Editorial: As drugs have changed, Everett seeks change in tack

By The Herald Editorial Board

In mid-October, Clare’s Place, a supportive housing program in Everett, was required to temporarily relocate its residents after the county Health Department ordered its evacuation and the state Department of Labor & Industries said the program’s staff could not work from the building’s offices.

Contamination from methamphetamine and fentanyl in several rooms required relocation of residents and cleanup before anyone can be allowed back in the building. And it’s also prompted a call for even greater attention to the problems of addiction in Everett and Snohomish County.

Rather than return residents to homelessness, most of whom had lived from one to 10 years on the streets before coming to Clare’s Place, the City of Everett scrambled to erect pallet shelters — one room, pre-fabricated and heated cabins built in Everett — on city property adjacent to the housing complex.

The pallet shelters won’t be located permanently on the city property, and will only be in use until Clare’s Place can again house residents. The mayor declared an emergency that allowed the city to issue a 60-day permit for the pallet shelters, which can be extended as necessary. Staff for Clare’s Place continue to work with the residents while in the temporary shelters, and are operating out of an RV during cleanup.

Clare’s Place, which opened in 2019 and is among the first such facilities built in Everett, is a 65-unit long-term supportive housing facility operated by Catholic Community Services and Catholic Housing Services. In addition to providing housing through rental agreements with tenants, the program also provides supportive services, including addiction treatment, medical treatment, counseling and training. While tenants, as part of their leases, are expected to follow basic rules of behavior, there is no requirement for sobriety.

Clare’s Place retains authority to determine who qualifies for residence there. While the city provided the property for the development, it has no management role with the supportive housing program.

While the facility can be decontaminated and reopened, the extent of the contamination — 48 of the 65 rooms were affected, many from second-hand smoke from fentanyl and methamphetamine — raised red flags with city officials and housing and service providers that the temporary closure at Clare’s Place might be repeated elsewhere.

The closure has highlighted the urgency around addressing the addiction crisis around fentanyl, methamphetamine and other drugs, Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin said in a recent interview, and has prompted her call for a new community task force to educate the public and propose solutions. Franklin, who ran Cocoon House and its youth housing and support programs before running for mayor, said she’s heard from housing and service providers concerned their programs could have to deal with a similar contamination problem, limiting the work they do.

But new approaches are needed because of changes in the drugs themselves — in their potency and their reach into the larger community — that have complicated efforts to confront addiction and their related issues in the community, the mayor said.

While the dangerous potency of fentanyl may be better understood, there may be less public knowledge about both drugs’ effects on body and mind and the extent of their addictive hold on people. And meth, itself, has changed in how it is produced and in its effects. What was once a drug that produced a high that made users more social and euphoric, its latest formulation affects users by making them more antisocial, paranoid and prone to hallucinations, according to author and journalist Sam Quinones, who spoke recently at a community forum regarding both drugs.

“If you think about all of the safety challenges in Everett, whether it’s trespassing, whether it’s nuisance crimes, whether it’s shoplifting and property crime, gun violence, tagging graffiti, it is all related to the fentanyl and meth crisis,” Franklin said.

Franklin, during her comments to the city council at its Oct. 25 meeting, announced the new community effort — the Mayor’s Task Force to Address the Urgent Drug Crisis and its Impacts — and has begun reaching out to potential members of a 20- to 25-member group. Starting work as soon as December the work will continue over several months to develop a full understanding of the crisis and develop short-, medium- and long-term solutions.

Without reforms to how things are being done, “this crisis is only going to get worse,” Franklin said.

Julie Willie, the city’s community development director, said the city is identifying chairpeople for the effort. Donna Moulton, the chief executive for Housing Hope, has agreed to serve as a co-chair, and is someone who “understands firsthand the challenges that exist within affordable housing programs, the laws and rules that they’re limited by and their desire to continue to offer affordable housing,” Willie said.

Franklin identified another key task force member, former mayor Ray Stephanson, who launched a similar effort about a decade ago, which became the city’s Streets Initiative.

The effort will seek comprehensive representation from throughout the community, including from service providers; subject matter experts; the faith-based community; business leaders; neighborhood leaders; government partners at the city, county and state levels; and those who have lived with addiction and are in recovery.

While Franklin said the effort will work with the Snohomish County government and its resources, such as its Multi-Agency Coordination Group, Franklin said the city needs efforts that are “hyper-focused” on Everett and its needs and resources.

“Everett, as the county seat, is home to the emergency room and hospital, the jail, the vast majority of housing programs and service providers and meal programs. The safety challenges are really in Everett, around this crisis,” Franklin said. “So that is what our task force is going to focus on.”

The task force’s findings and solutions will have to consider how drugs have changed and how they have changed addiction, recognizing that some practices and policies may no longer fit the new landscape, including attempts to treat those who are working to stay sober and those who continue to use drugs in the same facilities, the mayor said.

“The drugs have so dramatically changed, that it’s a very, very different mess today. It’s wildly different from 20 or 30 years ago,” Franklin said.

Some approaches, as well, will likely have to change.

“This is the other thing I think that this task force will highlight is that our nonprofits don’t have the resources to deal with this crisis. And the city doesn’t have the resources to deal with this crisis,” Franklin said. “So this is an all-hands-on-deck type of situation.”