Tacoma scrambles to save first step for people to exit homelessness in Pierce County

TACOMA, Wash. — The first step for people to exit homelessness in Pierce County nearly went offline over the weekend, requiring work over the holiday weekend and an emergency declaration to fix it.

Contracts for service providers that operate the Coordinated Entry System—the ‘first door’ for people exiting homelessness that creates a profile to connect people to services they need to be successful—expired Saturday night. Salaried county employees worked over the holiday weekend to prepare emergency contracts to fill the gap and at the start of business Tuesday, Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier declared an emergency to initiate the contracts. The declaration was first reported by the Tacoma News Tribune.

“We worked over the holiday weekend to ensure when offices opened Tuesday morning [organizations] had notices to proceed and deliver services that the County will pay for.” Dammeier said in an interview with KIRO 7 News.

Dammeier says it was an “administrative mistake” that caused the issue—he says the county’s human services staff were under the impression that a pandemic-era law that allowed contracts to be amended in order to extend services were still in place. The Finance Office and Prosecutors Office confirmed that the law had expired and amendments could not be made.

“This was a very specific instance where if we did not take this action, these very important services would have lapsed,” Dammeier said.

District Four councilor Ryan Mello says his reaction was two-fold: an initial relief followed by questions of how this was allowed to happen.

“What mismanagement and dysfunction is happening to where we get to this place where a standard contract and services...is done in such an emergent and chaotic way.” Mello said in an interview.

Dammeier didn’t directly answer if this issue could have been caught beforehand and prevented the scramble when KIRO 7 asked but did say it was a move to prevent wasted money and no loss of services.

“There’s no question that if these services lapsed, it would be unacceptable,” Dammeier said.

The declaration is curious to Mello who has been advocating for the county to pass a more broad emergency declaration to help people experiencing homelessness. He thinks the same emergency measures that helped the contracts stay in place, would help add capacity to the County’s system.

“We have a significant need for more emergency shelter, more options for people sleeping in business doorways, under overpasses and moving them to stability like tiny home villages and current county processes to move things take mane, mane, many, months—sometimes six months to over a year and that’s unacceptable when we’re dealing with real people’s lives.”

The News Tribune reports a proposal to declare an emergency failed along party lines on July 9.

“What they have proposed are very broad proclamations that I don’t think would yield different results than what were already getting.” Dammeier said.

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