Parker’s Place Village began taking in residents on June 22 with its final fencing still unfinished. Now, after more than 12,000 nights spent in its beds, the Grants Pass shelter is approaching an October 15 change in service arrangements while its founder challenges claims about what the village is required to provide.
Parker’s Place Village founder Bernie Woodard said the shelter has given people a place to stay instead of camping on city streets and in parks. He said the camps present before the village opened are no longer there. Its 12,000-plus nights of occupancy count overnight stays, not individual residents.
Woodard recalled the facility’s opening through photographs taken June 22, when the first group signed in for beds and the final fencing had yet to be installed. He also referenced an interview with Emily Storm from that day and a photograph taken a few nights ago showing security at the property. The shelter has continued to develop since those first admissions, even as disagreement over its operations has followed it into the fall.
The immediate issue is what happens when the current arrangement with MINT changes October 15. Services have been available across the properties at 210, 218 and 220 Redwood Highway. After that date, MINT will continue offering services at 218 and 220, while Elk Island Trading Group separately coordinates additional local and telehealth providers for residents staying at 210, Woodard said. He did not name the additional providers or specify when they will be available.
The change has sharpened a dispute over the city grant agreement governing the project. Woodard says the signed agreement requires Elk Island Trading Group to ensure listed services are available at the shelter, on adjacent partner property or are “easily accessible with assistance from GRANTEE or its partner(s).” It does not, he says, require Elk Island Trading Group, Parker’s Place Village or MINT to personally deliver every service.
Woodard pointed to the village’s intake process as the way residents are connected to that assistance. Each person entering the shelter signs an intake agreement, receives information about available services and is instructed to check in with MINT next door within four hours. If the guest arrives outside MINT’s business hours, the four-hour period begins when MINT next opens.
That instruction places the referral at the beginning of a resident’s stay. With approximately 75 rooms and 150 beds at the village, Woodard said staff should not have to search through the facility later to make the initial connection. Residents receive the information when they enter, while decisions about whether to participate in treatment, counseling, employment programs or housing assistance remain their own.
Meals and Wi-Fi have become part of the same argument over the agreement. Woodard disputes claims that the city contract requires the village to provide either one. He also says Elk Island Trading Group and Parker’s Place Village have received no funding to furnish meals, Wi-Fi, case management, mental health treatment, substance use treatment, employment services or the other support services being discussed in connection with the shelter.
Other organizations may have received funding for some of those services, but the money did not go to the village or its operator, Woodard said. He argues that attributing those funds to Parker’s Place Village has given residents a false impression of what the shelter was paid to provide.
The disagreement has unfolded alongside criticism of the project itself. Woodard described some of that opposition as coming from people who would rather control the shelter, people who do not want to enter a managed facility with rules and a curfew, and former guests removed for violating those rules. He called some of the commentary “community naysayer poison,” saying critics have contributed nothing comparable to the nights of shelter the village has provided. Those descriptions are Woodard’s assessment of his critics.
Woodard does not rule out providing more services directly in the future. Sufficient operating funding could allow the village to take on many of them, he said, but he maintains that its present responsibility under the grant agreement is to make required services available or accessible and help residents reach them.
The October 15 transition will put that arrangement into daily practice under changed circumstances. MINT will continue its work next door, while Elk Island Trading Group arranges additional providers for residents at 210 Redwood Highway. The village, Woodard said, will continue providing beds, maintaining an orderly facility and connecting its residents with the resources available to them.