Matt Driscoll: Many of Tacoma’s homeless remain out of sight and mind

It’s 10:30 in the morning, and Colin DeForrest and I are traipsing up the side of a steep hill.

DeForrest is the city of Tacoma’s homeless services manager. And he’s been here before — on the slope between Stadium Way and Schuster Parkway. It’s one of several known hot spots for homeless encampments throughout the city.

We reach a flat spot under a canopy of trees with a million-dollar view of Commencement Bay.

“This is a really good sign,” DeForrest turns to me and says. “Nobody’s here.”

Two weeks ago, that wasn’t the case. On a trip up this very same hill, at this very same flat spot, he says he found a family living with a six-month-old child.

The diapers gave it away.

“It’s actually pretty rare to find a family out here,” DeForrest says. “Especially with an infant.”

What’s not rare, however — despite the city’s recent efforts to prevent it — is people living in areas just like this. Tacoma has seen a noticeable increase in visible homelessness along city streets, which the city attributes to its work to shut down encampments. But that work hasn’t moved everyone into the open. DeForrest says we’ve experienced an increase in people living in the woods, out of sight and often out of mind.

While the family with the infant has apparently left, DeForrest acknowledges he doesn’t know where they’ve gone.

With winter weather officially arriving this week, that’s one of the reasons we’re here. DeForrest is trying to get the word out that as long as temperatures continue to drop below 32 degrees, the city’s emergency shelters — which are typically full, and collectively turn away some 150 people a night — are prepared to exceed capacity and take in everyone they can. And, if all goes as planned, an agreement will soon be in place between the city and local shelters to get more people indoors every night between December and the end of March, regardless of the temperature outside.

The goal for the winter is to make an emergency shelter bed available to anyone who wants one.

What you quickly find on an excursion like this, however, is that not everyone does.

Our next stop, at East 11th Street and Portland Avenue, along the chilled banks of the Puyallup River, confirms it. The people we find living here are what DeForrest calls “hardcore individuals.”

“If I was to kind of pick a hot spot right now, where we’re seeing really high numbers, it would be the port,” DeForrest tells me as we cross the Murray Morgan Bridge. “What you have from Puyallup out to the Port of Tacoma, is a high number of individuals living along the river. … It’s kind of the area where a lot of individuals feel safe and feel like they’re not going to get messed with.”

Gage Chapman, a 25-year-old with a red beard, is one of what DeForrest estimates is 20 or 30 people living in tents and makeshift structures along the Puyallup River in this location. He pokes his head out a hut made of scrap wood and tarps as we approach.

DeForrest goes to work, telling him about the shelters.

“I know you’ve got your stuff going, but just so you know, if it gets too cold, the shelters are open right now … they’re not turning anyone away,” he says.

Chapman isn’t interested. Later, I ask him why.

“Because there’s just a lot of issues,” he says of emergency shelters. “They have bedbugs and diseases floating around.”

It’s a common sentiment in this camp. But there are other concerns as well.

Brian Kegebein, who tells me he’s been homeless since he “lost everything but his life” in December 2011, says he’d rather sleep in a tent by the river because at a shelter he wouldn’t be able to stay with his partner, Heather. He says he’s seen more and more people experiencing homelessness during his nearly four years on the street.

Meanwhile, Anthony, who boasts one of the most elaborate camps here, tells me he’s not interested in staying at a shelter because it would mean being separated from his cat, Mr. Meowsers.

“I refuse to let go of my cat,” he says. “It’s just the whole atmosphere. I’m not in jail. I’m not incarcerated. I haven’t done anything wrong. … Why do I want to feel like I have?”

Besides, Anthony explains, “It’s not that bad out here, honestly. I mean, it’s pretty kosher.

“No leaks, it stays warm, I’ve got a real bed in there and flannel sheets,” he says, pointing to the home he’s spent the last two years living in. “In there, I’ve been sleeping in my boxers.”

After 45 minutes or so, DeForrest and I get back in the car. We try to shake off the chill and head to two other known campsites on the East Side.

“I think there were a lot of people that were just teetering on the edge, and I think in the past couple years, there has been a lot (of people) that, for whatever reason, however they were teetering, that no longer worked, and now they’re out here.” DeForrest offers as an explanation for what we’ve seen.

“What I feel confident in,” he continues, pausing to get the words right, “… is there’s been an increase in chronic homelessness, which is that right there.

“That was a lot of tents.”

This story was originally published November 28, 2015 at 6:11 AM with the headline "Matt Driscoll: Many of Tacoma’s homeless remain out of sight and mind."