Many homeless people in Tacoma say they want to live outside. Why not let them?
You have to listen. You have to genuinely want to hear what people experiencing homelessness are saying and then be willing to respond to their voices, even when it’s difficult or not politically expedient.
That’s the big, obvious takeaway, according to Colin DeForrest, and yet as cities and local governments grapple with homelessness, he says it’s a lesson many have been too slow to learn.
“You need to go and physically meet people experiencing homelessness where they are. You have to listen to them, and talk to them respectfully — not talk at them,” DeForrest explained this week.
“I don’t think there are a lot of people in government who feel safe or equipped to do that, for multiple reasons,” DeForrest continued. “I think we’re really good — especially in government — at telling people what they need and what’s wrong with them.”
DeForrest makes a compelling point.
More importantly, he has receipts.
Earlier this year, DeForrest — who previously served as Tacoma’s homeless services manager and now works as a homeless services and strategies consultant — partnered with the Metropolitan Development Council to deliver a report to the city that once employed him. It included interviews conducted in February, March and April with 91 people experiencing homelessness in Tacoma.
The effort focused on segments of Tacoma’s homeless population that can be the most difficult to reach and help, DeForrest said. He traveled to local homeless shelters as well as areas of downtown and the Port of Tacoma known to be home to encampments to conduct the interviews.
So what did DeForrest hear?
And how can it help?
Consider the following:
Given a choice, 72% of respondents included in the report said they would prefer to stay at a small managed outdoor camp.
At the same time, only 19% of respondents said they would prefer to stay at an indoor shelter.
Meanwhile, given the chance to provide multiple responses, addiction and mental health ranked as the top two reasons people provided for being unable to secure housing.
Now, think about that for a moment, and then contrast it with the rigid way local governments have often tried to respond to homelessness.
While there’s no question that traditional shelters have a place in our approach to homelessness — and can play an important role in helping to get people out of the elements and eventually housed — how much more effective could we be if we tried harder to provide the kinds of flexible services a majority of homeless individuals said they would actually use?
The impact, DeForrest argued, could be huge.
“For some reason we just continue to ignore the reality, which is that there is a massive amount of people who, for one reason or another — where they are in life right now — want to be outside,” DeForrest said.
“As crazy as that is to understand, it’s still a thing,” he continued. “At some point, we have to say, ‘OK, I hear you.’ We just can’t just continue to jam them through that (shelter) door.”
It can be a tough pill for policy makers to swallow, DeForrest acknowledges, which is why he gives credit to Tacoma for recent — if overdue — progress on this front.
Temporary emergency communities, like the one that was recently proposed near 6th Avenue and Orchard Street in Tacoma, are a good example of what DeForrest describes as the kind “outside-the-box thinking” people experiencing homelessness are calling for.
We need much more of it, he said.
Small, managed encampments in the parts of the city where people say they want to live — whether they’re comprised of tiny homes or simply tents — would provide a real option for them to take a step forward out of homelessness, DeForrest argued.
Unfortunately, some of the other things DeForrest heard Tacoma’s homeless population calling for have been slower to materialize.
While we know that a large and largely untold number of individuals and families are forced to live in their vehicles when they fall into homelessness, the city and county still don’t have a coordinated network of parking locations where they can safely stay. That impacts families, children and women attempting to escape domestic violence, DeForrest said.
It’s an issue DeForrest is working with the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation and other local agencies to help solve, he said, and would likely represent an “easy win.”
Similarly, many interview respondents identified needs like hygiene centers, garbage services and secure storage. For the most part, none of that exists in a meaningful way for people experiencing homelessness in Tacoma and Pierce County, DeForrest noted.
So what if we tried?
Again, what if we really listened?
What difference could that make?
DeForrest acknowledges there likely would be mistakes along the way, and not everything will work.
The work is messy, after all.
Still, he also stated the obvious:
If we actually want to solve Tacoma and Pierce County’s homelessness crisis, we simply have to try things we haven’t been willing to do in the past.
We already know where the status quo leaves us.
“We can’t settle on this. It’s too big of a piece of our community,” DeForrest said.
“We just need to continue pushing.”
