Food bank worries homeless camps keep hungry families away

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Thurston County Food Bank workers worry Olympia’s downtown homeless sites may be keeping hungry families away.

“Since the beginning of December is when myself and other volunteers started noticing that it was pretty quiet,” said volunteer Carol Vannerson.

Thurston County Food Bank Executive Director Robert Coit said data shows the downtown Olympia food bank is serving fewer families and senior citizens than in the past.

“There’s a corresponding increase in the number of people we serve that live in tents, that don’t have cooking facilities,” he said.

The food bank is open Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On a busy day, they serve more than 400 families. On an average day, about 300 are served. On a slow day, fewer than 200 families receive food. Coit said since November, they’ve seen fewer busy days and more slow days than in years past.

The trend started around the holiday, which is typically one of the busiest times of the year. It was also around the time two downtown tent cities expanded, including Olympia’s mitigation site, which sits across the street from the food bank.

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“We’re torn. My staff’s torn. I’m conflicted. We want to serve everybody. We don’t want to not serve one population at the expense of another, we’re not picking sides. We need a way forward to serve everyone,” said Coit.

Families who use the food bank said the change to downtown Olympia is hard to ignore.

“It didn’t look like this, and it’s kind of a little sad to see it that way, but, I mean, I get it. Hard times are hard times, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” said Carina Graves.

Coit said some people told him they don’t feel safe coming to the downtown site. The homeless camps sit next to the Transit Center, which is how many people get downtown.

“Whenever there’s an access barrier that prevents or makes it difficult, perceived or real, to walk through our door, then it has a negative impact and increases food insecurity in our community,” said Coit.

He said Thurston County may expand its satellite food bank systems or find an additional temporary downtown location farther from the camps.

Thurston County is opening a food bank in Lacey in 2020.

Cox Media Group