Published November 12 2014
For the second consecutive year, the City of Bellevue has leased a portion of the former International Paper site at 1899 120th Ave. N.E. to provide a temporary Eastside Winter Shelter for homeless men. Starting November 15, the shelter will open daily, 8 p.m.-7:30 a.m. at the site currently owned by Sound Transit. The vacant building is in a light industrial, non-residential area, and will provide shelter through March.
A women's shelter will also open on Nov. 15, operated by Catholic Community Services through a partnership with The Sophia Way. This shelter will be at the St. Peter's United Methodist Church in Bellevue through the end of January, when it will move to the Redmond United Methodist Church.
The shelters also seek to provide hot meals for the men, women and children. The meals are provided by volunteers, and donations are needed from the community. For more information about the meal program, visit www.tinyurl.com/lt7dg9r.
Bellevue began operating a severe weather shelter after a homeless man died from exposure on Christmas night 2007 and former Police Chief Linda Pillo urged the city to act.
Bellevue initially worked with the Eastside Human Services Forum and the Eastside Homelessness Advisory Committee, which later helped expand the extreme weather shelter to an all-winter shelter model to better serve Eastside residents.
Since the shelter first opened, the two agencies have worked with the cities of Bellevue, Redmond, Issaquah and Kirkland to find viable sites. In addition to briefly relocating to the Old Schoolhouse Community Center in Redmond, the winter shelter for men has been hosted in the past primarily by area churches. The various parties have also worked to secure shelter sites for women and children.
Nearly 500 men, women, youth and children were served in the Eastside winter shelters last year. The 2014 One Night Count of unsheltered people sleeping outside on the Eastside was 178 -- nearly a 10 percent reduction in the number counted in 2013 which could be attributed to the fact that these two winter shelters were open during the count.
For more information about the Eastside winter shelters, contact Congregations for the Homeless at 425-372-7252 or dwightj@cfhomeless.org; or Catholic Community Services at 206-437-7448 or eileenm@ccsw.org.