On Monday morning as guests made their way out the door of the local night-by-night homeless shelter in Centralia, Salvation Army staff prepared to do it all over again in 12 hours, but in a completely different building across town.
After the last person exited the building, staff and volunteers broke down bunk beds, tables and chairs, threw them into a truck and rushed to set them back up in the new shelter on Northeast Kresky Avenue in Chehalis.
The new Lewis County night-by-night homeless shelter hosted its first round of guests at 7 p.m. Monday after a hurried move into the new facility. With the shocking speed of the relocation, the nonprofit avoided a lapse in care, continuing to open the shelter seven days a week despite the move.
According to Lewis County Salvation Army Captain Gin Pack, the move was made possible with the help of an army of volunteers as Gesa Credit Union selected the shelter as part of a company-sponsored volunteer day and staff from Set Free Ministries also provided helping hands.
“We’ve just had an amazing amount of volunteers,” Pack said. “So the shelter closed this morning and immediately we had people on both ends. So, old shelter, new shelter location. They loaded everything up. They got it all set up cleaned and just all prepped and ready for today.”
After spending the morning on the move, leadership and staff members of the Salvation Army hosted a grand opening for the new Lewis County night-by-night shelter with a ribbon-cutting and open house.
The event welcomed a number of local officials, including all three Lewis County commissioners — Lindsey Pollock, Scott Brummer and Sean Swope — Centralia City Mayor Kelly Smith-Johnston, Chehalis City Manager Stacy Denham and many more.
Before cutting the ceremonial ribbon, Pack first announced that the Salvation Army is celebrating 135 years of service in Lewis County beginning in 1890.
“We’re calling it 135 years of hope,” Pack said. “It’s 135 years of possibility. It's 135 years of dedicated service to God so that no woman or man or veteran or child in Lewis County remains without food or housing or clothing.”
Pack also thanked those attending for their support and work to open the new shelter. She paid special respect during the speech to the Lewis County Board of Commissioners and Lewis County staff.
“We want to thank the Lewis County Board of County Commissioners and their dedication and their dedicated staff,” Pack said. “They tirelessly helped advocate, reviewed, checked, did contracts, drafted leases, and brought re-edits of everything. They helped entertain a better plan than we could have even imagined and saw a better tomorrow for their constituents and the people that they represent, and especially their neighbors.”
Lewis County owns the shelter and leases the space to the Salvation Army. It contracts with the Salvation Army to operate the facility. The county funded the purchase of the former Washington State Employees Credit Union Building and the changes made to it using state grant funds secured by state Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, who pitched the new site after a similar shelter project elsewhere in the state fell through.
After Pack’s opening words, attendees were invited into the new shelter by Salvation Army staff and leadership to explore the building and see how it will be operated. The majority of the new building is one large room filled with bunk beds and bedside tables for storing personal items. According to previous reporting, the shelter has a 70-bed capacity. It’s called a “night-by-night” shelter because occupants must leave each morning after their stay — taking their possessions — before returning later in the evening.
The new shelter has a list of amenities that the previous one did not, including rooms dedicated to hosting families and a communal area for eating. As many officials milled around the shelter exploring the facility and asking questions, Pack listed many of the other ways the new building would improve the quality of service in the county despite technically having the same bed capacity as the previous shelter.
“Previously, we couldn't even have everyone eat dinner at the same time because we didn't have enough space,” Pack said. “But now we do … Also, we have heat. We have central AC. That's a huge upgrade. We have three times as many restrooms. These are all great positive things.”
As the event carried on, many officials congratulated Pack and the Salvation Army staff and thanked them for their resilience. Others made statements on the shelter’s opening after an arduous journey that started in 2022 and faced many road blocks along the way.
“I’m glad that we accomplished it with cooperation between the City of Chehalis and the county,” Brummer said. “Even though it took a while, we worked out all of our issues and came to the conclusion, which is this great facility, and I think this is important for the community, and I’m excited to see it finally open and ready to serve our homeless folks, and I think its a real win, a real benefit.”
Obstacles ranged from changes in the plan for a new shelter due to financial constraints to disagreements between local governments, namely Lewis County and the City of Chehalis, which is the new home of the shelter. Previous reporting on the shelter’s development is available at https://tinyurl.com/5djfvzn3.
Smith-Johnston also commented on her relief at having a shelter open that was built specifically for the purpose. The former shelter in the city of Centralia was not originally built to house people but instead as a food storage facility.
“Its a great day for our community,” Smith-Johnston said. “We have a shelter designed for people that is properly designed, open and welcoming and provides services and will also help us as part of our housing spectrum.”
