Dear Friends:

          A number of people and organizations, including some of you, have asked or discussed with me or other THA staff or THA Commissioners whether THA has any land that can host an encampment for persons experiencing homelessness.  In these discussions, we have replied in varying detail.  In an effort to coordinate these various inquiries and discussions, I write now to give fuller detail that explains what THA can and cannot consider offering, and on what terms.  I hope this information is helpful.  I hope it helps the City’s effort to find any needed alternative places to live, shelter, or camp before December 1^st when its recent ban on park tenting takes effect.  More generally, I hope it is helpful to an important civic discussion that is full of hard puzzles.  You all have devoted a lot of careful and caring thought to the challenge they pose to our city.  I hope this information is helpful to you.  If you seek further discussion with THA please let me know.

1.              Some General Principles That Determine What THA Can and Cannot Do

1.1           THA does not directly provide emergency shelter for persons experiencing homelessness.  Instead, THA finances other organizations that do that hard work, e.g., Catholic Community Services, Tacoma Rescue Mission, MDC, YWCA.  THA is also a large funder of Pierce County’s Coordinated Entry System and Rapid Rehousing programs for persons experiencing homelessness.  

THA’s main job is to provide or pay for affordable, safe and stable permanent housing for low-income households.  It does that in three main ways:

●        THA builds, buys, and then rents permanent housing to low-income households.  It is the city’s largest landlord.  It serves about 1,500 households that way;

●        It helps another 4,000 households pay the rent on the private rental market.  It does this through its various rental assistance programs. 

●        THA helps other organizations that share its mission to finance housing.  This is THA’s “shadow portfolio”.  We don’t own it.  We don’t manage.  We help to finance it.  Sometimes we provide the land.  Sometimes we are a lender.  Sometimes we are the contract developer.  Sometimes we issue bonds.  Most of the time we sign long-term contracts promising to pay fair market rent in the housing once it is built.  That promise and that financing do two things.  First, they help to support construction debt to get it built.  Second, they give the property an income stream for its operations.  That “shadow portfolio” is over 1,000 units.

We focus this work on the neediest.  The average income of the households we serve would not pay the rent for a studio apartment on Tacoma’s private rental market.  Without THA’s assistance, a good number of them would be camping in the parks.  Moreover, THA is growing its housing programs.  It is presently constructing another 134 units of housing for these populations.  These include 70 units for homeless youth and young adults, and 28 units of permanent supportive housing for homeless and disabled adults.  In addition, with its partners, THA is planning nearly 1,000 more units over the next 5 years or so.  Many of them will be dedicated for homeless households, including homeless students.

In all these ways, THA is the county’s largest source of affordable housing dollars and one of the largest housers of persons who, without assistance, would be homeless.

1.2     THA does not know how to establish a homeless encampment.  It does not know how to run one.  It does not have the resources or the wish to learn how.  THA also has no funding that would pay for an encampment.  THA’s only possible contribution to this discussion is to provide the free and temporary use of its land by a highly capable organization that knows how to do this work well, and is funded to do it well.

1.4     THA does have some vacant land.  It has plans for all of it.  The only reason THA’s acquires vacant land in the first place is to build housing and related community uses on it.  THA can consider allowing someone to use THA’s vacant land for a temporary homeless encampment only if the use does not interfere with THA’s development and financing plans or schedule.  There are two types of interference THA must be alert to avoid.  First, it cannot consider a temporary encampment that would delay the development or financing schedule.  Second, when THA builds or buys property it needs and seeks good relations with its new neighbors, neighborhood and community.  It consults them widely.  THA would not wish for any temporary use of the land by others that would imperil the good relations that THA needs for its own later development.

1.5     Although THA cannot be a direct source of emergency shelter, we do want to be helpful to the search for sites for homeless encampments that the City’s judges to be necessary.

2.              Conditions on Use of THA Land for a Homeless Encampment

These principles allow THA to explain the conditions that would allow THA’s Board to consider making its vacant land available for a temporary encampment.  Here are the four main conditions:

2.1     The City or its contractor would lead the consultation with the surrounding neighborhood.  THA would participate in the consultation.  The views of the neighborhood would help THA decide if and how it can make the land available for a temporary homeless encampment.

2.2           The City would provide THA with the customary indemnifications against liability arising out of the use of the land.

2.3           A highly capable organization, under contract with the City, that knows what it is doing would establish and manage a well-run and effective encampment, with adequate financing.  THA’s does not know too much about what this would require.  The following features seem to be important:

●        hygiene facilities (toilets, showers, garbage disposal);

●        storage spaces for personal items;

●        security;

●        health and behavior health services available;

●        case management services to help people move out of the encampment to more permanent housing;

●        rules about behavior;

●        effective governance.

THA is very interested in the use of portable “tiny houses” rather than tents.  I mentioned this model in my September 8^th letter to the City Council and the MetroParks Board of Commissioners.  In my letter I noted the apparent success that the Low Income Housing Institute’s (LIHI) has shown with the tiny house villages that it manages for the cities of Seattle and Olympia.  I attached to my letter an article describing that success.  I attach that article to this email.  I understand that LIHI has offered tiny houses to the City and has offered to establish tiny house villages in Tacoma.  Based upon THA’s understanding of that positive experience, we strongly favor tiny houses and the LIHI model of management rather than tents, for these four reasons:

●        A tiny house is more humane and healthier than a tent.  We can all recognize the value of being able to sleep on a bed out of the weather, to stand up inside, and to close a door behind us;

●        Tiny house villages are not unsightly like a collection of tents can be.  This will make an encampment a much better fit into a neighborhood.  LIHI even builds a decorative fence around its tiny house villages.

●        Tiny house villages, with services, show a much higher rate of successful “graduation” to permanent housing.

●        Tiny houses are portable so the City can move them to the next spot when the time comes.

We understand from LIHI that it still awaits the City’s response to its offer.

2.4           The contract for the use of the land would set a firm time limit.  When the time is up, the City would be responsible for clearing and cleaning the land and returning it to THA.

In summary, if THA is to be helpful, it will be only by its donation of the temporary use of land.  It does not wish to have any other role or responsibility.

I note that if the City equipped itself to fulfill these conditions, it may have more success in eliciting the willingness of other landowners to contribute the temporary use of land for the purpose.

3.              Hillsdale Heights Land

THA has been asked if its 7 acres that we call Hillsdale Heights might be available for a temporary encampment.  The site might be a good spot for this use:

●        It is bordered by a railroad track above Stewart Heights Park, a business across 60^th that does not rely on retail traffic, a church, and an arterial (McKinley Avenue).  Also, its 7 acre size means that if the temporary encampment is put on its back end near the railroad track, the rest of the acreage would provide a further buffer from the street.  A suitably sized and well-designed encampment of tiny houses would not even be very visible to the neighbors.

●        It is on a bus line.

●        It is in a part of the Eastside that has its share of campers who are already in the neighborhoods and parks, next to homes.  In this way, an encampment at Hillsdale Heights can relieve the neighborhood of campers who otherwise will continue to show in these less congenial spots.

This discussion of Hillsdale Heights would be a resumption of the same discussion of about 18 months when THA was asked to consider the possibility of several sites, including Hillsdale Heights.  In that discussion, we posed the same conditions that I list above.  THA is willing to resume that discussion on the same conditions.  However, the other sites of Arlington Drive Youth Camus and The Rise on 19^th, although vacant 18 months ago, are now in the full swing of construction.  Hillsdale Heights is still vacant.  But THA is now 18 months closer to its development schedule.  This means we have a narrower window available for its temporary use.  We judge that we can make it available for up to 1 year, starting now.  Yet I learn from LIHI that 2 years is a minimum duration to make a tiny house village worth the effort to establish it, run it, and then move it to the next spot.  If that is the case, then perhaps Hillsdale Heights would not be suitable after all.  THA needs tutoring on these details.

          Please note that whatever THA’s part in this effort may be, the City will need still other land parcels for encampments.  Other parcels will serve at least four purposes. 

●        The number of people in the City experiencing homelessness may require several sites at any one time. 

●        The City also needs several sites in the pipeline at any one time to assure any particular land owner and neighborhood that its site is indeed temporary and that the encampment has its next stop already in the works. 

●        Several sites will mean that none of them need to be too large.  That will help them fit into any particular area. 

●        Several sites scattered about will allow any one neighborhood to see and feel that it is not bearing an unshared burden.

In my September 8^th letter, I listed some possible types and sources of landowners of presently unused parcels that might be able and willing to host a temporary encampment: City, TPU, TPS, Port of Tacoma.  Also, last year the City, with the help of Forterra, completed an inventory of land.  The City should consult that inventory.  Some vacant indoor spaces and outdoor spaces might also be temporarily available, e.g, Rite Aid on the Hilltop, which Forterra recently purchased; the K Mart on 6^th Avenue.  Also, the City may wish to consider spaces that, although busy during the day, are empty at night.  For example, I understand that the City of Victoria, in a reversal of what Washington parks do, excludes camping during the day but allows it at night, with some measure of governance.  Here is a link to an interesting news story from Brisbane, Australia.  It describes another example of such a night-time use.  According to this article, the City of Brisbane uses parking lots and parking structures for camping at night: https://7news.com.au/news/qld/brisbane-carpark-turned-into-pop-up-shelter-for-the-homeless-is-changing-lives-already-c-502732.

I hope this is helpful.  If anyone wishes to discuss this further with THA, please contact me.  I will lead THA’s part in any discussion you would like to have with us.

Thank you!

          Michael

Michael Mirra

Executive Director

Tacoma Housing Authority

902 South L Street, Tacoma, WA 98405

(253) 207-4429

mmirra@tacomahousing.orgoes

www.tacomahousing.org

“Housing Tacoma Forward”