EVERETT — As the city of Everett moves forward to build a 70-unit housing project for homeless people, Mayor Ray Stephanson said his only regret is not reaching out to neighbors ahead of time.
Deadlines caught up with the city, however.
“I would have liked to have called everyone in advance of it appearing in the press,” Stephanson said. “We had to apply for housing vouchers and we were up against a deadline, and that’s on me.”
The city announced in May that it would build a supportive low-barrier housing project on the site of the city’s fire training academy on Berkshire Drive, half a block from Evergreen Way.
At the time city officials emphasized it wasn’t a done deal, but it became clear that they were moving forward to build it there.
The announcement has been met with continued opposition from neighbors of the future project, which straddles the boundary between Pinehurst-Beverly Park and Glacier View neighborhoods.
Neighbors complained about being left out of the decision-making. They also are worried that the new building would bring in more crime and depress property values.
“What I would have preferred to have done is call a community meeting with those neighborhoods to share with them the work we’ve done with the site selection, what this was about,” Stephanson said.
He still stands by the decision both to pursue a low-barrier housing model and to put it on the Berkshire Drive site.
“As a provider, this is not new,” city Councilwoman Cassie Franklin said. “It’s new that’s it’s called ‘housing first,’ it’s new that it’s called ‘low-barrier.’”
The model has been in place around the country for decades, she said.
Franklin, CEO of Cocoon House, which provides housing and access to services for homeless youth, said she and the council and mayor often get questions about why the proposed project can’t make living there dependent on drug or alcohol testing.
“We already have those programs. I operate one in my day job,” she said. “We’re not doing enough for people who have failed those systems.”
The key to low-barrier housing is to provide a place where people can have a roof over their head at night, thus making it easier for them to work on their other issues, whether it’s addiction or mental illness.
The proposal is not for an emergency shelter or drop-in center, where people will be lining up hoping to get in, she said. The only way for someone to get into that building is through the city’s coordinated entry system, which means working with police and social workers to be placed into the apartments.
Plans call for the building to have 24-hour staffing and locked doors for the safety of those living there. Any guests of the tenants would be screened to be let in, and the residents will have to earn that privilege by meeting certain goals for behavior, said Hil Kaman, the city’s director of public health and safety.
There are 160 people on the waiting list for the coordinated entry system, Kaman said, and they’re already on the street.
“They are not receiving services, they don’t have a place to go home,” he said.
The best chance they have to make a transition into a more stable life is in a safe place, which is what this building is intended to be, city officials contend.
Stephanson and Kaman, or both in some cases, have attended 44 separate events or meetings to discuss the project since it was announced in May, city spokeswoman Meghan Pembroke said. That includes large-scale public meetings, neighborhood association meetings, and four separate days when they went knocking on doors in the neighborhoods.
“Ten years ago, I didn’t give one minute of one day to this,” Stephanson said. That’s all changed.
“Every day we’re working this all the time,” he said.
“I’ve done more public outreach and more public engagement than I can remember on any subject in my 10 years as mayor,” he said.
He expressed his frustration with some of the accusations directed at him, that the project is already a done deal, for example, when there are several steps yet to be taken before it gets there.
Those include the council’s upcoming vote scheduled for Wednesday on the city’s preferred location. That would clear the way for environmental review of the project and site. The City Council also would need to approve some time next year the transfer of the land to Catholic Housing Services.
“The point is, it’s not a fait accompli before we go through the entire process,” Stephanson said.
He conceded that there’s a core group of people who likely will not be swayed by any data or facts he could provide, but said he’s focused not only on making the project work, but improving the neighborhood, too.
“I think probably the most significant presence that citizens and neighbors can expect is from law enforcement, and the fact that they’ll know where this site is, it’ll be part of the neighborhood policing presence there,” he said. “We don’t walk away from the perspective of serving and protecting.”
In the end, the mark of success for the program may be that some of the people who wind up living at the project will recover from their traumas and ordeals and are able to return to society. Service providers are planned to help them along that path.
But for even those whose health has been ravaged by drug use or years of living outside, or whose mental condition precludes them from making change, that would not necessarily be failure.
“We ultimately may be giving them a place to die with dignity,” Stephanson said.
There may be people who do not succeed in the housing. Catholic Housing Services, which will own and operate the facility under current plans, does not permit drug use in the rooms or violence against others. Those who break the rules can be kicked out for their behavior.
“Does it happen all the time? No, but it has happened. Again we have a service provider with an excellent track record in knowing how to to do that,” Stephanson said.
The mayor’s first plan to house 20 people in scattered privately owned locations has not been successful, he said. The city hasn’t found enough spaces partly because of a low vacancy rate, and partly because, even with the city guaranteeing income and liability protection, some landlords simply refuse to rent to a homeless person.
That’s all the more reason he sees the low-barrier model as the right one for Everett.
Housing 70 people is not going to end homelessness in Everett, he said.
“This will not be the last location in the city of Everett. There will be another neighborhood,” Stephanson said.
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.
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