Lacey, Thurston County exploring purchase of hotel to address homelessness
The city of Lacey and Thurston County are exploring the purchase of a hotel in the city to help address homelessness, according to information shared during a recent Regional Housing Council meeting.
The Regional Housing Council voted late last month to advance a plan that aims to add 150-200 permanent supportive housing units in the county by 2024.
To reach that goal, the plan recommends pursuing new construction, possibly acquiring or leasing existing apartment units, and purchasing a hotel.
Lacey City Council member Carolyn Cox, who serves on the housing council and is running for re-election, spoke about the plan during a recent candidate forum. After the forum, Cox declined to name the hotel, fearing that information might affect negotiations.
“It’s something we’re interested in, but we’re not there yet,” Cox said this week.
The Regional Housing Council, which meets monthly, gathered Sept. 22 to review and vote on the permanent supportive housing plan. Tom Webster, program manager for the county’s Office of Housing & Homeless Prevention, walked the council through the details of the plan, including funding sources and how the hotel might be used.
A key source of funding is the American Rescue Plan Act, the nearly $2 trillion economic stimulus bill that was passed during the early days of the Biden Administration and distributed to states and communities throughout the country.
Housing council staff recommended that ARPA funding be used to cover all of the hotel acquisition costs.
Webster named other funding sources for the permanent supportive housing plan, including the possibility of a countywide home fund, which, if ultimately approved by either a vote of the people or council approval, would raise sales taxes by 0.1 percent.
The targeted population for the hotel and how the hotel might be used are still to be determined, Webster said. It might start as a shelter and transition to permanent supportive housing, it might do both at the same time, or it might just be permanent supportive housing.
Webster warned that immediately creating permanent supportive housing comes with some significant renovation costs because each of the rooms need small kitchens to function as housing units.
Lacey City Council member Lenny Greenstein, who serves as an alternate on the Regional Housing Council, asked if a percentage of rooms within the hotel could be used by specific groups such as senior citizens and veterans.
Webster said that is a possibility.
Some Lacey council members have raised concerns about the countywide home fund and the notion of parking RV dwellers on county land near Lacey, but both Greenstein and Cox, a voting member of the Regional Housing Council, expressed support for the permanent supportive housing plan.
“It’s a great starting place,” Greenstein said.
This story was originally published October 2, 2021 at 5:45 AM.
