COVID-19 RESPONSE

Interfaith Works Response

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Interfaith Works is taking many steps to keep our shelter guests, staff, and entire community safe. Please read more about all the ways we are responding and how you can help.

COVID-19 PANDEMIC RESPONSE

How You Can Help

Facts

We are gearing up to open overflow shelter space in the next week or so, and we want to make sure our community has information about what that will look like.

• In order to accommodate ideal social distancing requirements of placing six feet between beds in congregant shelter settings, Interfaith Works Nightly Shelter will lose nearly half our beds and those beds need to go somewhere else.
• Currently, 82% of the Interfaith Works guests are over the age of 50 placing them in a high-risk category, particularly due to the high rate of chronic illness like diabetes, cancer, COPD, and Congestive Heart Failure.
  

Partnering

We are partnering with the City of Olympia to open the existing building at 2828 Martin Way to help our community accommodate our shelter guests who would otherwise be displaced due to social distancing requirements, as well as prioritizing other people who are at higher risk of negative outcomes from the contraction of COVID-19. We believe the building can hold up to 30 people and will aim to have that full over the course of the next two weeks.

24/7

• The shelter will operate 24/7, be staffed at all times with trained staff under the supervision of a management team with over 13 years of experience collectively.
• Beds will be assigned and the same people will access them each night. There will be no nightly lottery process at this location.
• We will provide meals on-site so that we can encourage shelter-in-place guidelines.
• We will work with community partners to ensure that vital services like medication delivery, therapy, and other essential needs can be coordinated or provided on-site when that is an option.
  

Safety

Safety and behavior expectations for all of our homeless services programs will be required at this location as well.

Our Safety Steps

Behavior Expectations

Temporary Need

This is a temporary need that will last as long as social distancing and shelter-in-place requirements remain in place. We are monitoring the changing landscape every day, and when social distancing requirements begin to soften, we will transition back to normal operations at our downtown location.

Future Plans

This interim use of the existing building does not change the plans of developing a new 60-bed shelter and 65 apartments of supported housing. Construction for this new facility is set to begin in the fall and be completed in late 2021.

Questions?

Contact Us

Olympia Converts Martin Way Building Into Emergency Homeless Shelter