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Sweeping the Wind: Inside Tacoma’s Homeless Industrial Complex

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Story by Your friendly neighborhood homeless industrial complex worker
Photos by Sierra Hartman

Part I

People ask me how I’m doing and I say OK because I know if I keep saying it I’ll keep believing it. But I’m not OK. I see the struggle of everyone around me, always, everywhere, and don’t know what else to do besides keep moving, keep going, keep struggling on. But I’m far from OK.

In the city of Tacoma, in Pierce County, in the state of Washington, in the wealthiest country in the world, I make my living off of homeless people. That sentence is true in every way and I wake up every morning praying for when it won’t be. 

I’m a homeless outreach case worker. I get paid 50k a year to help unhoused folks survive the crisis of homelessness. I’ve got a desk in a community resource center where I sit and listen to what people need all morning and afternoon three days a week, looking them in the eye, building relationships of trust. I also spend two days a week in the community, out in encampments, shelters, libraries, under over-passes, deep in parks and green spaces, sitting in coffee shops and abandoned buildings, bringing unhoused folks what they need to get through another day. 

A couple mornings ago I woke at 3:02am with my heart pounding and chest so tight I couldn’t breath. It felt like the weight of the world was pushing down on my ribs. It felt like everyone who’d ever asked me for anything was needing every god damn thing all at once. That juxtaposition of heart ache and disease.

I can’t describe for you what it feels like after taking supplies to an encampment full of unhoused people living in the worst of conditions, to drive away with an empty van, back toward my full house. I can’t make you understand what it feels like to tuck my children in, kiss them goodnight, tell them how much I love them while thinking about the little girl my little girls age who’s sleeping with her dad in the bushes at Spanaway Park and the little boy my son’s age living with his grandpa in a tent by the Star Center and the young mother sleeping in her car with her three-year-old and newborn behind Fred Meyers. And, and, and, almost thirty different unsheltered homeless families with children, hundreds of unsheltered couples and individuals, and those are just the ones I know personally.

They’re all over Tacoma, all over Pierce County, their stories pinned to locations mapped in my brain, humans holding their children, everything they own, each other. Their dissipating hopes slipping through the cracks of all the places I drive by, knowing there are humans living there. There. There. I see them everywhere and can’t look away. I close my eyes to sleep and still, there they are. There. There.

A part of me goes numb, dead-ends, dies off every time I leave work, leaving behind the fifteen, twenty, some days fifty or seventy, the hundred people I interacted with who are all still stuck sleeping outside, living rough, who barely got what they need to get through the night and have nowhere close to what’s needed to get out of homelessness. And the social safety nets we assume were set up to catch, keep safe and provide a path for unhoused folks back into housing, are instead spilling over, split at the bottom and blaming their load.

I woke up last night feeling like I was breaking in half. I can’t make you understand what it’s like to have so many people depending on you to deliver outcomes you have such limited ability to produce. Words can’t convey the failure of society I witness, participate in, am a part of. Every. Fucking. Day. It is absolutely crushing. And I’m just adjacent collateral. I’m housed, healthy, secure. My shits buttoned up. My white race, my cis male gender, my heteronormative sexuality, my family, my job, my social capital, my layers of privilege insulate me from the avalanche of violence that is homelessness. And it is crushing me nonetheless. 

The crushing truth of our homeless service system in Tacoma, in Pierce County, in the state of Washington, in the United States of America, is that it isn’t actually broken. It is doing exactly what it was created to do. Ours isn’t a system interested in eliminating homelessness and it probably never has been. It is a system interested in the appearance of eliminating homelessness while eternally chasing its tail.

When I look humans experiencing homelessness in the eyes everyday, I do so knowing the people making funding decisions do not. They are busy protecting their positions, making boxes to check and checking them, attending the same high level meetings with the same high level stake holders, cushioned many layers above the street level impact of their public service and lack there of. Our homeless industrial complex exists to continue existing, which means it perpetuates homelessness and from a system level, has no intention of fixing shit. 

That’s a damning accusation for sure, but keep reading and tell me where I’m wrong. Because I truly hope I am and I fucking know I’m not. Last night I woke outside myself, my dreams so vivid, my pulse so fast, fully stuck in that space between waking and never again. I honestly thought there was a chance it was the end. I was disoriented and confused, stumbled my way to the medicine cabinet, ate a handful of tums, wondering where the line between chest tightness and a heart attack lies, leaning on the bathroom counter, looking deep into the mirror and watching tears that began in my dreams falling into my sink. 

Two years out from Tacoma’s camping ban, Ordinance 28831, it is difficult to wrap my head around the ridiculous waste of resources, funding, and civic trust this has been and continues to be. Municipal code 8.19 passed in October of 2022 effectively made it illegal to live outside. The city’s “HEAL” (Homeless Engagement Alternatives Liaisons) team and their agents of enforcement (Tacoma Police) spend multiple days each week enforcing that ban. They too visit all the places individuals and families are living outside, but as opposed to delivering survival supplies or providing access to housing solutions, they tell them to go away.

No one gets less homeless as a result of the “HEAL” team’s “targeted interventions” because providing safe solutions for unhoused individuals and families is not their book of business. They are paid to clear spaces. This valuation of empty places over the people previously occupying them is intentional, policy based, and a reflection of the reality that the City of Tacoma employees responsible for engaging the city’s many unhoused citizens, don’t actually work on behalf of the homeless. They exist to pacify the housed.  

The “HEAL” team specializes in sweeps, or the clearing of homeless camps by force. For years now, they’ve been chasing unhoused folks in circles around the city, pushing them out of their camps under threat of fines and jail time, over and over again. Sweeps are more than relocation and cleaning projects; they destroy stability, consistency, all the support and survival routines each homeless encampment develops. They break apart communities who have nothing but each other and eradicate whatever trust had been built between homeless service providers and the people experiencing homelessness. Every sweep is destructive.

The unhoused campers are forced out, anywhere but there, while city contracted employees throw away everything left behind, often while the homeless are packing and trying to leave. And throughout the sweep the “HEAL” team is usually offering nothing besides a window of time to be gone by. There are rarely any legitimate service options, no new paths illuminated that lead the individuals, couples and families being swept out of homelessness, nor even a single useful suggestion for how an unhoused person could possibly live outside lawfully. 

In the third week of November 2024 for instance, there were two sweeps within 24 hours that displaced over a hundred households. Both were large encampments on empty but green spaces, one just above the University of Washington Tacoma and the other on Portland Avenue all the way out by Midland. Both sweeps started bright and early with a ridiculously large police presence. Both used loud-speakers and voice magnification devices to threaten immediate arrest for non-compliance. Both forced the unhoused folks peacefully slumbering up and out of their tents and make-shift shelters. Both told the large groups of humans living outside, 40 in one camp, almost 60 in the other, they had 24 hours to remove themselves and any possessions they didn’t want thrown away from the premises or they would be arrested.

Both utilized the pretense of outreach services to justify their sweeps, despite the fact there was nothing available as it was 40 degrees out and no shelters had any vacancies and the outreach teams weren’t even on site when the sweeps started. The first sweep had outreach teams waiting in the old Big Lots parking-lot a block and a half away to offer condolences as displaced people walked by. At the camp above UWT, the “HEAL” team didn’t even bother showing up until two hours after the sweep had begun. Which didn’t matter anyway because no actual useful services were offered at either sweep. But the contracted clean-up team with heavy construction equipment was there shortly after wake-up call throwing shit away and when asked how it feels to trash people’s homes, the only one who’d talk was just annoyed that “these people didn’t take the services offered, yet again.” The mornings finished with the unhoused folks living at both camps wandering off into the city, carting whatever they could carry with them in search of a new spot to set up their flimsy tents and try to stay alive. 

Unhoused folks are told they should be in shelters. That’s what passes for services at these sweeps; “HEAL” team members telling homeless folks to go to a shelter. They are told to go to the shelters, and told this regardless of if the shelter beds are household appropriate, accepting of pets, safe for vulnerable populations and/or even available. Because there are often no shelter beds available! There are thousands (you read that right) more homeless humans than there are shelter beds in Tacoma. Yet everywhere an unhoused person tries to set up a tent or park their vehicle to sleep, city paid agents of enforcement will eventually show up and tell them to go away.

We spend crazy amounts of our Tacoma specific homeless service dollars on the encampment removals (sweeps), clean-ups (forcing people to cart off what they can carry and throwing everything else away), site reclamation (boulders and fences to keep the cleared spaces free of unhoused humans) and the maintaining of the appearance of service options (the laughable notion that the “HEAL” team or anyone they contract with is actually providing a navigable path out of homelessness)(they are not).

This is our city’s strategy, their standard operating procedure, to bully, harass and threaten their unsheltered homeless population in circles, uprooting and sweeping them and then publicly gas-lighting them for not accepting unoffered, unsuitable and often unsafe services. Over and over again. It is the definition of insanity.

Both in personal and public conduct our actions should be an extension of our values. Tacoma’s actions speak loudly of their values in regards to their unhoused citizenry. They want them to get off their lawn, to keep pushing up the block, to move on with their visible poverty, take that shit somewhere else. Which is actually quite different than wanting to end homelessness.

When we see our city and county contracted employees fencing off public spaces, removing park benches, filling the grassy areas between sidewalks and streets, medians and under every overpass with giant, expensive-ass boulders, we are right to wonder what the fuck is happening! 

Heart palpitations, the fluttering of the aortic valve, I count my out of rhythm tick-tocking. I can feel my heart muscle growing tired, heavy, overburdened with the daily work of survival. And my blood bleeds the same as your blood bleeds the same as all the resilient as hell unhoused people we all see everyday bleed; pushing on through a crisis, bleeding all over us all. When we are down and out, we are more likely to grow accustomed to the bottom than luck into a way out.

This is true for our elders and grandparents living outside, for the parents with their children living in cars and tents across the city, for our brothers, sisters, siblings, neighbors, all the homeless out there. The city/county/cops say go away and the people living outside say where and the city/county/cops say not our problem, now leave or we’ll arrest you, impound your vehicle and trash your shit. And they tell you this while doing that. So the swept go a little bit further away but stay all the way unhoused, every sweep disconnecting them further from communities of support, from dignity and respect, from civilized society. The Tacoma Method lives on. 

Part II

Pierce County has been no better. It wasn’t until September of 2024 that Pierce County declared homelessness an emergency. King County made that declaration in November of 2015, for a point of reference. Thurston County in June of 2018. And what was it that finally brought Pierce County to the declaration table? Was it the almost 2,700 unhoused individuals counted in last year’s point in time, dog and pony show? The 26% increase that represented from the year before? The reality we all know to be true that 2,661 is a drastic under count, that unhoused folks are hard to find and count, that they move in and out of homelessness throughout the year and that the real number is estimated to be much larger, three or four times larger? Nope. None of that.

Pierce County declared homelessness an emergency because they fucked up their funding and the only way to circumnavigate their own ridiculous system, was to declare an emergency. Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier begrudgingly made the most obvious declaration in the history of declarations, not to bring more housing options, shelter beds or survival assistance to the multitude of individuals and families who so desperately need it; but to save Pierce County’s house of cards Coordinated Entry system from imploding. 

A simple explanation for coordinated entry is that it is the centralized intake system for anyone unhoused in Pierce County. It is the front door, peopled by multiple providers, that households experiencing homelessness here are pushed through in hopes of gaining access to either one-time financial assistance to get out of homelessness or a waitlist for housing programs.

Neither choice works well and just getting in the door can take months. Some people go years without accessing coordinated entry. And when they do, unfortunately, the most likely outcome is no outcome. The coordinated entry system usually leads nowhere because none of the choices an unhoused person is presented with during a coordinated entry are particularly likely to lead to housing. Follow me into the weeds…

When an unhoused person wanders into associated ministries or CCS or calls 211 and asks for help getting out of homelessness, if they are lucky, they are offered an appointment, usually not same day, with a coordinated entry provider. Assuming the unhoused person makes the appointment, the coordinated entry specialist then engages them in a diversion conversation at the end of which, the household is either entered into diversion or added to a waitlist.

Diversion is the one-time financial assistance choice and is available to the tune of 600-800 dollars, depending on which access point an unhoused person wanders in at. It is either paid directly to a landlord/property management group to cover a homeless households deposit and move-in costs (as if deposits and move in costs are ever only 800 dollars here) or diversion funds can be used to buy bus, train or plane tickets to export the homeless household to literally any address that says they can live there. No joke.

But if the homeless household does not find a housing solution within thirty days of their coordinated entry, they are exited from diversion with nothing, still homeless and now needing to make another appointment for a new coordinated entry. And despite the reality that the one-time financial assistance diversion provides is almost never enough to pull a person out of homelessness on its own and that the majority of folks who attempt to use diversion remain homeless, it is actually the most likely way an unhoused person gets rehousing help from the Pierce County homeless service system. For real.

It is a far more useful path than coordinated entry’s referral system. The main two referral projects are called priority pool and chronic homeless master list and if unhoused folks refuse diversion, they are placed on one or the other of these lists based on how long and often they’ve been homeless and if they have disabilities or not. Where a person lands on a waitlist has nothing to do with when they completed the coordinated entry assessment but instead their positions in line are ordered by scores pooped out of a top-secret vulnerability tool (seriously, the metric used to access vulnerability scores in Pierce County is not public information and only known by a handful of administrators).

And these waitlists are consistently a thousand plus households long with never more than a few dozen households per month selected for referrals to housing programs. Oh yeah, as a final insult to the injurious coordinated entry referral system, anyone not selected for a referral within 90 days gets booted back off the list and has to start over again. I shit you not. Coordinated entry is the front door to homeless services in Pierce County and the majority of the time, it leads to nowhere. This is the system the county executive finally declared homelessness an emergency to save.

Now, to be clear, it is my opinion that Pierce County utilizes an inequitable, inaccessible and ineffective coordinated entry system. And that since its inception the Pierce County human services department has become drunk on their own Kool-Aid, wasting millions of dollars on consultants and trainers all to effectively gate keep and deputize their own echo-chamber.

It’s also my opinion that Pierce County’s Executive and his minions got so hung up playing political keep away with the millions of dollars in document recording fees earmarked for homeless services, they plum forgot to follow their own overly complicated procurement process to make sure their pet project coordinated entry contracts remained funded!

But it’s fact that mere months after refusing to declare homelessness an emergency, despite being publicly begged by a majority of the County Council to use that declaration as a way to get the millions of dollars in document recording fees sitting in a savings account quickly out into the community where they were and are so desperately needed, a handful of weeks after that public refusal, Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier had to make the declaration anyway to save his own ass. These are the games played over us by people who have no stake beyond holding on to wealth and power, while our streets absolutely overflow with unhoused folks. This is the theme of this essay, the reality that our systems as presently constituted are not meant to end homelessness but to manage it into something economically profitable, or at least sustainable. This is that. 

Part III

There’s this story in the gospel of Mark that gives me hope, where Jesus and his crew are sitting around watching people pay money into the temple treasury and a widow comes along and drops in two small coins, a few cents. Jesus points to her and says she put in more than all the others because while they contribute from their surplus she gave of her poverty, gave all she had. And it reminds me of one of the many truths people who’ve no relationship with homelessness tend not to know about the unhoused, that they take care of each other.

Everyday I see people with nothing sharing and giving from their positional poverty to others in the same situation. So many of us with surplus, with abundance, hold it and horde it for our own reasons. This while so many in the dirt and doorways of our communities, the dregs of society, give of what little they have to support each other, share their two small coins with their neighbor one tent over. There’s beauty everywhere when you know where to look.

The word “compassion” comes from the Latin root “compati” which means “to suffer with.” There’s a young black man I see regularly on the streets, who coordinated entry can’t help, who gets swept from camp to camp, who I’ve known since he was a child. And when I’m honest with myself, I knew back then he’d be right where he is now. He came from poverty, was raised in trauma, hears the echo of generational harm in his head, schizophrenic screams between his ears and they only stop yelling when he’s using.

He needs detox and treatment and medication. He needs housing and community and hope. And all he ever gets is pushed away, outcasted, and worse every time I see him. Eventually, I’ll stop seeing him. I know a great many children on the street now-a-days, maybe more than I ever have. I know what our homeless service system has to offer them and I know where it leads. There is suffering everywhere when you know what I know, when you can’t figure out how to stop knowing. 

The Pierce County Coordinated Entry system is not working and hasn’t been for a long time. I know that too. The only people who believe it to be anywhere close to what it should be are people who no longer do the work. Some Pierce County Human service staff, trainers, administrators, some of our local nonprofits upper management teams, those folks who don’t have to personally experience where our systems drop the ball day in and day out, they still believe coordinated entry works.

Everyone at ground level knows this shit is a joke, including the unhoused folks this system exists to serve. Ask the families and individuals covering our streets how well coordinated entry is serving them, how common housing outcomes are from this needlessly invasive exercise at appearing busy. And ask them about the “HEAL” team too.

According to the Tacoma city manager’s Sept 5th report, of the 5,472 contacts the “HEAL” team had made with unhoused folks by that point of the year, 48% expressed interest in services yet only 9% made it to shelter. Why? Because there’s not actually shelter available for the vast majority of people on the street, regardless of their interest. Because we ain’t healing shit.

But if the “HEAL” team keeps a public record of how many of their contacts, many of which have been swept repeatedly, are interested in services, regardless if those services are real, they can then point to the 52% who are not interested in services as the problem. The perception of access is what the city/county is funding. They remain unconcerned if shelter and services are actually available.

And real outreach workers are left holding the relational dead-ends, the intimate knowledge of every unhoused family with children, every vulnerable person on the streets. They carry that burden while being refused the tools needed to temporarily shelter those unhoused humans as they wait. It is mind-blowing. It is devastating. It is business as usual.

As a result of this disingenuous reality, so many of the projects, the programs, the providers in our homeless service sector who are largely funded by city and county dollars have simply stopped trying. There are whole outreach teams that rarely leave their office. There are resource navigators who do that job by sending unhoused folks away, in never-ending circles to other providers, by sending them somewhere else and somewhere else and somewhere else.

There are transitional and permanent supportive housing providers who cherry pick the easiest to house folks and create barriers to keep out the rest, leaving the highest acuity, most vulnerable humans living on our sidewalks and green spaces. The results mirror our current social contract, the least vulnerable are the most likely to achieve a positive housing outcome while the most vulnerable, those furthest from justice, the chronically homeless population, are unlikely to even find an access point, let alone housing. They stay homeless and their numbers grow. And the “HEAL” team sweeps them away again and again until they die. 295 died homeless here last year. 

There’s no legitimate feedback system, no way for the people who get passed over, left behind, spit out, swept away, there’s no way for them to let the folks who make funding decisions know what is actually working, which providers are doing the thing they accept public funds to do and which have simply learned to play the game.

Not that it would matter anyway. None of these city or county investments are incentivized to provide viable long term solutions to homelessness and the reason why is clear. Why the fuck would they? They need the opposite. If homelessness lessens, becomes infrequent in occasion and minimal in duration, the multitude of paid partners who CE employs and refers out to would have to find a new hustle. Try their hands at Medicaid billing services or something. 

Similarly, if the number of unhoused folks living unsheltered shrinks and/or becomes supported by their own communities, the need for the “HEAL” team goes away. The “HEAL” team model is predicated upon three things; a) keeping a visible multitude of unhoused folks both unhoused and unsheltered, b) keeping housed people agitated, bothered by homelessness, upset enough at the people living outside to report them regularly as a problem which c) empowers the city to sweep in and save the day by trashing everything, replacing it with hostile architecture and pushing the camp to the next neighborhood. Repeat process. Repeat process. 

There are no useful services offered because there are few useful services available because there is no system incentive to fix homelessness. Many of our largest and most successful homeless service sector non-profits, many of our city and county departments, employees and leaders, many of US need homelessness to maintain at its current level and if anything, to increase. And the lack of affordable housing, the top heavy, unaccountable and unnavigable homeless service system, the punitive camping bans and irrationally inflexible zoning ordinances reflect those City of Tacoma and Pierce County priorities exactly.

So this is a call to y’all. Please help. Speak to your city council members. Your county council members. Ask them who they are funding and why. Ask them the price difference between sweeping encampments and offering help, between trashing people’s possessions and providing weekly trash/sanitation services, between offering unhoused humans a legitimate path out of homelessness and forcing them under threat of arrest to move two blocks away so the space they previously occupied can be replaced with big rocks. Repeat process, repeat process. Again and again and again. Ask them why we pretend like we don’t know how to fix this. Ask them who benefits.

The hungry beast is fed by keeping us housed folks targeting the victims instead of focusing on the causes and finding solutions. We stay busy snitching, calling on the city and county agents of enforcement to cast out our unhoused neighbors, humans already living outside, and excuse ourselves from the responsibility of engagement. Our inaction in the face of suffering is a sanctioning of violence.

By not tending to our neighbors in crisis we give our permission for the powers that be to treat them like chattel, we surrender our belief in our shared humanity and with it relinquish our collective community power, the very thing needed for the abolition of poverty. The focus is narrowed to homeless=problem, city/county=solution. But they’re not solving anything. They are moving in circles.

They are trading unhoused folks with other counties. They are pushing the problem one block over as a regional policy. And it’s keeping a whole lot of people, from the upper echelons of government and executive directors to lowly peon, boots-on-the-ground outreachers like me, working on a project not intended to be completed. Once again, our homeless industrial complex exists to continue existing, which means it perpetuates homelessness and from a system level, has no intention of fixing shit. This is that. 

This is why I can’t sleep. You shouldn’t be able to either. This is why I keep seeing dead people in alleys, in my dreams, under bridges, in my rearview mirror. If they ain’t dead yet they’re headed that direction. Once again, this is a call to y’all. Please help. Please demand better and more for your neighbors experiencing homelessness. For all of us. Stop ignoring suffering, stop looking away, stop telling yourself someone else will fix it. No one’s coming. We are the cavalry. That’s your family, your co-worker, your community, your people. You are responsible for yours. The people got the people. Talitha Koum. We all we got.

The only career ambition I’ve ever had in this field is to become unnecessary. Help me.

Citations: 

23 Comments

  1. What a great article. Passionate. So much truth about the hard realities of coordinated entry. Coming in as a new provider for families on the street, we see first-hand the lack of shelter available to children. This can’t continue. Check out the shelter hub getbed.org. Come help.

    Reply

  2. Thank you for the nice thoughtful write-ups. I live downtown Tacoma, often walk around to pick up never-ending litter all around, see and talk to homeless folks. I appreciate and support city’s camping ban, 10 blocks from the temporary homeless service facilities, Ordinance 28831. Before the ordinance, things got so bad, i.e. homeless trash and associated crimes, that I consider moving away from the area. The ordinance helped the quality of normal housed citizens and businesses.

    It is clear to those who live near the homeless facilities that encampments were worse near them. We have Tacoma Rescue Mission, Stability Site, Nativity House, to name a few.
    I also attended one of “Point-in-Time” count before the Pandemis, and know many of the homeless folks are not from Tacoma or Pierce County. But they come to Tacoma, Seattle and Portland because we serve them, i.e. we enable homelessness. Of course I know there are many who are unfortunate circumstances, and we need to help them. But I see far too many folks with obvious mental illness and drug and alcohol addiction among them that just providing shelters do not solve the situation or makes things worse as some of the Seattle homeless apartment became.

    So, I do appreciate HEAL teams effort, but clearly we need to re-consider the method of those who provide homeless people to be more proactive. I approach those who give food and items to homeless when I see them. I thank them for what they do. But then I ask if they provide trash bags and teach them to not to trash for example. Just one little example in life. They often look at me as if I were a mean person who do not care poor homeless people. Yes, if one is homeless, trash may be the last thing he/she cares, but if one cannot even keep one society rule, how can one return to become a contributing member of the society?

    Reply

    1. Nicely stated.
      Does the city approach or access the financial income of homeless camps. This would give reason as to being unable to pay rent.
      The city is allowing those of us who don’t make 150K to be “Pushed Out” of Tacoma.

      Reply

    2. you read this entire article and this is your takeaway?

      you approach people who give food, supplies, and other material support to your unhoused neighbors…to ask them if their humanity creates trash?

      the trash exists because these literal human beings, your neighbors, do not have easy access to places where they can dispose of their waste. because they don’t have houses with trash service. the trash is going to be here for as long as these human beings don’t have homes.

      stop looking at the trash and start looking at the humans who society treats like trash. maybe there you will find your humanity.

      Reply

  3. Hello and Happy New Year to you and any staff that may be associated with you.

    I will stay anonymous, but I felt so compelled to reply to this article or articles here in. My hat truly goes off to you for writing such a compelling honest and truthful article or series.

    I have to say this is all true, and yet so saddening for so many.I too was homeless for quite a long time actually with the major disability. Unfortunately after many attempts and saving pennies living out of my car for the longest time I was able to get off the street.

    I prayed and prayed and prayed for many days, many a weeks, and many of months. I never did end up in a homeless shelter nor did I end up in assisted living or anything even close. I would say anybody with a little bit of empathy, compassion, or even sympathy can see what truly is going on in so many areas were so many suffer.

    I feel there should be so many more resources and agree with you in regards to the way money is spent on useless things that in fact could be implemented towards things that would make a difference in people’s lives.

    It’s sad to me that so many just want to turn their heads and look the other way. I stop and help whenever I can, when I cross paths or come across somebody that’s having a tough time on the street. I give whatever I have in my pockets, or ask them if they need something to eat or whatever I can do to help.

    It’s just the way I am because I’ve been there I know what it’s like and it’s tough as s*** that I can assure you. Most don’t even know the half of it as you say.

    It makes no sense just putting them on a list, erasing them, just to put then on a list again.

    Reminds me of three strikes you’re out which is ridiculous… Just trying to make a point. I have all the admiration and respect for you for what you do. I completely see how you would have really tough days at times and how you would have sadness in your heart.

    I just want you to remember there are people out there that do appreciate what you do, I being one of them. I just wanted to say,don’t give up continue to give, that’s what God wants us to do.

    I have to say,if you ever feel like giving up please don’t… There’s so many people out there that need you regardless of whether you can see a dent or any sort of impact in the system.

    You certainly are making an impact in the lives of people you are trying so hard to help, and that in my book goes a tremendous distance in my arena.

    I just wanted to reach out to you and say God bless you for what you do. May the new year bring you solutions that can help you in your quest and your dedication to the homeless communities throughout Seattle. May God bless you always and give you the power and the knowledge and the know-how continue to help people in need.

    Sincerely Anonymous👉🙏

    Reply

  4. Honestly, this was a cathartic read. I also work in these systems and have been punished over the years when trying to make them actually attain a sustainable outcome because…that’s not really the goal. Thank you for speaking up.

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  5. This is so deep. I’m so thankful for the full transparency and honesty. I have been on both sides of this. This speaks to me so much.

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  6. The author is spot on. I helped start two non-profits serving homeless populations in Pierce County, and left the field when I recognized that the community didn’t want to solve homelessness, they just wanted to spend as little as possible to prevent the effects of homelessness from impacting them. This was true for residents and elected officials. I sat in the room with one of Dammier’s toadies when he pulled a $450k grant from our startup organization because we declined to include a van in our program (because it didn’t work!). He told me that he didn’t care whether it worked, he wanted the optics.

    I fought the best fight I could for 6 years, but when I realized that the community, and as an extension the elected officials, didn’t want to win, I moved on.

    I believed in the cause, and I watched hundreds of passionate, compassionate people like the author give their heart and lives (sometimes literally) to try to love their neighbors, to love the marginalized, only to be under-resourced in a losing effort. It broke my heart to leave. I didn’t quit because it was hard–I quit because the collective “we” (the people of Tacoma and Pierce County) didn’t want to win.

    Reply

  7. This was my experience in the industry as well.

    One of the more fucked up things about Coordinated Entry was also that they would batch release referrals – after hiding the criteria, on purpose, that they use to select folks, they give referrals to several people at once and the first one to respond to it, gets it.

    I’ve literally found people I was told had a referral, brought them in, and been told that someone else got it.

    It’s maddening.

    What we need is to get former and present workers together, and bring the stories to the people in power and to the public. I’m not hopeful it will do anything, but we should.

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  8. The answer to drug addiction and mental health is hope! You get funding to help with shelters. Housing, but jails are full of people committing crimes to support there addictions and sometimes going to prison. The inpatient treatment facilities are 30-45 days and are not providing treatment for dual diagnosis, occurring disorders. You have people that have been living in the streets and in bad health that has been neglected and you find a 21- 30 inpatient treatment, that feeds them well. They gain weight. Start to feel good. Clean and they go right back to the streets with no follow up care or place to live and no family support and start using again or overdose. Have you looked on the medical examiners website in Seattle. Majority or people from 18 to 70 dying from fentanyl. Meth, alcohol, suicide or violence. We can’t help with proper resources to treat mental illness. They go into mental hospital for 3-5 days. Then discharged. These are people that haven’t been responsible with there health and now. What do you expect them to start going to. Greater lakes for follow up care. All the psychiatrist, mental health therapist and courts, and noone is sitting down to see how other states are successful with treatment an wrap around care. Crime is not going away. Drugs are not going away. Not enough shelters. Housing. Police and first responders are overworked. Millions of dollars was spent on what? Families are affected by love ones. Drug addiction. Mental health problems. They have to commit a crime to get any help. But jail is a revolving door. Not the answer. Who is getting the funding but not helping anyone. I see the streets full of young men and women walking around like zombies. Hunched over. Can’t walk. Looking like they are in pain. Health decorating. No clothes on. They are someone’s daughter or son! You g I to jail with mental problems and not stable, you will get put in the hole. Noone in your family can see how you are doing. Because some people that answer the phones are rude. If you want to know there bail or charges. Otherwise. They are done talking. If you don’t have money on your books. You can’t call your family or get video visits. You can’t get visitors. The website on pierce County jail states due to shortage of staff. No visits. That’s in humane. Locked up. Food is not good and no outside contact. You barely talk to a public defender. They have so many clients. They don’t call you or see you. Until your hearing. We treat dogs and cats at the human society better then humans. They get a physical by a vet. Great care.

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  9. Last year, pierce county spent over 294 million on the “homeless budget” and Tacoma spent a bit more if I remember correctly.

    I imagine our cost of living wouldn’t be so high if we weren’t paying insane salaries to coaches; 600k+ or $300k+ to dshs directors,
    $200k to utility company directors & city managers.

    Source:
    https://fiscal.wa.gov/Staffing/Salaries

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    1. You are correct, most of these salaries are ridiculous! And we know that people working in these areas do not want to end homelessness.

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  10. Thank you for this article. I’m a teacher and I see the trauma of houselessness on our students daily. I also wake up in the middle of the night in a suffering state that for my housed, well fed, well cared for self doesn’t seem necessary, but that truly, in a sense, does seem necessary for anyone walking our streets and seeing others in such great need.

    Like one of your other commenters I see the need for supporting people in controlling garbage that comes with being alive, but unlike that commenter, I do not appreciate any organization whose efforts are to make life more difficult for those already living in difficulties.

    I’ve felt like I’m beating my head against a wall when asking why we don’t provide at least basic services for those living outdoors when housing is unavailable. We humans are all the same. Wherever we go we create garbage. Housed or not we pee, poo, vomit, and have menstrual cycles. We spread diseases if we can’t clean ourselves. I have never understood why people complain about houseless folks doing these things without providing the very basic of services; garbage bins and pick up service, Porta potties and hand sanitation stations. Adding to that outreach counselors and security guards to encampments could make historic changes in our city and county. Instead, we spend those public dollars on boulders to block sleeping, sweeps that break lives, and ‘public policy’ designed to perpetuate the problem. The problem is not the homeless people. The problem is homelessness. Why can’t we work on that?

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  11. Thanks for the insights. To make an impact we have to quit treating symptoms as the problem and tackle root causes. Maybe you are would be a good candidate for this role just posted by Pierce County – https://bit.ly/4gIIlrv

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  14. May all who read this article realize each of us needs an attitude change in viewing the homeless. No one wants to be homeless, many difficult situations cause people to have to live outside or in their cars. I volunteer at a Parish that offers food to people in need. We have many homeless who can come twice a month for help. It is humbling to hear their stories and Know what we offer is so little. We have a list of all the Services in our area available to them. Most of the people are so grateful for what has been offered. May God bless all the men and woman who spend their lives working with the homeless and the people in charge of funding and how it is spent. The article describes the helpless every individual or family faces if once in a green area they are forced to move within 24 hours and struggle to move all they need. Each time they are forced to move, they loose the support of those who shared their area. Spending money on boulders to make it a place unfit for homeless, makes one wonder if that money could be used to open more homeless shelters. Homelessness is serious issue that demands that everyone work together to find realistic solutions.

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  15. i would encourage anyone who feels compelled to push back against this article’s message to go out to an encampment every day for an extended period of time. get to know the names and struggles of your neighbors. go during the rain, the sleet, the wind, the cold. go on the days when you don’t want to leave your bed. ask them every day if there is one need you can meet. try your hardest to meet that one need.

    go the day they are swept. ask them how you can help on that day. carry their broken suitcases across the street in the rain. ask them where they are going. try to follow them there. try to keep in touch.

    then, if you can make it that long, you will understand.

    go where it’s dirty. where it stinks. where your socks get wet. where you’re uncomfortable.

    then, if you still have any humanity, you will understand.

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  16. Bravo on a well-written and poignant article with a unique perspective. As another “blind person with her hand on the elephant,” I have a few thoughts to offer. During my 5+ years as the Director of Pierce County Human Services, neither I nor anyone — inside county government or in the non-profits we funded — wanted to perpetuate homelessness. There are so many equally important social issues that all of us could be focused on, and even the non-profits that exist to provide homeless-related services like Coordinated Entry would celebrate the ability to do more “upstream” prevention work. Attributing malicious intent to the staff, leadership, and even elected officials takes everyone’s attention from the real work of figuring this shit out. Second, declaring homelessness as an emergency is not the panacea you might think. And, bad as it is…it’s URGENT (dire, requiring immediate action), but not an emergency (sudden, unexpected, and also requiring quick action). And even if Pierce County were to declare homelessness an emergency, the only thing that would change is a loss of transparency — the council and executive could make direct allocations to service providers without any public or competitive process. No magic money comes with declaring an emergency, and do you think attitudes will really change? Tacoma has been under a state of emergency for…7 years now? I bet providers appreciate the direct allocation, but I’m not convinced it’s helped them improve outcomes for folks living rough on our streets. Last, what you don’t call out enough is our need for MORE AFFORDABLE HOUSING. We can keep building shelters (and spend all of our limited funds) until we provide a bed for every single person who is or becomes homeless, but if there’s nowhere for them to go, then the shelters themselves become our solution, and that’s no way to live long-term. I’m grateful for the work you do, and appreciate your perspective, and hope you continue to work with the providers, public employees, and elected officials to continue improving the homeless system and building affordable housing. You are right — we ALL have more we can do.

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  17. It’s a sh*t show everywhere. I left low income housing because of being abused in a variety of ways by staff and tenants. I started life in an orphanage, survived a DV ridden familyas an adoptee, went to and graduated from college while homeless (B.A. & MBA), and had to drop out of a PhD program while homeless because the housing wanted me to work a minimum wage job instead of going to school. They literally changed the rules while I was there because of me, so I left. When I got stage 3 IBC I got housing through LIHI and stayed 8 years only to be drummed out literally through elder abuse (all documented and verified), submitted a police report etc., and when I left I had a 740 FICO, a perfect rent payment history, no behavioral issues on my part though I had a “case worker” do her best to “prove” I have a non-existent chemical imbalance and/or cluster B personality disorder. I was so optimistic for my life after beating cancer and the people meant to “help me” helped destroy my life, and SSI destroyed any financial well-being I had. Pandemic followed on the heels of cancer. I got dragged into court via abusive litigation (by a literal sociopath, someone I didn’t even know who targeted me) on false charges and then had to go through their appeal, all while in treatment for stage 3 cancer. They actually sued the police department on false accusations too a few years later in a separate event, and had identity and mail theft done to me, a package opened and hidden away from me by staff, and a litany of other insulting abuses. People talked any old way they wanted to at me, were dismissive, condescending, rude, dishonest, and I ended up getting a car on payments to escape. I’m in year 4 of this self-sheltering scheme. The system is corrupt, hundreds of millions thrown at the problem and nothing solved because really we’re just a head count worth a dollar to them, and they get decent middle class salaries to be jerks to people they view as subordinate. I now have a $4K overage in SSI from working day labor and gig apps because SSI doesn’t cover the cost of living. I’ll probably die self-sheltered in my car and of course going through the shelter system again after all of that isn’t going to happen. I somehow still have my self-worth and respect. Basically the ages of 58-71 have been wasted. I do have a plan though and that is DeFi flash loans + arbitrage, all I need is someone who will drop the code into a compiler and deploy it into live Avalanche/Aave platform and Dexs. It works and all I have to pay are the gas/transaction fees. I have to come back to Washington after a great winter in California by the beaches and in the desert. My aim is to get rich and eliminate SSI totally. No I’m not a crackpot. I have code from ChatGPT, Clause AI, GROK AI and Git Hub. I want to show all SSI and/or homeless people DeFi but they have to want to get out of the mess. No way I’m leaving this world a loser. I’m a champion. Any coders willing to help me pro bono like free? I mean, you can do the process too and make bookoo bucks. It’s all over You Tube, Medium, Reddit etc. It’s been out for a few years now. HMU here if you want to help and/or be helped. Don’t let the Elon Musk’s of the world and DOGE/Trump steal the rest of your life; corporate welfare queens. Tech bros all got massive government help to get rich. Amazon, Tesla, Google, Facebook, all of them. I have the documented proof. Btw, poor people will pay the burden of tariffs while the rich get the tax breaks. They want to privatize Social Security and cut benefits. I have an answer. Educated yourself and then do it with or without me. Best wishes to all.

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  18. Just a quick P.S. – The manager of the LIHI building was “asked to leave” aka fured, and the mental health agency the case worker was with was removed from the building after their contract expired and wasn’t renewed. They were replaced by another MHO. After I’d left. The case worked violated 1.10 Physical Contact
    Social workers should not engage in physical contact with clients when there is a possibility of psychological harm to the client as a result of the contact (such as cradling or caressing clients). Social workers who engage in appropriate physical contact with clients are responsible for setting clear, appropriate, and culturally sensitive boundaries that govern such physical contact. (She pushed me into the wood molding of a doorway once and was angry about my criticisms of staff behaviors, all documented, witnessed), and the manager and some staff were inappropriate in tone of communications and gaslighting. 1.12 Derogatory Language
    Social workers should not use derogatory language in their written, verbal, or electronic communications to or about clients. Social workers should use accurate and respectful language in all communications to and about clients. Ironically, every “client” had to get mental health evaluations before they were given housing, but even so, the case worker continued her 8-year campaign of gaslighting me about my own life and trying to re-diagnose me even though my evaluation was done by a MD/Psychiatrist, more qualified than her LCSW designation. It’s not hard to understand why so many people do not want to enter the Homeless Industrial Complex’s “services” matrix. Unfortunately car camping in Tacoma has also resulted in the police being called on me numerous times but no bad consequences from the Police because they knew from SPD (Seattle is where it all happened) about the sociopath who dragged me into court etc. They knew I was innocent even as it happened and didn’t place a temporary restraining order on me etc. Unusual as that’s usually the first thing that happens to the “accused.” In the event that anyone would doubt my veracity, it’s all documented. Documentation beats conversation. So the problem is larger than just not enough affordable housing, but it also a
    encompasses the absolutely disrespectful ways that un-housed people are treated, and the stigmas and stereotypes attached to us. I once got locked out of a church in Tacoma too, lol. Anyways, thank you for publishing my experiences, and even if the P.S. doesn’t make it in the comments, at least Grit Magazine will know. Btw, I used to work in the ILWU in Seattle for a few years when younger. A caseworker had the audacity to ask me if I was sure I was there for more than a few days. These were the people charged to “help us” yet they couldn’t conceive letting a person retain even a bit of their dignity. They didn’t like me because I told the truth and called them out. Not only that, where-ever I road trip to now, the Police everywhere are hands off regarding me, even with expired tags. LOL. The SPD had my back but then again the sociopath that abusive litigated me sued them too on a separate issue as I said before. She had also done this abuse to 6 people before me but that’s her right in our legal system. Thank you.

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  20. Personal Experience in Downtown Tacoma:
    Twelve years ago, I relocated to Tacoma and began living and working in the downtown area. Over the years, I have become familiar with every location depicted in the article, as I frequently walk, jog, and bike throughout the neighborhood. During these outings, I also make an effort to pick up litter whenever possible.

    Observations of the Homeless Population:
    From my perspective, the individuals I encounter on the streets are often not residing in service facilities. A significant portion of these people appear to be struggling with mental illness or are under the influence of drugs. For those who do not exhibit such signs, I make a point to acknowledge them, looking them in the eyes and greeting them. Many, as described by the author, are good people who have become homeless due to unfortunate circumstances.

    Mental Illness and Drug Addiction Among the Homeless:
    The article raises important questions about the prevalence of mental disability and drug addiction among homeless individuals. Interacting with people facing these challenges is not easy. If I witness someone with a physical injury on the street, I will try to assist them. However, encountering a mentally ill person often prompts me to walk away, recognizing the complexity of their needs.

    Support for Local Initiatives and Challenges”
    I support the 10-block camping ban and the efforts of the HEAL team. While it is true that these measures often result in simply moving people from one location to another, they do not address the underlying causes of homelessness, such as mental illness and substance abuse. The individuals affected require specialized facilities with trained professionals to provide appropriate care.

    Community Efforts and Ongoing Issues:
    Since moving to Tacoma, I have observed the work of the Tacoma Pierce County Coalition to End Homelessness, which comprises many dedicated members. Despite these ongoing efforts, the homeless population does not appear to be decreasing. One reason for the concentration of homeless individuals in the downtown area is the abundance of service facilities, which are less prevalent in neighborhoods like Northend Tacoma or Gig Harbor.

    Concerns About the Homeless Industrial Complex:
    Although I do not personally believe it, some people suggest that the homeless industrial complex may have an interest in maintaining the homeless population to preserve job security within the sector.

    City Initiatives and Shelter Solutions”
    I recall when the city installed porta potties and other facilities under I-705 near downtown and along Puyallup Avenue, as well as other locations. These attempts led to conflicts among the homeless and created significant messes. Therefore, any low-barrier homeless shelter concept must be carefully controlled and well-organized.

    The Need for Open Discussion and Data-Driven Solutions:
    Moving forward, it is essential to continue openly discussing potential solutions to reduce homelessness, utilizing a more data-driven approach to address the complex issues at hand.

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