For homeless people on the Peninsula, help can be a bridge too far away
As the statewide eviction moratorium nears an end with more than 171,000 households behind on rent, work is underway throughout Pierce County to connect those in need with the services they may need for a tough winter.
For those living in Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula, the first of the month has long been a day of crisis. The pandemic has added the looming risk of falling into homelessness.
For all too many, getting help may mean a trip across the Narrows Bridge.
“Oftentimes, there are really no other places to go to access those resources in our area unless you go to Tacoma,” said Wendy Wojtanowicz, site coordinator at Peninsula High School for Communities in Schools Peninsula (CISP).
Gig Harbor and the Key Peninsula lack warming centers, for instance, which provide warmth and shelter during cold weather, although Tacoma has several and Kitsap County has five, including one in Port Orchard.
John Barbee, Community Services manager for the county, is hoping to address some of these concerns. Barbee oversees three programs: affordable housing, homeless programs, and community development.
As always in government, “there is a need for more resources,” Barbee said. “Capacity is always a challenge with our agencies and our providers. There is a need for us to diversify and broaden our scope of work and reach out there, just in general.”
To that end, Barbee recently held a virtual Community Development Think Tank, during which he talked with service groups and community members in the Key Peninsula and Gig Harbor area.
In that Nov. 13 meeting, community members complained that calls to 211, the county help number, are largely unhelpful for connecting callers with services and resources on the two Peninsulas.
“We need to educate and make sure that 211 is caught up to speed with all the services because we do have folks that can go out there,” Barbee said. Not everyone is fully aware that Key Peninsula is part of Pierce County, he conceded.
Barbee said he wanted to hear from local organizations about what more could be done.
“There are limited resources there of community partners and agencies that we actually fund or partner with,” Barbee said. “We wanted to hear from people out there.”
Shelter for teens
Currently, Harbor Hope Center, which focuses on homeless teens, is the county’s only shelter partner in the Gig Harbor area.
Harbor Hope Executive Director Daniel Johnson said the group is working to maintain its services, which also includes mentorships and food delivery, during the pandemic.
The center has two shelter facilities, each with six beds, that are for male and female youths in need. The facilities are meant to offer temporary shelter before students are relocated to a private host home.
COVID-19 has slowed down that process. The facilities currently have two girls and two boys in each location.
“The goal is that they come in and that they stay for up to 90 days then we put them in a host home,” Johnson said. “The reality is, with covid, it has been very hard to recruit host homes.”
Johnson says one of the biggest challenges is to keep the facilities going, as it requires someone on site all the time. But they are making most other programming work virtually, Johnson said.
“What covid did, the same thing it did for everybody, it made all of the aspects of the program that were face to face turn to virtual,” Johnson said.
Johnson said critical work continues.
“We’re doing crisis intervention,” Johnson said. “We are identifying student needs in our high schools before they become critical, identifying family crises in not only Gig Harbor but throughout the Peninsula. It is about being able to intervene before they lose their homes, before they lose their lives, before kids end up irreparably harmed. We’re creating a safety net for Gig Harbor and the Peninsula.”
Oasis adds rent relief
Another group offering support is the Oasis Youth Center, which is not normally involved in offering support for those facing housing uncertainty. It is one of the organizations to which the county provided CARES Act funding for rental relief.
Executive Director Matthew Wilson said members of the LGBTQ+ community can apply through their website at www.oasisyouthcenter.com/erap.
“Our goal is to assist as many people as we can, as quickly as we can through the December 31 deadline,” Wilson said. “It is an unusual thing for us to do because we’re in unusual circumstances. We don’t typically provide direct housing support.”
Even before the pandemic, a 2017 study showed that “LGBTQ+ youth are 120 percent more likely to experience homelessness than their heterosexual and cisgendered peers.”
“This relief is for people at risk of eviction — not anyone experiencing homelessness, but maybe on the verge of it,” Wilson said. “It is to help them catch up on rent.”
Wilson estimates that they have helped 12 applicants with an average of $2,000 each.
“We’re about halfway through,” Wilson said. “It’s been picking up quickly so we anticipate going through the funds.”
Wilson says the group can’t pay current rent; they can only help with back payments.
Whether the program continues depends on whether additional funding becomes available, he said.
“It’s definitely on the table. We’ve stated to folks that this is a one-time thing for us, but if there were to be Congress passing something for another three months then absolutely we’re in it,” Wilson said.
CISP offers aid
Another source of support is Communities in School Peninsula , a nonprofit that helps students stay in school, but that also offers housing support.
“We can access funds to help families and students within our area with their housing needs” said Wendy Wojtanowicz, who is the site coordinator for Peninsula High School.
Hopefully we get to them before they become homeless, but we can still help them if they become homeless,” Wojtanowicz said. “If they just need a little rental assistance or if they need to be relocated to another area or maybe they just need help with some funds to put a deposit down or if we can help move them in with another family member.”
Wojtanowicz said she has helped four families within the last two months. She estimates it is sixteen to eighteen families or individuals per year, many of whom are students that involve coordinates with Harbor Hope shelters.
The pandemic has changed much of the day to day for Wojtanowicz, who said she has had to be proactive in connecting with families and individuals directly, even doing house calls.
“Our focus of service, at least for me personally, has changed a little bit,” Wojtanowicz said. “I’ve gone more from sharing resources to reaching out to families individually.”
One of the motivating factors for Wojtanowicz is the need to offer support close to home.
“We need to allow people in the Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula area to access those services in our home area,” she said.
The most recent annual Point-In-Time count in Pierce County showed a more than 400 person increase, from approximately 1,500 to 1,900, of those experiencing homelessness. It also is believed that these numbers are an undercount.
The official number for Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula was 34 last year, though Barbee says they aren’t sure if the count will happen as it usually does this year due to COVID-19.
“We’re not sure we’re having it this year. If we do have to have the Point-In-Time count it probably won’t be as robust as last year, though we’ll do the best we can,” Barbee said.
If someone you know needs help with housing:
▪ The Harbor Hope Center website is www.harborhopecenter.org
▪ The Oasis Youth Center website is www.oasisyouthcenter.org
▪ The Communities in School Peninsula website is www.peninsula.ciswa.org
▪ The Gig Harbor-Peninsula FISH Food Bank website is www.ghpfish.org
▪ The Children’s Home Society of Washington (Key Peninsula) is at www.childrenshomesociety.org/pierce
Reach Chase Hutchison at chasehutchinson@thenewstribune.com
This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 12:30 PM.
