Critics say Pierce County’s homeless village would hurt the environment. That’s false | Opinion
Like most communities on the West Coast, Pierce County continues to struggle with housing the homeless. The Pierce County Village project is moving forward as one bold solution. It is a community of tiny homes and onsite services that will be developed in the Spanaway area and is modeled after a community established in Austin, Texas. It will serve as permanent housing for nearly 300 chronically homeless county residents, as the county’s proposal shows.
This village raises important civic issues and values: the need to address the growing crisis of widespread homelessness in Pierce County, and the need to protect Pierce County’s environmental health, including the health of Spanaway Lake and surrounding wetlands.
Contrary to the assertions of critics of the project, there is no irreconcilable conflict between these interests. Done right, the village will not damage Spanaway Lake or the environment. Instead — of the likely alternatives — the village is the more sensible environmental option.
This is a win-win solution.
Plans call for onsite wetlands to be protected with densely forested upland buffers, and fenced and signed to protect wildlife habitats. Several recent studies and management plans explain that Spanaway Lake’s main environmental problem relates to cyanobacteria that comprise approximately 90% of the phytoplankton in the lake. This blue-green algae feeds off phosphorus that has two major pathways into Spanaway Lake: (1) release from the lake’s sediments and (2) groundwater inflow. External sources of phosphorous include existing septic systems and groundwater sources around the lake and from its tributary watershed.
The Tacoma Rescue Mission, the operator of the village, has engineered plans that will have no onsite septic systems and no fertilized lawns. It will allow no motorboats or other uses that potentially impact Spanaway Lake. By preserving and protecting onsite wetlands and buffers, there should be no significant impact to the lake from this project.
Proceeding with the village is a vastly better option than not proceeding. Of primary concern is the grievous effect homelessness has on people who experience it.
Chronic homelessness keeps people sick and makes them sicker, as the Department of Health and Human Services has documented. Worse still, it kills many who experience it. Local chaplain Ed Jacobs, who works with area fire departments, has a long history of tracking records from the Pierce County medical examiner’s office and the state showing the number of Pierce County residents who were unhoused when they died. Recently, Jacobs memorialized more than 120 homeless individuals, all of whom died during a five-month period. The village directly addresses this by providing life-saving housing.
Also of concern are community health and environmental factors. Unsheltered homelessness impairs public health by degrading public spaces, land and the environment; it also degrading society’s quest for racial justice. The planned village will effectively address these vital civic interests.
The project is also the best environmental option among the likely uses of the current site. The primary environmental threats to Spanaway Lake and related water resources will not come from the village, but from existing uses and users, and the single-family housing development that the site would otherwise permit, according to the county’s analysis. Indeed, the village will have a lighter environmental impact than the 185 single-family homes that present zoning allows on the site, as a memo from Senior Counsel Steve O’Ban confirms.
Rather than one more suburban housing development, the village will house, in an environmentally responsible way, around 300 chronically homeless persons who presently live outdoors without sanitation, which impacts our county’s woods, parks, riverbanks and shorelines. The Village will provide structure, accountability, and hope to the formerly homeless residents who choose to live there and agree to pay rent, follow the rules and be good neighbors.
If the county does not proceed with the village, it will deter future projects that may not have the same advantages. The Spanaway site is an appropriate balance between separation from neighbors and proximity to the community, and the Tacoma Rescue Mission is a highly capable partner that will ensure this.
It is also important to address the “elephant in the room”: apprehensions over the proximity of living near persons coming out of homelessness. Anyone indulging these fears may find some reassurance from two things: (1) any problems nearly 300 persons coming from homelessness may present will be much more pronounced by leaving them unsheltered and without structure, and (2) experience in other communities with similar villages have been very positive. The Spanaway project will be no different.
Proceeding with the village will be a credit to our community: to innovatively and equitably face the homelessness crisis, while effectively balancing environmental concerns with a commitment to uphold a core value of investing in the well-being of our most vulnerable residents.