Thurston County can’t end homelessness yet, but there is progress to celebrate

Progress and problems continue in our community’s struggle to defeat homelessness.

We still don’t see a visible reduction in the size or number of tent camps, or the number of people living in vehicles. This year’s census of homeless people was a socially distanced tally rather than being based on interviews as it was in the past. Reluctance to engage in those interviews may have produced undercounts. So the change in methodology means that even if we are making progress in reducing the number of homeless people, we may not know it.

We are making progress in creating better shelters and more housing for homeless adults and families. In just a few months the construction site on Martin Way will be a 60-bed shelter and 65 units of permanent supportive housing. A planned second phase will add 42 more housing units. Initial funding came from the City of Olympia’s Home Fund, a penny-per-$10-purchase sales tax passed by Olympia voters in 2018.

The Family Support Center is building 65 more housing units for families with children and domestic violence survivors in west Olympia.

But it would likely take four more facilities like the one on Martin Way, and more capacity for families with children, to meet all the need.

The momentum for more — and the regional collaboration to accelerate it — is growing stronger. The Regional Housing Council — a newish and newly official body consisting of Thurston County, the cities of Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater and Yelm — is finally starting to fire on all cylinders. This is a portent of better, smarter use of resources, and the ability to attract more state funding.

Another potential source of funding was made possible by the legislature, which authorized county commissions to pass a tax like the one that supports the Olympia Home Fund. The Thurston Board of County Commissioners can do this. We hope it will.

Regional collaboration also has produced a 5-year Homeless Crisis Response Plan, and the Thurston Regional Planning Council is working on a broader study of housing supply issues. Planning is like eating vegetables; not very thrilling, but necessary and healthy.

The city of Lacey is stepping up in new ways. A Community Workgroup on Homelessness is in the middle of a year-long process to identify, develop, review and recommend effective city responses. More visible tent camps in Lacey have made the need for this response more evident, and more urgent.

But the most immediately consequential development is this: Local governments now recognize that tent camps and pop-up communities of vehicle dwellers will be with us for years to come. It will take many years to refill our supply of affordable housing, and to build enough of the permanent supportive housing many people who are homeless need. Local governments are finally facing this reality squarely, and making new choices about how to deal with tent camps and people who live in cars and RVs.

A court decision and the pandemic helped; they made clearing camps and dispersing people untenable. Lacey and Olympia now provide some camps with at least limited garbage service, port-a-potties, and in some locations potable water. They are also deploying outreach workers to help connect camp residents with “the system” that can link them with health and other essential services, and, for the lucky few, a path into housing.

For people in the camps, not living in fear of eviction and these survival services have been rays of light in a dark winter.

There is also a regional effort to find RV and car dwellers safe places to park and the sanitation services they need. Currently, this is a frustrating search.

The city of Olympia is replacing the tents at its downtown mitigation site — a tent camp managed by Catholic Community Services — with micro-houses. These tiny wood structures are a significant step up from tents; they are reliably dry inside, rodent-proof, wind- and snow-proof, and have doors that lock.

Faith communities, nonprofits and informal groups of volunteers provide tarps and other survival supplies to campers, wash and dry wet blankets, and organize camp cleanups. There is a need for much, much more of this kind of help. The friendships that arise between the housed and the unhoused when they work together can be life-changing for everyone.

It is a tragedy of our times that our community is currently unable to end homelessness. But there is progress to celebrate. And in the meantime, there is more we can all do to ease the hardship in the shelters, the camps, and the RVs and cars.

As Oscar Wilde, quoted on a shelter website, said, “The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.” At this perplexing moment in the struggle against homelessness, we hope kindness is our most abundant resource.