The clock is ticking. Will Tacoma get money to keep homeless shelters open?
Following the close of the legislative session, a Tacoma city official says the city is “optimistic” it will be able to get the funding needed to keep more than 300 homeless shelter beds open.
With the Legislature’s budget still unsigned by the governor, questions remain about how much funding the city would be able to get and when the funding would be available.
The City of Tacoma has been planning to close roughly 339 emergency shelter beds by June. At the beginning of 2025, city officials said they would be requesting funding from the state to maintain a portion of the shelter beds through the next couple of years.
City spokesperson Maria Lee told The News Tribune the city requested $6 million per year to maintain 307 shelter beds through June 2027.
Lee said the budget recently passed by the Legislature does not directly name Tacoma as a recipient for such funding but does note an annual allocation of $58.8 million in grant funding to be available to support homeless housing programs and services in cities and counties.
“Although Tacoma isn’t explicitly named in the proviso, legislative staff have verified the City’s eligibility to seek these funds,” Lee told The News Tribune in an email.
During the Tacoma’s Community Vitality and Safety Committee meeting on May 8, City Council members received an update on the potential funding.
During the meeting, Katie Johnston, the interim director of Tacoma’s Neighborhood and Community Services (NCS) department, said the Legislature would allocate the homeless service funding program through the Department of Commerce.
“We are currently working with Commerce to understand the details of that program,” she told the committee. “But two of the important pieces that we don’t know right now is the amount and the timing of those funds. Particularly when we will have certainty about what’s next.”
When asked about the details of the program and the grant-application process, Amelia Lamb, a spokesperson for the Department of Commerce, told The News Tribune it was too soon to say.
“The budget is not yet final,” Lamb told The News Tribune in an email on May 1. “It’s currently being reviewed by the Governor, and we’re also still analyzing it and how funding impacts individual programs. It will be a little time before we can give you a good response to your budget questions, as that analysis is intentionally careful.”
On May 8, Johnston told the committee she was “optimistic” the city would receive funding through the grant program.
She said the city has received “indications” Department of Commerce will use a grant-application process that is familiar to the city.
“That’s a good sign that it will happen pretty quickly to help with the operational impacts,” Johnston said.
During the May 8 committee meeting, Caleb Carbone, the homeless strategy, systems and services manager for NCS, said the city is developing a contingency plan in case the funding does not come through.
“Given the uncertainties around this funding award and the distribution process, we must develop a contingency plan,” Carbone told the committee.
He said the city will have a “hands-on” approach to transitioning families and individuals out of closing shelters and into other services and housing programs.
“The City is committed to ensuring that every resident has the option to transition to the new location or has an alternative shelter location should they wish by or before June 30, 2025,” the city manager’s May 8 report to the council stated.
How did we get here?
When Tacoma’s homelessness strategy was drafted in 2022, it was anticipated that there would be a funding gap of roughly $12 million to maintain the shelters at the end of 2024. Part of the city’s plan included increasing the inventory of permanent affordable-housing units to provide housing opportunities for those living in shelters.
Carbone previously told The News Tribune that during the pandemic, one-time funding opportunities, like those through the American Rescue Plan Act as well as resources from the state, were used to support the operation of the shelters. During that time the city significantly increased its homeless-shelter capacity at a time when it was needed.
“The challenge has been that the demand for temporary shelter beds has exceeded the initial expectations,” Tacoma’s deputy city manager Sonja Hallum told The News Tribune in an interview. “So the stand down is not happening at the pace that the city had originally expected and hoped would occur.”
Hallum said the beds set to disappear in 2025 represents a “significant” portion of the city’s shelter beds. The city had about 1,099 shelter beds as of the beginning of 2025
With Tacoma hosting what is about 80% of Pierce County’s shelter capacity, the loss of shelter funding would have county-wide implications, Hallum said.
“So the impact isn’t just for the city, it’s for the entire region,” she told The News Tribune. “We are greatly concerned about the ability to provide for this very vulnerable population.”
This story was originally published May 14, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
