Pierce County intensifies focus on homelessness. ‘We got to have a 100 ways out.’
Pierce County’s homeless problem is complex. Amid a housing shortage, rent increases and lack of affordable housing, a larger segment of Pierce County is at risk of becoming unhoused.
On July 11, the Pierce County Council voted unanimously to create a select committee on homelessness, which will start meeting twice a month until the end of next year. The first meeting is July 26.
Council member Marty Campbell, serving as chair of the committee, said he wants to signal to constituents that addressing homelessness is a top priority for the council. Council member Robyn Denson is the vice chair, Paul Herrera is a member and Ryan Mello is an alternate.
“This is something we’ve wanted to do for a while, because homelessness is so complex, … whether we’re talking about people who are homeless because of affordable housing, job loss, medical bills, because of co-occurring disorders,” Campbell said. “There’s 100 ways into homelessness. We got to have 100 ways out.”
Early meetings will begin setting expectations for the committee, reviewing what steps the county is already taking to address homelessness and hearing from experts and others in the community, “making sure that we as policymakers are up to speed on what’s going on in our neighborhoods,” Campbell said.
In the future discussions and knowledge gained can inform policy changes that would go back to the Health and Human Services Committee, or the full council for consideration, Campbell said.
The committee might also review which local organizations are currently receiving funding from the county and have larger in-depth conversations about how to use funding drawn from a recent sales-and-use tax of 0.1% to fund housing and related services that passed in March, Campbell said.
“Last year over 160 people who were homeless died on our streets. It is dangerous to be homeless,” he said. “For many of those who want to find stable housing, we need to provide as many opportunities as we can. It’s a lot of work on our part, focused and dedicated work.”
Rob Huff said in his work with the Tacoma Pierce County Coalition to End Homelessness he receives emails every week from people who are about to lose their housing. Pierce County taking the step to create a designated committee to address homelessness is an important display of leadership, he said.
“The systems that exist right now that are funded in Pierce County don’t really have solutions for someone who’s a few hundred dollars short of the rent this month. The systems that do exist really kick in when somebody becomes homeless,” Huff said. “So if we want to stop the flow of people becoming homeless, we need to find efficient ways to keep people in the housing that they have.”
Huff said he hopes the committee would be able to add “focus and juice” to the Comprehensive Plan to End Homelessness that was adopted by the council last year, which plans to create a unified regional approach to end homelessness. Huff said he plans to attend committee meetings and speak to the committee moving forward.
It will be important to listen to folks who have experienced homelessness and to prioritize voices of people in Black, Indigenous and other communities of color, who are disproportionately affected by homelessness as well, Huff said.
Lack of shelter beds, rising housing costs exacerbate situation
About 4,000 people are homeless in Pierce County, according to county estimates, and there are only about 1,300 available shelter beds, Huff said.
“And then there’s such a constricted supply of affordable housing to move people into to free up the shelter space that is available,” Huff said.
In a typical year in Pierce County, roughly 2,000 people who experience homelessness move into some sort of housing, Huff said, but more than 2,000 people become homeless each year.
Rising rents and housing costs are “causing a greater flow of new folks becoming homeless for the first time,” he said.
“We need to work on affordable housing across the county and make sure that the focus of that work is at the lowest income levels, so that the people who are slipping into homelessness have a path out of homelessness, but also so that we can restrict how many new people become homeless all the time,” Huff said. “As long as we have that kind of situation, it’s going to be hard to see a noticeable difference in the number of people living in tents … or doorways or in cars or RVs around the county.”
Pierce County community services manager John Barbee said developing housing strategy takes time, but he thinks the county is heading in the right direction.
Understanding that everyone has unique challenges and taking an individual client-centered approach is important when looking at the county’s homeless response system, Barbee said.
“When you start to peel back the layers, there’s a lot more services that are needed for people who are unsheltered or living on the streets, right? And that’s everything from mental and behavioral health services [to] basic life skills and understanding the resources that are available [like] increasing their employability,” Barbee said. “That’s something that we’ve really focused on, as well as really looking at an enhanced shelter model and really focusing on wraparound case management services from our providers.”
Next month the Pierce County Human Services department will hire a new point of contact who will attend Homeless Committee meetings and help residents find resources they need, Barbee said.
People experiencing homelessness or in need of housing services can contact Barbee at john.barbee@piercecountywa.gov or use the county’s Coordinated Entry System and call 211 weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. for on-demand support or to schedule an appointment.
This story was originally published July 17, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
