Personnel turmoil prompts temporary closure of center serving Tacoma’s LGBTQ community
The Rainbow Center, Tacoma’s main LGBTQ community center, will be closed to in-person services until March 4, according to an announcement on social media last week.
The temporary closure comes on the heels of executive director Quincy Tyson’s resignation Jan. 22 as well as the resignation of most of the center’s staff in recent months.
Tyson took over as executive director last March following the departure of Troy Christensen. Tyson told The News Tribune on Jan. 23 he was resigning for personal reasons.
The Rainbow Center, 2215 Pacific Ave., provides direct services to about 1,000 people and serves nearly 4,000 in Tacoma each year, according to the organization’s website. In addition to offering a community space downtown with a library, the center provides advocacy and educational services, as well as hosts social events including Tacoma Pride and an annual Black and White Gayla.
The organizations’ phone lines will still be operating during the closure, which will give time for board members to interview for an executive director replacement, Rainbow Center board president Jayla Watje told the News Tribune Feb. 7.
In the meantime, Watje said she will be standing in as executive director during the search for an interim and permanent executive director. As a volunteer Watje said she has served on the board since 2019 and is entering her second year as board president.
In addition to her work with Rainbow Center Watje said she’s heavily involved in the Tacoma LGBTQ community, launched the local Queer City Sports Tacoma chapter, produced the Queerly Funny comedy showcase and co-owns a queer-focused barber shop, The Barber Collective, with her wife. Watje said she’s also organized and run numerous fundraisers for local LGBTQ groups, including the Rainbow Center, Oasis Youth Center, Cheer Tacoma and the AIDS Housing Association of Tacoma.
“The temporary closure is a vital step in our journey to reset, rebuild and strategic plan to enhance our services, ensuring we can better support the LGBTQIA2SP+ community,” the Rainbow Center said in a social media Feb. 2. “Thank you for your understanding and support during this time.”
Funding for the center comes from grants, donations, government entities and some money earned through educational programming, Watje said.
The Rainbow Center brought in about $589,172 in total revenue in 2021 with $1,081,834 in revenue reported the year prior, according to the center’s latest tax filing.
“Despite recent transitions, we’ve worked diligently to ensure our programs and services continue without interruption. The only program currently impacted by the recent changes is our open community hours,” Watje said in an email to the News Tribune Feb. 6. “Despite these adjustments, all other services, including our advocacy and educational programming, continue to operate. We are committed to minimizing any disruptions and are actively working towards resuming our full range of programs to serve our community effectively.”
Five former Rainbow Center staff told The News Tribune they resigned due to a toxic workplace environment and said they believed the Rainbow Center was not living up to its mission to serve the community when revenue that once supported direct services like free bus passes, housing and workforce assistance dried up.
Watje told The News Tribune she couldn’t discuss specific personnel matters but said the Rainbow Center’s Board of Directors “takes any concerns seriously and follows through procedures to address them.”
“Like many organizations, we’ve faced challenges that have led to changes in our team. This year, we’ve seen the departure of six team members, leaving us with four dedicated staff. While our team size can reach up to eight, it’s important to note that not every person who has left provided a reason for their departure and we are not able to speak on any current or former employees behalf,” Watje said in the Feb. 6 email. “We are taking steps to understand and address any underlying issues to ensure a supportive and fulfilling work environment for our current and future staff. We’re focused on moving forward, learning from these experiences, and taking steps to ensure a supportive work environment.”
The center’s Board of Directors is responsible for providing strategic oversight to the Rainbow Center, including financial oversight, governance, policy-making, supporting fundraising efforts and overseeing the executive transition process, Watje said.
Ex-staffer worries about community impacts
Charlie Best worked as the Rainbow Center’s education manager from March 2022 through September 2023. Months before he resigned on Sept. 29, Best said, the Rainbow Center had become somewhat of a ghost town, with few clients coming in and staff feeling on edge.
“By July, August, September, we had almost nobody in that space. People just stopped coming because they knew there was nothing we could do for them,” Best told The News Tribune. “We essentially became a referral service [to other providers], which was not the intended purpose of Rainbow Center and was not how we were operating for many, many, many years before that.”
Best said he initially loved his job as an educator, but leadership failures left him “embarrassed and ashamed to work at the Rainbow Center,” according to his resignation email, which was shared with The News Tribune.
“The main goal for 20 years now has been providing direct services to queer, trans folks in the area. That means actually providing fiscal support, whether that’s transportation subsidies, mental health vouchers, support with housing, all these sorts of things, even something like a food pack we could hand out to folks at the door,” he said. “All of these things have completely stopped, and as a result, people are without the essential resources.”
Watje told the News Tribune the Rainbow Center’s services, including advocacy and educational programming, continue to operate. The Rainbow Center used to be a recipient of an Office of Crime Victims Advocacy grant which funded specific programs for advocacy services, but that grant ended, Watje said.
Best said regardless of grants Rainbow Center receives, it’s the Board and executive director’s role to allocate funding to those advocacy services because they were essential.
People in the LGBTQ community face tremendous barriers, prejudice and discrimination, and since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic access to medical services and other resources has become more difficult, he said.
In light of the Pierce County AIDS Foundation’s current financial and staffing struggles, as well as the Oasis Youth Center’s ongoing lawsuit alleging PCAF misappropriated $200,000 from the nonprofit, Best said without the Rainbow Center providing valuable support and resources there will be a “massive, massive impact” on the local LGBTQ community.
“We see disproportionately, astoundingly high rates of homelessness, of resource insecurity, unemployment, … suicidality, depression,” Best said. “That is why community organizations like Rainbow Center exist. They need to be there to help offset the barriers that are in place when living in an oppressive society.”
This story was originally published February 8, 2024 at 5:30 AM.
