Tacoma just lost one of the most fearless homeless advocates the city has ever known
Maureen Howard knew the stakes, and she knew how to get things done.
This place won’t be the same without her.
Howard, one of the strongest and most effective advocates for the unhoused Tacoma and Pierce County have ever known, died Jan. 5 at the age of 78. It was cancer that stole her away. She left behind a daughter, a husband, three grandchildren and a city mourning the loss of a fierce champion for the underdog.
Howard had many qualities, but perhaps two of her finest were empathy and the fire that burned inside her. She was one of the rarest of people: someone who could fight like hell, tooth and nail, for what she believed was right — namely, housing, shelter and dignity for those living on our streets — while maintaining the respect and admiration of even those whose policies and actions she vehemently opposed.
For Howard, it was part of a decades-long career spent pushing for what she would describe as justice. Starting in the early 1980s, she served as executive director of Hilltop’s Martin Luther King Ecumenical Center, where she built a program that, by the time she retired in 1992, provided direct support to 600 homeless men, women and children. During the same period, Howard founded and led Washington’s State Coalition for the Homeless. More recently, Howard was a member and often the driving force behind the Tacoma-Pierce County Coalition to End Homelessness. Somehow, amid all of it, she also served eight years as a Foreign Service for the U.S. State Department.
Michael Mirra, the retired executive director of the Tacoma Housing Authority, first met Howard nearly 40 years ago, when he worked as an attorney for what would become Columbia Legal Services, a social justice-oriented firm that represents people living in poverty. Mirra was lead counsel on a case that went all the way to the state Supreme Court, establishing that the state Department of Health and Homeless Services can be ordered to provide housing assistance to families when homelessness contributes to a child’s placement in foster care.
According to Mirra, even back then, Howard was a force to reckon with — someone he needed on his side. Under Howard’s leadership, the state Coalition for Homeless eventually became the lead client on the case.
“It would be very strange to undertake any notable advocacy on behalf of homeless persons without consulting Maureen,” Mirra recalled this week of a partnership and friendship that spanned decades. “Maureen really liked people and understood everyone is valuable. Perhaps that was an impetus for the regard she felt for people who didn’t have any place to live. It mattered to her.”
Jeff Robinson, the city of Tacoma’s director of Community and Economic Development, recalled meeting Howard around the same time. He was the first manager of the Washington State Housing Trust Fund, and much like Mirra, remembers Howard as an essential ally in the fight for housing and homeless-related policies.
The two became fast friends; Robinson described Howard as “a sister.” Even as his career advanced, eventually leading to his current role with the city, he said Howard was someone whose counsel he often sought while navigating difficult issues.
“Maureen was one of the most empathetic people I’ve ever met. She was religious in her own way. She was deeply caring for anyone she came in contact with, even those she disagreed with,” Robinson said. “She was willing to do whatever it took.”
None of this is to suggest Howard avoided ruffling feathers in city and county government over the years, according to Robinson and another friend and co-conspirator for justice, Lyle Quasim, the longtime chair of the Tacoma Pierce County Black Collective.
According to Quasim, one of the things that left the largest impression on him was Howard’s fearless yet graceful approach to challenging oppression and bureaucracy.
“Courage is an accelerant. You can be brilliant, you can have all the best ideas in the world, you can have all the strategies, but if the first time somebody whacks the (expletive) out of you, you go back and sit on the couch, none of that makes any difference,” Quasim said. “You don’t lose unless you quit. And Maureen never quit.”
Looking back, it’s that unwavering spirit and determination that will stick with me when I think about Howard’s impact and legacy in Tacoma. Of all the interactions we had over the years, it was the role she played during the heat dome of 2021 that stands out. Faced with an unprecedented weather crisis, when hundreds of local homeless people needed water and other essential supplies that were too slow to come, Howard refused to relent — helping to orchestrate a grassroots outreach effort that almost certainly saved lives, preventing a deadly episode from being even worse.
In the aftermath of a heat wave that brought searing, triple-digit temperatures to the Puget Sound Region, Howard humbly detailed the weekend she’d spent desperately calling anyone who would listen, including Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards, begging for more pallets of water to be made available.
The water eventually arrived, and it was Howard and the advocates she’d helped to rally delivering much of it.
On Wednesday, Howard’s 51-year-old daughter, Elisabeth, looked back on her mother’s life. As a child, she knew her mother was driven to serve and guided by her convictions, but she had little way of appreciating her overall impact.
In a way, the outpouring of support Howard received after her cancer diagnosis helped to put her mother’s life in perspective, she said.
“She was a force of nature,” Elisabeth Howard said. “If you could find a way to give a helping hand, whether it was in housing, whether it was in listening to people, whether it was just being there, my mom was about it.”
“I just look back on what an amazing, strong-willed, intelligent woman she was, and know that if I can only be 50% of that, I’ve done an awesome job.”
This story was originally published January 14, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
