Everett ready to take its cleanup plans to the streets

EVERETT — Everett’s Community Streets Initiative task force wraps up its work Nov. 13 with a long list of recommendations to the city.

The task force, convened by Mayor Ray Stephanson, was charged with developing recommendations for the city to tackle homelessness, mental health, street-level nuisances, crime and other societal ills.

After four months of meetings, the work now moves from generating ideas to putting them into action, although the way forward won’t be easy, simple or cheap.

A draft of the task force’s final report shows that the problem is much bigger than Everett itself, and that solving those problems will involve coordinating local and state governments, nonprofit organizations, businesses, neighborhoods and the faith communities.

“It became more evident as we talked to each that it’s going to take everyone in that room and then some to make a pretty significant impact,” said Sylvia Anderson, co-chairwoman of the task force.

Among the task force’s major realizations was that the current social service network in and around Everett was fragmented among nonprofits, the justice system and other groups who often operated in isolation of one another.

“There’s so many people and we weren’t talking to each other,” said Anderson, who as CEO of the Everett Gospel Mission is on the front lines of fighting homelessness in the city.

“Some things were quietly getting started and we didn’t know about it, and some things were quietly going away and we didn’t hear about that,” she said.

The draft report lists 16 broad strategies to follow, which are subdivided into 65 specific recommendations for action.

The actions recommended by the report range from straightforward steps — for example, adjusting jail release times from midnight to a time when transportation and social service providers are open — to more complex and expensive proposals, such as building more permanent low-income housing. Some proposals, such as those aimed at seeking more state and federal money for social programs, lie outside the city’s direct control.

Chris Adams, the other task force co-chairman, said just identifying where the problems were was a challenge for the task force.

“I think a lot of the value came from the education that everyone’s gotten, the communication with the other members, and really understanding the scope of the problem,” said Adams, who also heads the city’s planning commission.

“Not one single recommendation is going to solve this issue,” he said.

Going forward, a smaller “implementation committee” will lead the drive to put into practice the recommendations outlined in the report.

The city government is already moving forward with a few projects within its purview, such as establishing an alcohol-impact zone (where cheap, portable high-alcohol content drinks could not be sold), banning panhandling at intersections and on roadways where it creates a visual distraction, supporting Snohomish County’s plan to build a jail halfway house in the Carnegie building, and expanding a program that tracks people who use a disproportionate amount of public resources (in terms of emergency calls, hospitals, criminal justice) into a program that emphasizes a long-term therapeutic approach.

For other projects, the city will take a more guiding role, said deputy city attorney David Hall, who will lead the implementation committee.

“They’re societal problems, they’re not just law enforcement problems,” Hall said.

Tackling them includes finding money from the state and federal governments, and Hall said it’s likely Everett will work with other cities, such as Seattle, to lobby Olympia for more resources.

“We just have to get the state to prioritize things like mental health treatment and housing,” Hall said.

In the meantime, the task force has requested that it reconvene every six months to monitor how its recommendations are being implemented and preserve its momentum.

“A role the city can play is to ensure the report isn’t shelved, but actually followed up on,” Hall said.

Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.

Meeting

The final meeting of the Everett Community Streets Initiative task force will held from 3-6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 13, in the Weyerhaeuser Room of Everett Station, 3201 Smith Ave. Agendas and materials are posted online at everettwa.org/default.aspx?ID=2210.