City and Borough of Juneau’s emergency warming center is moving to the Mendenhall Valley.
The Assembly voted unanimously to award a bid to operate the warming center to St. Vincent de Paul Society, which intends to operate the shelter at its Teal Street building, said City Manager Rorie Watt.
The center, which allows people without shelter to stay warm on nights when it is 32 degrees or colder, was formerly located downtown in the now-demolished public safety building.
[Public Safety Building has a demolition date]
St. Vincent de Paul was the lone bidder on the project, and the successful bid was for $125,000.
The new location of the center and the 11 p.m.-6:30 a.m. hours of operations included in the bid drew concern from Assembly members.
“I’d liked to know, is there that many homeless in the Valley?” asked Assembly member Loren Jones. “I know there might be.”
He also asked if the project was advertised in light of only one bid being submitted. Watt said it was advertised online and in print.
Assembly member Michelle Bonnet Hale said it’s important to figure out how people will be transported from downtown to the Mendenhall Valley.
“It’d just be interesting to find out what that solution looked like,” Hale said.
Watt agreed it was something that would need to be worked on, and he noted the emergency warming shelter would be near the sleep-off center that is now operated by Capital City Fire/Rescue under the name Community Assistance Response and Emergency Services (CARES).
[Major changes coming to the city’s sleep-off center]
“It seems like a formula to either reduce the use or reduce the effectiveness of the help to the citizens,” said Assembly member Wade Bryson. “We’re going to create a couple of problems because we don’t have answers to transportation.”
Watt said a staff report detailing a possible solution would be possible at the next Assembly meeting.
The former Public Safety Building on Whittier Street used to house the City and Borough of Juneau’s warming center. Now, the facility is on the move to the Mendenhall Valley where it will be operated by St. Vincent de Paul Society. (Michael Penn | Juneau Empire File)
From the audience, St. Vincent de Paul Society General Manager Brad Perkins indicated there is a plan in the works for transporting people who need the shelter.
He did not speak to the plan at the meeting, but outside the Assembly Chambers he elaborated that “we’ll run a shuttle at least until 2 in the morning.”
Perkins said the shuttle would start as soon as buses stop running around 11:30 p.m., and include stops in Lemon Creek, the Mendenhall Valley, the warming center and downtown.
Perkins said people will not be forced to leave the shelter before buses start to run around 7 a.m. He said based on experience St. Vincent de Paul had while helping run the warming shelter last year, he did not expect people will want to leave the shelter early.
If people do want to leave before buses start running, Perkins said, “We’ll take them back wherever they want to go.”
