The meeting that was held Tuesday concerning Homeless encampments was Vetoed. Several folks elicited a response from Robyn Denson our District 7 Rep to Pierce County. Here is what took place at the Council Meeting and information that Robin shared with us. I want to Thank Robyn for responding and providing us up to date information.
"Hi Everyone,
Mike followed up with a question and I thought it would just be easier to respond to you all (I'm super buried with emails...as always)!
Mike asked: Is your reference to the Spanaway proposal and other areas not publicly disclosed a moot point where it is no longer under consideration or a “mute” point where discussion has been turned off until another time?
Here is my response (that fleshes out a few more things but really I don't have a lot of info right now):
Hi Mike,
There may be new legislation introduced soon in regards to Temporary Housing Communities. I haven't seen anything yet, so I don't know any more.
In regards to my Spanaway comment: The County has already funded a tiny home village for the Spanaway area to be operated by a group named LIHI (very experienced and successful helping people) and they have a piece of land even (paid for with County dollars) but legislation is needed to enable them to actually put their village there (regulatory fixes needed).
I didn’t mention any "other areas not publicly disclosed" and I don't know of any other areas/projects. There could be churches or non-profits who wish to host tiny home villages but there are no plans that I know of (and there is no new money for anything - that's usually a determining factor). I have definitely not heard about any potential projects in District 7. There were some providers/faith communities who testified yesterday that they would appreciate the ability to serve the needy but they were in the Spanaway/Parkland areas.
As an FYI, we have over 3,000 units of permanent affordable housing that we have funded but that are in various stages of development (some really haven't started at all). It's going to be YEARS to see these come to fruition. You may have heard of the Community First Village (now called the Good Neighbor Village) which will provide about 260 tiny homes for chronic homeless persons - that will be in Spanaway too - but that won't be built until 2026. In the meantime, we'd like a way to get people "out from the neighborhoods, out from in front of businesses, out of the parks..." and into safe, sanitary, managed places where there are bathrooms (right now people are just going outside in neighborhoods, parks, etc. -not sanitary for anyone), case management, mental health/substance abuse treatment...the full deal. Providers/faith communities will be able to work with people (who will be stable, not moving around) to get them into housing as it becomes available. This is intended to reduce the illegal encampments and get people into permanent stable housing faster.
FYI: We already have Temporary Housing Communities in their code and they are already allowed EVERYWHERE in the County for 90 days.
I hope this helps - there is always more to it but again, the ordinance introduced last night FAILED and there is nothing before Council at this time.
Thank you for your interest. Homelessness is a very difficult problem to solve. We are working hard on it and we continue to be solution oriented and best-practice (such as there are) based.
Thank you!
Robyn"