Lacey City Council member grills county officials about homelessness
Lacey City Council member Nic Dunning grilled Thurston County housing officials on Tuesday about homelessness and what he feels is not working to address the problem.
His questions came after a presentation about the county’s draft five-year homeless housing program. It was presented by Tom Webster, the county’s Office of Housing and Homeless Prevention Manager, and Jackie Velasco, Homeless Services Program Manager.
“I apologize, but some of these are going to be difficult questions, so I’m just going to warn you now,” said Dunning after the presentation.
Here are some of his questions and their answers.
Are the recipes to address homelessness working?
Webster: Yes, I think they are. Could they be working better? Yes, it’s a continuous improvement. And I think there’s research to back up some of the best practices that we try to follow.
I think there’s some broader systemic issues that kind of drive people into homelessness that this doesn’t touch on, so I think we’re continuing to learn and continuing to improve. I think our data shows that we are housing people, we are providing services to people.
We are faced with the fact that we have more people entering homelessness than we can serve.
How do we oversee homeless services organizations to make sure that we’re funding the ones that are doing good?
Webster: I think we are improving our understanding of how each agency is performing. And so I think going forward, we’ll be in a better position to understand how agencies are performing and then kind of be responsive to that in terms of funding.
Have we done a great job of that in the past? No, I think there are, right, you know, a variety of agencies out there. And sorry, I’m going to back up and say: I think one of the things Thurston County has that is both a challenge and a benefit is we tend to have one of everything.
We have for the most part one agency that serves families, one agency that really serves youth from a large kind of perspective, we have one domestic violence agency, and so we’re locked in a little bit. We don’t have a lot of competition among our agencies, and that creates some challenges. When we do have some agencies that aren’t performing up to speed, there’s not necessarily always another agency that we can easily turn to.
Does the county housing plan support low barrier housing, and is that a best practice?
Webster: Yes, and that is a requirement. The state Department of Commerce (which provides funding) requires that 80% of our shelters are low barrier.
Velasco: So what you’ll want to look up is the National Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration, which has lots and lots of records of nationwide decades of research in implementing this particular evidence-based practice. And so what we’ve been doing in this plan and recently is looking at OK, there’s the philosophy, and then there’s implementation for success, and sort of bridging the gap between what has been proven to be effective, and then looking at whether that’s just sort of a philosophy that’s held, or if it’s really actionably and accountably implemented.
Other concerns
Dunning also took issue with the “housing first” model for addressing homelessness. That approach seeks to first establish permanent housing for the person experiencing homelessness, so that they have a base from which to work to get back on their feet.
Dunning said he would rather see a “shelter and rehabilitation” model for homelessness, arguing that those suffering from drug addiction or mental health problems are left to fend for themselves in the housing-first approach.
“It is a much more sustainable and effective model, because under (housing) first and low barrier, we’re not providing mental health or drug addiction services,” he said. “We’re just putting people into homes or housing that they continue to use drugs and have mental health issues, and we’re not treating the root causes of these issues in the first place.”
Some don’t want the assistance, he added.
“Like I go to Olympia and I talk to people on the streets, and I ask them if they want to go into housing, I ask them if they want to go to rehab, and they don’t because we’re not treating the root causes of these people’s problems,” he said.
But Deputy Mayor Malcolm Miller offered a different viewpoint, saying he has heard just the opposite.
Miller said he has befriended homeless residents in the community and taken some to lunch and heard stories about the high cost of housing or how one man was left emotionally adrift after his father died.
Why are you on the street? Miller asked one person.
“Because I can’t afford to live here,” said Miller about that person’s reply. “It just costs too much, and I either need to go back and get retrained for a better job, which I can’t afford, and I can’t really get into because I don’t have, you know, the ability to transport myself. My ID expired. I can’t afford a new one.”
The county’s approach to housing has helped, Miller said.
“And I’m not saying that low barrier is the way in, or is the best way to go, or any of those things, but what I am saying is that, you know, currently, we’re using a model that has gotten some people off the streets and has helped some people,” he said.
Homeless Services Program Manager Velasco told Dunning his questions weren’t scary at all.
“The reason those questions are tough is because we all care so much about what happens to people, and I would much rather meet somebody in a space where we all care so deeply about the outcome,” she said. “Maybe (the route) from Point A to Point B is different, but you can’t get anywhere without talking about it.”