PORT TOWNSEND — Members of the public voiced strong opposition to a scheduled removal of a Port Townsend homeless encampment.
The city of Port Townsend plans a site cleaning on Nov. 3 for the encampment behind the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) building at 2507 Evans Vista.
The opposition was voiced Monday night as a part of a Port Townsend City Council meeting. Public comment was cut short due to time following 10 comments, all in support of extending the deadline.
“I believe in the ability of this community to care for the most marginalized among us. This is why I urge the city to stop the sweep until there is a supported encampment,” Port Townsend resident Tulsi Leathers said.
Report to public
In a report preceding public comment, City Manager John Mauro said the schedule for cleaning the site is planned to proceed. He reasserted that the city is not a service provider and that municipal code for sanctioned encampments was passed by city council in 2023.
The relevant code, Port Townsend Municipal Code 17.62, can be found at tinyurl.com/56bf5eyw.
If a service provider steps up, locates a property and submits a permit, city staff would do what they could to expedite the permit, Mauro said. Should a permit be submitted, the city may be flexible in extending the Nov. 3 deadline while it is processed, he added.
Port Townsend resident Anya Callahan, a licensed mental health clinician working in direct service for more than a decade, urged the council to reconsider its plans and to prioritize evidence-based approaches.
“From a public health perspective, we know that forced relocation of encampments does not achieve its intended goals,” Callahan said. “In fact, it introduces serious health risks.”
Callahan referenced a recent report from the National Association of City and Health Officials which concluded that involuntary sweeps of encampments frequently increase overdose deaths, disrupt access to medical care and undermine social support networks.
“To date, we’ve had no fatal overdoses at the department at the DSHS encampment because folks are taking care of each other and because service providers are able to go there and provide supplies,” Callahan said. “When people are involuntarily relocated, they often lose essential devices like walkers and wheelchairs and other mobility devices, medications, and this causes an exacerbation of chronic illnesses.”
Awareness of the planned move already has caused some at the encampment to move farther into the woods or in front of local businesses or service providers, Callahan said.
If the Nov. 3 plan moves ahead, people will face arrest for simply existing in public, Callahan said. Criminalization causes trauma and affects people’s ability to seek employment in the future. Jail is not a public health intervention; housing is, Callahan added.
“It’s a cycle that punishes poverty rather than addresses its root causes,” Callahan said.
When council member Ben Thomas asked what would happen to people still on the property on Nov. 4, Mauro said the thought process is hypothetical and there are infinite possibilities but that the city did retain its rights to trespass people. He hopes the problem is solved by then, he added.
Port Townsend resident Wednesday Sophia shared direct experience of family members experiencing homelessness, some of whom had died while living unsheltered.
Sophia referenced a statement made by Mauro moments before, in which he justified adhering to the planned move date by citing the momentum that the deadline compelled.
“If momentum means fear, sure, our neighbors are feeling that pressure,” Sophia said.
Sophia encouraged the council to reconsider moving community members.
“If the city council disregards the public call for this sweep to be stopped until a location is identified, winter will bring dire consequences,” Sophia said.
Sophia referenced a winter sweep in Tacoma which resulted in people transitioning to King County. People ended up breaking into buildings to survive, Sophia added.
Effectively pushing the population out would paint the city with a soulless reputation, Sophia said.
Leathers said that, on a recent visit to the encampment, when asked where the residents would go, police officers said there were 30 beds open in a Port Angeles shelter.
“I don’t want my neighbors sent away,” said Leathers, who experienced homelessness in the past. “The least we can do if we are evicting them to build housing they can’t afford to live in is give them another place to go.”
Leathers said residents at the encampment had celebrated milestones in sobriety and finding housing.
“The threat of a sweep has jeopardized their newfound stability,” Leathers said.
Derek Firenze of Port Townsend drew attention to an August council meeting during which an update on the city’s Evans Vista affordable housing project included a comment from council member Neil Nelson.
“To move forward at the rate of speed that we need to move forward, we’re going to deal with the homeless issue that we’ve got out there,” Nelson said.
Firenze said moving the encampment without offering an alternative location would be illegal in Washington state, referring to 2021’s House Bill 1220.
Under the state Growth Management Act, the law requires municipalities to include plans to address all economic rungs of housing needs in the housing element of their comprehensive plan.
Port Townsend’s Well Organized — a collective under the 501(c)(3) umbrella of Black Lives Matter of Jefferson County — wrote a letter listing public safety, public costs, unrealistic timelines and potential legal compliance issues with HB 1220 as reasons the move should not continue as planned. It was addressed to multiple Port Townsend and Jefferson County legislative bodies and to Mauro. It included a request that the city pause the removal until a supported camp is in place.
The letter was signed by 18 people, including members of the organization’s leadership, other organizational leaders and community members and Port Angeles City Council member Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin.
Well Organized’s Co-Director Cendre Hunt wrote in an email that the letter had received 15 more signatures since it was submitted.
The encampment is located in a utility easement under power lines.
Julia Cochrane, a Port Townsend resident and founder and director of the Jefferson Interfaith Action Coalition Winter Welcoming Center, agreed that having an encampment under high-power lines is not ideal but said removing residents before an alternative location is made available is inhumane.
“At the coordinated entry meeting this morning, it was confirmed that the people at the encampment have a very high vulnerability,” Cochrane said. “A service provider testified that seven out of eight people staying in tents there who she interviewed are disabled. We know some are elderly, and we know that the emergency shelter’s capacity, we know ideas such as couch surfing put people at risk of being abused and trafficked. If these people had safe places to go indoors, they would.”
“Overwhelmingly, experts locally ask that this be done a different way,” said Viola Ware, Olympic Community Action Programs’ director of housing and community development.
Holly Morgan, OlyCAP’s executive director, addressed the idea of moving the encampment to Caswell Brown Village, which Mauro mentioned as a possible site.
Morgan said moving the encampment to the property could jeopardize funding of the long-held plan to build an emergency shelter on the property, which is needed to replace the soon-to-close shelter at the American Legion Hall.
Closing public comment, David Griffiths of Port Townsend said he’s lost sleep in recent weeks, thinking about the damage already done by the announced encampment removal.
“You’ve really only got two questions that you need to be considering at this point,” Griffiths said. “First, what consequences are you willing to inflict on innocent, vulnerable people who you can choose to protect or choose not to? Second, what consequences are you willing to bear for the choice you make?”
Mayor David Faber said the situation puts the council in an awkward position. As a legislative policymaking body, the council is limited in what they can do, he said.
He continued by saying that if no alternative location is made available by Nov. 3, moving forward on the deadline is not morally justifiable.
Faber called for a special city council meeting at 6 p.m. Monday, noting that the meeting would only be an opportunity for the council to hear updates from staff and for a period of public comments. The council would not be able to make meaningful changes to the plan, he said.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com
