Three new homeless shelters could open in Pierce County this year. Here’s what we know
Pierce County plans to open several new emergency homeless shelters this year, including a medical-respite site, as part of the county’s multi-million dollar Comprehensive Plan to End Homelessness, which was adopted in 2022 and is proceeding on track, officials said.
The shelters include a new 50-bed temporary tiny home village in unincorporated Pierce County, a 39-bed shelter in Hilltop and a new shelter in South Tacoma with 53 permanent supportive housing beds and 65 medical-respite beds, according to a Human Services presentation to the Pierce County Select Committee on Homelessness on Wednesday.
After earmarking the largest-ever allocation for housing and homelessness in 2021, the county’s Comprehensive Plan to End Homelessness provides a pathway to increase funding for homelessness programs from $40 million a year to $160 million annually, according to the project’s website.
Social service supervisor Devon Isakson said federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars will be used to establish and develop many of these capital projects, “and then the expectation is that the operations dollars come through our Homeless Housing Project funds, which includes [Homeless Document Recording Fee funding] and [Emergency Housing Funds].”
Although Washington state has provided the county with some additional emergency housing funding, ultimately the community will have to come together and decide “what we need to do to make sure that these projects don’t end,” she said.
Isakson told the committee that investments have been made to strengthen the county’s Homeless Crisis Response System and invest in permanent supportive-housing capital projects. Discussions to create a unified regional approach to address homelessness with nearby cities and municipalities will take place this spring, she said.
In 2023 nearly 10,000 people received services through Pierce County’s Homeless Crisis Response System, an all-time high, according to the county.
What do we know about these new shelters?
A new tiny home village in Spanaway operated by the Low Income Housing Institute is expected to open with 50 beds, with an opening date to be determined after permits are secured, Isakson said. Futher details will be provided by LIHI later this month, she said. LIHI has been awarded $2.6 million for the project.
Valeo Vocation received $2 million from the county to acquire a building on Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Hilltop. The new non-congregate shelter would have individual rooms and 39 beds, according to the county. It is projected to open later this summer. Isakson said Valeo Vocation is applying for operational funding and renovations.
A highly-anticipated and “much-needed” medical-respite shelter with 53 permanent supportive-housing beds and 65 medical-respite beds might open by the end of 2024, Isakson said. Short-term medical-respite care gives people experiencing homelessness who are not ill enough to be in a hospital a safe place to recover from illness or injury while accessing medical care and other supportive services. The Low Income Housing Institute has received $3.85 million for a contract that is expected to be executed this summer and the shelter will be at 6802 Tacoma Mall Blvd., the former Clarion Inn site, she said.
Other comprehensive plan updates
Millions of federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars will be used to pay for the Comprehensive Plan to End Homelessness and its projects. In 2022-2023, $9 million of ARPA funding was penciled into the biennial Pierce County budget, and $6.5 million is earmarked for 2024-2025.
Some of the plan’s goals reached thus far include funding $5.7 million in permanent supportive-housing units, distributing over $4.3 million in rental assistance in 2023, providing financial counseling and life skills training to 488 households and funding research to explore rental assistance as an intervention to prevent homelessness, according to Isakson’s presentation.
Some goals that still need to be met include developing and maintaining a regional strategic funding plan to address homelessness, closing gaps in behavioral health capacity and effectiveness within the Pierce County Behavioral Health Division and offering Rapid Re-housing and Permanent Supportive Housing interventions during the Coordinated Entry process, among other goals, according to Isakson’s presentation.
This story was originally published March 4, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
