The Ballard Homes for All Coalition is reaching out to dozens of churches to help “homeless car campers” around the neighborhood.
Back in 2008, the coalition proposed a one-year pilot project for one congregation to host a handful of people, providing them with a place to park and access to hygiene facilities. During the 2008 Sustainable Ballard Festival unveiled the hygiene station above. “That project never got off the ground unfortunately for a variety of reasons though we did a lot of work around developing guidelines for operation of the site, a screening checklist, resident/host agreements, acquiring funding, and, of course, constructing the mobile shower,” Jean Darsie the chair of the coalition tells us.
Now the coalition is proposing that multiple churches help the car campers. “We are taking a new direction this time and reaching out to multiple congregations in Ballard, asking them to take in one, maybe, two vehicles onto their land and offering a level of support to them based on the congregation’s ability or willingness to provide,” Darsie says.
The Ballard Homes for All Coalition is holding a community meeting on Thursday evening at 7 p.m. at the Crown Hill United Methodist Church (8500 14th Ave NW) to discuss this idea. Speakers at the meeting will be Jean Darsie, John Skans from Crown Hill Methodist Church and Sally Kinney from the Interfaith Task Force on Homelessness. For more information you can contact Darsie at nwcitizen@comcast.net.