PORT ANGELES – Clallam County Commissioners on Tuesday are expected to approve an emergency lease with the Port of Port Angeles for a homeless population quarantine site near Fairchild Airport.
A lease agreement has been drawn up to rent the Port’s 25,000 square foot facility on W. 18th Street, known as the 1010 Building, to be used for housing the homeless during the COVID 19 pandemic.
The cost of $16,000 per month would be paid with emergency funding from the State Department of Commerce, a little over $400,000 in total. Commerce officials have asked all counties to have facilities in place no later than the 14th of April.
County Commissioner Randy Johnson says he’s impressed at how quickly this project came together.
“I so much appreciate the Port sitting down to work with us in this emergency. I mean, the Department of Commerce says “Get busy”, we locate a space very quickly, work with the Port and have it all through the system by now, you know, one week later. I mean, it’s just not a normal thing and, again, it takes a lot of people all working together.”
Johnson says the facility will be operated by Olympic Community Action Programs (OlyCAP). We asked him to give us an idea of who would be admitted into program.
“An example would be, someone has a fever or cough, and they’re at Serenity House or they may be in Maloney Heights or one of the other entities. And of course, it’s not only that individual, but they may have been around some others, so all of them need to self-isolate. And, of course, it’s up to the individual. Some people don’t want to go into the system and I recognize that and there’s not anything that we’ll be able to do about that issue. But everyone’s going to be aware that we have this facility, which is at the Airport Industrial Park.”
Johnson says they’re working on setting up another separate facility in the Forks area.