BREMERTON – After running a 24/7 shelter for a majority of the past six years, the Salvation Army announced in a statement Monday it no longer had funding to sustain all-day operations at its 94-bed shelter on Sixth Street. Starting Tuesday Feb. 17, the facility will only be open to guests overnight only, between 7 p.m. and 9 a.m.
The decision, precipitated by a loss in funding from Kitsap County, will drastically reduce capacity at Bremerton’s largest, low-barrier homeless shelter. Many of the nearly 100 residents served each night will almost certainly be pushed onto the street during daytime hours, exposed to wet and frigid winter weather, without many immediate alternatives.
The Salvation Army has offered a lifeline to the city since 2020, when in the midst of the pandemic it converted its Sixth Street building into a year-round homeless shelter. That was supposed to be a temporary arrangement, as the city sought out a more permanent solution for sheltering its growing number of unhoused residents. But outside of a brief pause in 2023 – during which large encampments developed on several downtown streets – the shelter has run uninterrupted. Last year, it provided over 26,000 nights of shelter for individuals…