David Curry has a way of rearranging preconceptions about the local homeless population.
“We have more kids under the age of 12 living at our Tyler Street Campus than we have single men at our downtown shelter,” said the chief executive officer of The Rescue Mission.
On any given day, The Rescue Mission – which recently dropped “Tacoma” from its name because it helps folks countywide – will tell 30 homeless families it has no room for them.
“We turn away three out of every four families,” Curry said Tuesday.
It’s the same story across Pierce County. In Puyallup, Nola Renz, executive director at Helping Hand House, sees the same numbers as part of a trend that has worsened with the recession.
The problem is daunting, but Curry will introduce one beautiful piece of the solution Thursday at a 2 p.m. ribbon-cutting event at 2909 S. Adams St.
Workers are finishing the Mission’s new Adams Street Family Campus. They’re attaching hand-planed wood to bannisters that lead from the Great Hall to second-floor living quarters in the residential center.
They’re planting shrubs among the mature trees on the airy hilltop. They’ve finished the learning center, children’s recreation center and a covered playground.
When it opens next month, this newest Rescue Mission campus will have 20 emergency housing bedrooms and 16 transitional housing apartments for families whose complex problems have driven them into homelessness.
It’s a lovely place and a smart design.
Wooden beams soar over the Great Hall, with its stone fireplace and windows overlooking a wooded hillside. It has the scale and solid feel of a Northwest lodge.
It will serve as a family room for residents and a dining room for the families in adjacent emergency housing rooms. The industrial kitchen will serve up three meals a day, and counselors in offices bordering the hall will connect residents to the help they need.
Curry’s wife, Kate of Tacoma, and her friend, Penny Cannon of Gig Harbor, chose the colors – taupes, golden woods and ruddy browns – for warmth.
“We want to calm them, soothe them and get them out of survival mode,” Kate Curry said of the families for whom this will be home for as long as two years.
The sense of safety this building projects is crucial.
“We want them to come to a place of beauty, warmth and love,” David Curry said.
In the emergency shelter wing, each family will have a private room with bunk beds and a sink. To maximize shelter space in the $10.2 million building, BCRA architects designed a shared shower room and restrooms.
With the Adams Street facility finished, the agency’s downtown family shelter will close and be remodeled into housing for singles.
But about 85 percent of families in mission programs are a mom with one or two children, Curry said. Families with two parents also are welcome at the new facility.
All will receive a welcome basket with toiletries. (If you’re planning on attending the ribbon-cutting, that would be a nice housewarming gift. New pillows and linens for twin beds would also be much appreciated.)
“It’s very simple. It allows them to stabilize,” Curry said of the emergency shelter. “If they have alcohol or abuse issues, we can move them to the other wing for up to two years.”
In the transitional wing, families live in apartments furnished with new furniture built to withstand energetic use. They have kitchens and will learn to manage budgets. Adults will get treatment and counseling and learn life and job skills.
Some families will leave with the skills to make it on their own, Curry said. Others with disabilities that keep them from being entirely independent will be connected to programs they’ll need to stay housed.
“We want to close the revolving door of homelessness,” Curry said.
A family in stable housing costs the public less than one cycling through homelessness. That’s the reason Pierce County, the state, the City of Tacoma, foundations and individuals collaborated to build this place.
“If I’m Joe Public, I’d want to know that you are taking people who were sleeping under overpasses, and within a couple of years, they are in the real world,” said Mission board member Bruce Bodine.
“We don’t set up systems that enable people,” Curry said. “We set up systems that help people get off public assistance.”
Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677
kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/street
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