$4.5M shelter serving women opens in Tacoma as homeless numbers rise
A new shelter is now serving single women experiencing homelessness in Tacoma.
The $4.5 million project renovated an existing storage facility at the Tacoma Rescue Mission into a 36-bed shelter with capacity to provide 72 beds for emergency shelter during the winter months.
“We’ve really worked on trying to create a warm feel to the space,” Tacoma Rescue Mission executive director Duke Paulson told The News Tribune on a tour Thursday.
The 12,000-square-foot shelter consists of beds with volunteer-made quilts, a laundry room, lockers, phone-charging stations and shower and bathroom facilities. The shelter is on the Tacoma Rescue Mission’s main campus on South Tacoma Way, adjacent to the men shelter, which serves roughly 160 every night.
Individuals can check in for a bed at 3:30 p.m. Dinner is served at 5 p.m. At 7:30 a.m. the next day, they’re asked to clean up and are offered breakfast at 8:30 a.m.
The opening of the shelter comes at a time where Pierce County is seeing an increase in its homeless population.
Results from Pierce County’s annual Point in Time Count, released in June, show 400 more people living in shelters or outside in the county than in January 2019. That number is likely to be higher, according to the county’s Homeless Management Information System, which homeless advocates say is a more reliable tool in tracking statistics.
The idea to build a women-only shelter started in 2018 when a newly appointed Paulson noticed that at the end of mealtime, the men would go toward the Mission’s shelter while the women would disappear up South Tacoma Way.
“I didn’t know where they were going,” he said.
After asking around, he found there was a lack of shelter beds. Nativity House is the only other shelter in Pierce County offering beds specifically for women, about 60, Paulson said. Other shelters are either for adult men or families.
“Historically, there have been a lot more opportunities for men to come into a shelter than there have been for women,” Paulson said.
Paulson and Ernie Carino, an independent advocate who passed away last year, started talks with the City of Tacoma about the shelter. The city committed $1.6 million to the project in 2019. The Rescue Mission held a groundbreaking ceremony in September with an expected completion date of April, but the opening was delayed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
COVID-19 also will impact the number of people the shelter can serve. Instead of the projected 50 beds, the shelter can only account for 36 right now to create more social distancing space. Two people who stayed at the Tacoma Rescue Mission’s shelter in March and April tested positive for COVID-19, but there has not since been an major outbreak, Paulson said.
The women’s shelter made a soft-launch opening on June 25. While 10 women arrived to use the shelter, only two stayed the night. Paulson said that’s because some are hesitant to stay when asked not to leave until the following morning.
“Our experience so far in learning the stories of the people that are coming here, because there are fewer options to go and stay, a lot of women have been on the street, truly, for years. And the amount of abuse and manipulation, both physical and emotional abuse, that they’ve experienced is really high,” Paulson said.
The trust builds slowly, he said. Compared to two individuals the first night, 18 women stayed the night on Wednesday.
Rescue Mission staff said people they’ve worked with so far are “appreciative” for a safe place to stay.
“Women are personalizing the spaces,” said Amanda Paschall, senior director of community engagement at the Rescue Mission. “They’re hanging up their clothing, they’re putting out photos — things like that.”
The Tacoma Rescue Mission intends to host a grand opening when Pierce County is in Phase 4 of the governor’s COVID-19 Safe Start reopening plan and plans to name the shelter after Carino.
