The Chehalis City Council is holding off on voting for a development agreement with Lewis County for the new night-by-night homeless shelter at 2015 NE Kresky Ave. until the county finalizes a contract for required frontage improvements along the street.
According to the terms of the proposed agreement outlined in the council’s agenda report, the agreement would have allowed temporary occupancy of the shelter within city limits and enabled the issuance of a temporary certificate of occupancy while required frontage improvements along Kresky Avenue are pending completion.
The report states that the county agrees to complete frontage improvements, such as sewage and sidewalks, with construction to be contracted by June and completed by year-end, which Councilor Kate McDougall noted as cause for her motion to table the matter until the contract is complete.
Six of the seven councilors voted Tuesday to table the agreement until the June 9 meeting, with Councilor Kevin Carns disapproving. The permanent shelter, formerly a Washington State Employees Credit Union (WSECU) bank building, has already passed final inspections, and renovations are complete. It will have the same 70-bed capacity that the current temporary night-by-night shelter at the Salvation Army’s location in Centralia has.
“Night by night” means those who use the shelter will have to depart each morning and won’t be allowed to keep belongings at the site when they are not there.
Carns voiced his disapproval of the council’s decision both during the council reports section of the meeting and in a Facebook post Monday as no council debate was allowed on the subject.
“I’m just disappointed we tabled that motion. We need to get that shelter open. If we expect no parking in residential neighborhoods, we need to have a viable alternative,” Carns said during the meeting.
In his Facebook post, Carns added that, while the contract has not yet been finalized, the county has put the project out to bid.
“The county has already put the project out to bid and is adamant that construction will meet the city’s timeline. Delaying over paperwork that’s already in motion is shortsighted when the need is urgent,” he wrote. “It is legally permissible to issue the temporary use permit. The city would be indemnified against liability by the county.”
The draft of the development agreement included in the agenda report states, “The building is ready for occupancy except for the fact that frontage improvements have not yet been installed, and the city would require such improvements’ installation for a certificate of occupancy.”
Eric Eisenberg, a former housing and infrastructure specialist for Lewis County who stayed on as a project consultant, confirmed in February that the county has talked to the city about the development agreement that “would allow us to occupy before the frontage was installed.”
The shelter will include separate men’s and women’s sleeping areas, two private “family rooms” for parents with children, a sitting area with tables and chairs, lockable storage for patrons’ belongings, offices for staff, a kitchenette, a laundry room, multiple bathrooms, a single shower and a fenced outdoor area.
Lewis County purchased the old WSECU building in 2022 and began working with the City of Chehalis to turn it into a year-round indoor emergency shelter, according to previous Chronicle reporting. The county went out for bids on a contract to manage the shelter in February 2023, awarding a joint contract to the Salvation Army and HopeSource that April.
At the time, the county planned to open an interim shelter at the former WSECU building as a permanent shelter down the street at 2025 NE Kresky Ave. was completed.
Those plans never materialized, as the county determined that the use of 2025 NE Kresky Ave. as a final shelter location was “prohibitively expensive” and decided to make the WSECU building the site of the permanent shelter instead.
For more reporting on the night-by-night shelter, visit previous Chronicle reporting at https://tinyurl.com/bddbnbez.
