A place to stay: Moses Lake continues to tackle shelter challenges

MOSES LAKE — The city of Moses Lake continues to work to help those facing shelterlessness, but getting a consensus in the community and from city council seemed challenging after council members tabled a request from city administration Tuesday to hire a consultant to plan a transitional campus, which may be on West Central Drive.

“Staff has always operated with the assumption – as have our (elected officials) – that we need a permanent, 24-seven solution,” City Manager Allison Williams said.

Currently, the city, in cooperation with HopeSource, operates the Moses Lake Sleep Center, Williams said. The facility at Broadway Avenue and state Route 17 is only open overnight and offers shelter from the weather, snacks, hygiene opportunities and storage for personal belongings for regulars who spend the night there. The city also acquired the El Rancho Motel to provide transitional housing for those without a roof over their head.

“There was a huge outcry when that happened, and then it went in and we have not heard anything, and it’s housing families and there’s schools nearby, so the kids are close to school,” Williams said.

Many of the outcries against facilities like the transitional campus, sleep center and El Rancho facilities were echoed at the Tuesday council meeting. Residents expressed concern about ongoing camping in the city by people without housing, as well as a variety of alleged crimes, such as trespassing, substance abuse, vandalism and theft.

Moses Lake Police Department Chief Kevin Fuhr said he felt those complaints were mostly unfounded because deputies only respond to a small number of calls related to shelterless individuals each month. In 2021, which Fuhr said was MLPD’s largest number of calls in general ever reported, with more than 18,700 calls, MLPD deputies only responded to 62 calls at the new sleep center. Of those 62 calls, he said, only eight were serious issues like theft, damage or assault. The remainder were misdemeanor issues. Additionally, he said officers have only responded to the El Rancho Motel facility four times in six months, and all of those incidents were inside the rooms, with none spreading to the surrounding area.

However, Moses Lake resident Kevin Starcher said those numbers don’t accurately reflect other issues, such as incidents in which shelterless individuals allegedly stole from local businesses, damaged property near the sleep center and other issues.

“The police chief’s comments are ridiculous,” Starcher said. “We stopped calling the police. These (officers) show up (and) there’s nothing they can do. So, we ended up putting a $15,000 fence around the building to stop that.”

Starcher added the staff at his business, which is located just two blocks away from the sleep center, have become cautious enough they are now armed with tasers, mace or a firearm.

Another concern voiced by multiple speakers at Tuesday’s meeting was whether a transitional campus with access to services would draw more transients to the city. While Moses Lake Mayor Dean Hankins said his work on the city’s Ad Hoc Homeless Committee showed facilities like the proposed transitional campus were minimal, residents expressed doubts.

Still, Mary Anderson, a Moses Lake resident in the Vista Village part of town, located near where city administration suggested placing the transitional campus, said she is for assisting shelterless residents, but she is opposed to the campus with cost estimates ranging from $13 million to $20 million.

Anderson expressed compassion for those facing shelterlessness, hunger and poverty, but said she thinks others are paying the price for situations that aren’t their fault.

“It feels like people that pay taxes, work hard, volunteer and try to make our community a nicer place to live are the ones that are getting slapped,” Anderson said. “It seems like our privileges are being taken away – we’re not secure in our own neighborhoods.”

Williams said she believes some residents’ concerns are based upon stereotypes and a lack of awareness regarding homelessness overall.

“Even for myself being involved in it, the more we go on, and the more I hear about some of the people we’re helping – even I’m surprised to hear about some of the situations people are in, so I feel like a lot of people in the community think if someone is homeless that they have a criminal record, substance abuse disorder and may or may not have mental health (issues),” Williams said.

Dell Anderson, executive director at Renew, Grant County’s behavioral health program, said he agrees with Williams’ assessment. While those experiencing homelessness in the county often do have challenges related to one or more of the issues Williams mentioned, there’s no one-size-fits-all situation. Additionally, once someone in a situation begins looking for help, connecting them quickly and efficiently to services can help them become productive members of society. Those services may be job skills training, substance abuse treatment, mental health services and obtaining benefits they’ve earned such as social security, Medicaid or Medicare.

Still, once resources are in place, they can be a double-edged sword, Anderson said.

“The other aspect and challenge that people face is that they may get a job, but then if they’re on state insurance, or a Medicaid plan, then even working part-time, they might be dropped from that plan because now they’ve gotten income,” Anderson said. “And so, I think it’s just a really hard thing to overcome and our system’s not really set up to give people a transition period to really get up and going before they lose benefits.”

Anderson said Renew and other organizations are working with legislators to help establish systems that allow those facing shelterlessness a transition period to establish themselves more firmly before supports are taken away, but that work takes time.

In the meantime, Moses Lake continues to face the challenges of shelterlessness. The current sleep center is on leased land with a lease agreement that will expire in September 2023, Williams said. The monthly cost for the lease alone is $4,500. That places a time constraint on the city to move forward with a solution, both because the lease has a limited term and because that money could be spent on other things, such as services to get unhoused people on their feet.

The issue isn’t going to go away, said Williams. With a shortage of affordable housing and a large population of lower-income residents, shelterlessness will continue to be an issue until home inventory becomes available. The city is hoping to use a multifamily housing tax exemption program to help provide a larger inventory of affordable housing, she said.

“If we utilize that program to encourage units for those who are at 80% of our area median income, you would be looking at rents of $1,000 a month, which would be good to get more units in that price range for our population,” Williams said. “Particularly because, when you look at the demographics of our population, 49% of our households, their household incomes were under $50,000 a year, and that’s tough.”

The city is currently looking to examine next steps, but first, the Ad Hoc Homeless Committee will need to meet to discuss alternate locations for the proposed, conceptual facility. That meeting has yet to be scheduled, said Fuhr, who serves on the committee. Afterward, the issue will be brought back to city council for possible approval of a requisition for consulting services.

Hankins said he is in favor of moving forward with a feasibility study to get people in more secure situations.

“There are some that we can help. How many? I don’t know personally. I would agree that we’ve also looked and searched and searched for different locations and I think we should move ahead with a feasibility study while continuing always to be looking for another location,” Hankins said.

R. Hans Miller can be reached via email at rmiller@columbiabasinherald.com.