Behind The Way Station’s Intake Desk
Mikel, lead Intake Coordinator at The Way Station Health & Hygiene Center, shares, “One client created a huge rapport with our Intake Coordinator, Damir, and then started seeing our Substance Use Disorder Counselor.” The client, who had come from another country and had found herself in an abusive relationship that had led to a life on the streets, started meeting with a case manager, who connected her with community resources. Eventually, she graduated from SUD counseling and found both housing and a job. “And I think it all started with Damir creating that relationship with her.”
It’s the kind of before-and-after story that could sound too good to be true. Except Mikel and the rest of the intake team see some version of it regularly. “I love when people come in and do everything,” Mikel says. “They come in and they see the doctor and they take a shower and they do their laundry — I love it when that happens, because it’s like, yeah, you’re utilizing the services available to you!”
Who Actually Walks Through the Door
The Way Station opened in late 2024 after seven years of planning and pandemic-related delays. This one-of-a-kind facility is the result of a collaboration between local community health center Unity Care NW, nonprofit community action agency Opportunity Council, PeaceHealth, and Whatcom County. What makes it unique is the combination of services it offers all in one location to people experiencing homelessness. The Health & Hygiene Center offers shower, laundry, and restroom access and provides walk-in medical and mental health care, including substance use disorder counseling. The relationship with Unity Care NW and local treatment centers means patients can be referred for further treatment as needed. Sixteen respite beds are available on a referral basis from PeaceHealth for anyone who would benefit from a period of convalescence after a medical event.
The Way Station sees a variety of people experiencing homelessness. Some have been homeless for years, but many regulars to the shower and laundry services are recently displaced, employed full-time, and living in their cars.
“I think some people might be surprised that we have clients who work,” Mikel says. “We often have clients with young families living with them.”
That surprises people in more ways than one. “People assume it’s a lot of individuals out for themselves, but it really is a large community, and they really are looking out for and helping each other,” says Anne, another Intake Coordinator at The Way Station. It’s something she comes back to often: “Having a community and a support system is so important for anybody.”
Damir, a third Intake Coordinator, sees that community in small, constant ways. “We have a lot of people who want to help us — they’re always asking what they can do,” he says. Guests look out for each other too, often sharing whatever they have with each other, like a blanket or a snack. “People are always trying to help us out, and they help each other out a lot too.”
The hygiene services provide comfort and can aid those seeking or trying to maintain employment, but they serve a very important upstream health-related purpose as well. Access to soap and water is a basic preventative measure that many housed individuals take for granted, reducing the risk of infections and viral illness. A hot box for belongings eradicates bed bugs, providing relief from an insufferable and demoralizing cycle of reinfection.
Many visitors to The Way Station have gone years without health care, and intake workers have proven essential to building the trust needed for bringing their concerns to a provider or counselor. Sometimes that means catching something before it becomes an emergency. “They’ll ask for a Band-Aid, and I’m just like, we have a medical provider here,” Damir shares, “because they’ll have a really big, baseball-sized wound, and I don’t think a Band-Aid is going to take care of that.”
Catching something early doesn’t always mean a cure, but it can still change how a person’s story ends. Another guest once lifted his shirt and asked Damir, does this look normal? Damir isn’t a medical provider and couldn’t diagnose anything, but he grew concerned and suggested he talk to a Community Health Worker. The guest did, got in to see a provider, and was later diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Instead of spending his final weeks on the street, he was able to spend them in a care facility. Without that trusted relationship and a walk-in clinic right on-site, those conversations don’t happen.
Since a person experiencing homelessness lives, on average, 30 years less than someone with stable housing, these interventions matter.
A Day at the Front Desk
“Folks come in, and we greet them and ask how we can help them today,” Mikel explains. “We welcome them, introduce all the services, and make sure we’re giving them a positive experience — especially because the space can be kind of overwhelming.”
A new guest takes about five minutes to get oriented. Regulars move faster. A clinical visit means more paperwork, and Intake Coordinators can help with that if needed.
That welcome isn’t just procedure. “If we treat people with respect, they treat you with respect back,” Mikel says. “Some people say, ‘Wow, that must be such a hard job, working with that population,’ and it can be — but it’s generally not.”
For Mikel, the work comes from somewhere personal. “I just want to make things better for people experiencing homelessness,” she says. “Because I know the only difference between me and them is that I have a safety net. It’s just been something I’ve been passionate about.”
“We had a client who got housed and came back in — not to do services, just to say hello,” Mikel says. “We had such a good relationship with this person that even though they’d moved on, they still wanted to be part of this little community we have there. So that was fun. Little things like that really make my job so rewarding — or getting someone to open up.”
More Than a Waiting Room
“We’re trained to de-escalate and respond to emergent situations, and I think my team does a great job of it,” Mikel says. “We’re pretty good at getting people to follow the rules, and a lot of that comes from the rapport we’re creating — but also from the skill set we have.” When paperwork feels like a barrier, the answer is simple: “We can do it with you, we can walk you through it, or you can do it on your own and we can touch it up.” The first person a guest interacts with is an Intake Coordinator, Mikel notes, “and that sets the tone.”
That trust often starts with something small. “I don’t think it’s intentional, but I’ll offer things to people a lot,” Damir says. If someone’s clothes are visibly soiled, he’ll offer clean socks and underwear. Even after the showers close for the day, he’ll let a guest know they can still wash up: “You’re always welcome to use our restroom and clean up because we’re still open for another hour. I can give you a towel so you can wash your face. You can still get cleaned up in other ways.”
Anne describes it as reading a room. “Trying to see the unseen needs, offering what we can,” is how she puts it. “I personally like to find the quiet people and see how I can help them, see how I can get them to come out of their shells — because sometimes they’re needing more help than you’ll ever know about. It’s so nice when they start to trust you.” The flip side matters too, she says: “If you’re too abrasive with people, they’re not going to want to ask for help when they need it.”
The Way Station’s model lets care meet people where they are — sometimes literally. “There’s not a long wait to get in,” Mikel says of the clinical side. “We can do anything a primary care visit would do.” Mikel recalls one guest who started bleeding in the shower; the medical team came right to him. “They ended up getting a wheelchair and wheeling him back into the exam room and addressing his wounds, but it was great that they could come meet him where he was at. Literally meet him where he was at.”
That coordination runs in both directions. When the medical team wants to see someone again, intake becomes the connective tissue: “The doctor wants to see you — let’s get you on the schedule.”
Ask Mikel what would happen if The Way Station disappeared tomorrow, and the answer isn’t abstract. “It would be a lot harder for people to keep themselves clean, and that makes everything harder,” Mikel says. “It’s harder to go into an establishment. It’s harder to look for employment. People getting to have clean clothes and a clean body when interacting with the world just makes everything easier.”
Mikel has seen what the lack of walk-in medical for unhoused patients looks like firsthand. “When I was at the front desk at Unity Care NW, and people said, ‘I need to be seen right now,’ that just wasn’t possible,” she says. “At The Way Station, they can be seen within ten minutes — and that’s huge for someone who doesn’t have the ability to stay organized.”
What Changes With Trust
Some of the most meaningful changes happen slowly. Anne remembers one guest who, when she first came on full time, wouldn’t really talk to anyone. He struggles with incontinence and severe mental health challenges that vary day to day, and Anne makes a point of greeting him warmly regardless — “it’s good to see you today” — even when he’s clearly having a hard one. Slowly, something shifted. “Now he’ll make eye contact with us. He jokes a lot — he’s a pretty funny guy. I just like seeing his little smile.”
For Damir, the work is personal in a different way. “I’ve had a family history of homelessness. I was homeless as a teenager a few times,” he says. Growing up, he watched people he loved struggle with poverty, trauma, and addiction, and felt powerless to help. If you’d asked him at seventeen whether he’d end up doing this work, he says the answer would have been no. “I never wanted to feel like I was reliving a painful part of my life,” he says. But building a different life for himself, one that many people he grew up with never had the chance to build, never meant leaving those people behind. “I can’t change what happened to me or to anyone else,” he says, “but I can still be here and use what I went through to give support and compassion to people in similar struggles.” Now, with visitors to The Way Station, especially those struggling with addiction, he’s sometimes reminded of a loved one who made it out. “He’s a completely different person now,” Damir says. “I always think, if he can do it, anyone can.”
Damir is able to connect his lived experience to the stories of the people who come to The Way Station and empathize from a place of real understanding. That sort of connection builds bridges that can lead to getting a person housed, but it often takes time, and the Intake Coordinators don’t always know the outcomes. “Sometimes we won’t see people again,” Damir says, “and sometimes they come back months later and tell us they’re housed, which is like the best-case scenario.”
Making It Possible
None of this is possible without financial support. At a time when many funding sources for healthcare and homeless services have receded or added requirements that are hard to square with a commitment to care for everyone who needs it, The Way Station has turned to a handful of committed foundations and community partners to help fill the gaps.
Most recently, Cambia Health Foundation agreed to support the Intake Coordinator position, so people like Mikel, Anne, and Damir can continue to act as that rapport builder and connector for people who may otherwise fall through the cracks. That grant supports the people who make entry to these services possible.
“Every healthy community starts with connection. Intake Coordinators help families and individuals take that first important step toward getting the primary care they need,” said Steven Lesky, senior program officer at Cambia Health Foundation. “When people feel seen and supported from the very first interaction, they’re more likely to reach out early — and that means fewer emergencies, lower costs, and stronger, healthier communities for all of us.”
Meeting people where they are is a sentiment you’ll hear expressed by almost everyone at The Way Station, and it’s the same language Mount Baker Foundation used to describe why they’ve stayed involved. After supporting the capital campaign that helped build the space during construction, Mount Baker Foundation recently returned with a Community Health grant to help fund the Hygiene Center’s supplies, staff, and equipment.
“Healthy communities are built when everyone has the opportunity to access care, support, and basic necessities with dignity,” said Maria Macpherson, Director of Resource Reallocation at Mount Baker Foundation. “Mount Baker Foundation is proud to support The Way Station because it meets people where they are, providing essential services while fostering trust, connection, and belonging.”
United Way of Whatcom County recently renewed their grant for The Way Station as well, supporting hygiene supplies, staff costs, and expenses for facility upkeep, maintenance, and repairs to ensure a safe, clean, and operational site. In addition, the site has benefited from a wide range of supporters from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to essential clothing items donated from Bombas to hundreds of local people.
The Only Difference
Anne ran into a former guest while on a coffee run. He had previously been unhoused for twenty or thirty years — nearly as long as some of the team has been alive — and had recently been housed. After having his own place for the first time in decades, he told her: “It is so nice just standing in my kitchen… Oh wow, I have a kitchen now.” “He was so happy,” Anne says. She credits the coordinated approach at The Way Station for this breakthrough. “That was all of us,” she says.
Anne highlights the parallels she sees between herself and the clients she welcomes every day. “The difference between you and someone who is unhoused is having that support system,” she reflects. “I’ve been close to it a few times in my past, and if I didn’t have friends and family to help me at certain points, I don’t know where I’d be. Everybody needs somebody to care about them and advocate for them.”
Support can come in many forms, the team says. Buying someone a hot meal or looking into volunteering with local organizations like Recovery Café matters too.
The Way Station accepts one-time and monthly donations. With the cost of a shower and a load of laundry for one person at just $5, an individual gift can go a long way toward making a difference in someone’s day. With Intake Coordinators there to connect them to health care and services, it could even save a life.
