We'll update you at 8am tomorrow but briefly, I thought it was a good meeting and we did agree to meet again.
For discussion:
How do we handle the person who is offered accessible options, refuses, and sets up their tent in your parking strip?
Is there any role for law enforcement?
We will need some early wins. How quickly could we bring a visible change in street homelessness? What would it cost? Who would be willing to be the provider? It sems to me 1) hotel rooms with costs that could be backfilled by FEMA, 2) safe parking expansion,
and 3) relocate something like the Clean and Sober encampment in Fife to a sanctioned encampment - with concurrence of City of Fife, potential providers, residents of the encampment.
We need messaging for the public that just doesn't know what to do about visible homelessness. Not the public who will never come along with us but the public who would if they understood change is possible. It seems to me this is a request to fund a professional.
More in the morning,
Maureen
Maureen Howard
Senior Policy Analyst
Tacoma Pierce County Coalition to End Homelessness
3320 S. 8th St.
Tacoma, WA 98405
Tel. 253-756-8146 LL
253-255-2200 cell
"I'm no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I'm changing the things I cannot accept." Angela Davis
"Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, Necessary trouble." John Lewis