Pierce County Republicans have a $50 million homelessness plan. It deserves a shot

It’s a sizable amount of money. There are a number of outstanding questions to be answered. Healthy skepticism, at this juncture, is warranted.

Still, let’s not make this more complicated than it is: There’s a lot to like about a proposal championed by Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier and other Republicans in county government to build a 20-acre, $50 million microhome village that would provide residence to roughly 200 to 300 people experiencing chronic homelessness in our community.

For years, we’ve been subjected to partisan disagreements and opposing views on both the root causes of homelessness and how we should respond to a crisis that’s now too dire to ignore. Those conversations have often been fraught, justifiably leaving many feeling like the divide is insurmountable. The gridlock has fed into our penchant for political tribalism, and, in some cases, made it hard to trust those we perceive to be “on the other side.”

In short, our homelessness debate has gone the way of so many other current debates in this country, pitting people against each other and drawing lines in the sand, bringing out the worst in us.

But it would be a shame, and maybe even a tragedy, to let this plan fall victim to those urges.

Let’s judge the idea on its merit, independent of party affiliations or previous grudges.

As The News Tribune’s Alexis Krell reported this week, the county’s vision — which has largely been articulated by former Republican state senator and senior counsel in the Pierce County Executive’s Office Steve O’Ban — draws its inspiration from a development outside of Austin, Texas. There, the Community First! Village has been in operation since 2015 and houses more than 300 residents in small dwellings similar to mobile homes. Designed as traditional neighborhoods, there are health clinics, addiction-recovery services and employment opportunities, among other resources, on site. Essentially, it’s a new take on what’s often referred to as permanent supportive housing, specifically designed for people who are often hardest to serve and most difficult to get off of the street.

One of the big selling points, at least listening to O’Ban’s public telling, is the sense of genuine community the design is able to foster. While similar apartment-style projects can struggle to keep the chronically homeless from eventually becoming unhoused again, Austin’s Community First! Village — where residents pay rent and belong to a sort of home owners association — has managed to keep roughly 88% of residents housed after five years, O’Ban has said.

Once people are housed, they’re able to stay until they’re ready to leave.

“How do we break that vicious cycle of shelter, back on the streets, our emergency room facilities, lots of first responder contacts, and often in and out of jails?” O’Ban asked the Puyallup City Council during a June 14 study session. “This is a model, which I submit to this body, that answers that question in a remarkably successful way.”

So there’s the sales pitch, in a nutshell. Using $22 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding and relying on philanthropic and other sources to cover the rest of the estimated $50 million price tag, Dammeier and company would like to construct a local version of the Austin experiment in unincorporated Pierce County. A full proposal for the development, including a specific location for it, will go before the council in October.

It’s an idea that deserves serious consideration. As readers are likely aware, I’ve disagreed with the Dammeier administration in the past, but the truth of the matter is simple: This proposal, as it’s been described, would provide many of the things that critics like me have long been calling for.

Of course, that’s not to say there aren’t hard questions to ask before charging full steam ahead. An open mind is one thing; blind faith is dangerous.

For starters, while the prospect of providing permanent supportive housing to more than 200 of Pierce County’s chronically homeless population is something we can all rally behind, location matters — and not in a NIMBY sense. As KOMO’s controversial and divisive “Seattle is Dying” documentary popularized more than three years ago, there’s a fever dream clung to by some that suggests the answer to our homelessness problem can be solved by simply finding a secluded, unused location where we can send people we otherwise don’t know what to do with for out-of-sight, out-of-mind rehabilitation. Reality is far more complicated, and, ultimately, Pierce County’s approach must reflect that truth to be successful.

There’s also the issue of money. If you cut to the chase, Pierce County’s microhome proposal is essentially a souped-up permanent supportive housing development, and the $50 million cost for construction, along with the estimated $3 million annually it would take to run, must be weighed against similar alternatives. Pierce County has been blessed with federal funding to help tackle the problem, but resources aren’t unlimited, and the needs are many.

Finally, there’s perhaps the biggest hurdle of all: How the program is structured, and who the development would serve. In some circles it might be more politically palatable to place barriers for entry around substance-use and addiction issues, but for a program like this to actually work — and, more importantly, to help people dealing with such issues to actually recover — we already know that making housing contingent on strict sobriety isn’t as effective as simply providing housing first.

Rest assured that all these questions (and more) will be asked in the coming months, as the Pierce County Council and its Democratic majority weighs its options. Taxpayers and residents should expect nothing less. That’s how good government works.

At the same time, if you’re not hoping Dammeier’s pitch lives up to its billing, I’m not sure what you’re rooting for.

This isn’t about politics.

It’s about something far more important: people’s lives.