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 The desire to solve homelessness in Lincoln City arose in 1989 when Reverend Dr. Robert Miles Harrison, "Pastor Bob" founded Agape Fellowship Church located in Taft. Based on the Greek concept of non-judgemental, unconditional love for human beings, "Pastor Bob" began providing home-cooked hot meals to anyone in need from noon to 3:00 p.m. every Thursday. While not advertised anywhere, Agape additionally makes room within its very small santuary for overnight shelter of up to three homeless people whenever the temperature drops to life-threatening levels. Complete sanitary, laundry, kitchen facilities, and private storage lockers are provided within the building.  

Writer: Dana Kane

 A group of concerned volunteers of various faiths joined to address the alarmingly increasing homeless population. These humanitarians included Mr. Eric Simpson, Mr. Doug Siebert and his wife Jane Siebert, Mr. Ken McCormack, Reverend Charles Busch, the Congregational Church and Reverend Larry Rolfing, now deceased, of the Lutheran Church. Together they formed He's My Brother, operating until 2006. 

Writer: Dana Kane

Pastor Wayne Martin of the Congregational Church and others formed Faith Community Services and opened Siletz House, functioning until 2013. While Agape continues to provide for the homeless as best it can, the rest of these monumental efforts succumbed to the enormous increase in the number of homeless people. Tragically more and more people fell victim to hypothermia.

Writer: Dana Kane

 The congregational Church started a warming shelter on a bigger scale offering shelter for up to 15 homeless people during the Winter season of 2014 with the opening criterion of 32 degrees and below. It quickly became apparent that 32 degrees and below was a far cry from meeting the real threat posed by hypothermia. The Lincoln City homeless population was still struggling with hypothermia, some of whom were hospitalized or died. With that in mind, the program needed to expand. However, the organizational skills and volunteer resources required to enhance the Warming Shelter project exceeded the capability of the Congregational church on its own. Thus, Lincoln City Warming Shelter was formed and led by Richard Gartrell.  

Writer: Dana Kane

May 27th, 2015, Lincoln City Warming Shelter became an official 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Lincoln City Warming Shelter opened up for the first time during the fall season of 2015 with the Congregational Church as the host location led by Lynne Rudstrom.  With a bigger pool of volunteers, Lincoln City Warming Shelter was able to raise the temperature criterion to 35 degrees and below. In addition to raising the temperature trigger, Lincoln City Warming Shelter offered more services such as dry clothing, emergency mylar blankets, rain ponchos and toiletries. As beneficial as the program was, our homeless population was still at a great risk of getting hypothermia during the Winter season. The Warming Shelter was open for 13 nights. 

 Lincoln City Warming Shelter expanded significantly. With new leader Amanda Cherryholmes, and her Assistant Sharon Padilla, a family shelter location was established, and the temperature criterion was raised to 39 degrees and below. Additional supplies were offered such as shower vouchers, bus tickets, laundry vouchers, feminine products and Mylar tents for homeless individuals who has pet companions. Lincoln City Warming Shelter finished the season having opened for 47 nights, served 2,344 meals and helped 135 unduplicated homeless individuals which included men, women, children and unborn children.  

With the sudden spike in growth of the warming shelter program, the host location (Congregational Church) could no longer carry the program because it began to interfere with other church functions and programs. It became necessary for the warming shelter group to find another location as soon as possible.  After Program Director, Amanda Cherryholmes wrote a grant to the City of Lincoln City, the group was awarded a significant amount of $45,000.00 allowing them to rent the old Taft firehouse. With the ability to rent a location rather than share a host location, more services became available such as an inhouse shower, laundry facility, hot meal, various donated items and inhouse direct services. November 15th, 2017 the Lincoln City Resource Center opened for the first time and December 1st 2017, the Warming Shelter opened in the same location creating a "one-stop-shop" business model. 

 The group wanted to expand services to be more inclusive of what was already being offered past a warming shelter, so they dissolved and formed a new organization; And on December 19th, 2019, Coastal Support Services was officially registered as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Amanda Cherryholmes remained the Executive Director, and Sharon Padilla remained the Volunteer Coordinator.  

They were forced to shut down the warming shelter with a week to go before the end of the season. Because of Amanda's long term professional relationship with Lincoln County Commissioner Claire Hall, Lincoln County gave $15,000 to Coastal Support Services so they can put their warming shelter guests in motel rooms for the rest of the season. They paired people up who previously lived together to make the funding go further, in doing so they had the funding to share with Family Promise, a partner organization that focuses on sheltering families with children and provided rooms for all their families for the first full two weeks. 

COVID-19 put a major halt on all agencies because all facilities were forced to shut down until further notice.  A lot of agencies were forced to close their doors for good. Coastal Support Services began mobile services by providing sack meals, water bottles, supplies, gloves, masks, hand sanitizer and trash service by exchanging empty trash bags for full ones to keep the environment healthy in 7 different locations in Lincoln City.

September 2020, The Echo Mountain Fire hit Otis creating a major spike in the local homeless population and a major downfall for a lot of agencies in Lincoln City. Between COVID-19, and the Echo Mountain Fire, the community experienced the double whammy of the century.  Marci Baker, a local restaurant owner, reached out to Amanda Cherryholmes with a proposition to help the homeless population as well as fire victims. Through Marci's close partnerships, she was able to secure a location and partner with Amanda Cherryholmes and Coastal Support Services to create a distribution center for all to get the supplies that they needed.. They called it R.I.S.E (Resilient Individuals Serving Everyone) in honor of the partnership and what it meant to the community. BC Ford, a local artist, painted the biggest mural of his career; a Phoenix coming out of the flames with R.I.S.E over the wings, to represent the heart of our community rising above the ashes. The mural still stands today in the building currently known as Habitat for Humanity in Lincoln City.

Later that year, Lincoln City Council voted to change an ordinance for the Family Promise Day Center location to allow overnight use. Doing this put Family Promise back into business and they were able to continue the vitally important work that they do. This was a major win for the community.

Between COVID-19, and the Echo Mountain Fire, Coastal Support Services was left with no permanent location and the potential to fold. 

In December of 2020, David Elton through Elton Family Trust donated $25,000 to Coastal Support Services in honor of his late mother Kay Elton, who had a pure heart of gold and a passion for helping those in need. 

January 2021, Coastal Support Services signed the lease to their new location at 1808 NE Hwy 101 in Lincoln City, in March 1st of 2021 they opened for the first time and were able to provide a shower, laundry, clothing, a meal, small food pantry, internet access, activity center and navigation to other agencies based on need. Because of the help from the Elton Family, Coastal Support Services was able to survive COVID-19 and the Echo Mountain Fire and begin to rebuild what they had lost.

December 2021, Commissioner Claire Hall reached out to multiple providers asking if the community would be interested in submitting a Letter of Interest to support funding from an Oregon State level for pilot projects in response to HB4123. HB4123 was a bill in response to Oregon declaring a State of Emergency regarding homelessness in Oregon and wanted to get funding for 8 communities in Oregon to have 1 million dollars over a two year period to use for homeless coordination efforts.  Participating providers worked together to form a letter that that landed Lincoln County as one of the 8 pilo6.

 March 2022, HB 4123 passed legislation and went before the Governor to be signed.  As a direct result of that, Lincoln County was one of the 8 pilot groups chosen and was awarded 1 million dollars for a pilot project to drastically reduce homelessness in Lincoln County.  In the Winter season of 2022/2023 Lincoln County partnered with Coastal Support Servics and Grace Wins Haven to run a motel voucher program that became the stepping stones for introducing the idea of having a Winter shelter open regardless of temperature because of so many nights that qualified as a hypothermia risk. Using NOAA.gov as the source, Coastal Support Services developed a report that included daily temperatures and weather conditions which resulted in finding out that 85% of the Winter season qualified to open. This gave Lincoln County the evidence needed to prioritize a Winter Shelter being open on the Oregon Coast regardless of temperature and in the Winter season of 2023/2024 (2) Winter Shelter locations run by Lincoln County were open for the first time in history regardless of temperature.