It has been 2.5 months since this petition started. 928 of you—concerned community members—have signed, demanding a life-saving change: raising the emergency shelter threshold to 40°F to prevent hypothermia, suffering, and death.
And yet, Whatcom County has ignored every single one of you.
A Pattern of Neglect and Broken Promises
County Council asked for cost estimates to operate at 35°F and 40°F.
No response from County Executive Satpal Sidhu.
Multiple emails sent to county and city officials asking for change and warming centers.
Only one county councilmember has replied.
Fifteen qualifying nights where the shelter should have been open—including a night when temperatures dropped to 24°F.
Whatcom County left people outside in deadly conditions.
The county publicly pledged to consider wind chill and precipitation when deciding to open the shelter.
Reality? Not once have they done so. Wind chills reached 22°F on a closed shelter night.
The county supposedly uses 48-hour forecasts from NOAA to plan openings.
These forecasts frequently do not line up with actual conditions and are often used as the excuse for why the shelter was closed on a qualifying night.
The “Staffing Shortage” Lie
Whatcom County wants us to believe staffing issues are keeping the shelter closed. But let’s look at the facts:
Job postings for shelter staff were only open for four days.
Then Erika Lautenbach claimed they couldn’t find enough people.
Highly qualified applicants—people eager to help—applied.
They were never contacted.
This isn’t a staffing problem. This is an effort to make failure look inevitable when it was engineered from the start.
The Funding Excuse is a Fraud
The county claims it’s a funding issue.
But they have 24 full nights of funding left—and will likely not use it at all.
The City of Bellingham pledged $150,000 to keep the shelter open if the county ran out of funds.
Guess what? The county never needed that money—because they never even tried.
The truth? There was never an intention to operate this shelter in good faith.
The County Set This Shelter Up to Fail
They claim they “couldn’t find an operator.”
But they only left the 15-page RFP (Request for Proposals) open for 10 business days before declaring failure.
Meanwhile, the county has paid the lease through March.
The building sits empty, while people freeze to death.
Right now, Bellingham’s conditions are 31°F with wind and rain—conditions that cause hypothermia. The shelter remains closed.
This is not an accident. This is deliberate neglect.
Whatcom County Officials Need to Answer for This
Whatcom County has abandoned the most vulnerable in our community. They ignored 928 people who signed this petition. They ignored their own council’s requests for information. They ignored their own promise to consider wind chill and precipitation.
They left people outside to suffer and freeze—when they had the staff, the money, the lease, and the ability to prevent it.
Enough Is Enough
Share this petition—loudly.
Email County Executive Satpal Sidhu and demand accountability.
Call your County Councilmembers and ask why they are silent.
We are not going to let this slide. People’s lives are at stake.
Sign and share now: https://www.change.org/p/raise-the-severe-weather-shelter-temperature-threshold-to-40-f-including-wind-chill
With Gratitude,
Tukayote Helianthus