On March 12, about 100 members of the greater Redmond community — from residents to business owners to members of local advocacy groups and churches — and about 20 members from the City of Redmond staff filled the Bytes Cafe at City Hall to address homelessness in the area.
The meeting was prompted by growing concerns throughout the community.
“It’s a complex problem that we’re definitely not going to arrest our way out of,” said Redmond Police Chief Ron Gibson.
A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT
For Tasha Witherspoon, those concerns include vandalism and unauthorized access to the apartment building she manages in Redmond. Witherspoon — along with about eight residents from her building — attended last week’s meeting as representatives for the roughly 200 residents in their community. She said they had hoped to voice their concerns. And while some of those concerns were for their own safety and their families’ safety, Witherspoon said her residents were also concerned about the homeless community’s safety — especially the younger demographic.
“A lot of them wanted to help and just didn’t know how,” she said.
Helping and trying to find a solution was one of the objectives of the community meeting.
Colleen Kelly, assistant director of community planning for the city, said in trying to figure out successful strategies, it makes sense to get together and work with others.
“The solutions are not all in government,” she said.
Gibson agreed.
“They’re all part of the solution,” he said.
Both he and Kelly stressed that the goal of last week’s meeting was not to come up with a solution immediately. The meeting was just to get the conversation going in the community and come up with some long-term solutions.
“This is just a starting point,” Gibson said.
Since December 2014, he said they have met with police and human services with other Eastside cities such as Bellevue, Kirkland, Issaquah, Sammamish and Bothell.
“It’s not unique to Redmond,” Gibson said, adding that the solution won’t be either. “We’re all seeing this concern.”
VARIOUS CONCERNS
At last week’s meeting, participants were split up between more than a dozen tables of about eight people each. They were asked to write down both concerns and possible solutions they might have regarding homelessness in the area. After that, people discussed what they wrote down with the rest of the people at the table. This was followed by an individual from each table sharing with the whole room something that stood out for them during their discussions.
One of the concerns brought up during these different discussions was how some businesses are losing money either due to giving money to individuals or to installing security cameras and other measures to ensure their safety and their customers’ safety. Attendees also brought up the need for more permanent housing for those with mental illnesses, a restrictive city code system that creates obstacles for those trying to open and run shelters and a lack of services for the homeless at the street level.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
While many people voiced their concerns, others offered ideas for possible solutions to address local homelessness. Some of those included making shelters available year round, pressuring elected officials to vote to spend money addressing the issue and creating a space in which homeless individuals can receive the services they need and work toward establishing a life rather than a turf.
Currently, one place homeless youth can go to receive services in Redmond is Friends of Youth’s (FOY) Youth Service Center at the Together Center.
Derek Wentorf, director of homeless youth services for FOY, said some of the services youth can receive there include case management, help with chemical dependency or mental health and finding employment. He said they are working on adding a GED assistance program as well.
At night, the center turns into The Landing, an emergency shelter for homeless young adults ages 18-24.
Another possible solution that was brought up was providing forums and opportunities for the members of both the housed and unhoused community to come together, connect and build relationships and trust.
One person said this would lead to people letting go of their unfounded myths, prejudices and preconceived notions of what they think a particular group of individuals are like.
Kelly said an individual’s reasons for being homeless vary from person to person and just as it is among any group of people, there are both good and bad people within the population.
“People aren’t bad just because they’re homeless,” she said.
Others asked for information and resources they could hand out to those who may be in need of services and meaningful help.
“We were very pleased with the community response,” Gibson and Kelly said in a statement following last week’s meeting. “It clearly demonstrated that our community is concerned about both the impacts of homelessness on our community and the individuals who are struggling to find a more permanent solution to their need for shelter.”
Kelly said the key is to work up a balance to meet everyone’s needs — the homeless population, businesses, residents and service providers.
DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
For Witherspoon, discussing possible solutions was not something she expected from the meeting.
She also appreciated being able to meet and speak with people with various backgrounds and interests to gain their perspectives on the issue.
“It was amazing,” she said.
Wentorf also attended last week’s meeting and agreed that being able to speak with people from different backgrounds and perspectives was helpful. He said for some people, speaking in front of a room of 100 people could be intimidating. But speaking to a group of about eight people is more manageable. In addition, he said, people are also able to listen to each other in the smaller groups and hear what they had to say.
Wentorf added that after last week’s meeting, one of his table mates struck up a conversation with him and asked how they could volunteer and get involved with FOY.
CURRENT COLLABORATIONS
While last week’s meeting was the first time the city has held a conversation about homelessness in that particular format, working with others is not new.
Gibson said the Redmond Police Department (RPD) has worked and is working with the Redmond Library to address people’s concerns about members of the homeless community congregating at the library — particularly in large groups.
This topic was brought up during last week’s meeting as well as on previous occasions to the city and police.
“They have been very cooperative with us,” he said about the King County Library System (KCLS) and members of the Redmond Library staff.
Gibson said one of the issues they have seen at the library is loitering outside the building. While this is not against the law, he said each business and property has its own rules and policies and can enforce those rules and policies.
Laura Boyes — KCLS cluster manager for a number of Eastside libraries, including Redmond — said, “everyone is allowed to use the library” and pointed out that the space outside the building is a public place. While this may be, she said the library has been working on an agreement with RPD to allow police to help move along people who may be congregating outside the building. Though, she added, this would depend how many people are gathered and if their behavior is disruptive.
Boyes said while in the library, staff monitors people’s behaviors and can ask them to stop a certain behavior or ask them to leave if they are not complying with library policy.
“We will address the behaviors as we see (them),” she said.
Some behaviors against library policy include hostile or aggressive language or gestures, interfering with the free passage of staff or patrons in or on library premises and loud talking or boisterous physical behavior.
The KCLS rules of conducts are available on its website at tinyurl.com/nh3k8c3.
Boyes said if someone is being particularly disruptive or involved in illegal behavior, they will contact the police for help in removing the individual from the premise.
MOVING FORWARD
Following the community conversation, Gibson and Kelly said they are now in the process of tabulating all of the information that was gathered. They said they intend to use the information to help city staff make recommendations for the next step in responding to the increase in homelessness that is not just in Redmond but county wide.
This information will be made public in the next few weeks to those at the meeting who requested it be sent to them via email or snail mail. In addition, the city will make the information available in public places such as the library for the whole community to see.
“I think it is important to point out that this is a community concern that will take a very broad approach to mitigate the impacts we are experiencing today,” Gibson said. “This is not something that Redmond can approach in isolation from other cities, human service providers, the faith community and nonprofit organizations that work hard at attempting to mitigate the impacts of these issues every day.”
