Hotel de Copeland Opens Its Doors to Winter Drifters
As temperatures plummeted, Kennewick's city jail became a refuge for seventeen 'blanket boys,' highlighting the city's unofficial policy for managing homelessness during the deep freeze.
The cold weather of the last few days has brought a rushing business to Hotel de Copeland, sometimes vulgarly called the city jail. The biggest rush of the season was Tuesday evening when sleeping accommodations were furnished to seventeen men, only one of whom took lodging because he had to. 'So far the hobos are giving us but very little trouble,' said Chief Copeland. 'Most of them are blanket boys who prefer the jail to jungles these cold nights. Nearly all of them have enough money to supply their actual needs. Some of them, however, are flat broke and really hungry. These we have been furnishing coffee and bread and find that it works better than to let them hit the back doors in the residence district. We just give them the ground coffee and they act as their own chefs. It don’t cost much and it saves us a lot of trouble.'
“We just give them the ground coffee and they act as their own chefs.”
The 'Hotel de Copeland' serves as an early 20th-century example of survival strategies for the unhoused. Modern Kennewick still grapples with the morality of using law enforcement facilities as de facto shelters during harsh winter months.
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