Pierce County starts plans for homeless shelters in Fife, Lakewood, Spanaway
Pierce County is changing its tune about homelessness and has started to look outside of Tacoma as the next locations for homeless shelters.
The county has pivoted to a more regional plan, with a Nov. 1 deadline to end street homelessness. Discussions are underway with Lakewood, Puyallup and Fife over hotel-based shelter programs, and the county has secured state funding to add a tiny home village in Spanaway.
Pierce County’s Human Services director Heather Moss said years of having homeless services concentrated in Tacoma is not working to address homelessness across the county.
“At this point, we’re all recognizing it can’t get much worse. What we’ve been doing hasn’t worked well enough. So let’s try something different,” Moss said. “There’s models out there that work. We have resources, we have a lot of political will and we have a lot of community support.”
Read more: https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article252904723.html
(Tacoma News Tribune)