The new Riverbend Resource Center and Emergency Shelter in Delta opened at the end of September. The City-run project began as a complement to the Abraham Connection, a nonprofit 32-bed shelter for the unhoused that operates during the winter months. But now the focus has changed.
Delta counts a group of some 30 to 60 people who are homeless, depending on the season. A public meeting about Delta's unhoused population in May drew a vocal and in some cases irate group of citizens. Many complained that Delta should be tougher in its treatment of the unhoused. Some were concerned that a city -run shelter, already in the making, would attract an even larger homeless population with negative impacts on the rest of the community. But city officials stressed that about half of Delta's homeless are local. In the intervening months, Delta has toughened its code and enforcement, and formed a task force on the unhoused.
The City has also refocused the purpose of the new facility, located at 540 West 4th Street, with an emphasis on connecting people to resources, including food, mental and physical health assistance, ID cards, drug and alcohol therapy, transportation, education, housing, and employment. The newly christened Riverbend Resource Center and Shelter held a resource fair last week to meet with area non -profits and agencies who provide these services. Billy Tedrow, a former city council member, is the new director of the center.
“The concept of just the emergency shelter or standalone has its needs in our community,” said Tedrow. “But starting to look at the big picture of what can we do, just a little bit more, to work alongside with all the good work that CPU (Crisis Prevention Unit) has been doing, they kind of work through the police department in the city. How can we piggyback off of that? How can we be more readily available day-to-day to get our community members, our unhoused community members, out of either the bad situation they're in currently, or prevent people that are really on that cusp from slipping into this situation.
So, the focus was kind of redirected a little bit on Monday through Friday, you know, 9-5, 8-5, that we're here, let's bring, like today, let's bring these service providers together, let's get them on a calendar on a regular basis, scheduled, that we can provide for our community members, be it food or housing assistance or some therapy or whatever it may be that can get them moving in a positive direction and out of this bad situation. So, that's kind of been our focus right now to establish identity of what we're doing over here, so to speak. And, you know, that's what led to today's, you know, fair, the resource fair.”
Teadrow acknowledges that the new center is an experiment.
“This is not a Delta issue,” he said. “This is a nationwide problem. It really is. And what has been happening across the state, across the nation, is not working. You can't just turn a blind eye to this. It's not going away. And it's not just veterans, and it's not just an immigration issue. Multiple arguments, but it is what it is. And defunding things is not gonna make it go away. Bussing them from Delta to Cortez isn't fixing it. You just you just shove that problem somewhere else and so, you know, like, what what can we really do to make this this work? And this is what we're gonna try, and I think we're all pretty confident that it's going to have better results than what previously has been happening — which is nothing.”
Funded through state grants, the center can accommodate up to 50 beds during summer months, as well as emergency shelter during power outages, weather, or other disasters. But right now, five days a week from 9 to 5, the shelter offers a chance for people who are unhoused or in danger of losing their homes to access services that can offer an alternative.
