PORT TOWNSEND — The Winter Welcoming Center, which offers a warm no-barrier space for the most vulnerable in Jefferson County, has expanded its hours.
“Our whole mission is we save lives, we’re very simple,” volunteer Executive Director Julia Cochrane said.
The center is a Jefferson Interfaith Action Coalition-founded entity. Cochrane founded it along with the Rev. Paul Heinz of the First Presbyterian Church and Elisabeth Heiner. The two are now married, Cochrane said.
The center provides daytime shelter, electricity, heat, Wifi, food, clothes and connection to resources for people experiencing homelessness in Port Townsend.
Now in its eighth season, the center was previously run in a location up the hill on Sims Way. The center shut down during COVID-19. When it reopened, the city of Port Townsend offered the Pope Marine building rent free. The city also covers the utilities, Cochrane said.
The center opened 11 days early this year following the sweep of the Evans Vista homeless encampment, Cochrane said.
Jefferson County’s Public Health department provided emergency funding for the stretch of unforeseen coverage.
The Winter Welcoming Center is the nearest thing to a no-barrier location as the county has, Cochrane said.
“We don’t evict anybody permanently,” she said. “If people are fighting with mental illness or obviously unraveling with some substance, we sort of say, ‘While this is happening, for a week or whatever, go away and come back when you’re better.’”
In those cases, the center will continue to serve people outside, she said.
On Nov. 25, the center nearly doubled its hours. Previously open at 8:30 a.m. seven days a week and closed at 12:30 p.m., the center now closes at 4 p.m.
The center’s hours are nearly in sync with the homeless shelter located directly across the street in the American Legion shelter, which closes at 8 a.m. and begins admitting residents again at 4 p.m., Cochrane said.
“At least half of the people here are staying at the American Legion shelter,” she said.
To make the extended hours possible, local service providers Olympic Community Action Programs (OlyCAP), Bayside Housing and Services and the REAL Team from Discovery Behavioral Healthcare have supplemented the center’s staff by providing employee hours.
Aside from adding capacity to the center’s staff, the providers being onsite is a regular opportunity to connect people with resources and to build relationships, which might lead to coordinated entry intake.
Coordinated entry is the process by which housing providers create a vulnerability profile for individuals, including them on a list of people who are seeking housing.
When housing becomes available, decisions are made based on who on the list is the most vulnerable. About 250 people are currently on the list, Cochrane said.
The center does not offer privacy, which the coordinated entry process requires, but the connections made at the center can lead to people onboarding to the housing list.
The center also seeks to have someone with a history of medical training on staff, to recognize if and when individuals should seek professional care, Cochrane said.
Including the employees provided by partner organizations, the center always has at least two paid employees on site and emphasizes hiring employees with lived experience with homelessness, Cochrane said.
“I was homeless at one time too,” monitor Janet Dizick said. “I wanted to help the homeless and help people that were in my situation.”
Dizick has worked at the center for four years and used to go with a friend to Kah Tai Lagoon Nature Park in the mornings when she didn’t have housing.
When she first started working at the center, it served about five to 10 people. Now it serves about 40 on a given day, Dizick said.
Not all, but many in the center’s population are increasingly seniors, Cochrane said.
“There’s one person in this room I’ve known for 40 years,” Cochrane said. “They founded a local institution. They weren’t homeless until just now, as far as I know.
Amanda Littlejohn is new to Port Townsend and newly homeless. She has been living in her car after her mom filed a restraining order, prohibiting her from coming into contact with her mom or two daughters.
Littlejohn said her car’s head gasket is blown. Members from the REAL Team approached her and connected her to the welcoming center, she said.
“The REAL Team brought me here because I was sleeping in my car all night. I was freezing to death,” Littlejohn said. “It’s freezing. I couldn’t even walk here.”
Funding for the center comes from local sources and from community members. The joint county and city Housing Fund Board recently granted the center $17,000. Jefferson Community Foundation is prioritizing the center this year. The center also is getting money from the Port Townsend Food Co-op’s beans for bags program.
Various churches give money as well.
Multiple community members have written more than $1,000 checks this year, Cochrane said.
The support is desperately needed, Cochrane stressed.
The center accepts donations, including funds, tents, sleeping bags, clothing and food.
Cochrane noted that the center doesn’t have a kitchen so individually packaged meals are preferred. The center does have a refrigerator and a microwave.
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church provides soup on Tuesdays. Michael McCutcheon of Reach Out serves food outside on Fridays. And a potluck group sets up outside on Saturdays, Cochrane said.
To make financial donations, checks can be made out to Jefferson Interfaith Action Coalition with Winter Welcoming Center on the memo line. Checks can be mailed to 11 Franklin St., Port Townsend, WA 98368.
Card donations can be made at fpcpt.org/giving, and cash or check donations can be made at the center during operation hours.
Clothing donations can be brought to the center or by calling Cochrane, who will pick clothes up in Port Townsend or Port Hadlock. She can be reached at 360-821-1926, and the center can be reached at 360-821-4811.
Cochrane noted that among her advocacy involvements is the Help Now Fund, through which she accepts donations and connects people with imminently needed resources such as phones, gasoline, propane, medicine and hotel rooms.
Following its seasonal closure in April, the center will not return to the Pope Marine building.
With OlyCAP building a homeless shelter on its Caswell Brown property, hoped to be completed next August or September, the American Legion shelter will close, Cochrane said. At that time, the downtown location will no longer make sense, she added.
The next big step for the organization is to relocate and to re-open as a year-round urban rest stop. The center’s plan to become year-round is in the county’s and city’s recently published Five Year Homeless and Affordable Housing Services Plan, Cochrane said.
The center is working on making a steering committee now, she added.
The reinvention has received consideration and support from the county and would include showers, lockers, laundry, mail reception, a health department-run harm-reduction center and private meeting rooms, in addition to all of its current offerings.
The organization also will seek funding for a paid executive director, said Cochrane, who, at 72, sits on multiple boards, including the Housing Fund Foard, OlyCAP’s board and JCIRA’s board.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.
