West Seattle’s only overnight shelter set to close at the end of the year

Westside Neighbors Shelter will keep serving breakfast and dinner daily, but the overnight sleeping program has run out of money and will close at the end of the year.

Just after seven in the morning on a Wednesday, Tim James runs around a crammed kitchen off Fauntleroy in West Seattle.

"Every morning's different,” James said, looking through a tall fridge. “You get your steps in. About five miles in four hours here. [It’s] controlled chaos."

It's cold and dark outside, the rain is pelting down. People drag their bags inside and rub their hands together to warm up.

James and two other volunteers make breakfast for them at Westside Neighbors Shelter, a daily warming center that serves hot meals twice a day.

"Pancakes. That's a staple,” James said. “We get in trouble if we don't serve pancakes."

During the wintertime, the shelter also offers 36 cots for people to stay overnight, the only such accommodations in West Seattle.

This shelter isn't like some of the bigger ones in Seattle. It runs almost entirely on volunteers like James, cooking donated food.

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"There is a family kind of feel to this place," James said. "That's one thing that everyone kind of remarks about, is that they feel safe and they know everyone here."

The cramped kitchen is inside an old American Legion Post, commanded by 77-year-old Keith Hughes.

The shelter opened six years ago when Hughes met over a dozen people huddled outside the Post, trying to escape the rain.

"I went out and asked them to all please come in and warm up and dry off and have some coffee,” said Hughes, “and it just kept going from there.”

Hughes kept making breakfast and then opened the Post up as a warming spot during the day. Then he added dinner.

He didn't have any previous experience working with homeless people.

Hughes did this, he says, because he saw people who needed a warm building to stay in — and he had one to offer.

"When you see a need and you are capable of meeting that need, that's what you do. To me, there just wasn't an option,” Hughes said.

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That sense of duty comes, in part, from his 10 years in the military. When he left the Army, he said he got this message: “Your mission is not over. There are still people who need help."

After a year and a half of making coffee and oatmeal by himself, Hughes got a couple of volunteers and added a sleeping cots.

The shelter has now grown to 36 people sleeping there, and even more who show up daily for breakfast.

"We had 105 people here for breakfast last Saturday,” Hughes said. “We've had 80 every day since then."

That means a lot of pancakes — about 100 pounds of mix per day — plus cleaning supplies and two overnight security guards.

A small King County grant paid for some building maintenance. But the day and night shelter operations and staff rely entirely on private donations.

Part of this scrappy evolution means figuring out the rules as they go along, making it work for them, their neighbors, and the people who need the shelter.

People who come here can't do drugs inside the building, but they also don't have to be sober to get in. Outside, some people smoke fentanyl before they go in for breakfast.

That's bothered some neighbors who've complained to the city. The day care center across the street blocked their view of the shelter, and when kids go to the park, they’re sometimes escorted by a security guard.

Hughes says they're working on a good neighbor agreement with the city, a pact to limit noise and litter. Rules and codes of conduct are posted in the shelter and Hughes is known to give little talks at breakfast about how to use the shelter.

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Traci Everett, a case manager with Seattle nonprofit Anything Helps, comes in to help people find long-term housing, apply for jobs, and get their paperwork in order.

"Instead of fight or flight all the time, if you see somebody regularly, it just brings a little bit of calm," Everett said. “Then they can start focusing on, ‘OK, this is my next step.’”

A few of the regulars have become live-in volunteers, like David Birdwell. He sleeps in the tiny laundry room, cleaning all the rags and blankets.

"One of the big differences between us and other shelters,” Birdwell said, “is the fact that we have comforters and blankets that you would have at your mother's house, not at jail."

Some people here have moved on to some sort of housing — but not many. Keith Hughes said out of the nearly 100 people a day that come through, only nine so far this year have gotten into an apartment or tiny house.

His main concern now, though, is how he’ll keep the overnight shelter open.

"Saying your prayers every night and hoping to God that you get another donation that will get you through another couple of weeks,” he said. “Where are these 36 people going to go?”

The people sleeping here will only get one more week, though.

Hughes announced Sunday night that he has to close the overnight shelter at the end of the year, hopefully to reopen in a couple of months. He says they will stay open in the mornings for coffee and pancakes.