Bemidji's first shelter for homeless alcoholics delayed

Construction of Bemidji's first "wet" homeless shelter is a month behind schedule.

The Greater Bemidji Joint Planning Board in August awarded a permit to the Nameless Coalition for the Homeless to convert a former downtown church into a 16-bed shelter allowing chronic alcohol and drug users.

At the time Nameless Coalition Chair Reed Olson said the shelter would open on Nov. 1. That date has come and gone, and the shelter is still under construction. Olson said it's going to be another month.

"We hoped to get the doors open before the snow," Olson said. "Depending on the winter, we still might."

Walking around the former Headwaters Unitarian Universalist Fellowship building on Sixth Street in Bemidji, Olson explained the holdup.

The final purchase agreements took longer than expected, he said, and the building itself needed work to bring it up to code. The most recent delay isn't a big surprise to Olson. He said the whole project has been plagued by red tape and complications since the beginning.

When the Nameless Coalition formed in 2013, it planned to open a shelter that winter.

"We just wanted a warm place for homeless people to stay in the winter." he said. "That doesn't sound too complicated."

But it turned out to be very complicated. They had to find a structure to buy, which was harder than they thought, and they had to get a use permit from the city, which took months. Then there were state and federal regulations governing building codes of public use buildings.

The church's wiring had to be updated, legal egress windows installed and the whole place made wheelchair-accessible.

The Nameless Coalition decided to put in a wheelchair lift, but the machine they budgeted at $5,000 turned into a $20,000 installation.

"There aren't that many companies that build wheelchair lifts," Olson said.

Concrete and donated lumber are growing outside the old structure — a new addition for that wheelchair lift and larger bathrooms.

After two years, Olson said the project only needs one extra month.

There are things that could still go wrong. Neighboring law firm Fuller, Wallner, Cayko, Pederson and Huseby Ltd. brought a suit against the city and the Nameless Coalition claiming the Joint Planning Board illegally granted the shelter permit.

The coalition is nearly out of money. Olson said they'll have to raise new funds just to run the shelter once it opens. Even so, he's optimistic.

"We're too close now for it to go wrong," he said.