Visualize a day with no sidewalk sleepers

Downtown Olympia has a homelessness crisis. Merchants know it. Shoppers know it. Police know it, and so does the Olympia City Council, which – give it credit – is trying to respond.

At the same time, the City Council may be a little too-quick-on-the-trigger to offer up Band-Aids. That is why we view with some alarm the rising tensions between the Olympia Downtown Alliance’s members and some advocates for the downtrodden.

The tensions are real. It’s making everyone antsy and impulsive to act.

The ODA has reported some of its members were targeted – and even menaced by unspecified threats of followup action – by members of a group calling itself The Olympia Solidarity Network, or OlySol.

Both sides need to chill out. We’re trying to chill here, too. There’s a problem much bigger than any one of our interests at play here.

Letters from “OlySol” to all ODA members criticized use of a private security firm, Pacific Coast Security, and threatened to identify and take action against those who hired security.

Specific letters giving a 14-day deadline to cancel contracts also went Sept. 5 to Harlequin Productions and Cooper Realty, or face actions.

Reporters for The Olympian found a flier on a city utility pole Thursday that identified Cooper Realty as one that uses the private security and “does not support safe sleep.”

This isn’t a healthy or helpful tactic for our community.

For one, a private security firm hired by some merchants or building owners may be making a small difference for those enterprises.

We wish they didn’t take that route, but if a little extra security lets business owners sleep better, that’s good.

Two, Olympia is responding. Voters approved two tax measures to help provide solutions to homelessness, downtown policing and mental illness.

One measure is already raising funds to for extra downtown police officers. Within half a year it should deliver a mobile mental-health response team to assist people in crisis.

The other tax measure can help nonprofits to build permanent low-income housing projects for the most vulnerable and desperate among us.

So let’s keep in mind that it’s going to take some time — yes, too much time — to fix what unfolded over 40 years in this community and all across the country.

Social ills such as untreated mental illness and drug dependence exploded after the mentally ill were set loose from institutions during and after the Reagan years. A promise of community support for these persons was not fulfilled.

These challenges exploded again during the Great Recession 10 years ago, and rising housing prices only make it all worse.

Some days it seems that local homelessness is growing faster than solutions. Sometimes the Olympia City Council – which is divided in part on the best approach to helping the homeless – seems impulsive.

We agree new shelters or a day-warming center should be sited outside of downtown, and we agree with steps being taken to erect a tiny-house village near the former city hall.

But the council was split Tuesday night on how best to address the homelessness emergency. A slight majority of four members agreed to raid a pair of city funds originally set up for slightly different purposes.

A majority of the council also gave a go-ahead to a utility tax increase of 0.5 percent that may provide extra funds next year.

It’s great to cobble together cash to pay for a tiny-house village or tent camp near the old city hall on Plum Street. But we side with the no votes against that tax.

The tax vote is too soon — and disrespectful of voters. The council’s tax vote comes at a time state and regional voters are being asked to consider other fees and taxes for worthy priorities.

One statewide “carbon fee” fee would be levied on most fossil fuels to speed use of cleaner alternative energy; a regional sales tax would be used to sustain and expand Intercity Transit service in Thurston County.

Unfortunately, tax options for cities and counties and transit districts are terrible.

But the city needs to find another way to raise the money it needs for the tiny-village – even if some of the funds can’t be earmarked until budget deliberations get serious this fall.

Too often, it’s hard if not impossible to visualize a day without homeless people sleeping on city sidewalks. But it’s worth us trying – and remembering that once we find ways to get people off our streets we’ll be adopting them into our community, not making them disappear.

So let’s keep after the problem as an abiding principle that we owe it to our fellow humans.

As we do so, all of us must try harder not to get personal.

This story was originally published September 20, 2018 at 3:06 PM.