How the current downtown jail influences Bellingham’s homeless epidemic

Bart Hunter is a homeless outreach specialist for Whatcom county and is “fully in support of building a new jail for the benefit of the incarcerated, not anyone else.”

Bart believes the only way for those incarcerated to successfully reintegrate into society is to care for each inmates physical and mental wellbeing.

But Bart says inmates are “dropped in a box and left.” and “There’s no way we can reasonably expect them to be more well adjusted after that.”