The city’s permanent homeless resource center in Old Town could have a lot more than the 50 housing units estimated last month, it has emerged this morning.
RUNNING NEW SHELTER:TPI boss Doreen Binder (right) explains the plan for the new center with Heather Lyons of the Bureau of Housing and Community Development (BHCD) (left) this morning…

“The city is now looking at up to 200 units,” said Doreen Binder, boss of Transition Projects, Inc.—which is going to run the building, when it opens in, fingers-crossed, 2009, at a meeting of the mayor’s Street Access For Everyone (SAFE) this morning. You can read more about the project in this November feature on it.

TPI is also going to put a committee together for people from the streets who want to be involved in the future of the project. They’re looking at adding a micro-enterprise of some kind (perhaps a bakery? a cafe?), and “I’d like to have some sort of gym in it,” says Binder. Still, it’s early days. They’ve just hired Holst Architects, who built the EcoTrust building in the Pearl, and several other pretty impressive projects, to get it done.

“I think we’re going to bring something very exciting to the community,” said Heather Lyons of BHCD. She says they’re looking at placing the center in the context of the city’s 10-year plan—which, bluntly, means she’s open to the idea of another temporary day access center inside, despite the danger of being accused of “warehousing” the homeless in it. The 10-year plan aims at moving people into housing, not just getting them warm and off the streets, but there’s also a documented need for an extra center on top of the current one, in the Julia West House at SW 13th and Alder.

“I’m not as bull-headed as people think I am,” said Lyons—conceding she’s softened her own view of temporary day access space since she wrote the 10-year plan in 2004. “Although at first, I thought it was a stupid idea,” she conceded.

The SAFE committee this morning has been talking about another center for day access service, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to be able to fund it. TPI also opened a homeless shelter for 30 women at the Ramada Inn in the Rose Quarter, starting November 20.