A bipartisan compromise on a homeless issue in Pierce County? Maybe there’s hope yet
At a time when optimism can be in short supply, the Pierce County Council and Republican County Executive Bruce Dammeier managed to provide a sliver of it this week.
On Tuesday, roughly a month after Dammeier vetoed a bill pushed through by the council’s Democratic majority that would have allowed for the expansion of “safe parking” lots for those experiencing homelessness and living in vehicles, the issue was revisited.
This time, thankfully, reason and compromise prevailed.
As The News Tribune’s Shea Johnson reported, the council’s new safe parking legislation passed with bipartisan support. The measure codifies existing state law allowing churches and religious organizations to host safe parking sites and creates temporary regulations allowing for a pilot program limited to four additional safe parking sites across the county on civic or commercial property.
Unlike the first attempt, which was passed by Democrats 4-3 along partisan lines, Dammeier has indicated he intends to sign this narrower version into law.
“I felt that this version of the bill addresses my concerns with the dramatic expansion of safe parking into civic and community organizations,” Dammeier told The News Tribune.
Now, readers of this column will know exactly how I feel about the executive’s stated concerns and the reasons he provided last month for refusing to sign the council’s original safe parking bill. At best, they represent a mixture of unfounded fear and a feigned deference to rigid process often employed by career politicians that prevents government from quickly addressing problems, particularly those with solutions that promise to be contentious.
Still, this job’s about more than simply pointing out the mistakes our elected leaders make. When they get it right — or, in this case, find a way to work across differences of opinion to reach a solution that will actually improve the lives of real people — that deserves to be recognized, too.
There’s little question that allowing for even a modest expansion of safe parking options in Pierce County — beyond the roughly 30 spots that currently exist across four churches — represents real progress.
The bill also ensures that appropriate health and public safety safeguards are in place, which is critical.
That it required a convoluted path to get to this point and the public airing of a simmering partisan power struggle in Pierce County government hardly matters, especially to those who need it most.
“One-third of those experiencing homelessness in Pierce County have a car, and half of those have an income and just need a safe place to park while they try to secure stable housing. If we don’t legalize safe parking, we will continue to see people forced into unsafe places along highways and dead-end roads,” County Council member Ryan Mello said in a statement issued shortly after the bill’s passage, stating the obvious.
As the ink dries on Pierce County’s new safe parking regulations, the best news of all is what we already know: The sites work, and there are people in Pierce County who know how to run them effectively.
You can see the results firsthand at places like Spanaway United Methodist Church, where the 157-member congregation and Pastor Samara Jenkins have been operating a safe parking site since November.
The church is one of four in Pierce County that had been operating safe parking sites under existing state law that allows churches and religious organizations to engage in such work.
Last month, Jenkins told The News Tribune that Spanaway United Methodist had so far hosted 29 people. Most were families with students enrolled in the Bethel School District, she said.
At the time, Jenkins said that 98% of those who had utilized the church parking lot had been successfully housed.
Willow O’Hara, a 32-year-old mother of two, is one of them. Having escaped from an abusive relationship with her boys in a Hyundai Elantra, O’Hara was referred to Spanaway United Methodist in December.
O’Hara — who now has an apartment to call home — told me she wasn’t sure what would have happened had the safe parking lot at Spanaway United Methodist not been available.
“It’s amazing what they’ve done. They really kept me and my boys out of the bottom of the jar,” said O’Hara, who earned money delivering food through the online DoorDash app while she was homeless. “It’s all these steps you have to take coming up from the bottom, and they are there every step of the way with you. I can’t say enough about how wonderful this place is.”
If all goes as planned in Pierce County, the temporary safety net that managed to catch O’Hara and her family will soon be available to even more people faced with similarly dire circumstances.
That’s good news, wherever you stand.
It also provides an inkling of hope that Democrats and Republicans are up to the larger challenges ahead.
