6/10/2022
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KXLY
The Center Square
The San Diego Union-Tribune
Work begins on ‘a place of healing’ for homeless in Midway
The Seattle Times
Edmonds passes law criminalizing camping in public spaces — but lacks local homeless shelter options
wbur News (Boston, MA)
Hotel-based homeless shelters changed lives in pandemic. Some want them to be a model moving forward
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KXLY
Posted: June 9, 2022 3:45 PM Updated: June 10, 2022 7:00 AM by Emily Blume
SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. – At any given time, most food banks are full to the brim. But that’s not the case these days.
Inflation, supply chain issues and sky-high gas prices have made the American dream a lot more expensive.
The shelves at Spokane Valley Partners are empty. The team there says it’s “scary,” not just for those who work there, but for the families in our community who are needing food like never before.
“I’ve been here five years and our warehouse has never been this low,” said CEO Cal Coblentz.
Even during the pandemic, things looked a lot different.
“You know, we were renting out two additional warehouses. They were full and we were flowing out food,” Coblentz said. “We’re seeing families that have never used a food bank before come ask for help.”
An even bigger burden on families is expected heading into the summer months.
“That complicates things for families when kids have their free breakfast and lunch at school and then summer, mom and dad have to provide that,” Coblentz said.
The one silver lining is more produce coming into the food bank.
“For us, it’s growing season. Home gardens are coming in. We’re going to get a lot more fresh produce through the summer, but that’s a very temporary relief for us,” Coblentz explained. “Buying food is a problem. We have money to buy food, it’s difficult – the supply chain – to buy palletized orders of food.”
Coblentz said these are desperate times and the future is uncertain for families in need.
Anyone with extra pantry staples on hand is encouraged to bring them to the nearest food bank. Those efforts could make the world of difference for local families.
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The Center Square
Olympia, Washington / USA - July 29 2020: Washington State Patrol squad car
Shutterstock
(The Center Square) – The Washington Supreme Court Thursday clarified that race is and has been a factor in determining the legality of seizures of persons in Washington, citing long-standing and pervasive bias against racial minorities resulting in unfair policing practices within the state.
“Today, we formally recognize what has always been true: In interactions with law enforcement, race and ethnicity matter,” the court stated in a unanimous decision. “Therefore, courts must consider the race and ethnicity of the allegedly seized person as part of the totality of the circumstances when deciding whether there was a seizure.”
In Washington, persons are considered seized by police when, considering all circumstances, their freedom of movement has been restrained and they would not believe themselves free to leave based on an officer’s display of authority or use of force, according to the court decision.
The case at hand centered on a 2019 encounter between Palla Sum, later identified in court documents as of Asian/Pacific Islander origin, and Deputy Mark Rickerson of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department. The encounter led to Sum’s conviction on three criminal charges.
While on patrol, Rickerson saw a man, Sum, sleeping in a parked car in a high-crime area. Before approaching the vehicle, Rickerson ran the plate number and found no indication that it had been stolen.
Upon waking Sum and a second man also sleeping in the car, Rickerson asked what they were doing there and who owned the car. Sum stated they were visiting a friend and gave only the first name of the car’s owner, which later proved false. Sum himself was the owner of the vehicle.
Rickerson then asked both men for identification. When Sum asked why he wanted it, Rickerson responded saying that the men were sitting in an area known for stolen vehicles and didn’t seem to know who owned the car. Sum provided a false name.
When Rickerson returned to his patrol car to verify the mens’ identities, Sum sped off, driving over a lawn and sidewalk, then proceeding at high speed through a stop sign and several red lights before crashing into another vehicle.
Sum was arrested, charged and convicted of making a false statement, attempting to flee police and unlawful possession of a firearm.
Sum argued that his conviction for making a false statement should be overturned because he was illegally seized when asked for his name. At that point, Sum argued, he thought he was under investigation for auto theft. The court agreed.
“At that point, it would have been clear to any reasonable person that Deputy Rickerson wanted Sum’s identification because he suspected Sum of car theft,” Justice Mary Yu wrote. Also, “Based on the totality of the circumstances, an objective observer could easily conclude that if Sum had refused to identify himself and requested to be left alone, Deputy Rickerson would have failed to honor Sum’s request because the deputy was investigating Sum for car theft.“
Further, the court ruled that race was indeed a factor in determining whether an illegal seizure had taken place. In doing so, the justices relied heavily on a Washington rule regarding peremptory challenges in jury selection. Peremptory challenges allow a lawyer to disallow to a potential juror without giving a reason. However, that reason may not include the juror’s race.
Further, the rejection based on race need not be overt or intentional. If an “objective observer” would see race as a factor in the challenge, it would not be allowed.
The court applied the same standard in determining Sum’s case, stating that there was no need for him to demonstrate that race was a factor in the officer’s thinking. The long history of implicit and explicit bias against people of color in police interactions would lead an “objective observer” to conclude that race was a contributing factor, the court said.
Based on the court’s ruling, the evidence of Sum’s false statement was deemed inadmissible. The other two convictions remain in effect.
The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department did not reply to requests for comment. Sum’s lawyer, Jennifer Winkler, also ignored a request for comment.
She praised the ruling to the Seattle Times, saying it “brings seizure law in our state into the 21st century,” and “sets out better, fairer, and more objective guidelines for judicial decision-making.”
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The San Diego Union-Tribune
Work begins on ‘a place of healing’ for homeless in Midway
The new, low-barrier shelter will provide mental health services and accommodate 125 people
SAN DIEGO — Construction has begun on what will be the city of San Diego's first homeless shelter to provide 24-hour intakes and a focus on people with mental illness and addictions.
At a Tuesday morning groundbreaking ceremony in the Midway District, city and county officials stressed that the shelter will not solve homelessness, but will be one of many new approaches to the problem when it opens sometime in July.
The shelter also could provide some relief to an area that has seen a growing number of homeless encampments in the area, including many on a stretch of Sports Arena Boulevard south of Rosecrans Street just two blocks away.
"The homeless crisis has made the streets of Midway into a place of suffering, but this shelter will help turn Midway into a place of healing, a place for recovery and new beginnings," said County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, who represents the area.
"The people who will benefit from this shelter are the same people who could otherwise end up in jail," she said, noting the shelter will serve people with mental health issues and drug and alcohol addictions. "The fact that jails are San Diego's biggest mental health treatment centers shows how broken our system has been. In the past, we were more focused on locking people up than helping people out."
"We're working to reduce homelessness in every way we can," said San Diego City Councilmember Jennifer Campbell. "We're taking a variety of approaches, and all are working simultaneously to combat homelessness."
Last week, Campbell and three other council members held a press conference to show support for a proposed new city attorney unit that could increase the number of homeless people with mental illnesses who could be placed into conservatorship and ordered into treatment.
The city teamed with the county last year to open a 50-bed harm-reduction shelter on Sports Arena Boulevard for people with mental illness and addictions, and San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria is proposing new shelters for seniors and families.
County supervisors last week approved a $10 million grant program for other cities to open shelters, safe parking lots, secure campgrounds or other options for getting people off the street. Board of Supervisors Chair Nathan Fletcher said at the Tuesday ceremony that he hoped cities throughout the county will replicate the new Midway shelter.
The shelter is being constructed behind the County Health and Human Services Complex and the Psychiatric Hospital of San Diego County on Rosecrans Street. The Alpha Project, which operates the harm-reduction shelter and two large tented shelters downtown, will oversee the new shelter while the county will provide staffing for psychiatric and health services.
Gloria said the new shelter will open with 125 beds and could expand to 150. The city has 1,468 shelter beds and is adding more in coming months and plans to have more than 1,900 beds available by the end of the year, he said.
The new Midway District shelter was announced in March, and construction crews have been preparing the site behind the county buildings by installing electrical lines and underground plumbing. On Tuesday, crews lifted the first tall metal rib into place that will support the industrial tent that will serve as a shelter.
The tent is owned by the philanthropic Lucky Duck Foundation, which has funded several local programs to shelter, feed and protect local homeless people and has pushed the city to open more shelters.
The new shelter will be in a tent the foundation originally pushed for Veterans Village of San Diego, which operated it on Navy property in the Midway District until 2020.
That same year, the Lucky Duck Foundation offered to lend the tent to the city of Chula Vista, which kept it for more than a year but never put it to use as a shelter.
Last October, Lucky Duck Foundation board member Dan Shea offered the tent to San Diego or any city that would use it as a winter shelter. There were no takers, and the large tent remained in storage until county supervisors agreed to construct it on their Midway District property.
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The Seattle Times
Edmonds passes law criminalizing camping in public spaces — but lacks local homeless shelter options
May 26, 2022
The Edmonds City Council passed an ordinance making it illegal to occupy or store belongings in public places overnight, part of a regional and national trend.
Seattle Times staff reporter
People living on Edmonds' streets may soon be given a choice: bus to a shelter up to 35 miles away or risk a fine of up to $1,000 with a possibility of jail time.
The Edmonds City Council passed an ordinance last Tuesday making it illegal to occupy or store belongings in public places overnight, part of both a regional and national trend of local governments criminalizing visible homelessness. Edmonds' ordinance is unusual in that its enforcement requires relying on social services outside city limits.
Mercer Island passed a similar law banning camping in public places last year, a month before Everett passed a “no sit, no lie” ordinance. Auburn followed suit, turning a civil infraction for public camping into a criminal penalty.
In Edmonds, city officials say the measure is partly preemptive, aimed at keeping what residents see as the growing homelessness crisis in Seattle out of their city. There are at least 450 homeless people living in Edmonds, according to the city's latest assessment; 117 of them are students. City officials say there are 10 to 20 people sleeping outside on any given night.
Edmonds' ordinance states the city cannot enforce its camping ban against a homeless person unless there is available shelter within 35 miles of Edmonds City Hall.
City Council President Vivian Olson said the ordinance was introduced because of a few cases in recent years when a single individual created an outsized disturbance. She said the city offered those people shelter, but when they refused, police had no way to remove them by force.
"I don’t agree that this is criminalizing homelessness. If anything, we’re criminalizing not accepting the support and help when we’re offering it," Olson said. "There will be people who will refuse literally everything, no matter how perfect."
But there is no homeless shelter within Edmonds.
Edmonds' shelter offerings include five long-term motel vouchers, all of which are currently in use, and a $6,000 to $7,000 budget to purchase short stays at a motel. The city has allocated around $300,000 to work with Snohomish County to build a shelter that includes supportive services, but has not yet identified a building to purchase, and did not provide a timeline for when that project will be completed.
Olson said that Edmonds could also rely on shelters in other cities in the meantime. The YWCA in Lynnwood, the only shelter in south Snohomish County, serves only women and children. The closest shelter available to men in Snohomish County is in Everett, almost 20 miles away.
Mary Anne Dillon, executive director of YWCA Snohomish County, said Edmonds reached out to her organization last summer when it was trying to house a person. She told the city the waiting list for an overnight bed in the shelter was 60 to 90 days.
"The need for shelter far exceeds the resources in our community," Dillon told council members in April. "When there are no shelter beds available, it defeats the very purpose of the ordinance. So I would urge you to consider other strategies, expanded shelter options and more permanent solutions before passing."
That's the same recommendation that Edmonds' own Homelessness Task Force, which Dillon is a member of, offered to the city.
Edmonds' strategy for enforcing its camping ban could open it up to potential lawsuits, according to Eric Tars, legal director at the National Homelessness Law Center.
Under a 2018 federal court decision known as Martin v. Boise, local governments are prohibited from criminalizing homeless people camping in public spaces when there is no shelter that is "practically available." That term leaves room for interpretation, but Tars said Edmonds transporting people up to 35 miles away across city limits pushes that definition.
"If Edmonds wants to roll the dice with the courts and defend this ordinance using taxpayer dollars to do so, I guess that’s their choice, but it wouldn’t be my recommendation," Tars said.
City of Edmonds spokesperson Kelsey Foster said in an email that when enforcing its ordinance, the city would "evaluate the needs of a particular person experiencing homelessness before determining whether a shelter space can be considered 'available' to that person."
From 2006 to 2019, the number of laws in cities nationwide prohibiting camping nearly doubled, according to the National Homelessness Law Center . Tars said that number has grown even more since the pandemic.
"What we’re seeing is a reaction to the growth of homelessness, and primarily the growth of unsheltered homelessness," Tars said.
The homeless population in Snohomish County has increased 42.8% since 2015, according to the county's latest Point-in-Time count, a biennial homelessness census.
Weeks of heated discussion and public testimony led up to the Edmonds City Council's 5-2 vote on the camping ban.
Councilmember Laura Johnson proposed an amendment that would have required the city to build a shelter program before the ordinance could go into effect. Her proposal failed 5-2.
Many residents spoke in favor of the ordinance. They described encounters with homeless people in Seattle where they felt unsafe, and several said they moved to Edmonds to leave that behind.
"Don’t put people who are having problems at the top of the pyramid and ignore the citizens who are here and pay taxes and support the city government," said Edmonds resident Bill Herzig.
Another resident, Dan Murphy, said the city's ordinance did nothing to address what he said was the root cause of homelessness, the rising cost of housing. The median home price in Edmonds is over $900,000.
"It seems like the council and the city's just taking the easy way out," Murphy said. "’Let’s kick the unfortunate people out of town. Let’s get them out of sight out of mind so we can go on with our lives.’ And to me, that’s not the way."
The King County Regional Homeless Authority agrees that Edmonds' new ordinance is not an effective strategy for dealing with homelessness. With Edmonds just 4 miles away from King County and not having any shelters of its own, the authority said it was concerned that could cause spillover effects into King County, which is also dealing with a shortage of shelter options.
Edmonds police Chief Michelle Bennett said that while officers would not enforce the ordinance if shelter options weren't available, they would inform people staying outside of the new ordinance.
"It would be made known that in the city of Edmonds, there is no public camping overnight," Bennett said.
That message has already been received by some of the homeless people in Edmonds. Brad Peterson, 51, has been staying in a wooded area behind a grocery store parking lot, but since hearing about the new law, he says he'll be leaving soon.
“Makes me feel a little embarrassed, you know," Peterson said. "I don't want to stick around and get in trouble."
Peterson has long blond hair that's graying at the edges. He attended Edmonds College studying music and says he came back because "there's a lot of good people."
He sits on the sidewalk next to Highway 99 with a sign that reads, "Hungry, Help, $10/hr labor." He used to work in construction, but an injury left him unable to work full time. He became homeless two years ago.
A lot of cities have been cracking down on homeless people, Peterson said. Since September, he has been arrested at least three times in Washington for trespassing or activities related to camping so he says Edmonds' new ordinance doesn't surprise him.
"It’s like, 'OK, push them all out. Push all the homeless away.' And it’s like, I can’t think of the words and I don’t want to say anything really mean, but it’s kind of fearful," Peterson said.
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wbur News (Boston, MA)
Hotel-based homeless shelters changed lives in pandemic. Some want them to be a model moving forward
Tracey Williams has been without a home for about half her life. The 60-year-old said she’s cycled in and out of housing and homelessness because of substance use disorder, trauma and mental illness.
Last winter, while Williams was staying at Pine Street Inn’s women’s shelter in Boston, workers asked if she’d like to stay at Charles River Inn in Brighton. Pine Street is running the hotel as temporary shelter in the pandemic.
Williams described the move to her 300-square-foot hotel room as a “step up” from life in a crowded shelter where she had no privacy.
“I think this is an awesome place,” Williams said, beaming as she welcomed guests into her room last February. “… It’s just me and my roommate. I really believe that it helps with the transition [out of homelessness].”
Williams is one of hundreds of Massachusetts residents experiencing homelessness who stayed in a hotel or motel during the pandemic. For many months, the state funded hotels for people who had mild COVID but didn’t have a home where they could isolate. Shelter providers have used motels to reduce crowding and health risks at their main sites.
For Williams and many others, this pandemic-linked effort has been a stabilizing force. Regular meetings at the hotel with case managers from Pine Street Inn and other organizations helped her look for housing and stay connected with services.
Williams said it’s a lot easier to address personal challenges when living in a quiet, comfortable space. After moving to the hotel shelter, she said she felt less depressed and more motivated to attend her job training program and methadone treatment.
“I just came in here, and I hit the floor running,” Williams said. “School, work — I just did everything I needed to do.”
Leaders of this and other hotel-based shelters said it’s easier to give clients greater attention when they stay in the same room. At typical shelters, guests are required to leave during the day and may not return. Here, people are regularly around.
According to the Massachusetts Housing & Shelter Alliance (MHSA), approximately 1,000 hotel and motel beds have been leased as shelter space during the pandemic. The nonprofit advocacy and policy organization said about 600 are still in use, paid for with state and federal funds.
“This is a new piece of strategy that really helped,” said Gerry McCafferty, director of housing for the city of Springfield. McCafferty said Springfield hired outreach workers shortly after the pandemic started to ask people living outside if they wanted to stay in a motel or hotel.
People responded, ” ‘Oh, yeah, that I’ll go to. I won’t go to a shelter, but that I’ll go to, sure,’ ” she recalled from the outreach workers’ accounts.
“I can’t think of a single instance where someone said no,” McCafferty said. “We found someone in a park here who had been severely mentally ill and had been really off the grid, and had been living outside for 13 years … never interested in any conversation. [He was] never interested in any services, but the hotel room, he was willing to take. And he’s someone who is now moving toward housing.”
That’s happened over and over again, according to McCafferty. Advocates and leaders in Springfield have found it much easier to bring people into hotel- and motel-based shelters. And, they’ve seen more success moving people out of those facilities and into permanent housing with supportive services.
City officials examined data over a 22-month period that ended in April and found 46% of people who left local hotel shelters did so to enter permanent housing. By contrast, just 16% of people who stopped staying at the traditional adult homeless shelters in the area left them to enter permanent housing.
Not all providers observed that kind of success, according to leaders at MHSA. But, they said, that’s largely due to a tight housing market, made worse by the pandemic causing fewer renters to move.
MHSA said people staying in hotel- and motel-based shelters largely felt safe and comfortable. For some of them, moving to their own apartment seemed daunting or risky given the limited housing options and their fear of future housing instability.
Still, according to MHSA, hotel-based shelters generally provide better conditions to assist people with getting into housing. One of the region’s shelters is in Holyoke, where the nonprofit Center for Human Development has leased a former Motel 6.
The organization’s senior director of homelessness services, Theresa Nicholson, said the individual-rooming approach to shelter is a critical option for people who struggle in typical group-style, or congregate, shelters.
“Sometimes it’s folks that have severe addiction … or it could be folks that have severe mental illness,” Nicholson said.
The agency brings support professionals — including recovery coaches and mental health workers — into the hotel to give clients “an opportunity to talk about their life … and have an opportunity for change,” she said.
People experiencing homelessness who have physical disabilities or chronic health conditions also benefit greatly from non-congregate shelter settings, according to McCafferty.
Guests are told they must leave the properties to use drugs or alcohol. At the former Motel 6 in Holyoke, they have an 11 p.m. curfew, and a staff member has to let them into their rooms. Staffers check on guests every day, and they’re given multiple chances to abide by the rules if they struggle, Nicholson said.
But clients aren’t under constant supervision, and staff at the motel have administered Narcan twice to reverse overdoses, according to Center for Human Development. Another guest died from an overdose.
As difficult as those situations are, Nicholson said sometimes that “prompts someone else to say, ‘I’m ready for help.’ ”
“Everybody deserves a chance. And everybody deserves to have permanent housing,” she said. “And so if this can be their step before getting there, and we can help them become safer and healthier on that journey, then that’s what we’re here for.”
A ‘grand pivot’
According to homeless service providers and advocates, leasing hotels, motels, and even college dorms as shelter during the pandemic proved safer and healthier from the start. Rates of COVID-19 infection in shelters dropped, and providers realized they didn’t want to return to overcrowded facilities.
“There was kind of this grand pivot to really starting to look at this differently, like … a sense of not only were we depopulating, now we really shouldn’t go back,” said Joyce Tavon, senior director of policy and programs at MHSA.
State Rep. Natalie Higgins, of Leominster, wants the non-congregate model to become the standard for homeless shelters in Massachusetts. She said nearly 30% of her office’s constituent services cases involve people experiencing homelessness or facing eviction. After seeing the success of a hotel shelter in her district, she sponsored a bill that calls on the state to transition away from congregate homeless shelters within five years.
“My dream is [that] shelter transitions to something that looks a whole lot more like housing,” said Higgins. “And our hope is that shelter never becomes a long-term solution — that it is a place to get stabilized. It’s a place to get connected with programming.”
Higgins would like to see non-congregate shelters in every region of the state, open for guests 24 hours a day, seven days a week. She also wants there to be a universal system for how unaccompanied adults enter nearby shelters. The current patchwork of adult shelters is different from the family homeless shelter program, which is run by the state and has clear steps for families to sign up.
The legislation comes as the state is, for the first time ever, requiring emergency homeless shelters for adults to submit extensive documentation describing their programs in order to receive state funds.
There’s resistance to Higgins’ bill from some shelter leaders. They say they’re concerned they could be forced to remodel or rebuild, without proper funding or an overall plan from the state.
“Do I think it’s a terrific goal? Do I think we could get there? Yeah, but you can’t just get there with legislation, with no funding and no roadmap,” said Lyndia Downie, president and executive director of Pine Street Inn. “You’ve got to have a plan. … You’ve got to be able to execute on it. And I’m not seeing any plan or any funding that’s going to get us there at the moment.”
A focus on housing
The bill also calls on the state to scale up permanent housing for vulnerable populations. Many advocates say that’s where energy and funding should be focused.
“If you can get a hotel or if you can get a building, it should be all about housing,” said John Yazwinski, president and CEO of Father Bill’s & MainSpring.
The nonprofit runs emergency homeless shelters and permanent housing programs on the South Shore. Early in the pandemic, it rented a struggling hotel in Brockton for some of its shelter guests. It then went a step further; it purchased the hotel to convert it to 69 units of permanent supportive housing. It’s the first time a homeless service provider in Massachusetts has done that.
So far, 17 people have moved in as tenants, including 73-year-old Ray Allen Gaessler.
One day this past winter, Gaessler sat inside his studio apartment, doing one of his favorite activities: watching an old movie. He proudly showed off his large collection of DVDs and the TV he recently bought for himself, along with his kitchenette stocked with everything from spices to frozen meats.
Gaessler explained he became homeless several years ago when his marriage failed. Injuries from an accident kept him from working. Now, he’s just happy to have a small space he can call home.
“You get to clean it, you get to cook your own food and decide when you want to go to bed and when you don’t,” Gaessler said. Asked if he really likes to clean it, he responded, “That’s part of the good part.”
Father Bill’s & MainSpring is able to convert the hotel for about half of what it normally costs to develop affordable housing, since the bones of the rooms and bathrooms were already there. It’s about $150,000 per unit, with a total project cost of just over $10 million — mostly paid for with state dollars, along with some private grants, according to Yazwinski.
The whole thing happened in record time for the organization, he said; it helped that the nonprofit had deep experience both developing and operating housing properties. This is its biggest to date. And the local community supported the project. Smaller homeless service organizations often run into resistance and financial roadblocks, including market competition for potential properties. Yazwinski said he hopes that will change — and that this moment won’t be lost.
“We don’t want hotels to go out of business. But … if it’s going to be a place that sits, you know, or struggles, then let’s look at it as a great opportunity,” he said. “It’s time to end homelessness. Let’s all get the political will needed at the local, state and federal level to do it now.”
According to The Massachusetts Lodging Association, a very small percentage of hotels and motels in the state have gone out of business or up for sale during the pandemic. It doesn’t collect data on hotel closings.
Meanwhile, there’s a pool of money that could give Massachusetts a big boost when it comes to the development of permanent supportive housing. The state dedicated $150 million in federal pandemic relief funds from the American Rescue Plan Act for that purpose. Advocates are working to develop a plan to get the most out of the money.
As for Tracey Williams, she’s taken another step toward permanent housing. She’s moved into her own room, in an apartment with others who were previously sheltered at Pine Street Inn. She said she has a lease and can stay there for up to a year, as she builds a new tenancy history and works with case managers to find a place of her own.