Crews from the City of Olympia and the Washington State Department of Transportation, directed by OlyMAP (Olympia Mutual Aid Partners), converged today at one of the homeless encampments off of Sleater Kinney Road to begin the months-long process of relocating individuals to the new Maple Court shelter.
Ten individuals who have been living on the island surrounded by the freeway on-ramp and exit were relocated to what is being called an “enhanced shelter” located at 8200 Quinault Drive NE in Lacey. The Low-Income Housing Institute (LIHI) purchased the former Days Inn hotel in early 2023 with money from the state’s Right-of-Way program.
Olympia’s Homeless Response Coordinator, Kim Kondrat, told The JOLT that OlyMAP will transport ten homeless individuals per week to the shelter. Maple Court is set to initially house people living both at the freeway island camp and the encampment along the freeway, just south of the Hobby Lobby story. More than 100 people are eligible; the process is set to take more than two months.
The City of Lacey is working with the Low-Income Housing Institute (LIHI), a non-profit, to use $24 million in state funds to pay for the renovations and operation of the facility for the next two years.
LIHI operates former hotel sites for the homeless in Pierce and King Counties, and it will operate the Lacey site.
“I know this will work,” said John Brown, LIHI’s program manager. “We’ve done this before.”
The tenants must follow a Code of Conduct in which they agree to non-violent behavior and no drug or alcohol use in the facility’s common areas. What they do in their rooms is their business, and they must agree to allow staff to inspect the rooms to make sure they are livable, Brown added.
Residents will also be required to check in regularly with staff offering support in social services and mental health.
“The folks who are moving into Maple Court are people who have been surviving outdoors far too long without access to shelter, housing or basic amenities that most of us can take for granted,” said Tye Gundel, OlyMAP’s co-director and program coordinator.
“This is an opportunity to break the disruptive and harmful pattern of displacing people from one outdoor location to the next and to see what it means to respond … by instead creating and improving access to basic services,” Gundel added.
The relocated individuals will receive free room rent and access to three meals per day.
“This project is all about hope,” commented Kim Kondrat, the homeless response coordinator for the City of Olympia.
“By entering into the shelter, they have the opportunity to stabilize their lives.”
For one of the homeless individuals who moved on Wednesday to Maple Court, he thinks it is a step in the right direction.
“I’m looking forward to it,” said Michael Lange, 67, a former Marine who has been homeless for seven years, as he packed a couple of boxes and a backpack.
“I hope to get my social security paperwork taken care of and then begin to rebuild what is left of my life,” Lange added.
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Claire
Let's just wait and see....
Wednesday, June 28, 2023 Report this
OlympiaUsedToBeANicePlaceToLive
"access to shelter, housing or basic amenities that most of us can take for granted"
Most of us DON'T take these things for granted. We behave as responsible citizens and work for these things, they are not given to us.
Sure, let's give the freeloaders free rent, free food, and no accountability (the state even uses taxpayer dollars to hire contractors to clean up the toxic mess these folks leave behind) so they can save what resources they have to buy drugs and use them in the rooms the taxpayers are providing.
Something is terribly wrong with this approach.
I'd like to see John Brown give an example of where anything LIHI has done has worked (beyond keeping outreach folks employed). We pour millions into these organizations and the problem keeps getting worse and worse.
Thursday, June 29, 2023 Report this
Cobbnaustic
They will have to shut the hotel down in a year because they will be making meth in it.
Thursday, June 29, 2023 Report this
Daneyul
Studies have shown over and over that providing this kind of stability with consistent access to basic necessitates is the most effective method of reducing the homeless impact on the community--not to mention the positive effect it has on the individuals themselves, allowing them food, shelter and a safe place to live as a foundation to at least have a chance of rebuilding their lives. A "Housing first" approach simply works better than any other humane approach to the problem. It's far more expensive to the community to do nothing, chase them from camp to camp, or permanently incarcerate them at taxpayer expense.
Simplistic, naive, or just flat-out vindictive statements about "giving freeloaders free rent" -- (just like similar mentalities regarding criminal rehabilitation and drug rehabilitation programs) -- may feel good for armchair quarterbacks who don't actually have to address the actual issues to smugly pronounce -- but aren't backed by facts, don't offer practical solutions and just lead to perpetuating the problems.
Would the critics prefer we just chase them from shelter to shelter? Bus them to another city? Jail them? Euthanize them?
Thursday, June 29, 2023 Report this
JKRector
I concur with Daneyul's comments. It's easy to condemn the Housing First model, while not offering viable options. Bottom line, it is far less expensive than doing nothing (but gripe). Housing changes lives. Crime, incarceration, visits to the emergency room are expensive. This is a positive program to help lessen these negatives and do much more... to provide hope to those who are experiencing hopelessness.
Thursday, June 29, 2023 Report this
JW
I support housing first. In that all of these individuals are incarcerated in housing and are forced through rehab and detox. Once through rehab and detox those with warrants are sentenced and serve their time and the rest are put into programs for successful independent living and THEN they are given supportive housing. We're currently doing nothing more than shifting the crime and garbage and destitute addicts from one site to another with no real long-term solution.
It's all about the money and housing first with no strings attached is an endless merry go round of eternal reasons to get taxpayer cash.
Thursday, June 29, 2023 Report this
OlympiaUsedToBeANicePlaceToLive
Regardless of what studies may say, we all have eyes and can see for ourselves. The problem is getting worse not better despite the $$$ poured into it - so clearly the current approach is not working.
Detox and rehab need to be required. I realize that is difficult given the current legal environment. I also realize rehab is not particularly effective if the person hasn't reached a point where they are receptive, but letting folks do drugs in their private rooms certainly isn't going to be more effective than rehab.
Theft, taking over public land for personal use, spewing trash, needles and waste everywhere would get anyone else arrested in a minute. There needs to be accountability, even for homeless folks (and no, this is not making homelessness a crime, it is not excusing criminal behavior for population subsets). If that happens to make Western Washington less attractive to this population, so much the better.
A single google search shows that LIHI has a litany of issues, we should not be giving them taxpayer dollars.
I'm expecting a significant voter backlash sooner. The current approach is not working and its time for a tough love approach. I have never voted for a conservative candidate for any office, but if one comes along with a different approach to this, I may risk the other baggage that comes along with that.
Thursday, June 29, 2023 Report this
WA_Mojo
Any bets as to how soon these bums burn down the Hobo Hilton?
Thursday, June 29, 2023 Report this
Daneyul
The program has just started. Saying it's obviously not working despite the $$$ poured into it is like planting an apple seed and griping about not having apples the next day. It will take time, it's a long-term commitment, and it won't be a cure-all (there's a LOT of other factors to contend with).
Yes, doing the same old thing is obviously not working. This is not that.
And the idea of "incarcerating" people in these homes, and forcing programs on them, has never, ever worked. They simply won't go if there are such onerous conditions that the houses are essentially prisons. We're talking about autonomous human beings here, not cattle. They'll remain in their tents or on the sidewalks. If you actually want a workable program -- not just one that lets you feel self-righteous -- you have to come up with practical solutions that actually have a chance (and record) of working.
Thursday, June 29, 2023 Report this
OlympiaUsedToBeANicePlaceToLive
Your analogy is broken. The program has just started at this one single site. LIHI has been doing this in Seattle since 1990. Seattle is a mess - clearly it is not effective, other than in providing 6 figure salaries to its executive staff. LIHI has a litany of issues that are findable with a simple google search.
Every study I can find basically says "if you give shelter and food to people, don't prosecute them for crimes and let them do all the drugs they want, will they stay in that shelter". Great, now they are out of sight. What has that fixed? My interest is in seeing people become productive citizens - not measuring what happens if you warehouse them and continually enable anti-social behavior. If you claim this works, please provide a link to a study showing a significant number of people helped. Not just into shelter, but out of drug addiction and/or poverty. Not just onesie, twosies (yes, I searched)
The rest of us have rights too, and I for one am tired of the wanton destruction, crime and filth the homeless are creating and tired of the folks that enable this behavior.
Thursday, June 29, 2023 Report this
AugieH
The Ninth Circuit Court's ruling in Martin vs Boise in 2018 makes this approach to providing housing to those encamped on public land the only practical one which cities within the court's jurisdiction can take without fear of being sued. Nobody has to like it, but the usual rabid criticisms directed against the city, in this case Lacey, are misdirected and display an ignorance of relevant law as defined by the Ninth Circuit.
Thursday, June 29, 2023 Report this
OlympiaUsedToBeANicePlaceToLive
Perhaps I've misunderstood it, but I've read nothing about Martin vs. Boise that says cities have to provide private rooms where folks can use drugs with impunity, just that folks can't be prosecuted for sleeping outdoors on public land if a shelter bed is made available. Nor did the 9th circuit decriminalize drug possession and use - that's on the state, and why I said earlier I expect voter backlash. People are getting increasingly fed up. Reinstating felonies and prosecuting for drug use/possession would get a large number of these folks off the streets. All tat will take is voting in a different sort of representative at the state level, or a viable reason to take Martin vs. Boise to the supreme court again - it's a different court now, more conservative and willing to break long standing precedent.
Friday, June 30, 2023 Report this
Yeti1981
Houston used a housing first model and has cut homelessness faster and by more than any other American city. And that research folks are looking for can be found linked in the following article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/headway/houston-homeless-people.html
Monday, July 3, 2023 Report this
tacomagirl
relocated homeless have already been living there for 1-2 years
Tuesday, July 4, 2023 Report this
OlympiaUsedToBeANicePlaceToLive
Folks might want to read the studies linked to the article on Houston. They are not so rosy as the article. Basically yes, if you give people stuff for free with no attached conditions, they'll take it, but do we really just want to warehouse people out of sight or is the goal to get them off drugs and back into being self-sufficient? Because a survey of studies of HF seems to show only the first. If that is the only goal, we've got the wrong goals.
A quick google search of "housing first effectiveness" shows the expected "it's great" from organizations that directly benefit it, corresponding "it's a failure" from right wing think tanks, and a few actually objective studies, which find that it is not the panacea it is advertised as, including conclusions that housing first will never end homelessness.
P.S. KOMO today quoted LIHI as being "50%" successful in Tacoma. That's a failing grade and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Wednesday, July 5, 2023 Report this
Callie
Check out the book: https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/
Using accessible statistics, the researchers test a range of conventional beliefs about what drives the prevalence of homelessness in a given city—
including mental illness,
drug use,
poverty,
weather,
generosity of public assistance, and
low-income mobility—and find that none explain why, for example, rates are so much higher in Seattle than in Chicago.
Instead, housing market conditions, such as the cost and availability of rental housing, offer a more convincing explanation.
So let's get landlord friendly.
And as other cities have done, require building 4 simple studios for each mansion, so that the gardener, housecleaner, hairdresser, barista, handyman, mechanic, waiter, and nanny have somewhere decent to live.
Wednesday, July 12, 2023 Report this
ejpoleii
"Housing First" began in 1988 in LA, CA. It has been around for 33 years. It has failed. A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
If the property was bought with public funds, why is it owned by LIHI? This is just a continuing grift at public expense.
Tuesday, July 18, 2023 Report this