MARYSVILLE – Mayor Jon Nehring has a dilemma concerning the homeless.
While he has compassion for their plight and wants to help, he also has compassion for the community at-large that may not want to deal with some of the issues the homeless can cause. He is trying to strike a balance.
He said the problem is too big for the city to handle alone. It will take a regional solution, and he will be meeting later this month with Snohomish County and Everett officials to discuss what can be done.
He mentioned a psychiatric hospital planned at Smokey Point and homeless shelter planned in Everett as big-picture solutions.
“The elephant in the room is mental health,” Nehring said. “We just don’t have the facilities. They need help to be self-sustaining.”
The county has requested $1.6 million in state funding to renovate the Carnegie Library, adjacent to the county jail in Everett, for low-level offenders with addictions and/or mental illness, many of whom are homeless.
The total renovation cost is $2.1 million. The county would use local sales taxes and federal dollars for ongoing operations.
The jail is seeing an increasing number of inmates with mental illness and/or addictions, and is not equipped to handle psychiatric treatment or
detoxification, presenting safety concerns for inmates and staff. Managing resultant behaviors drives up jail costs and low-level offenders are released before adequate care can be provided, resulting in re-offense, the county says.
Homeless offenders are released with nowhere to go, resulting in revolving door jail bookings. The county is proposing transitional housing with 20 beds, chemical dependency and mental health counseling, employment assistance and enrolling participants in health plans.
State Sen. John McCoy and Rep. June Robinson are leading the way in obtaining the state money.
Also, a Texas-based company plans to build a 75-bed psychiatric hospital in Smokey Point that would include the county’s first inpatient psychiatric unit for children and adolescents. The $18.8 million, 60,000-square-foot facility would be built on a 4-acre site at 15621 Smokey Point Blvd. and
would have a workforce of about 200, said Richard Kresch, president and chief executive of US HealthVest.
If it receives approval from the state Department of Health, it could open late this year or early 2016, he said.
Nehring also said that Gordon Meade, 425-921-3478, can help homeless who are veterans as part of a Workforce program.
The mayor said the city isn’t big enough to build a shelter, staff it and provide insurance. But it can partner with service groups and faith organizations, which “fortunately have stepped up.”
He cited the Damascus Church across State Avenue from City Hall as opening a cold-weather shelter last year. Volunteers feed them dinner and breakfast before sending them back out. Last year they must have been open for two weeks, he said.
Nehring said as mayor he can clear obstacles and cut some of the red tape in permitting to help groups who want to help the homeless. He did just that when helping St. Mary’s Catholic Church start up a shelter on Friday nights just this year.
“It’s a big thing to tackle,” he said, adding the hope is other churches will step forward to do the same thing.
In the past half-year or so he said he’s been contacted by half-a-dozen ministers who have asked, “Is there anything we can plug into?”
Now there is.
On the other side of the coin, both the cities of Marysville and Arlington have cracked down on homeless, especially panhandlers, who prey on other citizens.
Marysville has focused on getting homeless out of downtown, especially near Comeford Park and the boat launch.
“We’ve had business owners who’ve crawled over homeless to get into their stores,” Nehring said.
The city also has tried to clean up around Safeway and Fred Meyer. There have even been issues with fires at homeless encampments on 116th.
“Crews cleaned up a real mess there,” Nehring said.
Signs have been put up at ramps off of Interstate 5 to try to keep away panhandlers. It is a safety concern for them and others when they dart in between cars trying to get money.
“The police just try to move them along,” Nehring said. “It’s not productive putting them in and out of jail.”
The mayor said the city really wants to crack down on the homeless involved in criminal activity. He talked of a van from the Mountlake Terrace area that fills up with panhandlers coming to this area to beg.
“We want to help the truly vulnerable who are part of this community,” Nehring said. “But we don’t want to attract people to come and prey on our community.”
