County Discusses 2023 Winter Shelter
As we approach winter months and the temperature starts to dip The Grays Harbor County Board of Commissioners began discussions on the possibility of temporary emergency cold weather shelters last week. They are developing an application request that is new this year and designed to avoid the outcome of last year, where Aberdeen refused to allow any shelter within the City limits and hundreds were left without any shelter all winter long. The new application process will, among other things, require shelter providers to recieve letters of support from relevant CIty governments where they plan to operate shelters.
“The challenge has crystallized around siting: The ‘where’ of a shelter — it’s become more and more apparent — is really the key and priority element for future shelter programming,” said Cassie Lentz, Healthy Places manager for public health.
“The more specific we can be with providers about what we will accept — and what we will not — in a site will be helpful,” Lentz told commissioners last week.
Commissioner Kevin Pine, a part of the local fascist contingent behind the hate group Save Our Aberdeen Please (SOAP), advocated for the requirement that City approval be mandatory for cold weather shelters. Him and his supporters have been behind every removal of services we have seen in the county since they were elected to shut down the County-ran needle exchange program. They also quashed the possibility of a year round permanent shelter ran by Chaplians On The Harbor, that had funding and everything ready to go, not to mention last years lack of temporary emergency cold weather shelter.
Aberdeen Mayor Pete Schave, another SOAPist, said that approval of a cold weather shelter would be up to a vote of the city council. Last fall, Schave sent a letter to county commissioners voicing opposition to a cold weather shelter in Aberdeen, citing the “destructive” conditions of a 2021 shelter to the downtown business district. The city council later backed his action with an 8-3 vote to reject the shelter.
The “destruction” wrought by the 2021 shelter included a few broken windows and doors at the shelter and a massive amount of manufactured complaints from SOAPists and notably Mayoral candidate Douglas Orr, whose massive art studio/home was across the street from the shelter. The only reason the shelter was located there was becuase it had been stalled by the County well into the winter season. In 2021 Coastal Community Action Program, who had ran the last few years shelters, decided without telling anyone to not apply for that years shelter. Since no one else applied the City was faced with the prospect of having zero shelter for the brutal 2021 winter season. A small non profit called Whole Harbor that runs the local farmer’s market stepped up to operate the shelter, despite being woefully behind schedule and never having ran a homeless shelter before. By the accounts of those who stayed there the sheleter was far more accomdating and well-ran than revious ones, and the only issues were because of the location. They had so few choices by that point and were on such a time crunch that they took what they could and unfortunately that meant being right above the church which hosts all of the meetings for the Grays Harbor GOP, and guess what other grou, that’s right SOAP. It was basically the headquarters for our local fascists right below this shelter. It was a recipe for disaster, most of the issues arose from the NIMBY attitude of the congreagation and the SOAPist supporters. Their callous disregard for the situations of the homeless lead to many negative interactions over the shelter season. This church is effectively the reason why ABerdeen had no shelter in the 2022 winter season.
The only shelter to start on time last year was a 15-bed shelter run by Chaplains on the Harbor in Westport, a CIty far removed from the largest homeless oulation in Aberdeen. It saw significantly more pressure than it had in the past, serving 136 “unduplicated” clients last winter compared to 82 the year before, according to data presented by Lentz last week. When Chaplains requested to expand the shelter operation by 10 beds last winter, public pushback at a city council meeting led the council to oppose the expansion.
Now the County is trying to turn a low barrier shelter into a high barrier one. Even though theyre own request for roposals alwyas stipluates the requiremnet that the shelter be “low-barrier”. The County is drafting new public ssafety rules for shelters, which include restrictions like identification and background check requirements that would, according to Chaplains on the Harbor Executive Director Barbra Weza, act as barriers both to homeless people using the shelter and the nonprofit running it.
According to Lentz, the Westport Police Department said it “did not have an increase in crime stats with regards to any activity at the shelter,” but did observe an increase of people arriving in Westport to use the shelter last winter. Lentz said data recorded by Chaplains shows 22 of the 136 individuals who used the shelter identified as Westport residents, and the rest came from outside the Westport area.
The city of Westport is set to hold another public hearing on the shelter rules later this month. Weza told The Daily World earlier this month Chaplains has not yet decided if it will apply to run the Westport shelter again this year.
In the same building, Chaplains currently runs a “day center” that provides services like showers, meals and connection to resources through a $266,000 contract with Grays Harbor County, funded by grants.
That money, plus $285,000 for a Coastal Community Action Program to provide temporary housing with hotel and motel vouchers, has already been allocated by the county. Another $530,000 of the county’s homeless housing fund, including $370,000 from annual document recording fees, has yet to be allocated for shelter services.
The county had $590,000 earmarked for shelter services last season and ended up with money leftover when only the Westport shelter opened its doors. Lentz said the scope of services of new applications will determine how quickly the money might be spent.
Permanent shelter
Lentz also informed commissioners last week about a larger housing funding source: the state Department of Commerce’s Housing Trust Fund.
Lentz said Commerce awards grants to capital projects including “acquisition, rehab or construction of homeless shelters,” with up to $5 million per project.
That could include a permanent homeless shelter in Grays Harbor County. After originally not voting on the permanent shelter proposed by Chaplains on the Harbor, causing the project to fall through. The process of finding a suitable location has again reared it’s head as Mayor Pete and Commissioner Pine have stalled the search for months now. Schave said he and Pine “have found a location that’s about as perfect as you can get,” adding, “nothing is perfect.” He said the shelter site is on unincorporated Grays Harbor County land but is “as close as you can get to Aberdeen.” The whole search has been incredibly secretive nad nothing has been disclosed to the public about where they have considered or the parameters used during their search.
As Grays Harbor Experiences Increase In Overdoses, County Leaders Flounder
Grays Harbor County is experiencing significantly higher opioid-related deaths in 2023, with numbers already surpassing all of last year’s overdoses. The county coroner George Kelley blames Fenatnyl saying, “Fentanyl is accounting for a much higher number of deaths this year.”
“Right now our numbers are in the mid-40s for deaths involving opioids or illegal drugs,” Kelley said. “The number of overdose deaths we’re having is significantly higher than last year’s.” He also mentioned that the varying qulaity and inconsistent dosing can lead to overdoses of Fentanyl.
One reason why Fentanyl test kits should be readily available to anyone who needs one through Public Health, yet they offer nothing to test your drugs.
For deaths that involved drugs, but weren’t necessarily ODs, the county is more than double last year’s drug-involved deaths.
“We’re more than double last year’s number, 23, as unnatural ones involving drugs,” Kelley said. “This year we’re at 53 unnatural cause of death involving drugs.”
There’s no common profile for a person with a substance use disorder, Kelley said, though the average age for an overdose death was higher than perhaps expected.
“The average age of a fentanyl overdose death is just over 50 years old. It balances out to 50-55ish,” Kelley said. “Without going into specific cases, there were some that surprised me. They’re average everyday people. People you wouldn’t suspect.”
This is his way of saying it’s not just homeless people living in tents under the bridge. Housed people use drugs at the same rate that homeless people do, they just do it in private.
Another concern recently has been the appearnace of the tranquilizer xylazine. Xylazine cannot be reversed with Narcan though, since it is commonly mixed with Fentanyl, the CDC still recommends it’s use in suspected OD involving xlyazine. This is another drug for which a test strip currently exists and is not offered by the County. As they report records drug related deaths, we wonder how many could have been saved if the County had a compassionate and sensible harm reduction policy that was informed by the latest science.
Grays Harbor part of 22 county lawsuit against DSHS
Grays Harbor and Pacific County are joining 20 other counties to sue the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) over a lack of mental health services.
The Washington State Association of Counties and 22 counties within the state signed onto the lawsuit, including Grays Harbor, Pacific, Asotin, Clallam, Cowlitz, Douglas, Grant, Island, Jefferson, King, Pierce, Kitsap, Klickitat, Lewis, Lincoln, Skagit, Skamania, Snohomish, Spokane, Thurston, Whatcom, and Yakima counties.
In the lawsuit, the counties allege that the DSHS is failing to follow the state constitution and their “fundamental obligation” by refusing to provide mental health services to patients.
It states that DSHS is depriving a particularly at-risk population of mental health treatment, leading to the detriment of both patient well-being and community safety.
The counties, who represent more than 6 million Washington residents, joined together to ensure DSHS follows state guidelines as part of the criminal justice and mental health care system.
The lawsuit says that DSHS is failing to properly evaluate patients when civil commitment is needed over criminal hold, as they are obligated to do per Superior Court order.
Whenever a superior court dismisses felony criminal charges related to sex, violent, or felony harassment charges due to a defendant’s competency, the court refers the former defendant to DSHS for a mental health evaluation. During those evaluations, DSHS is tasked with determining whether additional commitment for treatment is required.
According to the lawsuit, DSHS has refused admission to patients under civil conversion since at least December 2022, with refusal for required evaluations since July 13, 2023.
In addition, it states that from at least September 2022 through March 2023, DSHS removed beds and closed wards at Western State Hospital before replacement bed space was available, and issued a memorandum that informed counties that they would not be complying with the court order and instead would “triage” patients.
The counties assert that DSHS did not provide notice of that policy change prior to implementation, nor were they consulted by the agency regarding impacts.
These actions have reportedly forced the counties to suffer injury due to DSHS’s failure to comply with the guidelines.
Washington law requires that DSHS inform law enforcement, victims, and the court when they release patients back into communities following their treatment, which the agency has allegedly stated they do not intend to do.
A letter noted as being sent “On or around August 2, 2023” reportedly stated that it would be releasing certain committed patients “by September 7, 2023”.
This lawsuit follows a 2015 case in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington known as the “Trueblood Order” that ruled DSHS breached its duty to provide services in violation of the Fourth Amendment and a $100 million fine from a federal judge for breaching the order.
The counties state that DSHS has used Trueblood order as a basis to decline all conversion patients.
“DSHS’s refusal to perform its legal duty to evaluate civil conversion patients deprives these patients of care they are statutorily entitled to, precludes any evaluation of whether the patients are likely to recommit potentially serious and violent offenses as a result of a mental health disorder, and risks returning these individuals to communities where they may pose a risk to themselves and others.”
The counties are requesting immediate action from DSHS to comply with court orders and provide relief from their actions, which they state has placed the burden onto local communities and will bring “immediate damage and harm”.