Sam Fletcher reports from the first meeting of Oak Harbor’s “Pathways to Stability” task force for the Whidbey News-Times.
Oak Harbor Mayor Ronnie Wright assembled a task force this week to create a plan for the increasing number of homeless people in the city.
The creation of the task force follows public complaints about homelessness in Oak Harbor and a large turnout to a town hall meeting with SPiN Café, a nonprofit day center for homeless and low-income residents.
During the first meeting Wednesday, task force members focused on identifying community needs and setting a timeline to address the issues.
They Said It
Within six months, Wright plans on securing funding for a feasibility study, perhaps through the community safety grant Police Chief Tony Slowik recently applied for. Within a year, the goal is to have the feasibility study complete and to have plans to build a “one-stop shop” facility that will house a range of services for homeless people.
Wright said the goal is to have the facility built within three years.
Bill Larsen, deputy director of Human Services in Island County, said up to 80 new units of subsidized housing will open by early next year.
Councilmember Barbara Armes said the island needs a comprehensive list of resources that doesn’t currently exist.
“(Homeless people) have to feel like they belong,” she said. “We can’t keep shuffling.”
The bulk of the complaints about the homeless problem is the location of SPiN Café, said Councilmember Bryan Stucky.
Stucky doesn’t agree with the “not in my backyard” perspective, he said, but perhaps there is a compromise.
Councilmember Christopher Wiegenstein, who said this issue is the reason he ran for city council, suggested that current homeless programming could be moved from SPiN and that the current building could be used for a different level of care.
Regardless of the location, SPiN Café provides services needed in the community, Slowik said. It helps fill a void that municipalities cannot.
The county supplies mental health counseling, Larsen said, but in an ideal world it would not have to. The funding, programs and requirements are complicated.
“It’s a spiderweb that would cause you to run out the other side,” he said.
“My goal is to find a way to yes,” Larsen said. “We’re going to find a way to get them into one of the programs that we have.”
Ideally, the county could put someone through a detox program, an in-patient program and then an out-patient program, he said. Currently, patients go into detox, they are held over until they can get into in-patient treatment and there is no out-patient treatment.
“We’re doing everything that we can ad hoc, but there is too many gaps in the system especially in the services available here on island,” he said. “We’re working the problem, but the problem’s getting bigger. The numbers are getting bigger.”
More services will attract more homeless people, Stucky said.
The solution to attracting higher numbers is to limit the beds available after a feasibility study assesses the island’s needs, Wiegenstein said.
One thing that is clear is that homelessness is more than what’s immediately visible on the street corner, Larsen said.
“People think they know what homelessness looks like,” he said. “What they don’t see is the families who come in who were struggling and on the edge and then they got an RV, and the RV broke down, and now they are in with their two kids, and they are out of options, and they are doing everything they can not to be there.”
The “Pathways to Stability” task force will meet again in March after receiving more information about a potential feasibility study from state Rep. Dave Paul, Wright said.
[Ed. Note: Bill Larsen is also a commissioner at the North Whidbey Pool, Park, and Recreation District and a former Oak Harbor City Councilor.]
