Out of the cold: Hillsboro severe weather shelter increases capacity to serve area homeless

The Shelter at Orenco Station in Hillsboro's Sonrise Church is the only severe weather shelter in Washington County open every night of the week.

The line to enter Hillsboro's Sonrise Church began forming around 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Anxious, shivering and hungry, nearly two dozen people made up the first wave hoping to get in.

They knew a storm was coming — one that would ultimately shut down the Portland area with snow and ice. They also knew Sonrise was the best place to find a warm meal and shelter, and that only 50 people would get in.

For the homeless in Washington County, a night outside can be fatal when the temperature drops below freezing.

It happened in 2008, Anne Vandecoevering remembers.

A man died outside in the cold that year because he either didn't seek shelter or didn't know any was available.

"That just isn't OK," she said. "People should not die of hypothermia."

Vandecoevering is director of Sonrise's Shelter at Orenco Station, a nightly conversion of Sonrise Church, 6701 N.E. Campus Way. For 90 days beginning Dec. 1, the shelter's goal is to give those with nowhere else to go a place to rest and recover.

"We were deeply moved by his death and said we have to do something," Sonrise Pastor James Gleason recalled. "We have a facility that's big enough, and Sonrise exists for the community, so we're open to doing whatever serves the community best … It'd be a crime for us to only use this building on Sundays."

Open seven days per week from December through February, the Shelter at Orenco Station is the only one of its kind in Washington County.

Get involved What: Shelter at Orenco Station, severe weather shelter Where: Sonrise Church, 6701 N.E. Campus Way, Hillsboro When: Nightly from December through Feb. 28 More Info: www.sos-shelter.org The severe weather shelter at Orenco Station's Sonrise Church will be open all day Christmas, Dec. 25, and will offer a community meal from noon to 1:30 p.m. Shelter volunteers will help the children of adult guests make Christmas cards and placemats.

All for one, one for all

Washington County is home to seven other severe weather shelters, offering a warm place to sleep for the county's rising homeless population, but only the Hillsboro Sonrise facility is open every night of the week. The rest are open two or three days a week.

Washington County's two permanent homeless shelters aren't made for drop-in visitors on cold or snowy nights.

The Community Action and Family Promise shelters in Hillsboro and the Good Neighbor Center in Tigard operate year-round, but are open only to families.

"It's a wonderful tool we can use to offer our transient population a warm place to sleep for the night, and the Sonrise folks are just wonderful people," said Hillsboro Police Sgt. Eric Bunday, who has dropped off people in need at the facility. "For an officer, it's frustrating to find someone freezing to death at 1 a.m. and not have a warm place to put them. It breaks your heart to see someone in need and not have a place to go. (The shelter) is a tremendous asset to our community."

Sonrise Hillsboro serves twice as many people every night as other severe weather shelters, relying heavily on volunteers to provide everything from hot meals to bedding.

"There are always opportunities to volunteer." Vandecoevering said. "Always,"

To function as it does and remain open seven days per week, the shelter draws support from a network of 36 churches across Washington County.

"Some give financially, that's one way. Another way is coat drives, sock drives, underwear — things that we need, they'll collect for us," Vandecoevering explained. "And then the other way is sending volunteers and communicating that we're an avenue in which to serve."

It costs Sonrise and its network of support around $45,000 to keep the shelter running each winter, Vandecoevering said.

Money donations go directly to the shelter to cover meals, overnight security, food and monthly TriMet passes the shelter provides for its guests. Additionally, the shelter takes in other items, such as watches or socks, which it also distributes as needed.

"If you need a coat, we're gonna try and get you that coat," Vandecoevering said. "If you need something for work, we're gonna try to get you that."

More volunteers needed at shelter

Multiple churches representing various faiths make the operation possible, Vandecoevering said.

"It's fun because it's not just one perspective coming in," she said. "It's fun to have different faiths here."

Sonrise started as a Baptist church, she said, but is now more nondenominational. Prospective guests to the shelter need not worry about faith as a barrier to entry, she said.

"My favorite comment we get is that we're the 'Hilton' of homeless shelters," Vandecoevering said. " … We have found that people are really successful during the 90 days that we're open."

Of the 302 people the shelter served in 2015, 15 percent found employment by the end of the year. More than 11 percent found housing and got off the streets altogether, Vandecoevering said.

Vandecoevering expects that number to grow this year, after the shelter increased the number of people it accommodates each night from 45 to 50.

"We found we were turning away too many guests, so on snowy nights we were just heartbroken," she said.

To help more guests, the shelter needs more volunteers, Vandecoevering said.

"That is the number one need," Vandecoevering said. "In order to maintain safety and comfort for everybody involved, and to make this a loving environment where it's more of a community where we all come together as equals, you need people — people who can love on other people. When you're down in the dumps and life's going hard, you just need to know somebody's there that cares."

Many of the volunteers are former guests, she added, like Flint Johnson, who two years ago chose homelessness over succumbing to his addictions.

"Sonrise Church turned my life around," Johnson said, noting the room he'd previously rented was in a home full of addicts who were disrupting his efforts to stay sober. "They were messing with my sobriety, so I started volunteering to get out of that situation."

Wednesday night, Johnson helped newcomers to the shelter feel welcome.

"They're just people," Vandecoevering said of shelter guests. "And if you listen to their stories, a lot of them could surprise you. Come volunteer once — we'll hook you."





By Travis Loose

Reporter, Hillsboro Tribune

503-357-3181

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Visit us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow Travis Loose at @LooseIsLoose

