Hi everyone,
I know that this is being sent late in the evening. My apologies for that. It is my hope that you will have a few minutes to read this statement tonight or tomorrow morning before the Coalition meeting, so I can make any adjustments we feel are necessary before discussing this with the rest of the Coalition. If we feel this is not ready to be discussed as is, we can also choose to remove it from the agenda tomorrow.
Thank you to Sally Perkins for collaborating with me on this current version, and I look forward to the added wisdom each of you can bring to creating a simple and clear statement that we feel should be made to the Tacoma Mayor and City Council in response to its most recent update on the city’s homelessness strategy.
Response to the June 13 study session
Following a presentation by City of Tacoma staff that highlighted the growth of homelessness in Tacoma and an impending step down in the availability of shelter options due to funding constraints in the next year, City Council member John Hines issued a news release proclaiming the success of the camping ban passed by a 6-3 majority of the City Council in October 2022.
The news release says, “Since November 15, 2022, we have removed 62 encampments and more than 1 million pounds of debris. Even more importantly, we have reached 694 individuals who are interested in services and 123 people have accepted shelter.” The release also proclaims that no one has been arrested as they have been swept from sites inside the 10-block camping ban zones around temporary shelter sites funded by the city and 200-foot buffer zones around waterways in the city.
Contrary to Council Member Hines’ framing of how the camping ban has worked, outreach workers have made it clear that they are having a more difficult time building and maintaining relationships with those who are currently homeless in Tacoma, because people have been forced to move frequently, often to areas outside of the camping ban zones. Enforcement of the camping ban has created distrust among those who are homeless and also made it harder for outreach teams to find people who they are trying to connect to critical services and shelter. It should also be noted that the city has declined to provide even minimal garbage service to encampments, effectively guaranteeing the high levels of “debris” reported at the Study Session presentation.
During the previous update on the city’s homelessness strategy, provided at a study session in March, city staff was asked how many people they believed were homeless in Tacoma. Staff responded that their best estimate was there were between 200-300 people who were visibly living on the streets in Tacoma. But the data reported at the June 13 study session states that staff had made nearly 1,500 contacts with people who are homeless in Tacoma, and that 694 of those people were open to receiving services. Also during the June 13 presentation, there were no updated projections of the number of people becoming homeless (versus the number being housed, the Functional Zero calculation), which means that future estimates of the amount of shelter space needed are not linked to projections of the future number of unhoused people needing shelter space in the City.
At this time, we have no idea how much shelter space will be needed in the future. What we do know is that there is not enough shelter space now for the number of people living on Tacoma’s streets, and the most desirable shelter options as described by city staff – the microshelter sites and Aspen Court – have virtually no vacancies. In addition, Aspen Court is phasing out referrals for shelter as it prepares to become permanent supportive housing at the end of the year, reducing emergency shelter capacity by 100 beds.
It is clear to the Coalition that the camping ban has failed to lead to the creation of additional shelter, that the city’s anticipated budget constraints make it unlikely that any additional neighborhoods would be funded to host a temporary shelter site, and that there is no clear evidence that there are fewer people living on the streets of Tacoma than when the camping ban was passed by a 6-3 majority of the City Council in October 2022.
The Coalition urges the city to reimagine its response to homelessness and to focus on solutions to homelessness – a variety of shelter and housing solutions that people will choose to use – instead of continuing to spend thousands of dollars each month to move people from one block to another.
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