11/3/2022 General Meeting: Community engagement, homelessness, and supported housing in and around Haller Lake

 Speakers:

• Osbaldo Hernandez: Osbaldo.hernandez@seattle.gov  – City of Seattle, Department of Neighborhoods – N. Seattle Community Engagement Coordinator.  Osbaldo put together the group making up tonight’s panel.
• Tom Van Bronkhorst: Tom.VanBronkhorst@seattle.gov – City of Seattle, Parks Department.  Works on Seattle Parks homelessness and on the inter-departmental team
• Peter Lynn: Peter.lynn@kcrha.org – Chief program officer, King County Regional Homelessness Authority. KCHA is a 1 year old organization providing homeless programming, funding shelters, etc.  Peter used to run a similar program in LA.  Note that KCHA is a central agency for funding homeless services in King County.
• Dan Wise: danw@ccsww.org – Catholic Community Services Operator  and part of Senior Leadership serving those experiencing Poverty, housing instability.  Note that CCS is running the Tiny home village off 128^th by the old Pi bank building.
• Israel Rios: Israel.Rios@seattle.gov – City of Seattle Office of the Mayor - North Seattle External affairs liaison for the mayor
• Chris Klaeysen – City of Seattle, Human Services Department - Homeless strategic advisor.  Chris is also the City wide interdepartmental team coordinator
• Simon Foster: sifoster@kingcounty.gov – King County Department of Community and Human Services - Div dir housing, homelessness and community Services
• Charles Schrag: cschrag@kingcounty.gov – Seattle DCHS – planning new shelter projects

 Zoom Recording of the Meeting:  

https://youtu.be/AHjUlt00FVM

 Notes:  

This was a straight Q&A session moderated by Randy Harkness.

·        Why does Haller Lake and Bitter Lake have 4 shelters?  Why were we not told that the shelters were being put in?  Can we do the same thing as Tacoma, no homeless within 10 blocks of a shelter?

o   Tom:  The history is that there was no “grand plan”.  Sites were chosen because the city owns the land or the site was for sale.  The planned Police station at 128^th might come back, but the previous police station plan won’t be happening.  This community has been welcoming to the homeless population.

·        What will happen with the encampments near the shelters?

o   Charles:  Early dec opening of tiny home community at 128^th. 

o   Later, Dan stated that the sidewalk encampment on 128^th may need to be moved to ensure safety of those moving into the new CCS-operated tiny home village on 128^th.

·        What is your solution to this large problem?

o   Peter:  Problem caused by [income inequality].  Address the problem in multiple ways. If you move people, they will move somewhere.  We don’t build enough affordable housing in this area.

o   Dan – CCS, “palette shelters” are the tiny homes.  They have heat, electricity, etc.  A lot of those living in these homes are elderly.  Nursing on site.  Won’t move in the people in the tiny homes until the people on the street are moved.

·        What will you do about the people in front of the shelters on the sidewalks?

o   Chris:  Unified care team working on this and will move the people

o   Tom:  Encampment moved multiple times and comes back every time

·        For the 128^th tiny homes, is it low barrier?  Also, is there security on site?  Will there be a police presence?  Is there treatment for them?

o   Dan:  for the 128^th St. tiny homes, they hire social workers, not security.  For services, CCS has a behavioral health dept. which helps.  No primary medical care.  Low Barrier:  it’s low…pet, partners.  If someone is actively using, the last thing you want is for them is to go out into the community.  Rules against violence. 

·        Is this a homeless problem or a drug problem?

o   Later, Peter stated that this is a housing affordability problem, not a drug problem.

o   Simon:  He was homeless himself.  He believes that safe communities are important.  He wants this group to come back in the future with answers to some of our questions.

o   Simon asked if team will come back and provide answers to these questions.

§  Need this sooner than 1 year

§  Talked about coming back in 2 months

·        Who makes the decision to remove encampments?

o   Chris:  Unified Care team decides and prioritizes the approach to homeless on the street. NOTE:  I believe this is the Seattle inter-departmental care team that Chris coordinates and is made up of government leaders from different departments.

o   Tom: The Unified care team handles prioritization of just under 1000 encampments citywide. Encampments are all over Seattle.

·        What to do about people that don’t want to be in housing?

o   Tom:  build more affordable housing

·        Didn’t hear about the new shelters?  Will we get notifications when they are going up?

o   Randy Harkness:  HLCC knew about them.  We could have done better to publicize these.

·        Homelessness is supposed to be a Seattle Emergency.  Why not build a lot of housing same as COVID beds which was also an emergency?

o   Peter:  That was a stop gap, not an on-going service.  Cost for COVID is way more than we have to spend.  And, an [internment camp] approach won’t work.

·        What to do about all the people who don’t want help?

o   Peter:  Data  shows that people will move in if you give them adequate housing.  Data shows that being homeless is the problem, not the drugs.  Vast number of those with drug issues are housed.  Rarely encountered homeless people who won’t take housing that meets their needs.  People recover when they have housing.

·        Are shelters equally dispersed in the city? Is there another neighborhoods with that number of shelters    

o   Tom and Peter:  Yes!

·        How can we help?

o   We’ll send emails for those that were on this panel.

The panel will come back Q1/2023