Monday, November 06, 2006
Tacoma gives 'em a bus ticket out of town ...
Interesting council meeting tonight, though long. Here's the most interesting thing we all learned, thanks to quick research by our city staff: that Tacoma has sent 42 percent of its homeless people involved in the program mentioned below to live in Lakewood. (My math is not so good at this hour, but I think it equals about three dozen people).
Tacoma, of course, is the current home of Progress House, the open-door prison proposed for the grounds of Western State Hospital. And now Tacoma is sending a big chunk of its homeless population to Lakewood.
It's one thing to treat Lakewood as a dumping ground once, but another thing to make a habit of it. I, for one, would much prefer to have the unfortunate homeless here with social worker supervision rather than have convicts terrorizing the vulnerable mentally ill and their families ... if I had to choose. But why does Lakewood have to take both, or either? Shouldn't Snohomish County have at least one work release prison? And can't we send at least some of Tacoma's homeless to Steilacoom or University Place?
OK, I'm kidding on that last one, but maybe it will be Tacoma's Plan B. Or maybe they will just do a better job of finding housing in their own community. My impression from Police Chief Larry Saunders' comments is that Tacoma understands it needs to be a bit fairer about this. The impression left last night is that the system has been patched together, and somehow an inconsistent mess has produced an imbalance of homeless housing in Lakewood.
After I raised the question - and maybe it's just me, because the other council members looked at me like I was nuts for bringing this up - our City Manager Andrew Neiditz said he would work with Tacoma to develop some sort of agreement. Fair enough. I appreciate his concern. We just want want's fair, right?
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Tacoma, of course, is the current home of Progress House, the open-door prison proposed for the grounds of Western State Hospital. And now Tacoma is sending a big chunk of its homeless population to Lakewood.
It's one thing to treat Lakewood as a dumping ground once, but another thing to make a habit of it. I, for one, would much prefer to have the unfortunate homeless here with social worker supervision rather than have convicts terrorizing the vulnerable mentally ill and their families ... if I had to choose. But why does Lakewood have to take both, or either? Shouldn't Snohomish County have at least one work release prison? And can't we send at least some of Tacoma's homeless to Steilacoom or University Place?
OK, I'm kidding on that last one, but maybe it will be Tacoma's Plan B. Or maybe they will just do a better job of finding housing in their own community. My impression from Police Chief Larry Saunders' comments is that Tacoma understands it needs to be a bit fairer about this. The impression left last night is that the system has been patched together, and somehow an inconsistent mess has produced an imbalance of homeless housing in Lakewood.
After I raised the question - and maybe it's just me, because the other council members looked at me like I was nuts for bringing this up - our City Manager Andrew Neiditz said he would work with Tacoma to develop some sort of agreement. Fair enough. I appreciate his concern. We just want want's fair, right?
