John Lodise, director of emergency services at Shepherd’s House Ministries, shows the area that will become two new restrooms after remodeling is complete at the Lighthouse Navigation Center in Bend.

Renovations at Central Oregon’s only low-barrier, walk-up homeless shelter will cut capacity for about a year, but the changes are part of an effort to address homelessness more effectively.

A number of improvements will begin this fall at the Lighthouse Navigation Center on Second Street in Bend after the Bend City Council approved up to $2.6 million in funding on Wednesday, Sept. 20. Most notably, the shelter will be adding restrooms with stalls, showers for men and women, laundry facilities and a commercial kitchen.

But the center’s overnight shelter capacity and daytime services will be affected.

“The most immediate concern is we have the winter coming up,” said John Lodise, the director of emergency services for Shepherd’s House Ministries, which operates the center.

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Winter’s cold weather means more people will be seeking shelter indoors at all hours of the day. With renovations beginning this fall, the center will be closed during the day for construction but open overnight to 50 people until construction is completed near the end of 2024.

Last winter, the center was significantly overcapacity with more than 100 people staying overnight almost every night, according to an annual report.

It’s difficult to know the number of people to expect each winter, Lodise said.

“It seems to go up every year,” he said.

Despite the renovations, which will also include infrastructure improvements like a roof replacement and a fire system update, Shepherd’s House’s newly acquired Franklin Avenue Shelter, formerly the Rainbow Motel, will fill some gaps.

The organization will actually have more capacity than usual once it begins to allow around 100 people into the Franklin shelter, which prioritizes families and those with medical conditions. It will also act as a daytime services hub, connecting people to resources, health care and case management, among other things, while the center is under construction.

The city of Bend’s housing director, Lynne McConnell, said the renovations were a part of the city’s plan all along.

“The goal is to have services that are continuous and reliable so that our community — when they’re ready — knows where to find them at,” McConnell said.

The city of Bend purchased what was an old thrift store with $2 million in state-designated American Rescue Plan Act funds in 2021 so it could be used as an overnight warming shelter. During the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, the city wanted to open the center as quickly as possible, find out where improvements needed to be made and make them down the line, McConnell said.

“We had to step into this work because this was such a great need and this is what the community was asking us to do,” she said.

In March 2022, the Bend City Council approved a three-year, almost $4 million contract, which was funded in part by state agencies, with Shepherd’s House to turn the old thrift store into a navigation center. It opened July, 1, 2022.

After one year of being open every day, the center has been able to offer more than 100,500 meals and more than 38,500 nights of shelter. It has also transitioned more than 200 people into more permanent housing, according to the annual report.

“This shelter is our primary life-saving tool for the houseless community,” McConnell said.

While the renovations put a pinch on access to services in the short term, they are a major step toward more effective solutions to homelessness in Central Oregon.

The most effective solutions must be established ones, and they have to be enduring in nature, Lodise said.

“I don’t think houselessness is a problem that’s going to go away even in a few years,” Lodise said.

Rather than waiting until homelessness is “bad enough” or reaches a certain point, Lodise said it’s important to commit to effective solutions as soon as possible.

“That’s a commitment that’s not easy to make,” he said.

But it’s one that is required by the city, local service providers and the community, he said.