Thurston County leads count to get a ‘true, regional story’ of homelessness
It’s not easy to ask a stranger questions such as “Where did you sleep last night?” or “Do you have a disability?”
But that’s the sort of information volunteers and officials collected during the annual Point-in-Time count, conducted Thursday in Thurston County and counties across the country, with the aim to gain a better understanding of an issue that tops many Washingtonians’ priority lists.
Keylee Marineau, Homeless Prevention and Affordable Housing Coordinator for Thurston County Public Health, spent breakfast at the Salvation Army’s Community Kitchen in downtown Olympia Thursday morning. She said six of eight people she asked had agreed to complete surveys.
Questions cover everything from a survey-taker’s veteran status to whether they identify as LGBTQ to the circumstances that led them to be homeless. Completing the surveys is voluntary, Marineau said, and the people who opt out are simply tallied.
More than a dozen events were planned across Thurston County for the count Thursday, and peers who live or have lived in encampments were leading outreach efforts to rain-soaked camps. Lewis County also hosted an event Thursday and will host another Friday, according to a press release.
Thurston’s count — which was coordinated by the county, rather than the city of Olympia, for the first time in recent years — is aimed at informing a regional response to homelessness. The county’s cities and the Nisqually Tribe as well as churches and social services organizations took responsibility for conducting the surveys at a variety of events and locations throughout the county.
The broader approach is consistent with recent local conversations and actions. For example, the Regional Housing Council, made up of representatives from the county and the cities of Lacey, Olympia and Tumwater, has considered opening a regional mitigation site.
“I’m hoping we’re going to get a bigger picture of what’s going on, because we need to address this from a regional lens,” Marineau said Thursday. “When we can tell a true, regional story … because we get data from Yelm and Tumwater and Rochester and Lacey, then we can make a case for expanding services outside of downtown Olympia.”
Data gathered in the count will help the county obtain state and federal funding for local shelters and other supportive services. It’s also a way to connect people with resources, Marineau said, and the results will serve an important purpose for those working to understand and address homelessness.
“Outside of the funding ... what’s most important is that, one, the story gets told,” Marineau said. “I have to talk to a lot of people who have a misunderstanding, perhaps, of what causes homelessness or why people find themselves on the street. I think the clearer picture we can tell, through data, the better opportunity I have to tell the story.”
One common misunderstanding, she said, surrounds the circumstances of people experiencing homelessness, which are varied and often out of a person’s control. One person she spoke with Thursday morning had been kicked out of their family’s home, for example, while another was avoiding a dangerous situation.
Ruth Kenny, who let The Olympian observe as she completed a survey during breakfast Thursday, said she’s staying at Interfaith Works. She was originally from The Philippines and lived in California before moving here. She said she’s been homeless for less than a year and hopes to find housing soon, mentioning a myriad of health issues including a triple bypass surgery as factors in her situation, when asked.
In a recent Crosscut/Elway poll of 405 registered Washington voters, 31 percent of people named homelessness as their top priority for state lawmakers going into the 2020 legislative session.
It seems lawmakers are feeling some urgency: Gov. Jay Inslee wants to spend more than $300 million from the state’s rainy day fund to add shelter beds and address homelessness. And, just this week, three Pierce County Republican legislators introduced bills aimed at the issue.
State Rep. Beth Doglio, a Democrat who represents the 22nd Legislative District that includes Olympia, Lacey, and Tumwater, was among the handful of volunteers conducting surveys at the Salvation Army, before she had to leave for a committee meeting.
Doglio told The Olympian she was taking part in the survey because the information it gathers is helpful for forming policy solutions, and that connection is important to her work as a lawmaker. This session, she said she’s seeing “bipartisan movement” regarding homelessness, and she’s hopeful.
“I think there is definitely movement in the conversation,” she said.
Faith Addicott, who Thurston County hired to coordinate this year’s count, said at a recent Thurston County Commission work session that she aims to have preliminary data from the count ready to share in March.
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