Visitors walk along Cascade Avenue in downtown Sisters in July 2022.

Sisters, a town of more than 3,000 people, is full of artists, ranchers, farmers, small-business owners, students, teachers and people who are homeless.

As long ago as 2016, when the town’s population had just passed 2,500, a group of residents decided to tread into the nearby Deschutes National Forest to aid homeless families living off the grid. The group began officially operating a temporary shelter, now known as the Sisters Cold Weather Shelter, during the coldest weeks of the winter of 2018 in various locations around Sisters. But recently, the group proposed purchasing a permanent location for the shelter’s intermittent operations.

Tuesday night, the group’s fate was in the hands of the Sisters City Council, which heard hours of emotional public testimony about the proposed facility. Of the nearly 100 people who showed up, a few were in support, but many were staunchly opposed for myriad reasons.

Ultimately, the opposition won out.

Sisters Mayor Michael Preedin and two city councilors were against allowing the shelter to operate in a building the organization was attempting to buy on the north side of the 1.9-square-mile town. The decision won’t be final until put in writing at a later City Council meeting.

“I have no doubt in my mind that the Sisters Cold Weather Shelter has a good heart. I have no doubt in my mind that most of them on the board are trying to do the right thing,” Preedin said at Tuesday’s council meeting. “I feel that if the shelter cannot assure the minimum amount of safety with their idea, then they’re not providing a reasonable level of safety.”

Many Sisters residents were concerned that the shelter would attract more people to the area seeking services, change the character of the town and threaten their way of life. The hearing Tuesday came after several months of public meetings, swirling rumors on social media and threats of waterboarding made toward a city staff member and the board president of the shelter organization, according to the public record.

Roughly 64 people are homeless on a given night in Sisters, according to the Homeless Leadership Coalition’s 2023 point in time count. That’s up from 55 in 2022.

During the 2021-2022 school year, there were 17 students living without shelter in the Sisters School District, according to the count.

Statewide approach, small town issue

The Sisters Cold Weather Shelter initially sought approval for its permanent operations, which would only act as an overnight shelter during extreme conditions, through House Bill 2006.

The bill was passed in 2021 and was supported by Rep. Jack Zika, R-Redmond, who represented Sisters at the time in the state House. It allows local governments to approve emergency homeless shelters regardless of land use laws and regulations.

The bill has been utilized five times in Bend, allowing shelters like Veterans’ Village and St. Vincent de Paul’s tiny home village. It was also used in 2022 to approve Madras’ winter emergency shelter. It was amended during the 2023 legislative session through House Bill 3395.

Typically, decisions under the rules outlined in the bills are made by staff, but the Sisters City Council decided to take it up, and the city’s community development department refrained from taking a stance.

Councilor Andrea Blum, who also sits on the governing board for Deschutes County’s Coordinated Houseless Response Office, critiqued the bill’s efficacy, saying homelessness looks different throughout the state.

“I am very, very upset and concerned that the ability of our community to make our own decision about what happens in our community has been taken away from us,” she said Tuesday.

Sisters Cold Weather Shelter received funding from Gov. Tina Kotek’s Executive Order 23-02, in which she declared a homelessness state of emergency. Central Oregon received nearly $14 million, and the Sisters organization received almost $1.5 million of it for this proposed shelter.

What’s next?

In the wake of the council’s informal decision Wednesday, Luis Blanchard, a longtime volunteer for Sisters Cold Weather Shelter who is now the board president, said the organization won’t stop helping the homeless people of Sisters.

Many of the people Blanchard sees live in the nearby forest — at least 80%, he estimates.

“You can’t help but be struck by ‘How did they get there?’” Blanchard said. “A lot of the time it’s not necessarily bad choices. It’s just bad luck.”

Often it’s loss, health issues, divorce or bankruptcy, he said, that plummets a person into homelessness. However, the organization has bolstered its efforts in recent years to not just offer people temporary relief from extreme weather but also to actually get people into housing.

Blanchard said many in the organization have been working from their garages and cars without a permanent place to operate since the churches it used to partner with have been otherwise occupied.

The future of the organization is in limbo after Tuesday night and ahead of the impending official decision from the council on Sept. 19. An appeal could be possible.

“Will we have standing if they decline us? I believe so,” Blanchard said.