County council spent months on homeless stability site. That plan is dead. Now what?

The council’s push to establish a federally funded stability site for the homeless seems to have come to an end as Pierce County officials move to reallocate the funding for the project. The plan for a low-barrier shelter to address a lack of shelter outside of Tacoma was met with pitfall after pitfall as officials dealt with zoning obstructions, difficulty finding partners, and contentious politics.

Following his promise to veto legislation that would allow micro-village shelters for the homeless in unincorporated Pierce County, Executive Bruce Dammeier has proposed reallocating the $2.5 million the council set aside and had been working nearly all year to obligate towards a tiny home stability site outside of Tacoma.

Pierce County’s 2024-2025 biennial budget, approved by the Pierce County Council, appropriated $2.5 million from the COVID-19 American Rescue Plan Fund for establishing a low-barrier homeless stability site. Democratic council members pushing for the stability site were depending on an ordinance to relieve county code regulations that prevented the establishment of the stability site and other temporary homeless shelters around the county.

The ordinance passed 4-3 along party lines, but Dammeier almost immediately promised to veto the measure, calling it “unacceptable.”

“This ordinance would permit large tent encampments to be legally established throughout Pierce County with little to no public notice. I cannot support this,” Dammeier wrote in a statement regarding his veto decision.

Where will the money go?

Dammeier recently presented his supplemental budget to the council, which proposed moving the $2.5 million in ARPA funding the council earmarked for the stability site to provide $1,865,000 in increased support for the Aviva Crossing affordable housing project and $635,000 for homeless and housing services.

Aviva Crossing is planned to be both market rate and affordable rental housing in a mixed-use setting. It is expected to include roughly 600 units, according to the Tacoma Housing Authority. It is planned to be adjacent to Tacoma Community College.

Dammeier has previously told The News Tribune he believes the county’s homeless response is in more need of permanent supportive housing than the temporary emergency housing that would have been allowed by the ordinance sponsored by by council members Ryan Mello (District 4, Democrat), Robyn Denson (District 7, Democrat) and Jani Hitchen (District 6, Democrat).

“I am also concerned that using one-time investments of federal pandemic funds to increase temporary shelter is the wrong approach. We have a finite amount of funding to address homelessness, and funding more shelter leaves fewer funds for housing projects, where we can realize permanent resolution to homelessness,” Dammeier wrote in a blog post about his supplemental budget proposal on Aug. 16.

“My related concern is sustainability — there is already a shortage of operating funds for our county’s shelter system, so adding more shelter capacity puts a strain on the financial security of our existing shelters.”

On Aug. 21, Mello presented his supplemental budget proposal to the council’s Committee Of the Whole. The proposal keeps the $2.5 million in ARPA funding originally intended for the “Homeless Stability Site” and changes the definition to “Temporary Non-Congregate Micro-Shelter Communities.”

The description of what is intended to constitute “Temporary Non-Congregate Micro-Shelter Communities” is notably similar to how the stability site was described and to what would have been allowed by the ordinance Mello sponsored and passed before Dammeier promised to veto it.

“The communities site must be located outside of the City of Tacoma, operate on a 24 hours-7 days a week basis with on-site management and security, provide toilets, showers, potable water, garbage collection and a food prep area, and require residents to adhere to a code of conduct and safety protocols,” the proposal read.

Mello told The News Tribune that the provision would allow cities to receive this funding to implement micro-shelter communities, to help establish more temporary non-congregate shelters in parts of the county outside of Tacoma.

So while the provision gets rid of the term “homeless stability site” altogether, the funding would go towards non-congregate shelters that would be similar to what the stability site was aimed at providing.

Future of emergency housing

Mello said he remains committed to establishing more temporary emergency housing in areas in Pierce County outside of Tacoma, which currently hosts the broad majority of the county’s homeless services and shelter.

“We are not giving up on what our own Comprehensive Plan to End Homelessness calls for,” he told The News Tribune.

He said he believes having more diversity in shelter types, and having non-congregate shelters in which people can have their own privacy will increase the county’s opportunity to receive funding from the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development.

Mello, who is currently running for the office of Pierce County Executive, told The News Tribune he feels that he and his colleagues efforts to create more temporary emergency housing has been “politicized.” He said even though Dammeier has promised to veto the legislation aimed at reducing barriers to non-congregate shelter across the county, he would continue to push for it.

“Eventually, this executive will be gone,” he said.

The council will discuss and vote on the supplemental budget proposals during their Aug. 27 regular meeting.

The 2024-2025 biennial budget includes appropriations of more than $98 million in federal funding made available through the American Rescue Plan Act. More than $50 million of those dollars have previously been earmarked to be spent towards programs, services and projects aimed at providing more affordable housing and services to mitigate homelessness in the region. The money needs to be allocated by the end of 2024 or it will no longer be available to the county.

Editor’s note: This story has been edited to clarify that Ordinance No. O2024-540s would have allowed temporary shelters in unincorporated Pierce County, while the council’s stability site was intended to have been established some outside of Tacoma.