The camp opened in May to provide additional shelter during the COVID-19 pandemic and help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

According to a recently amended contract with the church, the encampment’s cost rose to $66,735, which is paid for by Community Development Block Grant coronavirus response funds, a part of the CARES Act. The city of Vancouver pays for site staff, administration, trash service, port-a-potties, water and electricity tied to use of the south parking lot at 2711 N.E. Andresen Road in central Vancouver.

There is a hand-washing station, and a shower trailer owned by Food with Friends is available four days weekly. The church provides some snack foods at night and quick breakfast items in the morning. The overnight shelter opens around 7 p.m.; people have to leave by 7 a.m.

The site averages 25 to 27 campers nightly — a group pastor Brian Norris describes as a community.

“It’s a success in our eyes,” he said.

The tents are spaced to provide social distancing and are disinfected when a new person arrives. So far, the church has hosted 133 people experiencing homelessness. Some people have left to move into an Oxford House or pursued another form of recovery, Norris said.

He said the group is cleaning beyond the church’s property to counter the stereotype that homeless camps are dirty or attract trash. In a couple of weeks, the church will re-evaluate the campsite and determine next steps.

Other community groups are helping out by providing meals. The Sikh community, for instance, is offering lunch every Sunday through the end of July through Living Hope’s Live Love Center. For years, the center has operated a food pantry, clothing closet and low-barrier severe weather shelter, and offered meals and showers to the homeless community.

“I was at the point where I didn’t know what I was going to do,” said Morin, 29.

She messaged friends on Facebook, and one of them got her in contact with Cherish DesRochers-Vafeados. Her nonprofit Food with Friends recently began addressing minor transportation needs for people experiencing homelessness — whether that means providing a bus pass, gas or, in Morin’s case, a new car battery.

Morin didn’t expect much. She’s faced a lot of disappointment in her life and met plenty of people who say they’ll help and never follow through. When DesRochers-Vafeados showed up holding a new battery right when she said she would, Morin almost couldn’t believe it.

“I mean, it made me cry. I was so thankful,” she said. “It kind of my gave me my confidence and everything back as far as the community and stuff. People are out here actually trying to help rather than looking down on people who are homeless.”

DesRochers-Vafeados returned later that night with a few pizzas that Morin dispersed to other homeless people staying in east Vancouver. She used to live off Northeast 49th Street, so she stays on the east side, the place she calls home.

Morin was among the first to get assistance through Food with Friend’s new grant-funded initiative called Project Going Places. It’s meant to assist people with minor transportation costs.

“There are so many people where this is a huge barrier for them and holding them back,” said DesRochers-Vafeados, who is also a Battle Ground city councilor.

For instance, she met a woman who was stuck at a rest area and needed a new battery and gas.

“That one thing was preventing her from getting to the Social Security office,” DesRochers-Vafeados said.

In 2016, now Battle Ground City Councilor Cherish DesRochers and her friend Jamie Spinelli, a case manager at Community Service Northwest, spearheaded an outreach program in Clark County called Food with Friends with a focus on bringing food, toiletries and other supplies to the homeless.

The outreach, described in simplest terms by DesRochers as a grassroots effort to fill gaps in service for the area homeless, quickly expanded and became an official nonprofit last year.

Along with the street outreach, they now do volunteer screening and training for emergency shelters and run a coordinated outreach hotline. Last year they partnered with an organization based in Portland called PERIOD., which was founded in 2014 and supplies feminine hygiene product kits to girls and women in need, to provide hundreds of tampons weekly throughout the Battle Ground school district.

The most recent gap they’ve discovered and are working to fill allows Clark County homeless the opportunity to shower for free — the Shower Outreach Project (SOP).

“When we learned the Share House downtown was eliminating showers we knew we had to do something,” DesRochers said.

They first looked into seeing if a portable shower in Portland could make a routine trip across the river, but were informed that it was too heavily trafficked in Multnomah County and could not make the time.

The next best solution was to acquire a portable shower of their own, so they called the builder who made the Portland one. He offered to sell them one for $15,000, discounted from $25,000.

DesRochers and Spinelli weren’t sure how quickly they could raise $15,000, so they decided while working toward that number, they’d also set a short-term goal of providing day passes for the Community Center. Their doubts around raising the funds were quickly sopped up.

“We put the info on our Facebook and raised the funds in less than 24 hours with the support of community members, Council for the Homeless and the Foundation for Southwest Washington,” DesRochers said. “And so, SOP was born.”

Their cart boasts two showers, both paired with changing rooms. The water is heated via two propane tanks and the access point can hook directly to a hose.

DesRochers said their urgency to fill the void left by the Share House is based on a number of factors. Being able to shower, she explained, provides dignity to those in a less than dignified situation, it helps to cut down on occurrences of hygiene related infections and conditions, and it provides joy.

“I had no idea how well received showers would be,” DesRochers said. “I’ve never seen so many smiles.”

One shower recipient told DesRochers she loved her, another said she was starting a new job the next day and being able to clean up was a major confidence boost. Boost in confidence is something DesRochers and Spinelli have observed from almost all who use the showers. They spoke of big smiles, an extra pep to steps, and sometimes even a little saunter and swagger.

Spinelli said the showers make difference socially. Many homeless are isolated, and have learned to function in this manner. But the shower, or rather the confidence that comes with it, opens them up and brings them together.

“It’s made me realize how valuable it is,” she said.

SOP has been in operation for about a month and is available only on the weekends, but word has spread fast and the need is apparent. DesRochers told The Reflector they were averaging about 15 bathers during a four-hour period, but during that same week they hit 25.

The biggest surprise, DesRochers and Spinelli agreed, was learning how long it had been since some of their visitors had showered. Multiple people have told DesRochers they haven’t showered in over a month. Spinelli said she recently spoke to a man who hadn’t showered in two months, and a woman who told her it was the warmest shower she’d had in almost a year.

As the popularity of the showers continues to grow, SOP’s goal is to find more host sites where homeless services are already being provided to reach as many people as they can.

Currently, they spread word of where the shower is going to be during their Saturday night outreach ventures and get the help of other nonprofits, case managers and other service providers. Contact information is also published in the local Pocket Guide. They hope to have an online printable schedule.

While adding more portable showers to their fleet is a goal, the next obstacle they are looking to overcome is finding a designated hauling vehicle.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Many people take at least one shower a day.

But for people living on the street, one shower could mean the difference between another homeless night or the first step toward something better.

The nonprofit Food with Friends has been around for only a year-and-a-half. It officially launched its mobile showers on Sunday behind The Chapel at Living Hope Church in Vancouver. The goal is to help the homeless, one shower at a time.

That means a lot for people who don’t have a roof over their heads. Living outside, especially in the winter, can be especially miserable. You can just ask Karma Jones.

“Last winter, oh goodness, I’m talking everything’s drenched. You’re drenched, you’re freezing cold, it’s just unbearable, it really is,” said Jones.

She has been homeless on and off since she was 18 years old.

“I don’t want to be out here. But it’s the fact of like I have to be. So you just gotta deal with it the best way you can I guess,” Jones said.

Dealing with it means a shower can be hard to come by.

Jones said sometimes people go weeks, months even, without a shower. But Jamie Spinelli with Food with Friends, wants to change that with the organization’s new mobile showers.

The trailer containing the two showers is relatively small, but they’ve already made a big difference for people who had the opportunity to try them on Sunday.

“I think most of the responses were, it was the first shower they’d had in a very long time and it was definitely the hottest and longest shower they’d had in an even longer time,” said Spinelli.

Spinelli said a homeless shelter in Vancouver stopped offering showers this past summer. To address the need, Food with Friends raised $15,000 in one day to pay for the mobile shower trailer.

She said without a shower, people could stay homeless longer. According to Spinelli, sometimes people who have not had the opportunity to take a shower in a long while, may be hesitant to interact with others or get help.

“It’s hard to get a job interview. There’s a lot of them that won’t even try because they know they smell bad or that their clothes are dirty or their hair is dirty,” Spinelli said.

She said a simple, hot shower means a lot to people who don’t regularly get the luxury that so many people take for granted.

“We’re people too. We have lives too. But we’re just struggling right now you know,” said Jones.

While Jones hasn’t tried the mobile showers yet, she said she can’t wait to take a shower in one. She said she hopes people treat the showers with respect so the showers aren’t taken away.

“We need it. People literally need it,” she said.

Spinelli said the next goal is to move the mobile showers around to different parts of Clark County. She said all they need is access to water, power and a sewer in order to run the showers that run off a tankless hot water heater.

They hope to be back at The Chapel at Living Hope Church next Sunday.

Spinelli said the goal is to raise more money to try and fund a self-contained mobile shower that will be easier to move around than a trailer.

Staff at Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office said Wheeler is interested in the mobile shower idea and is currently in discussions about how to secure private funding.

The program had its first run with the mobile showers on Sunday out at Living Hope Church.

Participants were treated to a hot shower, complete with soap, shampoo, rand razors.

Organizers say a lot of people don’t realize how important a shower can be, especially to those in the homeless community.

“When you live outside, you’re exposed to a lot of elements that you’re not exposed to when you live inside,” said Jamie Spinelli, the Vice President of Food with Friends. “Staph infections, MRSA and a whole variety of things that happen, just from not being able to clean yourself regularly.”

Food with Friends hopes this is the first of many shower outreach projects. Their goal is to perfect a way to provide the service and share their model at large.

Food with Friends aims to get the Shower Outreach Project, or SOP (like sopping wet), operational in the next few weeks. Last summer, local outreach volunteers looked into getting a shower trailer after Share House discontinued providing showers to unsheltered clients, citing wear and tear on the building and sewage problems.

Portland-based PDX Cart Builder finished building the trailer, which has two showers, and it was recently moved to Vancouver. However, it still needs to be insured, registered and otherwise made street legal. Jamie Spinelli, a volunteer with Food with Friends and a case manager at Community Services Northwest, said there’s ongoing fundraising for the operational costs of the trailer. Also, she said, they’re looking for locations that could host it. The trailer connects directly to water, power and sewer. Those sites could offer as many or as few showers as they want, and provide volunteers to help staff it.

“We’re working on solidifying a schedule with locations and volunteers,” Spinelli said.

The aim is to bring the showers to different locations in the county, not just downtown. Orchards, Cascade Park and Hazel Dell are a few targeted areas. There’s also the matter of gathering hygiene products, laundry baskets and towels, though Spinelli isn’t sure where they’ll wash the towels.

In the meantime, Food with Friends has applied for grants and bought about 40 day passes to the Marshall Community Center, so some people could take showers. Others, who are older or have disabilities, have gone without showers.

“It’s going to be a very welcome resource because they’re going to be able to a have hot shower,” Spinelli said.

As an outreach worker, she imagines that the shower trailer will provide an opportunity to connect with people who are homeless and living out of tents or cars.

Being newly homeless is unnerving. Who do you call? What do you do? Where do you go? How do you survive winter?

Homeless advocates recently created a new waterproof and tear-resistant pocket guide to surviving on the streets in Vancouver. The Pocket Guide has safety and weather-related tips, along with local laws and ordinances on one side. The other side lists important numbers and resources such as day centers and places to do laundry, take a shower and eat a meal.

The guide was the idea of Lois Smith, a local nonprofit consultant, volunteer and board member at Friends of the Carpenter.

After talking with people last winter about how they survive on the streets, she began wondering if there was a way to communicate all of those survival tips to people who need them, namely people who are new to homelessness. She jotted down an idea on a sticky note for a weatherproof, tear-resistant guide small enough to fit in a pocket. Later, she outlined what such a guide would look like and the kind of information it would contain.

Smith and a team of volunteer advocates — Jamie Spinelli, Wendy Bukoski, Shelly Gaylor, Lonnie Klugman and Tom Eaton — worked for months on the project with graphic designer Phil Verry. Hundreds of volunteer hours went into making the guide.

“I’m grateful that I didn’t throw out that sticky note many months ago,” Smith said.

The guide is folded accordion-style and has five panels with information on each side that includes tips such as “if you want to keep it, tie it to your body” or “looking homeless can keep you homeless” or “stuff jackets or sleeping bags with newspaper for insulation to keep warm.”

The vast majority of the tips came from people who are homeless or used to be homeless. They also made design suggestions, such as printing the guide on colored paper so it doesn’t catch glare from the sun. More than 150 tips were submitted and had to be whittled down so that they could fit. The guide is 2.8 inches by 4.25 inches when folded up, small enough to fit in a pocket or most cellphone cases.

The guide has important numbers such as a new street outreach line that people can call if they need tarps, tents or other supplies. And it includes local laws and ordinances, including a recent change that makes it illegal to camp in front of public libraries. The guide isn’t as extensive as the Clark County Resource Guide, but lists resources that are the most relevant to living outside.

The day before going to print, Smith learned that the men’s homeless shelter would no longer offer showers to people living outside, and that Food with Friends had stepped up to offer a mobile shower trailer. So, last-minute changes were made to The Pocket Guide before it went to print.

“It’s as updated as it could possibly be,” Smith said. “One person said, ‘If I had had this sooner, it might’ve helped me remain off the streets.’ ”

Rather than being made out of paper, which disintegrates in the rain, it’s made out of Synaps, a polyester paperlike material. The Council for the Homeless sponsored the cost of printing 2,000 copies, which was $1,580.

By the end of this week, most of the first 1,000 copies will already be distributed, Smith said. So far, 28 distribution sites have been identified, which include churches, outreach groups and the Clark County Jail’s re-entry program. Other organizations working with people who are homeless that would like to get copies of the guide can contact Smith at lsmit2389@yahoo.com or 360-326-3970.

Smith said she’d like to get all the copies distributed before cold weather hits. And, she’d like to get another sponsor to print more copies. The guide will soon be online, at www.councilforthehomeless.org, so people can view it on their cellphones.

After sewage backed up onto the first floor of the men’s homeless shelter in downtown Vancouver, shutting down the evening’s hot meal program, Diane McWithey knew the building had reached a breaking point. Something had to be done.

As of Tuesday, Share House no longer allows people who aren’t residents to shower at the facility or use the restrooms outside of meal times. It was the only local public facility that offered free showers to people who live outside, and there are few other places homeless people can go to use the bathroom.

“This was not an easy decision to make by any stretch of the imagination,” McWithey said. “We all feel horrible about it.”

McWithey, the executive director of Share, the Vancouver nonprofit operating shelters and other services for the homeless, along with Deputy Director Amy Reynolds, recently made the decision to quit taxing the building beyond what it can handle.

The 10,400-square-foot building just wasn’t designed for the large amount of people constantly using it every day. Fifty-nine men live there, and in the winter, another 30 men sleep on the cafeteria floor. It also opens up to the public for meals and had offered showers to people who don’t live there.

Trisha Pogue tried to shower at Share House as often as she could. After showering Thursday morning, she applied her makeup in the restroom next to the cafeteria.

“Just because I’m homeless doesn’t mean I have to smell like I’m homeless,” Pogue said.

The 35-year-old said she has been homeless for about five years and wishes Share could keep offering showers to people living outside.

“Where am I going to shower and use the restroom? There’s no place you can go,” she said.

Plumbing system taxed

Otha Common monitored a sign-in sheet as people arrived Thursday at Share House for lunch, served between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. He estimates that between 100 and 125 people come in for lunch daily. That translates to a lot of people using the restrooms, and that’s problematic for the plumbing system, Common said. Still, he understands why Share House’s director Katie Louis is distressed about having to stop offering that service to people.

“Katie wants to help everybody. She’s got a heart of gold,” Common said.

When Louis recently informed a woman that there was a space for her at a shelter, she got emotional reflecting on the bathroom situation.

“It’s just hard to think that if she’s not going in there, she’s not showering,” Louis said. “It’s not like there are more shelter beds.”

When the sewage problem happened on July 17, Louis already had a plumber on the way for a different maintenance issue. She said the indoor/outdoor carpet that was in the hallway between the bathroom and the cafeteria had to be ripped out and is going to be replaced with a different type of flooring.

The bathrooms, which have tile, were pressure-washed and cleaned with bleach. In the meantime, dinner couldn’t be served, so Louis called upon outreach groups that serve meals to people outside. They fed people who were already gathered, waiting for dinner to start.

Share later posted notifications about the change in the restrooms and showers.

The restrooms used to be open between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. daily for anyone who needed to use them. And every day there were 10 slots for people to sign up to use the five showers at Share House, but sometimes up to 15 people would take showers depending on emergencies and people’s needs. That included pregnant women and people with incontinence issues and disabilities.

“It’s very difficult to tell somebody standing in front of you asking for a shower, who has soiled themselves, ‘no,’ ” Louis said.

‘More than it can handle’

Share House was built in 1998 after the previous one was destroyed by arson in 1996. The facility at 1115 W. 13th St. opened Jan. 2, 1999, and is the only shelter in Clark County housing single men.

The architect who helped design Share House, Randall Salisbury, warned McWithey before he died in 2013 that the building was not built to accommodate so many people. He said the wear and tear would result in major costs down the road.

Salisbury was right, and that time of major maintenance needs has arrived. Costs so far this year, about $20,000, are greater than all of last year, McWithey said.

“We’re breaking down the building,” she said. “We’re just using the building for more than it can handle.”

It might be hard to tell, but the walls were recently repainted. With all the people who come through, they’re already dirty and chipped. Push bars, hinges and locks on the doors are often replaced because so many people come through Share House’s doors every day.

Vancouver Housing Authority owns Share’s two family shelters — Orchards Inn and Valley Homestead in Hazel Dell — so the housing authority takes on the costs of repairs. This year, improvements to those two shelters, along with YWCA Clark County’s SafeChoice Domestic Violence shelter, are estimated to cost $543,200. The city and county are covering most of the cost through Community Development Block Grants.

Share House, however, is owned by Share. The responsibility of soliciting bids, scheduling contractors to fix repairs and ordering replacement parts falls on Louis. She’s a trained social worker, but maintenance is becoming a bigger part of her job.

‘Horrific problem’

Back in 1998, Share never imagined Clark County would have the homelessness issues it has now. Back then, the nonprofit only worked with the men who lived at the shelter.

“And now it’s changed. The landscape has changed,” Louis said. “You have to have relationships with everybody who’s outside.”

During a single-day census of the homeless population taken Jan. 26, caseworkers and volunteers counted 269 people living unsheltered. All those people need a place to use the bathroom.

In terms of toilets for those living around downtown Vancouver, there are two at Esther Short Park, and there are portable toilets at Share’s day center, which is open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 1600 W. 20th St.

“You have to organize your entire day around where you’re going to use the bathroom or shower or eat,” Louis said.

McWithey said the current alternative place to shower is the Marshall Center, off McLoughlin Boulevard.

“And that’s it. It’s a horrific problem in our community,” McWithey said.

When people can’t shower at one of Share’s shelters, “we’re commonly the next option,” said Andy Meade, the Marshall Center’s director.

Anybody, regardless of why they want to use the public facility, can pay a daily drop-in fee that allows access to the locker rooms, gymnasium and fitness center. (The pool is currently closed because it’s under construction.) The drop-in fee is $6 for adults, $3 for youth and $4 for seniors. People who pay the fee are given a receipt, so they could leave the facility and return later in the day. The Firstenburg Center at 700 N.E. 136th Ave. is slightly more expensive with a drop-in fee of $7 for adults, $4 for youth and $5 for seniors.

Of course, the day-pass fee isn’t doable for everyone living unsheltered. McWithey said Share has not started the process of buying day passes, but that’s not off the table.

The Salvation Army is including a single shower room in its new Washougal building, but that’s a ways from the concentration of homelessness in Vancouver. While construction is moving along, it’ll be about another month until the shower — and the rest of the facility — is up and running. Washougal’s Captain William Clark Regional Park used to have private showers, but those were problematic and shut down years ago.

McWithey said a solution to the lack of restrooms, showers and laundry facilities for the homeless would be a new day center. The city of Vancouver was not able to get a sewer easement at the current day center that would’ve allowed for construction of restrooms, showers and laundry facilities. Originally, the city envisioned building a new 3,000-square-foot center on a vacant strip of land across the street from Share House. But that’s not seen as the ideal location and the city has gotten backlash from people who live and work nearby.

Meanwhile, the city has not confirmed whether it will get $200,000 in funding from the state, and talks with Clark County about using deed recording fees to help cover operating costs have stalled.

So, Vancouver continues exploring possible day center locations.

Battle Ground City Councilor Cherish DesRochers has committed to drive into Portland, pick up 200 premade feminine hygiene product kits and deliver them to Battle Ground Public School’s Family and Community Resource Center (FCRC) in Brush Prairie, for as long as there is a need.

Awhile back DesRochers heard rumblings in the area about there being a high demand, but a low supply, of feminine hygiene products available to girls in the Battle Ground school district. Many times that void was filled by district staff, like nurses buying it themselves, said Martha Bellcoff, Family Resource Services Specialist at FCRC.

DesRochers founded and is president of Food with Friends, whose goal is combating homelessness in the community by helping connect the homeless with various resources fit to their needs. She thought providing feminine hygiene products could be a good opportunity for Food with Friends to help local youth and started doing more research and found an organization based in Portland called Period.

Period. was founded in 2014 and supplies feminine hygiene product kits to girls and women in need, primarily through campus chapters at high schools and universities.

“After learning what the possibilities were, I really started to think about all the girls in our school district who may have trouble accessing supplies monthly,” DesRochers said.

DesRochers contacted Period. about how Food with Friends could get the products into the district.

Because of the high demand, Period. put Food with Friends on a waiting list. That’s where the group stayed for the last few months before DesRochers got another idea.

After mentioning to Period. that Food with Friends could maybe do fundraising of their own, she discovered that about half the cost came from having the kits shipped. DesRochers had a simple solution: pick them up herself.

“That was a game changer,” she said.

Two weekends ago she drove into Portland and picked up the first box of 200 kits.

“I get chills thinking how my once a month trip to Portland will help 200 girls a month,” DesRochers said. “That feels incredible to me and shows me how one small thing can have a huge impact.”