Every week, Tukayote Helianthus distributes an average of 448 bottles of water to unhoused people in Bellingham.
Helianthus, whose day job is working for the state as an IT professional, began distributing water when he saw the need last summer during a heat wave. He said he also ended up with some additional pocket change after quitting smoking.
“For me, it was kind of a no-brainer when I put it all together in my head … because I found that I was saving a lot of money,” he said. “One pack of cigarettes is 125 bottles of water, depending on what you smoke.”
Now it’s become a form of accountability for him: if he starts smoking again, he will have less money that week to spend on water for a community that needs it.
Helianthus’s effort has a name: Operation Water Drop. Since he started last summer, he’s distributed 15,880 water bottles to people in the community. Helianthus has partnerships with local outreach efforts like CAST (Coffee and Sandwiches Together), which gives out free meals four times a week downtown, and Bridge2Services, which serves encampments around town, including the encampment behind Walmart. He’s also delivered water to the city’s Gardenview Tiny House Village project, managed by Road2Home, and to other smaller outreach efforts.
Free water is scarce downtown, especially in the winter. With few public options, the only indoor spaces where people could drink water were the library and city hall when they’re open. According to Bellingham’s Public Works Department, outdoor drinking fountains in parks are typically turned off, or “winterized,” in mid-October and reactivated in late April.
Water is available through public restrooms at community parks, such as Bloedel Donovan, Boulevard Park, Lake Padden and more, as well as in restroom buildings located at Big Rock Park and Fairhaven Village Green. But all neighborhood park restroom buildings are closed from October through April, according to Torhil Ramsay, communications and outreach coordinator for the City of Bellingham’s Public Works Department. Portland Loos, which will open around downtown this spring, do not have drinking water access, Ramsay said.
Water spigots behind city hall have been used by outreach groups to support the unhoused population on and off for a few years, according to Helianthus, but Ramsay said in an email that those spigots are not intended for public use and are used by city staff for building use and maintenance.
Helianthus said it’s tricky because unhoused people don’t always know when and which public restrooms are open.
“They can’t just wander around trying door after door and finding lock after lock,” he said.
Helianthus drives to Costco weekly, picks up cases of water bottles and then delivers them to organizations. Helianthus is aware the project creates a lot of single-use plastic waste, but said the waste is a symptom of the larger problem of the lack of accessible water faucets and fountains throughout the city.
“The problem is there is no true sanitary solution other than single-use plastics for the way that we distribute it,” he said. “If there were water faucets and we could get into reusable bottles, that would be amazing. But there just isn’t.”
A one-person operation, Helianthus said the water costs him just under $70 a week, excluding costs of gas and car costs. He said he can physically only transport 16 cases a week, but the demand is probably two to three times what he’s able to supply, given the size of the unhoused population in Bellingham.
For people who want to help in Bellingham, Helianthus advises they find one way they can contribute and work it into their lifestyle.
“What I’ve been trying to tell people is find something you can do … just pick one small thing you can do and do it really, really well and integrate it into your lifestyle,” he said. “Then it’s not a burden, it’s just something you do.”
Charlotte Alden is CDN’s general assignment/enterprise reporter; reach her at charlottealden@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 123.
