to know Woodburn,” said Carisa Rangel Guttuso, the board president of A Ray of Hope, Today!

“Having someone come in and say, ‘We value Woodburn and how your community is,’ I think it’s going to be a natural fit.”

Woodburn forced to do something

Oregon lawmakers passed a law in 2021 that requires cities or counties to create “objectively reasonable” regulations about where and when people who are homeless can be on public property.

In response, some cities including Turner and Stayton adopted strict rules about where and when people who are homeless can or can’t camp.

Woodburn went beyond what other cities have done, giving people who are homeless the chance to get services such as housing assistance, employment searches and food assistance..

“I have a duty to our businesses,” Lonergan said. “We certainly don’t want them camping out downtown."

He said the safety and programs that MWVCAA provides is attractive.

"This is putting it in an area that we know. There’s already a community feeling," Longeran said. "And I see this really as a beginning.”

Concerns about increased crime in neighborhood

Snodgrass said she is concerned the new shelter would be similar to the ARCHES project in downtown Salem, which often has people hanging around outside.

Jones clarified the Woodburn project is not modeled on the organization’s 615 Commercial St. project.

He pointed out that at most of the locations the nonprofit operates in Salem – like ARCHES Inn on Hawthorne Ave., ARCHES Lodge on Fisher Road and Community Action Navigation Center on 22nd Street – the crime statistics are lower than in the rest of the area, according to Salem Police data.

“We are committed to working with the city to help make this a safe and effective project that over time reduces the numbers of unsheltered homeless in Woodburn,” Jones said in an email.

Snodgrass asked the city council to prohibit “residential or shelter-type occupancy in the city of Woodburn,” but said if it was allowed to only allow it in industrial areas.

MWVCAA submitted an application in August to Woodburn have the shelter at Church of Christ under the super site provision in a 2023 state law that allows for siting of homeless shelters in residential neighborhoods.

That law required cities to approve such projects if they meet criteria such as having a nonprofit partner with a city and the proposed project does not pose an unreasonable risk to public health or safety.

What will be at the project?

MWVCAA staff said will be three “emergency management” style tents set up in the back of the parking lot with six or seven beds each, enough for 20 beds total.

Each will have a mobile HVAC unit to warm and cool the tents. MWVCAA chief program officer Ashley Hamilton said the tents will be set up each night and taken down each morning.

Hamilton said the tents can go up or down in six to 10 minutes, and they will be stored indoors during the day when they are not in use.

The Church of Christ site will allow for five cars – not recreational vehicles – to be parked behind the church so families with children can stay together. MWVCAA said each car must be moved each day.

Bathrooms are within a short distance of where any people are sleeping and are accessible to them from the outside. There will be a dumpster for garbage.

MWVCAA also will have 16 indoor beds in the church to be used in times of extreme weather.

The project will be used as the city’s warming shelter when the temperate is 32 degrees or colder and its cooling shelter when it’s 100 degrees or warmer.

Hamilton said the organization also will be building a fence around the property.

Hamilton said the shelter will operate from 7 p.m. to 10 a.m. Monday through Saturday and from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. on Sunday. That will give organizers time to clear the site in time for church services.

The schedule that Hamilton presented to the city council shows that at least two staff members will be on site at the location at all times.

MWVCAA says it will provide services including meals, laundry and areas to shower. It also will provide navigation and support to find employment and permanent housing with trained navigators.

“This is more than just a temporary managed shelter,” Hamilton said. “This is the continuum into other services. This is the gateway into something better.”

The site is intended to open on April 1.

“This is just the start,” Hamilton said. “It is by no means going to meet the needs of your community up front. This is our proposal to start somewhere. We will reach occupancy, I can guarantee you that.”

How do they pay for this?

Woodburn’s city council in December decided to allocate $80,000 of American Rescue Plan Act funds to MWVCAA for the site.

The proposed yearly budget is $784,660.72 for the project. MWVCAA says it has state funds to operate and will be searching for more money.

Jones said launching the project is the key to securing funding for it to operate in the future.

“Projects that do not exist don’t get funded,” Jones said.

A Ray of Hope, Today! started talks with Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency about taking over the Church of Christ location in August, 2023.

Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency in February signed an 18-month lease with Church of Christ to operate the site.

MWVCAA has been reaching out to the community in advance of the projected opening.

It had people go door-to-door through the neighborhood around the church in the past month and went to over 100 homes.

Hamilton said the top concern of neighbors was about safety at and around the church.

“A lot of positive responses and asking how to donate,” Hamilton said.

There will be a meet and greet at Church of Christ from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on March 21.

Bill Poehler covers Marion and Polk County for the Statesman Journal. Contact him at bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: MWVCAA taking over, expanding Woodburn, Oregon homeless shelter