Interfaith Works plans modular ‘Sprung’ shelter for Martin Way
Interfaith Works has acquired a parcel of land at 3444 Martin Way and is planning to construct a modular dome-like shelter there in early 2021, the nonprofit announced last week.
The project is budgeted at $1.7 million and the dome will be used as a day center once Interfaith Works completes construction on its nearby 2828 Martin Way facility.
“We are always looking for innovative options to address this issue from a both-and perspective,” said Interfaith Works executive director Meg Martin. “We need to meet the immediate emergency needs and we need to plan for permanent housing.”
The 2828 Martin Way project — an $18 million permanent supportive housing development that will eventually house 125 chronically homeless people — will break ground in December. Currently that site, a former podiatrists office, is being used as an overflow shelter for 23 people who will relocate to the modular shelter when it opens. Until then, First United Methodist Church of Olympia has opened its doors to them.
Martin said Interfaith Works settled on the site at 3444 Martin Way after looking at numerous other sites and buildings to buy, all of which would have required complicated renovations.
They chose this site mostly due to its location on the city’s outskirts. It is close enough to be well-served by transit and accessible to the homeless population, but also a bit removed from downtown commercial areas.
“When we are looking at siting shelters particularly, it’s a really challenging thing to do,” Martin said. “There are limited places that that can happen that works for the most amount of people’s needs — residents, businesses, the folks who access our services, city and planning departments. There are a lot of perspectives and stakeholders we need to take into account.”
The site itself is raised up off the street and has sufficient space to create designated outdoor areas, affording some additional privacy and a buffer from neighboring businesses. Martin said she learned a lot about the challenges of siting a shelter from the now-shuttered Providence Community Care Center, a former homeless services hub that ceased functioning as a day center when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
“That was always a challenge with the Community Care Center, it was just right on the street, so folks were sometimes not using the crosswalk, and that was really a challenge for the busy downtown area at that time,” Martin said. “So we took all those things into consideration.”
The half-acre Martin Way site currently hosts a shuttered foam and fabric outlet. Interfaith Works plans to demolish the existing building, a World War II-era Quonset hut (which looks like a steel log sliced in half) to make way for the new structure: a 5,250-square-foot, dome-like fabric “membrane” made by a company called Sprung Structures.
What is a modular shelter?
The modular structure will be made of “tensioned” fabric stretched over a rigid metal frame.
“People get them mixed up with tents — we’re not a tent, we’re an engineered structure that handles the wind and snow loads,” said Jim Avery, vice president of Sprung, which is based in Utah and Calgary, Alberta but has offices around the world.
Tensioned fabric structures have historically been used as sports stadiums, aircraft hangars, warehouses, and in disaster relief efforts, according to Sprung’s website. More recently, cities such as San Diego, Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco, and Fresno have used them to rapidly create shelter beds for a growing homeless population.
Los Angeles and San Francisco have used Sprung structures as “navigation centers,” a type of program model that includes intensive case management and wraparound services aimed at quickly diverting people from the streets into permanent housing in a matter of months.
The shelter at 3444 Martin Way will not be a “navigation center.” But like Interfaith Works’ current shelter and abiding mission, it will share many characteristics with those programs: It will stay open 24/7, and allow guests to bring in pets and stay with partners.
“We don’t have the resources in our community to do a full-scale navigation center model like in San Francisco or Seattle, so this is trying to take as many elements of that model that we can and right-size it for Olympia,” Martin said. “Which is what we’ve always kind of done.”
The modular shelter will eventually house 38 people, before it is turned into a day center.
“There has been an overwhelming need for a day center ever since the Community Care Center closed, and we don’t foresee that need changing,” Martin said.
The Sprung shelter also can be planned, permitted, and built much more rapidly than a traditional building. Interfaith Works estimates it will take about 3-4 months before the Sprung structure will be in place.
Martin emphasized that the structure’s open floor plan and ability to be taken apart and re-assembled means it can also evolve to meet the community’s emerging needs.
“I think that’s one of the big assets of this idea, is that it’s an Interfaith Works asset, but it’s also a homeless response plan asset, and there’s flexibility with it to be what it needs to be.”
Long term, there is also room on the site to build additional permanent housing units, Martin said.
Funding and costs
Interfaith Works purchased the property last week from Coleman Barry for $575,000, according to Thurston County Assessor’s Office data.
The project is being funded by a combination of state, county, and city funding. Interfaith Works received a $380,000 shelter grant from the state Department of Commerce earlier this year. Then in October, Thurston County allocated $600,000, overwhelmingly from federal CARES Act dollars, at the direction of the Regional Housing Council.
The United Way of Thurston County provided $312,500, the city of Olympia contributed $250,000, and a private donor contributed $300,000.
Martin said the donor wants the site to become permanent housing within the next five years.
This story was originally published November 14, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
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