Tacoma preparing to clear People’s Park homeless camp. Where folks will go remains unclear
There are a lot of tents. There’s no other way to say it.
It was a fact not lost on Al Roach on Tuesday morning as he sat on one of the concrete steps at People’s Park on Hilltop.
“I’ve seen it building, day after day,” Roach said of the homeless encampment that now occupies nearly every inch of the planting strips surrounding the park.
“It’s terrible,” Roach assessed, with tears in his eyes, surveying a growing collection of tents and other makeshift shelters that, by unofficial count, totaled more than 50.
For the last two years, Roach, who said he’s “in his 60’s,” has been homeless in Tacoma. The cost of housing, coupled with difficulty finding work, has meant he’s spent many nights in the park, he said.
Roach also knows that soon the tents — and the people currently seeking shelter in them — will be gone.
Or, as he put it more succinctly, “I know I’ve got to leave.”
Park enforcement delayed
Dec. 1 was supposed to mark a deadline at People’s Park, but it came and went.
Plans to clear the large homeless encampment at the park — stirred by changes to local park code — were put on hold after the city acknowledged that forcing individuals to leave without providing somewhere to go would be inhumane and likely unconstitutional under federal court precedent.
At least in part, the realization spurred the City Council’s Nov. 19 vote authorizing the construction of a temporary micro-shelter site — or tiny home community — on Hilltop.
The tiny home site is intended to provide an alternative for those living at People’s Park.
According to Allyson Griffith, manager for the city’s Neighborhood Enhancement Team, the site is expected to be up and running by the middle of December.
For Roach and those currently occupying the tents surrounding People’s Park, that’s when moving day will come — one way or another.
Griffith said she expects People’s Park will be “returned to its previous state” within a week of the new micro-shelter site’s opening.
The city’s goal, Griffith explained, is to make every Tacoma park “safe and usable for all members of the public.”
Meanwhile, the micro-shelter site will be constructed and operated by Seattle’s Low Income Housing Institute, at a contracted cost of $388,000 to the city. Expected to house 35 people in 22 micro units, it will be built on undeveloped property at Martin Luther King Jr. Way and 8th Street, about a block from People’s Park, and will operate for no longer than eight months..
Griffith said that individuals currently living at the People’s Park encampment will be given first opportunity to move in. After that, if spots remain, other people experiencing homelessness in Tacoma would have a shot.
Most importantly, between the space available at the new temporary tiny home community and other permanent shelter sites, the city expects shelter to be available for everyone currently living at People’s Park who is “willing to accept it,” according to city of Tacoma spokesperson Megan Snow.
Therein lies the ongoing challenge, though, because whether that proves true also remains to be seen.
In small part, that’s because how many people are currently occupying the tents at the park remains unclear.
Accessing homeless services
Unofficial estimates from residents like Patricia Washington, as reported by The News Tribune’s Allison Needles last month, have put the number of individuals living at People’s Park at more than 100.
The city’s latest count, based on outreach efforts Tuesday, found 85 people at the park.
What’s more clear is the city’s acknowledgment that not everyone will take the offer.
“Individuals can make a choice to be outside or housed inside. The best that we can do is offer them the resource to do that,” Griffith said.
For some, the prospect of a more stable living situation — whether it’s at the forthcoming tiny home community or another Tacoma shelter — comes as welcome news.
According to Snow, ongoing outreach efforts suggest some people ready to move on.
“Several people,” Snow said, have been working with local service providers “and have developed plans to transition to housing.”
“I think it will help us all, because it at least gives us something warmer to be in,” Henri Taylor, a 33-year-old who has been living in the People’s Park encampment since Nov. 2, previously told The News Tribune when asked about the coming tiny home community.
At the same time, from that cold concrete step Tuesday morning, Roach provided a glimpse at the many vexing difficulties ahead.
Roach isn’t sure what he’ll do when the encampment goes away later this month.
He’s spoken to outreach workers, he said, but he’s not sold on a tiny home.
Mostly, Roach said, he simply wants a job and a permanent place to live.
“I just want to go back to work. I’ve worked my whole life,” he said.
This story was originally published December 5, 2019 at 6:05 AM.
