Mayor Hogan pitches opening cold-weather shelter in Camas

The city of Camas could someday have its own cold- and possibly hot-weather shelter if city officials can find a suitable space and work through the logistics and associated costs.

At a mid-June workshop, Camas Mayor Steve Hogan pitched the idea of opening a cold-weather shelter inside a city-owned building to the Camas City Council members.

“For me, it’s a safety issue,” Hogan said, adding in his report to the Council that he is “fully committed to conducting comprehensive and detailed research over the next 90 days, ensuring that all aspects of this proposal are thoroughly considered.”

The mayor said recent meetings with emergency preparedness groups, including the Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency (CRESA) and the American Red Cross, led him to consider establishing a cold-weather shelter in the city of Camas.

“In Camas, last January, we had a number of homeless people out in the weather for some time,” Hogan said. “And, simultaneously, there were a lot of broken pipes and heaters that went out across the city.”

What’s more, Hogan said, Clark County “basically had a poor response” during the January 2024 ice storm.

“They were bad at predicting when things were going to end,” Hogan said. “They closed down some places they had (open) on Friday … but we had another day or two where temperatures stayed low.”

Once the cold-weather shelters closed prematurely, it was tough for organizers to re-open the emergency, volunteer-run sites.

“The people working in those facilities — it’s a lot of nonprofits and church groups — they were done. It had been four days in a row and it was time to go. (So) it was tough to get people back and open the shelters back up.”

The mayor added that many local faith-based organizations “are at capacity” and have a limited, aging volunteer base. Some churches and nonprofits are even thinking about moving away from hosting emergency shelters because of increasing insurance rates, Hogan said.

“Establishing a cold-weather shelter addresses the immediate need for shelter during freezing events and provides a potential solution for extreme-heat conditions,” Hogan stated in his report to the Council, adding that he was more focused on a cold-weather shelter “because freezing temperatures are more likely to cause death for people with no access to emergency backup options (such as) generators, or for people who are homeless.”

Councilman John Nohr urged the mayor to also look into opening a hot-weather shelter in addition to the cold-weather site.

“Look at hot-weather cooling stations,” Nohr advised the mayor.

Hogan said he had a few city-owned buildings in mind that could potentially be a good site for an extreme-weather shelter, including the upstairs rooms of the Camas Public Library, the City’s Annex building — which will eventually be demolished to make room for the City’s new fire station headquarters, if voters approve Camas’ bond measure during the August election — and the old community center, which Hogan pointed out has a kitchen and “some potential” as a cold-weather shelter.

“If we’re going to consider it, we’d have to do it right,” Hogan said. “There are some serious insurance things we’d have to look at. Churches and nonprofits are saying they’re thinking about backing out (of providing emergency shelters) because of the insurance for these types of events.”

Hogan said other considerations include who would staff the shelter, how they would transport people to the shelter and how they would serve food and offer basic amenities such as showers and restrooms.

The mayor said the regional disaster officer for the American Red Cross in Clark County has already offered to “make field training from Red Cross personnel available” if the City decides to open a cold- or extreme-weather shelter.

Most Council members seemed to be onboard with Hogan pursuing more information on viable sites and costs for the emergency shelter.

“There’s a lot to it, and a lot of it says, ‘cost,’ but it’s a safety issue in my mind,” Hogan told the Council in June, adding that he was “looking for a thumbs up or a thumbs down” if the Council wanted him to “see what we can come up with as a plan and what other types of agencies would work with us.”

Councilwoman Leslie Lewallen said she was “playing Devil’s advocate” about what Camas residents might say regarding the idea.

“There have been situations where our own residents, elderly citizens” had trouble during winter storms due to unplowed roads, Lewallen said, “So I can see them saying, ‘Why are we going to spend resources we don’t have?’”

Lewallen also questioned if there might be “facilities in Washougal that are around the Camas-Washougal border” or in eastern Vancouver that might be able to act as a cold-weather shelter instead of the city establishing a shelter in a Camas building.

Hogan said the City would likely have some logistics difficulties getting people to shelters outside the city limits.

The mayor said he would look into potential issues that might come with opening a severe-weather shelter, including: insurance issues; coordinating trained supervisory personnel and volunteers; costs for food and other needs; coordinating with emergency agencies and homelessness advocacy groups; and looking into facility needs such as backup power, furniture, showers, restrooms, cots, and a first-aid station.

Hogan said in his report to Council that federal and state funding may be available for this type of City-led shelter project.