Tacoma and Pierce County must adapt to restore lost shelter capacity | Opinion
They say that perfect is the enemy of good, and when it comes to a spiraling homelessness crisis, local governments can’t wait for a perfect solution. In Tacoma, the city created an emergency shelter system it couldn’t reliably pay for in the future, in part by using one-time federal funds.
Now, that system is losing more than 160 emergency shelter beds due to a predicted budget shortfall. The state has given Tacoma $3 million out of the $6 million per year it requested from the most recent budget to keep 307 of its shelter beds open. Two temporary shelter locations are closing at the end of June as a result of the shortfall.
In hindsight, Tacoma still should have built it. With a problem as complicated as homelessness, it was a good — not perfect — thing to do. But the city needs help. Tacoma operates within the second-most populous county in the state, and its shelter system takes on a heavy load. Pierce County is also deeply involved in providing emergency shelter and services to people who lose their homes, and they’re in the best position to take up the slack.
Pierce County says it’s been coordinating with the city in anticipation of losing at least some of this shelter capacity, and it’s planning to fund 300 new shelter beds over the next year.
“We worked closely with the City of Tacoma to sunset these projects and will continue to support our system as a whole,” the county said in a statement.
The county said its new beds will not include those from the two sites that are closing down. Those are Brotherhood RISE in the Hilltop neighborhood and the Tacoma Rescue Mission’s Forging Path Community in East Tacoma.
A third site close to downtown, a 32-bed facility at Altheimer Memorial Church, was set to close regardless of funds from the state. In total, a significant part of the city’s roughly 900-bed emergency shelter network will be gone.
This situation is the result of a scaled-up shelter network, held together with what funds were on hand. The city created a plan to address homelessness in 2022 that included the expansion of its emergency shelters. It funded that expansion in part with federal pandemic response money. To keep these expanded services running, the city also relied on money from the state budget that was disbursed between 2023 and 2025.
Time marched on, and shelter funds ran out at the end of 2024. That was even before Washington’s biennial budget was set to be renewed, and so the city of Tacoma said it found $3 million to rely on while it waited to see whether any more state money was forthcoming.
Homelessness services constantly face unpredictable funding sources. State funds have to be renewed by our representatives, and this budget season ended up being particularly contentious.
For its part, the city thanked the state for the money it received.
“While the City’s full request was not met, the City is very appreciative of the legislative support for this funding and will be continuing to work with the County to address shelter needs for Tacoma and Pierce County,” said Tacoma spokesperson Maria Lee.
It’s fair to ask whether it was wise to build a big network of beds without knowing where the money to keep it going would come from. The city has said it intended to gradually stand down the system, but it didn’t anticipate the demand it would see for permanent affordable housing.
It’s also fair to ask where costs can be cut in the system that offers emergency housing. Organizations that run shelters have to be accountable. The question of how much money should go to direct services versus the people who administer them, especially the most highly paid among them, is worth asking.
We shouldn’t spend the money without asking any questions. But we should still do the best we can with what we have.
