![]() Residents of this county should be impressed with the commitments made by the county and commerce to make a tangible difference in housing the unsheltered in this community,” Cronmiller added. “We intend to make Commerce proud of their selections for Jefferson County. “Washington Commerce was critical in providing the money for the 7th Haven project and now they have come through for Caswell-Brown Village.” “I was confident that the agency would be competitive in acquiring funding to bring this project to fruition,” she said. ![]() ![]() It was just a year ago that Cronmiller made a presentation to the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners on the phased approach for the Mill Road property. The facility will have a commercial kitchen that will be used by other organizations to provide meals to residents of the shelter and village, and will be available for residents to use for simple meal preparations. Two common rooms have been included in the design that could also be used to shelter people on cots in the event of an emergency. “There’s an unseen crisis of families breaking up,” Cronmiller said, when parents lose their housing.Ĭhildren are often sent to live with other relatives, she said, while the parents sleep in cars, emergency shelters, tents, or other improvised accommodations. The shelter will have three emergency family rooms, with their own entrances and bathrooms. The new shelter is meant to provide permanent supportive housing with the benefit of private space a door people can close when they go to bed at night. Several people have been calling the emergency shelter in the basement of the Port Townsend American Legion home for years. These rooms are for people who need to live in a congregate shelter environment that offers 24-hour-a-day monitoring. There will be 13 private rooms for permanent supportive housing. The shelter will have a minimum of 24 emergency beds for persons who need temporary shelter before they find transitional or permanent housing. Washington Commerce acknowledged that the proposed project responded to a lack of shelter space in the county. More than $150,000 has been spent in predevelopment costs to get the project through the application process. Predevelopment and project management has been done through the Office of Rural & Farmworker Housing and architectural design is by SMR Architects. Jefferson County entered into a 43-year lease with Ol圜AP granting the nonprofit control of the site and the ability to apply for funding to build the new shelter. Special COVID community services block grant money has helped pay for operating expenses at the open air shelter, according to Ol圜AP. Jefferson County committed funds to purchase the parcels of land off Mill Road and committed stimulus funding to providing critical infrastructure at the Open-Air Shelter site. ![]() Rural areas struggle for operating dollars for emergency and supportive housing, by combining populations at one site, there is a cost savings. “This village is a unique design that allows for lower operations cost by combining shelter services at one location.” said Cherish Cronmiller, executive director of Ol圜AP. Organizers said the goal is to break ground as soon as possible and open the shelter by late summer 2024.įacing increased rent at the current shelter space and acknowledging the need for a longer-term solution, Ol圜AP started planning for a permanent congregate shelter more than two years ago. Cate Community Action Program will receive $5.5 million from the Washington State Department of Commerce to fund construction of a single-room occupancy, permanent shelter at the Caswell-Brown Village in Port Townsend.
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