Vote to surplus shuttered Longview shelter's pallet homes fails

With one councilmember abstaining and thus failing to break a tie vote, the Longview City Council did not pass a resolution proposed by Mayor Erik Halvorson to surplus the pallet homes within the shuttered HOPE Village.

The council will, however, discuss the property's future late next month after members can get a clearer picture of how the local homeless population is faring without the emergency shelter, and of how the city-owned property could be used in the future.

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Halvorson, Mayor Pro-tem Keith Young and councilmember Kalei LaFave each voted in favor of Halvorson's resolution at Thursday's council meeting. Councilmembers Mike Claxton, Wayne Nichols and Ruth Kendall each voted against the proposal and councilmember Chris Bryant abstained from voting.

At the meeting, Halvorson argued that because the 50 pallet homes have a warranty and a shelf life, the city is losing money the longer it holds onto the unused structures.

The day before, he shared on his Facebook page, used to discuss city plans, that he aimed to auction the pallet homes to the highest bidder.

Bryant did not explain his reason for sitting out the vote during the meeting. Earlier in the meeting, Bryant had expressed the view that the property should be treated like any other surplus city object no longer serving a purpose, but he also raised arguments made by other councilmembers seeking more data and information from nonprofits before making a decision.

Claxton, for instance, touched on several times how he'd like to see the annual point-in-time homeless data collected in January to get a read on how the numbers are impacted without the shelter. Those numbers are not typically made available by the state until September, councilmember Kendall said.

Pallet home bases

Four of the wood bases for pallet homes in HOPE Village lay on the Alabama Street lot on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022, in Longview. The City Council is weighing whether to surplus the finished homes at the now shuttered shelter.

Starlink, utility payments

HOPE Village operated from late 2023 to late September of last year, when operator The Salvation Army handed keys back to the city for the tiny home shelter helping people transition out of homelessness. Leading up to the closure, the council had sought to shift the way the transitional housing program was funded by having the operator bill the state and Medicaid for services

In the six months since it closed, Assistant City Manager and Public Works Director Chris Collins told the council that the city is paying $1,167.57 per month to maintain the property. The bulk of that monthly cost is a Starlink satellite internet contract costing $725.80 per month, expected to run until later this fall, with the remainder being $441.78 to cover minimal heating and water costs needed to avoid damage through pipe freezes or mold.

The city's IT Director Mike Sullivan said the city has some potential other uses in mind for the satellite internet equipment, but it was not discussed further at the Thursday meeting.

At the council meeting, Police Chief Robert Huhta said his department and the Behavioral Health Unit have seen decreases in "visible homelessness," and confirmed that the sheriff's department is also seeing the same.

"We have not solved homelessness," Huhta said. "However, we have made significant progress on the visible homelessness crisis."

The shelter and the work of The Salvation Army were instrumental in helping the police department's homeless-outreach Behavioral Health Unit, he said. The bulk of the unauthorized campers and other unhoused people that police still encounter, however, are not people who would have easily been helped had the HOPE Village program continued.

"From a police department perspective, they are not candidates for the program that was in place before," Huhta said.

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