Lakewood has county’s 3rd highest population of homeless people. Where are the services?
Sylvia Bridge, 79, has spent most of her last 25 years on Lakewood streets.
She wishes there were more resources for the homeless there.
“They ought to have a soup kitchen,” Bridge said while sitting on a bench outside Lakewood City Hall in July.
Catholic Community Services’ coordinated entry is a database of anyone who has used a homeless resource in Pierce County. As of June 1, the database counted 415 people experiencing homelessness in Lakewood.
“That is the number of people that connected with any part of Pierce County’s homeless system within the last three months with no record of a subsequent exit from homelessness that said they were currently homeless and living in Lakewood,” said Gerrit Nyland, director of client information systems with CCS.
The only shelter in the city is limited to homeless families. Nyland said there is a perception that Lakewood does not have a homelessness issue.
“There is just this denial of the existence of homeless people in Lakewood,” Nyland told The News Tribune.
Lakewood has the third highest homelessness population in Pierce County, according to the CCS coordinated entry data.
Tacoma’s homeless population soars above the rest of the county. The city accounted for 4,128 of Pierce County’s 6,894 homeless population, according to Catholic Community Services most recent data on June 1. Most of the county’s homeless shelters are in Tacoma.
Puyallup came in second with a homeless population of 702 as of June 1. A daytime resource center, New Hope Resource Center, serves Puyallup and East Pierce County. A family shelter for East Pierce County is run by Helping Hand House.
‘Net exporter’ of homelessness
Whether getting housing assistance or spending a night in a homeless shelter, Nyland said, all folks are asked where their last permanent address was and where they slept the night prior.
With those two questions, Nyland can learn the migration patterns of people experiencing homelessness.
Lakewood is a “net exporter” of homelessness — more people leave Lakewood to be homeless than move to Lakewood to be homeless, Nyland said. According to an October 2017 report by Catholic Community Services, 916 people left Lakewood to become homeless in the previous 12 months while 506 moved into the city to become homeless.
Lakewood’s homeless population is more diverse than other cities in Pierce County, and there tends to be more families than elsewhere. Nyland said moving families can be more complicated by things like changing a child’s school.
“If we can have more resources closer to where people are becoming homeless, I think we end their homelessness faster, because they don’t have so much disruption while they’re getting the homeless services,” he said.
Nyland said COVID-19 has posed new challenges for the homeless population. With libraries and many businesses closed, finding toilets and running water has been difficult.
“So there’s not even facilities in Lakewood for people to use,” he said. “Right now there’s 415 people homeless in Lakewood, so that’s a lot of people who don’t have a toilet to use.”
LASA
One Lakewood nonprofit is trying to provide the city’s homeless population with basic necessities.
LASA, Living Access Support Alliance, runs the only homeless housing program in Lakewood: a 15-unit transitional shelter for families with children on Gravelly Lake Drive and two single-family homes.
Executive director Janne Hutchins said she would like to have a resource center, but LASA currently does not have the space for one.
“As far as a public toilet or public hand washing, we don’t have that,” Hutchins said. “If we had a little bit more land, I would have liked to have had people come in, grab a cup of coffee and get warm or get cool, according to the weather.”
She said she has tried more than a dozen times to build a laundry facility for those living on the streets or in their cars. Finding funding, through government or private donations, has proven difficult.
“For people on the street who need clothes to be washed, it’s pretty sad,” she said.
Normally, LASA offers an essential-needs closet, with coats, diapers and ready-to-eat meals, but the pandemic has closed the organization’s doors to the public. Hutchins said LASA is delivering things to clients’ apartments during the coronavirus pandemic.
City of Lakewood
Every year, Lakewood allocates 1 percent of its general fund to housing programs, food banks, youth programs and behavioral health services. About $360,000 was given to nonprofit organizations, including $15,000 for Catholic Community Services.
The city of Lakewood does not generate the same revenue as Tacoma or Puyallup and therefore has less money to spend on social services, Mayor Don Anderson said.
Lakewood’s general fund for 2020 was $49.2 million, or about $813 per resident. Puyallup’s general fund is $56.2 million, or about $1,341 per resident.
Anderson said the city has tried to combat homelessness through systemic action. The city has used funding from the neighborhood stabilization program to build sidewalks and utility connections, allowing for Habitat for Humanity to build 37 homes.
Lakewood also gave LASA $1 million toward the family stability shelter.
“Prevention is cheaper than correction,” Anderson said.
Lakewood police have a mental health professional who can respond to 911 calls. Anderson said having a specialist connects those in need with behavioral health resources.
“I think it’s one of the reasons why visible homelessness in Lakewood is fairly modest. That outreach has helped,” Anderson said.
Anderson said just because there aren’t homeless services in Lakewood doesn’t mean homeless people there don’t receive services. Many probably get services in Tacoma, he said.
“The boundaries between jurisdictions are very artificial,” he said. “We all kind of blend together. But yes, I think that some additional nonprofit involvement in that regard would be good.”
Who is responsible?
Nyland said cities shouldn’t rely on nonprofit organizations to take responsibility for their homeless population.
He compares receiving homeless services to responding to a heart attack.
“I would call 911, and somebody would come in. If 911 didn’t come, I’d make a big deal about it,” he said. “I would want to find out exactly why we didn’t have adequate medical response because as a community, we’ve charged the fire department to be responsive, and we have resourced them to be able to deal with emergencies. I’m not sure we’ve done either of those things with homelessness in Lakewood.”
Anderson and Hutchins said it comes back to community involvement.
The mayor said Lakewood has many low-income households but also several wealthy ones who don’t tend to invest in Lakewood.
“People in the higher end, though generous, are involved in Tacoma nonprofits,” Anderson said. “Lakewood suffers from not having support, but it’s not that people aren’t supporting something. Historically, the money has all flowed to Tacoma.”
Hutchins said part of the reason she believes the laundry facility hasn’t been built is due to a lack of community support.
“Lakewood really could use a drop-in center, and it could use a small emergency shelter,” she said. “I guess it depends whether there is enough community appetite for that or enough appreciation for the need for it. It concerns me that there may not be based on the laundry site.”
