The future of a new homeless shelter in Grants Pass is in question after the shelter and the organization providing wraparound services ended their working agreement. Under the terms of a lawsuit settlement, Grants Pass is required to provide space for 150 unhoused people in the city, which the shelter is meant to fulfill.
The shelter, known as Parker’s Place Village, is required to provide case management, housing navigation and other wraparound services in addition to basic needs such as clean drinking water, around-the-clock staffing and sanitation. Local organization MINT agreed to provide those services and was already paying for security, utility and trash service at the shelter. But it will end those services Oct. 15.
Reporter Jane Vaughan has been covering these developments for Jefferson Public Radio. She joins us with more details.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. Under the terms of a lawsuit settlement, Grants Pass has to provide space for 150 unhoused people in the city. Earlier this summer, a new development opened that does exactly that. But now, the future of that shelter is in question. That’s because the shelter and the organization that was supposed to run it ended their working agreement.
Reporter Jane Vaughan has been covering these developments for Jefferson Public Radio, and she joins us with more details. Jane, great to have you back on the show.
Jane Vaughan: Thanks for having me.
Miller: This is one of those stories where it’s hard to understand the latest twists and turns if we don’t first start with some context. We could go way back and hear about the Supreme Court case again, the one that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. But in this case, let’s focus on the lawsuit that the city of Grants Pass settled just last summer. What was the suit about?
Vaughan: Yeah, you’re right. There’s years and years of context if we’re talking Grants Pass homelessness. But for your specific question, this lawsuit was filed by a nonprofit called Disability Rights Oregon. And they had sued the city after the city council had voted to drastically reduce its availability of camping sites for homeless folks, so those had been restricted. Disability Rights Oregon argued in the lawsuit that that change violated a state law, House Bill 3115, which says that homeless camping rules have to be objectively reasonable in terms of their time, place and manner. So they’re claiming that the city council had violated state law by reducing the availability of its homeless resting sites. And then the lawsuit also claimed that the city had broken state nondiscrimination laws having to do with disability rights, as the nonprofit’s name might suggest. So those were the basic things they were arguing in their lawsuit.
Miller: And then what ended up happening? What were the important terms of the settlement?
Vaughan: Yeah, so the lawsuit, as you said, was settled last summer. The big outcome, the big point of that settlement agreement is that the city of Grants Pass is required to have resting space for 150 people within its urban growth boundary for one year. That number of 150 was basically chosen based on various calculations regarding the city’s point-in-time count, its count of its homeless population. Then there are other stipulations. The space has to be a low barrier, it has to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, addressing that claim of violating the non-discrimination laws.
So basically, they had the settlement, but the city has to have space for 150 homeless folks within the city. And at first, they were doing that with these resting sites downtown. So they had, at various points, between one to three city-owned parking lots downtown that were these resting sites with space for 150 people to comply with the terms of the settlement. And then they ended up awarding a grant, which we’ll talk about, and creating this new shelter instead.
Miller: And just briefly before we get to that grant, why not just stick with the earlier solution? How did people in Grant’s past feel about it?
Vaughan: I would say, in general, people were not a big fan of it. They were, like I said, basically just unmanaged campsites right downtown, right by City Hall, right by the police station. They did have bathrooms, water and some services, but they were not managed and a lot of people would say that they were an eyesore. And no one wants to see a tent camp right downtown. People were worried about what tourists were seeing. There were safety issues and crime issues, according to the police chief. I interviewed some neighbors who lived right by the sites who said they were calling the police all the time and noise complaints, trash complaints. People were, in general, really unhappy with that as a long-term solution for anything. It was sort of just plopping people in a tent camp in the middle of downtown.
Miller: So that gets us to this $1.2 million grant that the city ended up awarding for someone to build a low-barrier shelter. What was the grant process like?
Vaughan: It was pretty long and convoluted, to be honest. They had this initial process that they were gonna give the grant to this company named Geodomestic, but then they were supposed to receive the grant and then they withdrew their application. They had claimed that they had partnerships with these other service providers, and then later acknowledged they hadn’t actually talked to them. So, that didn’t happen.
The city restarted, they revised their process a bit, they started the grant process again. Went through, received applications, the whole thing. They ended up choosing a group called Pathways to Stability, which had a plan to run this low-barrier shelter, but they had to secure a piece of land that they wanted to use to run the site. They didn’t own it. So the grant was basically contingent upon them securing that piece of land. They said they would be able to get the property and do it, but then they failed to actually secure the piece of property, so they didn’t have the land to actually do the thing that they were planning to do.
So then, back again, the city council decided to award the grant to its second highest scoring applicant, which was this group called Elk Island Trading Group. They also had to buy a piece of property. They didn’t own it at the time, where they wanted to run the shelter. But they actually were able to get the piece of property, unlike Pathways. So Elk Island did actually secure the grant and they got an approximately $1.2 million grant from the city.
But on the whole, the grant process took months. It was really complicated. It was really contentious. The city councilors sort of clashed over how they wanted to proceed. At one point they were accusing each other of bias in scoring the applications. At one point they considered disqualifying Pathways over alleged improper communication with the mayor. They ultimately didn’t decide to do that. But there was a lot of turmoil and it took a long time for them to actually pick someone to receive the grant.
Miller: And the group that they ended up picking, Elk Island Trading Group, is one that you’ve actually done a lot of reporting on. Who are they?
Vaughan: Yeah, I did a long story on them almost a year ago at this point, but they’re a landowner developer based in Roseburg. Their goal is revitalizing, redeveloping the Roseburg downtown, cleaning it up and doing some development there. They are well known for having a series of homeless camps on their properties that they either own or lease in Roseburg, which is interesting in and of itself. It’s not a nonprofit organization running homeless camps. It’s a landowner developer, which is interesting.
There’s two different sides to this, really. Some people really support Elk Island. Their operations manager is Bernie Woodard, so he’s sort of well known as the face of it. And some people say the city of Roseburg isn’t doing enough to help the homeless. Elk Island is filling in the gaps. Roseburg doesn’t have any authorized homeless camps of its own. The city council keeps rejecting plans to have its own urban campgrounds. No one else has stepped up.
Some people say Elk Island is really great, and they’re having these homeless camps, and there are rules, and they’re helping people get out of homelessness, and they really like Elk Island. On the other hand, some of the people I talked to say there are problems with having a private organization run homeless camps. They are not beholden to the same rules, requirements and regulations that nonprofits have. So for example, Bernie doesn’t actually have any data to show that the camps are working. He doesn’t have to keep any data because he’s not a nonprofit. He, of course, claims that the camps are working and people are getting housed, but there’s no data to prove that. It’s all anecdotal.
There are also potential problems with labor law at their campsites because the campers are required to work up to three hours a day unpaid on Elk Island’s properties. Some people say that’s exploitative. Elk Island also has a pretty controversial, contentious relationship with the city itself and city staff. So there’s a lot of different opinions about Elk Island. They recently had to close down one of their campsites because of concerns with people not living in the camps, other homeless folks and vandalism. So as far as I know, they’re currently running two homeless campsites in Roseburg as well.
Miller: And to be clear, everything you’ve just been talking about that you reported on, that was all public at the time when Grant’s past officials made their decision to go with Elk Island – just worth pointing that out. It’s not like your reporting came out after that.
Vaughan: It was months beforehand. Yes.
Miller: You had another article about two months ago when this Grant’s Pass shelter had just been set up. At that point, how did it seem to be going?
Vaughan: It seemed to be going OK. So the shelter is called Parker’s Place Village. It technically opened months ago. It’s open sort of in phases, but it just really reached its full capacity in early August, that article. So it was getting up and going, sort of pros and cons. Like most construction, it’s taken longer than expected. It was supposed to be fully open June 1. It’s actually still not completely done. The city just gave another extension for them to finish it by November 13. Some parts are unfinished. The shower and bathroom facility is still not built. But when I talked to people for that story, some people were really excited to see it built. There are residents moving in, they’re doing tours around the property, showing people their new homes, talking about all of the rules. There are requirements to stay there, for example, no drugs allowed, people will be kicked out for violating rules, which has happened.
So people were happy. I talked to some residents that [were] really glad it was coming to fruition. And were excited to get going. And the plan was that once the construction was completed, this nonprofit called MINT – it’s a homeless services nonprofit, the Mobile Integrative Navigation Team – were supposed to assume management of the site and provide all these wraparound services for the residents living there, which is a requirement under the city grant.
Miller: So then what happened? Why do these two different … well, one nonprofit and one for-profit. Why do they say that they ended their relationship?
Vaughan: It was just announced recently … And there is some disagreement. They have sort of different accounts there. Bernie Woodard from Elk Island says the decision was mutual because of differences in philosophy for how to approach the program. MINT says that they withdrew from lease negotiations because they couldn’t reach an agreement on the lease. At one point, there was a proposal for MINT to pay Elk Island $45,000 a month to run Parker’s Place Village. The MINT Board President Scott Nelson said the nonprofit wanted to just work with Elk Island through a partnership, not a lease agreement. Bernie Woodard disagrees. He says that MINT wanted to do a lease and not a partnership, so they disagree on that.
But the bottom line is that the agreement between the two entities is going to end October 15. MINT had been paying for security, utilities and things at Parker’s Place Village, so Elk Island will need to find the money to pay for that. And they will sort of continue working together, partially because they are literally right next door. These two operations are so close to each other. And MINT is going to continue providing its own services. It has an inclement weather shelter, it has case management and health care services. So obviously, if someone who lives at Parker’s Place walks in, they’re gonna help them.
They also plan to continue serving meals to Parker’s Place Village residents. Elk Island is still going to build its hygiene facility with showers and bathrooms on MINT’s property. So it doesn’t seem to be too much of bad blood. They’re still sort of working together towards a common goal, but the formal partnership has ended and MINT will not be providing those wraparound services at Parker’s Place Village, which had been the plan all along, really.
Miller: I have to say I remain really confused by what this company, Elk Island, is saying. If a nonprofit is going to be providing services at a homeless shelter, shouldn’t they be paid for those services, as opposed to having to pay a lease to be operating there?
Vaughan: Yeah, it’s a good question. And again, the two sides sort of have differing accounts of this. Bernie Woodard’s statement from the Elk Island side is that this rental income would really help offset Elk Island’s financial risk, because if this property fails or doesn’t come to fruition, there’s a five-year grant agreement. And the company Elk Island would be required to repay the city’s $1.2 million dollar grant with 9% interest. So that rental income would help them sort of offset their financial risk if that were to happen.
Miller: Let’s turn to what this means going forward. If Elk Island can’t find a new service provider, can this shelter still operate?
Vaughan: Not under the terms of the grant. Whoever gets the grant has to provide those wraparound services, either on site or nearby, easily accessible. So Bernie Woodard with Elk Island says he is pursuing partnerships with other local providers and expects to make an announcement soon. I haven’t seen an announcement yet of who he plans to partner with instead of MINT. But he said interestingly, that those organizations would not pay rent and they would operate through a partnership – again, which was the original plan for MINT and that obviously didn’t come to fruition. So he’s looking for new partners to provide those services so he can continue to fulfill the terms of that city grant.
Miller: Just to sort of play out the worst case scenario, would the city be out of compliance with the settlement agreement if the shelter were to close?
Vaughan: If they didn’t have a backup, then, yes, they would maybe have to reopen those downtown resting sites, which obviously would be a huge deal. I’m sure the residents of Grants Pass would not be happy with that. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, they have to have resting space for 150 homeless folks somewhere. The plan is for that to be Parker’s Place Village. All of those downtown resting sites have closed. But if Parker’s Place Village closes, then they’re gonna need something else.
I mean, to be clear, there’s no plan for Parker’s Place to close. They haven’t said anything about that. So far it is still ongoing, it’s still operating and still working to meet the original goal. But if that did happen, obviously it would be really discouraging for Grant’s Pass.
Miller: What are you focusing on next in this ongoing saga?
Vaughan: A couple of things. I mean, number one, who will Parker’s Place find to help and provide those services? Who’s that service provider gonna be? How will that go? I’ve also heard some concerns from the neighbors near Parker’s Place village, who are concerned about their neighborhood there too. The same sort of concerns we saw downtown, they say have just sort of moved to their neighborhood now, and they’re now having to call the police, having increased disturbances, trash and things like that.
There was also a meeting with the county board of commissioners last week about potentially having car camping as an option, as a partnership between the county and the city. That is a potential. It’s not decided, but that would be really interesting if that’s something they ended up doing.
But really, I’m curious to see how the long-term process of this goes. I mean, there was a lot of hard work that went into actually building it, and it’s impressive. They’ve built this 150-space shelter for people in these converted shipping containers. But now the real work kind of needs to get done to get people housed and get people services. The goal is not just to follow the settlement agreement. The ultimate goal is to address the city’s long standing homelessness crisis, which means getting people help and getting them housed. So, that’s obviously not an easy long-term goal. So I’m curious to see how it will all play out.
Miller: Jane, thanks very much.
Vaughan: Thank you.
Miller: Jane Vaughan is a reporter at Jefferson Public Radio.
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