(Spin Café, photo by M. Diamanti).

The SPIN Café (Serving People in Need) cares for the most exposed in our community. Their mission is: “To meet the basic needs of food, shelter and offer a sense of self-worth to the vulnerable people in our community.” SPIN occupies a large, open room at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Oak Harbor, and is open Monday-Friday from 6:30 am to 5:30 pm. I met with SPIN’s Executive Director, Michele Hines on March 23^rd, 2023.

Mike: I’m wondering how you ended up involved with SPIN and its mission.

Michele: I spent a lot of my adult life involved with a real estate company. I took time off to raise my kids, homeschooled them. I look for ways to get things done and how to make things work. I’ve done property management, I’ve done bookkeeping. My strong suit is organizational and financial skills. I also was the administrator and bookkeeper here at St. Stephen’s.

After Vivian Rogers-Decker left in 2019, SPIN’s board of directors asked me to become Treasurer. I came in purely to help SPIN get their finances in order so that they could move forward. At the same time, St. Stephen’s is big on outreach, and that’s where my religious background comes in; I love to help people, I love to give to people. These are natural things for me. I told the Rector here the other day, that SPIN is just like having Sunday coffee hour (held after Sunday service) all week long. It is simply about being kind to people.

All during COVID, while we had a sandwich program going on down at the beach with our partner churches, I was looking for a job, and I couldn’t find one that suited me. I was asked if I wanted to be Executive Director for SPIN. What really sparked my interest was to grow the business of SPIN by saying, OK, let’s start new and grow this business. I was asked around November of 2020. We re-opened here, in February of 2021. It was natural for me because I know this building really well.

What I’ve learned in the last two years is that we’ve moved into a label of sorts: homeless service provider. That’s where the state and federal money is. I don’t know that SPIN is an entity that the community can support a 100%, even with community grants. My budget is feeling a pinch right now because of the cost of living. There are lots and lots of HUD grants out there for housing. It’s hard enough to get an apartment building built, let alone get it funded by HUD.

Mike: SPIN was awarded a three year, $635,000 HUD grant in February. What is the atmosphere as you look for a place to rent or lease, with the new HUD grant?

Michele: Maybe two years ago, the WA legislature passed House Bill 1220 which mandated that cities provide for homeless services. That’s always at the front of my mind when I’m talking to Oak Harbor City people. I will push back if anyone says SPIN can’t be here.

Mike: You mentioned that it has been difficult finding another location. It seems that you have so much community support across the board, from individuals, organizations, non-profits, and business. Are there people advocating on your behalf to find a place?

Michele: Yes, there are. Perhaps the locations prohibit where we go. We’re looking at all options. We want to be good neighbors. We don’t want our homeless guests interfering with businesses. It’s getting narrowed down to stand alone buildings. I’m looking at the county health ordinances, and what the City of Oak Harbor needs, before we make an official move on a place. Everybody is moving cautiously. And you are absolutely right; we have a lot of community support.

Mike: Island County offers a lot of help.

Michele: Island County Human Services are huge supporters. We work with them, they manage the HMIS (Homeless Management Information System) data base, they do the Homeless Point in Time Count, they have social workers, we really work well with them.

As far as SPIN Café goes, we want to avoid the tent cities and the rampant drug use we see in King, Snohomish, and Whatcom Counties. We want to manage our homeless population and manage our issues to resolve them. We’re not going to resolve it a 100%, but if we work together to manage it, we can make it better because we’re all working together.

Mike: So much of your work and Island County’s efforts are about relationships. The general public often does not know about those ongoing relationships, and how effective they are.

Michele: If we have a problem with a guest that is a known drug user, we can call any  number of organizations. We can call the Recovery Navigator program, we can call the police department, we can call the sheriff’s department, to mitigate the situation and prevent them from causing trouble somewhere else. We collaborate with each other all the time. I can call David Thorson anytime; he worked here in 2022, but now he’s with the Recovery Navigator Program.

(https://www.islandcountywa.gov/Humanservices/Pages/Recovery-Navigator.aspx#:~:text=Recovery%20Navigator%20staff%20facilitate%20and,treatment%20and%20recovery%20support%20services.&text=Coordination%20and%20communication%20between%20law,medical%20providers%20and%20community%20partners.)

Mike: What you witness each day can affect you. How do you handle the stress?

Michele: I think about that every day when I get ready in the morning. How the privilege of preparing for your day, privately, in your space, is not available to most of our guests.

Mike: Your guests can do laundry at Dutch Maid Laundry and Dry Cleaning on Thursday mornings?

Michele: Yes, right.

Mike: And they can use the Oak Harbor pool?

Michele: If they are new to us, we send them to the pool with our Shelter Manager to make sure they will follow the rules and be a reliable user. Once we know they can be trusted, they can go to the pool twice a week, but most go once a week.  Island County pays for this service.

Mike: You mentioned that there were about eight individuals you consider low income, or “working poor”. They often have jobs but can’t afford housing. Some live in their cars. Has that number gone up or down?

Michele: Now it’s down to about two people. And that number does go up and down. Island County has a housing specialist present here at SPIN twice a week. Every year, in May or June, we apply to Island County for money, and part of the money I apply for is to fund the pool showers. The pool was a little reluctant to do it, but so far we haven’t had any problems. We buy punch cards and pay the full rate. We’re supporting our community and we are also taking care of our guests. When you talk about what makes people feel the best, being clean, being fed, and having clean clothes are very important. Sometimes when I talk about needs, I talk about the Hierarchy of Needs pyramid. We’re down here at the bottom, trying to boost up these basic needs.

Mike: It seems that affordable housing in Island County is shrinking at an alarming rate.

Michele: There is a very limited amount of low income housing.

According to author Matthew Desmond, “…the majority of poor renting families in America spend over half their income on housing…Fewer and fewer families can afford a roof over their head. This is among the most urgent and pressing issues facing America today…For decades, we’ve focused mainly on jobs, public assistance, parenting and mass incarceration….We have failed to fully appreciate how deeply housing is implicated in the creation of poverty.”  (Evicted  by Matthew Desmond, 2016.)

Mike: Tell me about your concerns for your guests surrounding the housing issues.

Michele: Any housing or health changes, a car emergency, can change everything. Let’s say you are going to lose where you live. One of our people who now has housing, there were three of them in an apartment, and one person said I can’t be here anymore, I can’t afford this; the other two couldn’t afford the apartment, so now they are spending time at SPIN. They both are working, they both get food stamps, but they are just holding on by a shoestring.

Mike: How does Island County classify the SPIN Café?

Michele: In my zoning quest I’m looking at how we define SPIN. Are we a restaurant? Are we a community center? What exactly are we? Just last Saturday I was looking at the zoning map. What is C3? What is C4? Understanding zoning is difficult.

Mike: What is your staffing like, and do you have help?

Michele: I do have help. The board of directors helps me. Last year I promoted Fe to Shelter Manager, so that I don’t have to be here all the time. She handles a lot of the day to day. I feel a bit disconnected because I like working with our guests, but I know that for the health of the SPIN Café, I need to focus more on the grant writing and the administrative work. We hire Robin Hertlein to write some small, community grants for us. I wrote the larger grants.

Mike: Was it daunting?

Michele: Very. I spent hours and hours on it. Once I submitted it to Washington State, there were two people there who helped revise it and asked questions. HUD’s got all this liberal language that you’re forced to use and make part of your policy if you want their money. That’s the way it is with any grant. These are the requirements; if you want it, this is what you have to do.

Mike: So you had to understand how to apply for the grant, even before working on it.

Michele: I really studied all of it because we fit some grants and we don’t fit others. It is a really good exercise for me as an Executive Director to jump through those hoops because they want specific numbers. We keep good metrics; we know how many guests we have each day, we know how many lunches we serve, how many showers, how many dinners, and so forth. Since October we started keeping track of individuals in the main room, we keep internal notes. We’ve served over a 140 different people in the last six months. And then break it down as to what we did for each of these individuals, be it treatment, housing, and referrals with Island County. This is what we do with our resources. Our resources are not just to feed and have a day center for people. Our resources are to help homeless people move forward with their lives and move in a direction that is out of homelessness.

Solutions to the housing issues will vary by location. What might work in a densely populated city may not be a solution in a semi-rural area like Island County. In his Epilogue, Matthew Desmond says: “What we need most is a housing program for the unlucky majority…A universal housing voucher program would carve a middle path between the landlord’s desire to make a living and the tenant’s desire, simply, to live…If poverty persists in America, it is not for lack of resources.”

Numbers to consider: SPIN served 6,245 lunches in 2020, 7,753 in 2021, and 7,901 in 2022. Number of guests visiting SPIN in 2021: 4,614 and in 2022: 7,289.

Guest Focused

Mike: People often say, well, just pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

Michele: Several of our guests are battling alcoholism. Many people have let their addiction go so far, they’ve lost everything. We support their sobriety, and several of them are willing to talk about it. One of the things that SPIN can do in a small community, is we can care for our folks. Only a small community like Whidbey Island can do this.

Mike: Marc Stroud, SPIN’s Board President, said that SPIN also helps people feel a sense of self-worth and belonging. Do you help with other needs people have, besides the basics we’ve talked about?

Michele: We call everybody by name. COVID was disastrous for homeless people and providers. You take an already isolated population that is stigmatized, and then isolate them more. During much of COVID, there were no water fountains, there were no public restrooms, no showers, no community services unless a county worker met you in the street. Your governor told you to go home. Homeless people had no home. You were unwelcome everywhere. Mentally ill people really felt it the most. The extended isolation helped drive people into the woods and encampments.

We want the general public to know that our meal service on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday is for anyone who needs a meal, not just our homeless population.  This is a home cooked meal served from 4 pm to 5 pm on those days. And we can also provide help and resources for those who need to sign up or change health insurance and other documents. We serve as a resource center.

Mike: Who are some of the groups that you’ve given presentations to?

Michele: Rotary clubs, Lions clubs, several churches. I love to give presentations. During the course of my day recently, a woman I know said: “We really don’t want SPIN here, downtown, but I’m really glad that you are running SPIN because you are providing a really good service.” It has taken two years for someone to go from saying we don’t want these people, to saying I’m really glad you’re working and helping them. It would be great if more people really understood how we are all working together, battling the drug problem, helping people get out of being homeless, and providing these services.

The Point in Time CountThe annual tally of people living homeless in America is conducted during the last 10 days of January. Most agree that it is a significant undercount, but gives a snapshot of how many are living rough. During the past decade the numbers have ranged from 550,000 to 650,000.

Point in Time Count data: Volunteers went out on February 24^th, 2022 in Island County and counted people who said they were living homeless. The North Whidbey count was 38. Covid interrupted the count in 2021 but between 2016 and 2020, the number fluctuated between a high of 69 in 2017 and a low of 41 in 2018.

Mike: Island County’s population is increasing. Does that raise some concerns for you about the growing number of people who need help?

Michele: Yes. When I wrote the HUD grant, I estimated that services would be needed, at some point in the future, for a 100 people per day. The cost of living is skyrocketing, wages are not increasing; that is a vicious circle. People are losing their housing, they are not being able to feed themselves, and drugs are so prevalent. Society is increasingly more complex. When you are 18 years old, there is no place you can go where you can get a job right out of high school, and a place to live, and a car, all by yourself. I think that people are just giving up on life. And I think that as a community, if we can band together to support the people that are less fortunate, we can make it meaningful.

Mike: It seems that many people have an inclination to help others, in some way.

Michele: At SPIN you can help in a multitude of ways. You can give leftover clothing, you can give money, you can give your time, you can serve coffee, and you can come to SPIN and just hang out. Volunteers are an important piece of our support. SPIN Café website: https://www.spincafeoh.org/

My thanks to Michele Hines for meeting with me to discuss SPIN Café, its mission, its community connections and the outreach that the staff, volunteers and supporters are providing to Island County residents. (Michele Hines – photo M. Diamanti).