Josephine Peterson covers Pierce County and Puyallup for The News Tribune and The Puyallup Herald. She previously worked at The News Journal in Delaware as the crime reporter and interned at The Washington Post.
Will a homeless shelter finally open in East Pierce County? Records show a plan for it
East Pierce County could see its first homeless shelter by the end of the year if a state grant comes through.
A coalition of Pierce County and a number of cities applied for $4.7 million from a state Department of Commerce program that provides money for homeless services.
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The Pierce County proposal includes a 30-bed shelter for the eastern portion of the county, where homeless issues have been a source of contention for years.
The grant application also includes requests for money to support a tiny home village in Tacoma and a women’s shelter at the Tacoma Rescue Mission.
Some people feel the timeline for opening a shelter in East Pierce County is too aggressive, and the Puyallup city manager said locating the shelter in that city is a nonstarter.
“It takes a regional approach because homelessness is not just a Puyallup thing,” city manger Steve Kirkelie said. “It stretches across borders, and for the city of Puyallup to just take on homelessness in East Pierce County is not an option.”
State officials said a compressed timeline is necessary.
“We are committed to having shelter structures throughout the state, and this is part of bringing that to scale,” said Tedd Kelleher, the state Commerce Department’s managing director of the Housing Assistance Unit. “We want to bring people inside in a dignified space.”
The program to build homeless shelters across Washington grants $40 million to counties and cities for rapid beds. The state Department of Commerce is overseeing the program that Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law in April. The program asked jurisdictions to submit proposals by August and have beds available by the end of the year.
Counties and cities were encouraged to write joint applications, over applying alone, to qualify for an additional 25 percent of funding. Pierce County, Tacoma, Puyallup, Lakewood and University Place submitted an application together.
The News Tribune obtained the submitted application and proposal details through a public records request. While the application has not yet been approved, Kelleher with the department said it will likely be rubber-stamped within the next two weeks.
The state will pay $56 a day for an occupied bed for up to three years and up to $10,000 in initial expenses, Kelleher said.
If the beds are not used, costs of the shelter will fall on the county and service providers.
“The county and service providers we are working with have long experience on the ground, so I don’t think that’s going to be a big problem,” he said.
There is no guarantee that the program will continue after three years.
East Pierce County
The $1.5 million proposal would create a low-barrier shelter in East Pierce County with up to 30 beds. A “low-barrier” shelter provides folks a bed despite sobriety, criminal backgrounds or lack of identification. The only rules are no dealing or doing drugs on campus, no violence and no destruction of property.
Clients would be provided with on-site services such as meals, hygiene items, showers and access to staff 24 hours a day, according to the proposal. There also would be security officers to “ensure that the environment is safe for guests and staff alike.”
It is unclear which homeless service provider would run the shelter or where the shelter would be located. The proposal estimates that units would be in place and available by Nov. 30, 2020.
Many of the details of the plan are being worked out, said John Barbee, manager of Pierce County Community Services Division.
The county will meet with service providers Oct. 15 to develop a request for proposals. The county then will choose which service provider runs the facility.
“We have not identified a project location or site — that’s what that (request for proposal) will look like,” Barbee said. “We are looking everywhere from Graham all the way to Fife and Milton and everywhere in between.”
The division manager said the coalition is committed to having beds by the end of December.
Barbee said the county has known there is a need for an overnight shelter in the east.
Puyallup city manager Kirkelie said the city is working in partnership with the county to find a shelter location.
“People’s viewpoints on homelessness differ, and it can be a very divisive issue,” Kirkelie said. “But I think from our perspective, what we’re trying to do is just look at various options that we can explore and at some point on a regional level we can bring to the policy makers to have the full discussion.”
An ‘aggressive deadline’
Kelleher said applicants are expected to turn around a shelter before the end of the year.
“It’s a requirement for the shelter to get on the ground quickly,” he told The News Tribune. “The intent is for them to open soon as possible.”
Kirkelie said the turnaround time is too quick.
“I just think it’s an aggressive deadline. It’s a challenge, and I think that it’s going to take some time,” Kirkelie said. “You can’t give communities four months to solve an issue that has been around for centuries.”
Homelessness in Puyallup has been controversial for years, spawning three lawsuits between the city and the only homeless resource center in town.
Throughout the pandemic, Puyallup has used CARES Act funding to shelter people experiencing homelessness. For two months the city opened the Puyallup Recreation Center’s parking lot for tents, cars and RVs. After the stie closed, about a dozen people were placed in motel rooms.
Kirkelie said Puyallup is addressing homelessness as part of its new strategic plan but doesn’t feel that Puyallup should take on East Pierce County’s homeless population.
Executive director Duke Paulson of the Tacoma Rescue Mission agreed more outreach needs to be done.
“What you don’t want to do is force the community into something to create anxiety that you don’t need to,” he said. “You need to make sure that there is community engagement.”
Paulson said service providers should have been more involved in the application process and creating the shelter plans. Paulson, who heads the largest shelter in Pierce County, was not aware of the East Pierce County proposal prior to being interviewed.
“It doesn’t have to be the city or the county and state doing it on their own, but when they pass funding with tight restrictions on it, partnering with them is really hard to do,” he said, speaking of the tight turnaround time. “I want this to happen in East Pierce County, and I hope that they have more of a plan.
“If you take a vacant property and drop some homeless people in there, that’s not going to work.”
Tacoma tiny home shelter
Efforts are already underway to set up a micro shelter for people experiencing homelessness on Sixth Avenue and North Orchard Street in Tacoma.
The proposal asks for $2.5 million from the state for reimbursement of beds and operating costs.
The shelter, on the north end of the North Christian Church property at 602. N Orchard, will serve no more than 60 people in 40 housing units. It’ll be run by the Low-Income Housing Institute, which operates a similar shelter in Eastside Tacoma.
The site on North Orchard was identified as a potential emergency shelter site in 2019, Allyson Griffith, assistant director for the Neighborhood and Community Services Department, said at a study session with City Council this month.
Start-up costs are estimated between $615,000 and $680,000, with operations totaling $1.9 million through July 2023. A monthly rental payment of $3,000 will be made to the property owner for use of the site.
The shelter is expected to be fully operational with residents moving in by early December.
The shelter is being built under the city’s declaration of public health emergency relating to the conditions of homeless encampments, passed in 2017. The emergency declaration gives the city the authority to continue to expedite contracting, permitting and budget processes.
Griffith said that the city already has experience setting up a similar shelter quickly.
“Under the emergency declaration, we act quickly,” Griffith said. “The site at 8th and (Martin Luther King Junior Way) was constructed and populated in 41 days. Similarly, the site at East 60th and McKinley was constructed and populated in 45 days.”
Tacoma Rescue Mission
Paulson of the Tacoma Rescue Mission said the coronavirus stripped the nonprofit of some of its expected city funding to run a new women’s shelter. The city approached Paulson about the state grant.
The Tacoma Rescue Mission applied for a $726,000 grant to cover operational costs over the next few years. The women’s shelter holds 36 beds but is anticipated to hold up to 70 a night with bunk beds, Paulson said.
He estimates that there will be a tidal wave of homelessness next year after the eviction moratorium expires.
“Now is the time to invest in the community long-term,” Paulson said.
Allison Needles covers city and education news for The News Tribune in Tacoma. She was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest.