Cots inside a warming site at 2640 Portland Road N.E. on Dec. 10, 2020. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)
As the colder months are imminent, homeless service provider The ARCHES Project is adding a service to help more homeless people get out of the cold: transportation.
Laura Russo, shelter services program manager, said the biggest change during this year’s warming shelter season is the addition of a van running all night.
“At 2 a.m., that might be the time they think, ‘Maybe I should have went to shelter’ and can’t get there,” she said.
The warming network runs from Nov. 1 to March 31 and offers space for people experiencing homelessness to get out of the cold in low-barrier shelters, meaning pets are allowed, it’s co-ed and no one is turned away as long as there’s available space.
Russo said the vans will be especially helpful for people who may not be able to walk to shelter sites.
There will be storage pods at each location, so people can bring shopping carts or bicycles and have them stored for the night.
“We want them to come in,” she said. “We understand they may not want to.”
Similar to last year, there will be Covid protocols like temperature checks and mats that are spaced out, which limits the number of people that can be inside each location.
She said Salem First Presbyterian Church and South Salem Friends Church will both host temperature activated warming and can each accommodate between 30 and 35 people.
Seed of Faith Christian Center International, which has a property at 853 Medical Center, could host another 30 people for warming pending approval from the fire marshal, she said.
Shelters are activated at 7 p.m. and people have to be out by 6:45 a.m.
ARCHES is opening its day program earlier so it’s available to people leaving warming shelters, Russo said.
The city of Salem chipped in $150,000 this year to fund the warming network and staffing, said Gretchen Bennett, the city’s homelessness liaison.
Bennett said that funding, $50,000 more than last year, reflects additional staffing needs.
Russo said ARCHES is working with Bennett on another site, the future location of the navigation center at 1185 22nd St. S.E., to see if it could shelter 75 to 100 people.
Salem has two models of warming. One is temperature-activated, which means shelters open when the temperature drops below 32 degrees. The other is called duration warming, where a select group of people get to sleep at a shelter each night and people can’t drop in.
Josh Erickson, chief operations officer at Church at Park, said Church at the Park plans to open a second duration warming location later this month.
He said that site, inside a Catholic Community Services warehouse, will have canopies with side walls inside so people staying there can have privacy.
Erickson said there will be 20 canopies with a priority for families at that location.
Church at the Park is already running a warming site inside the old DMV building on Portland Road opened last month, where its first micro-shelter camp is located.
There are 20 beds inside, with half set aside for “emergency beds” that other agencies can use.
Russo said ARCHES is always looking for volunteers and is also seeking to hire on-call shelter staff. To volunteer, visit arches.volunteerhub.com
Contact reporter Saphara Harrell at 503-549-6250, [email protected].
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