OVERNIGHT SHELTER NEARS COMPLETION
Site on South Railroad Avenue will have up to 50 beds
After months of delay and escalating costs, an overnight homeless shelter on South Railroad Avenue in downtown Loveland is scheduled to open in early April. On Wednesday, city staff from the project team led three City Council members on a tour of the site, which has been under construction since last summer.
“What you see out here today represents the work of numerous, if not almost all the departments in the city,” Public Works Director Mark Jackson told the group. “From debris clearing, to solid waste, water and power, engineering, stormwater, street maintenance, IT, facilities. … So appreciate what they have done, it is not inconsequential. They have literally taken this from basically a dump to making this the site that you see.”
Plans to build the interim facility were spurred by the city’s unauthorized encampment ban, passed by City Council in May. According to the city attorney’s office, displacing people from public property without offering an alternative shelter could be considered a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, and subject the city to a lawsuit.
The new facility will add 50 beds to the city’s overnight shelter inventory. Currently, displaced campers are offered accommodations at the Loveland Resource Center, with overflow capacity at local motels.
As of Wednesday, there were seven 16-foot by 16-foot canvas tents at the site, containing five beds each, the most allowed per city’s building code.
The tents are connected to a heating and cooling system and have been wired with electricity, though there are few amenities inside.
“This is pretty austere for people,” deputy city manager Rod Wensing said. “But it’s clean and it’s safe, and that’s what we’re
trying to do, while maintaining codes.”
City crews will add three tents in the coming weeks.
Also on site is a modular building that will house an office for shelter staff, plus computer and security equipment. Staff will be able to monitor the premises through a network of surveillance cameras, including inside the tents.
The facility also has temporary toilet and shower facilities that are connected to running water, a feature that Alison Hade of the city’s Community Partnership Office called one of the site’s “most exciting.”
“One of the benefits of a shower, as you can imagine, is it helps people with dignity,” she said. “Part of our goal here is really to treat people with dignity and respect, and through that, build trusting relationships and work on getting people into housing.”
The facility was originally scheduled to open last fall, but supply chain issues delayed some key pieces of infrastructure equipment, including an electrical transformer. That forced the public works crew to get creative in bringing power to the site, city facilities director Michael Hogan explained to the group.
“The most expensive part of the project was the power,” he said. “As you all know, you can’t get a threephase transformer to save your life right now.”
He went on to explain that city engineers instead concocted a three-phase system using components sourced from unexpected suppliers.
“To create this, those boxes and some of the equipment in those boxes came from Dubai,” he said. “This pipe all came from southern Mexico. We had to search all over the world for the equipment to find the parts and pieces to make this happen as fast as we did. And then we did get slowed down by the fact that it snowed every Wednesday.”
According to the city’s most recent encampment ban update, costs for enforcement of the camping ban so far this year are totaled $573,625, including $409,952 for “temporary shelter capital.”
According to Hade, the site will be open seven days per week from 7 p.m. to 9 a.m., and will provide sleeping accommodations and restroom facilities only. Other services, such as counseling or job search assistance, will continue to be provided at the Loveland Resource Center, which will be open Sunday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Hade said the LRC will be closed on Saturdays until more staff can be hired.
City Council and other city staff are previewing the shelter this week. Loveland public engagement officer Nicole Yost said other city organizations will have the opportunity to visit the site before it opens in April. Last year, several neighbors expressed concern about opening a shelter so close to downtown, and subjected city staff to pointed questions during a townhall meeting at the Rialto Theater.
For more information about the Railroad Avenue shelter and the city’s other efforts to reduce unauthorized encampments, visit lovgov.org/community/addressing-homelessness.