Currently, there are no storage options available to people who are homelessness in Whatcom County. This leaves two options for valuable and important belongings, such as personal documents, memorabilia, medications, clean change of clothes, and more: either carry it around all day, everywhere you go, or leave it vulnerable to theft and confiscation.

Providing a safe place to store belongings provides an opportunity for people to go about their daily life without the constant mental and physical burden of carrying everything they have with them, all day long. Having a secure place to leave belongings relieves stress and stigma.

This gives people the ability to go to work or school, look for a job or housing, attend provider appointments, work on personal goals and, ultimately, obtain a permanent place to live.

Safe Storage has been working to provide this service by creating an innovative storage program that allows people to access their belongings whenever they need access to them and develops personal connections with others. In response to the lengthy time line of getting this locker program set up, Safe Storage opened the Locker Truck, a big, ugly, box truck with repurposed school lockers in the back, in January 2019.

The Truck was open every Saturday from 10am-2pm for people to access and exchange their belongings as well as get coffee, food, clothes, and other basic need items. During Locker Truck operations, the importance of having access to belongings whenever people needed it, not just on Saturday mornings, came up again and again.

The Locker Truck closed in June to focus full time on getting the Outdoor Storage Lockers built and ready for use!

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