City leadership successfully housed 95 people who were experiencing homelessness in 2023, and a city-designed Clean and Sober Housing Program successfully helped 30 individuals complete 30 days of inpatient treatment. The community resource center had over 1,835 visits, and a permanent supportive housing location has opened with the capacity to house 100 people.

The only problem? These wins in reducing homelessness don’t come from Federal Way, but from our next-door neighbor Auburn.

In 2016, Auburn Mayor Nancy Backus received an action plan from a task force she led on what city leadership could do to address these issues. In 2018, Federal Way Mayor Jim Ferrell received an action plan from a task force on homelessness also, but several of these recommendations were never acted on.

Progress has been made in Federal Way and in South King County overall in addressing the homelessness crisis. And Federal Way has doled out hundreds of thousands of dollars to local organizations who assist in the crisis. However, Auburn’s successes today are a window into the future the Mayor’s Task Force painted in Federal Way’s recommendations six years ago.

Among the list of recommendations from the task force, the following have been achieved to a degree in Federal Way:

• Expand shelters as gateways for progress. The city has provided funds and support to the organization FUSION, which opened an emergency shelter for families on Christmas Eve 2020.

• Create a group to coordinate clean-up programs. The city has not led this. Instead, a group called Stand Up Federal Way voluntarily and independently organizes cleanups that the city sometimes assists with. The city also takes “measures that prevent the camps from reappearing, such as underbrush cutting,” according to notes provided by the city.

• Continue vigilant, effective, collaborative and mission-focused law enforcement. The FWPD has a Special Operations Unit (SOU) is currently staffed at 4 officers and a supervisor. They shared that “Their primary areas of focus are homeless outreach and working with business owners and code compliance to address homelessness. We accomplish this by providing referrals to services and enforcing criminal violations.”

• Better coordinate with criminal justice programs. Community court has continued and expanded somewhat, including the expansion of a resource fair offered at the library in conjunction with the court. That being said, Judge David Larson expressed that coordination between the community court and other resources and systems could be much better.

• Prevent the re-establishment of dismantled encampments. If an encampment is on city-owned property, they pay to remove it. The Federal Way Police Department shares some handouts to those in the encampment areas before they are cleared.

However, the following recommendations remain unaddressed in Federal Way as of 2024:

• Create a community coordinated response.

• Develop a community coordinated outreach program.

• Create or expand online resources.

• Increase the availability of affordable housing and the effectiveness of the coordinated entry system. While the city jointly founded the South King Housing and Homelessness Partners with King County and other South King County cities, when asked for an update on affordable housing this year, Community Development Director Keith Niven said in an email that “overall the city does not have information on the affordability of new units being built in the city.” The city also drafted and adopted an $80,000 Housing Action Plan in 2021.

• Increase the equitable delivery of services. This recommendation specifically said to “develop a strategy in conjunction with the community coordinated response team to address inequitable delivery of services and housing solutions in Federal Way.” There is no community coordinated response team.

• Partner with local agencies to install public phones.

• Hire and train peer navigators.

• Allow a safe parking program.

Resources in Federal Way

Serving those experiencing homelessness — and preventing it in the first place in Federal Way — is mostly done by volunteer groups and nonprofits. The Federal Way Community Caregiving Network (FWCCN), FUSION, the Multi-Service Center and Catholic Community Services are some of these core organizations. A coalition of local churches that provides resources to people experiencing homelessness has also begun meeting this year. The coalition’s volunteers have criticized the city’s lack of support, especially in contrast with the scale of their volunteer efforts.

Other independent organizations in Federal Way are working on increasing affordable housing including the Multi-Service Center and El Centro de la Raza.

While it wouldn’t cover funding all of the task force recommnedations that remain unaddressed, as previously reported, the city does have $143,000 from opioid settlements. That money is being held in a marked account for programming that addresses the impacts of the fentanyl crisis. The city has no plan for what to spend those dollars on as of yet.

Health Through Housing

Federal Way is poised to open a long-term supportive housing location at former Extended Stay America, 1400 South 320th St., through the King County Health Through Housing (HTH) program, similar to Don’s Place in Auburn.

Auburn opened Don’s Place in December 2023 at the repurposed Clarion Hotel. The facility houses 40 people, but can support as many as 90 leaving chronic homelessness or who are at risk of falling into homelessness, with a special focus on veterans and seniors.

Mayor Backus told the Mirror that for Auburn, the program’s secret to success is the hands-on approach that their city has taken. Auburn added its third full-time staff member on the homelessness outreach and coordination team this year, which Backus credits with the effectiveness of the city’s transitional housing through the Health Through Housing program.

The agreement means that about 60% of individuals who live there are referred either directly by the homelessness outreach and coordination team, or from a few other select organizations in Auburn. This direct service approach means they can specifically choose people whom they see as candidates for success after working with them individually over time, Backus explained.

As of this writing, the two hotels earmarked three years ago to provide shelter in Federal Way — the Red Lion and Extended Stay Hotel — are still not open. While the Extended Stay America location is meant for permanent supportive housing, the plan for the Red Lion is to eventually become emergency shelter.

The King County HTH website states that: “HTH Federal Way – King County is working on securing a general contractor to complete property updates required by the City of Federal Way. The HTH team and Urban League, the housing operator, are in ongoing coordination with the City of Federal Way to complete the permitting process.”

In 2023, a proposal to utilize the Stevenson Hotel on Pacific Highway South as an emergency shelter in the meantime was denied. Although Catholic Community Services was ready to pay for the entire project, a group of Federal Way residents mobilized against providing shelter there, gathering hundreds of signatures. The city ultimately determined that the shelter would be 79 feet too close to the Day Center and therefore violate the proximity restrictions around shelters — although the Day Center does not actually provide shelter, and the city frequently reassesses other types of zoning restrictions for other projects through development agreements.

Targeted outreach

In Federal Way, many of the recommendations from the 2018 task force focused on exactly how the city could have a hands-on approach to increase coordination efforts among local resources.

The task force described this role as a paid staff member position in the Community Development Department in the Community Services Division. The task force recommended that the paid staff member would be responsible for “coordinating and maximizing services and positive outcomes for people experiencing homelessness using the continuum of care and progress model.”

The task force also recommended creating a citywide targeted outreach plan, creating or expanding an online resource that is updated regularly, with a focus on increasing affordable housing.

“The idea was to have that person that would pull things together, that would kind of be the air traffic controller, for lack of a better term, bringing people together in a unified way,” Federal Way Municipal Court Judge David Larson said in an interview. He was on the initial task force for Federal Way, and as a judge, he runs a therapeutic court in the city. He also started a resource fair that occurs in the same location as the therapeutic court, trying to create some of this coordination of resources for those who attend his court.

In Auburn, Kent Hay is the director of anti-homelessness projects. Because the mayor is his supervisor, according to the Auburn Reporter, he “isn’t bogged down by arbitrary quotas,” and can spend as much time as he needs with individuals.

As a city employee, “Hay helps them navigate through the bureaucracy in any way he can. Because he works for the city, Hay can do a lot of things nonprofits can’t, such as getting people new IDs or bringing them their mail,” according to the Auburn Reporter. Kent Hay and the team are able to track directly how many people are experiencing homelessness and track progress and success as an overall city. (See an update about the work in Auburn from February here.)

Homelessness Outreach Program Coordinator Kent Hay delivering mail to a resident of the camp on Aug. 27, 2021. Sound Publishing file photo

‘Always space for more collaboration’

When it comes to following up on the 2018 recommendations, such as coordinating resources between the city and local nonprofits, Federal Way Mayor Jim Ferrell said that some of the recommendations haven’t been acted on because “that level of coordination is being done already to a sufficient level with our Human Services staff,” but that “we want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can.”

Kim Bachrach, Human Services Coordinator for Federal Way, said that while their department does do some connecting between nonprofits within the city, their “primary responsibility is to oversee grants and contracts.” Typically this looks like nonprofits applying for grants. Then the Human Services Commission members make recommendations to council on which nonprofits to select for those grants, she said.

When it comes to coordinating, Bachrach said Human Services staff members get to know the agencies — not just their needs, but also what services they provide — and can “relay the information to additional agencies” and “get them in contact with each other.”

That being said, there is “always space for more collaboration,” Bachrach said.

For example, the Human Services Department does not interact directly with those seeking services and help. If someone were to reach out to them for help, the staff member might refer that person to the emergency 211 line or to a nonprofit, but there is no central resource list to refer to, nor is there staff dedicated to offer help directly, Bachrach said.

The Federal Way Police Department hands out some resource lists when officers interact with people experiencing homelessness on the street. In materials provided to the Mirror as an example, these include a business card for an individual outreach worker, a list of numbers to call that included 12 Seattle organizations, three Eastside organizations and two in South King County (not in Federal Way). That list was updated most recently in 2021.

Another page in the packet handed out by police includes a description of Federal Way laws associated with panhandling and several resources for rent and utilities assistance, housing and shelter, food and clothing, medical and dental support, and some crisis lines — although it did not list the Day Center managed by Catholic Community Services on 13th Place South.

Bachrach also confirmed that the Human Services Department does not collaborate with the Federal Way Police Department when it comes to coordinating resources and referrals for people.

Better coordination

Reflecting on that task force, Judge Larson said his recommendation is for Federal Way to create a position and a strategy that helps coordinate between systems.

“My hope was that there’d be better coordination across disciplines, because we’re seeing the same people, whether it’s the hospitals, whether it’s the police department, the courts, the jails, the shelters, the social service agencies, we’re seeing the same people,” Larson said.

For people experiencing homelessness or struggling in general right now, navigating all these separate systems is like giving them “a bunch of jigsaw puzzle pieces strewn around … and we don’t even give them the box, so they don’t even know what it is supposed to look like,” Larson said. “Why don’t we figure out a way to coordinate where we can be more participant focused?”

Larson explained that right now “we have very much of a program and system based approach” where the “person has to fit the program and there’s a lot of fragmentation.” He recommended changing to a more cohesive person-based approach.Larson also explained that it could actually be more fiscally sound as a city to be more hands on with the collaboration efforts: “When we don’t coordinate, when we don’t know what the person’s status is, there may be a person in multiple programs … taking up multiple spots in different programs.”

Larson gave the example that within the court system, a person could be dealing with different cases in Pierce County, Superior Court and even drug court at the same time. They might be also be in a diversion program through law enforcement. As a result, multiple treatment providers are often used, he said.

If there were some kind of coordination at the city level in that situation, Larson said that scenario could look more like a conversation between resource providers where deciding which entity would handle their case management could “free up two slots in the other places.”

Aside from being inefficient and a waste of money, the lack of coordination can make it harder to navigate the system for individuals who may even get punished for accessing services, Larson said. In his example, a person could be penalized for missing a court date while accessing substance use treatment mandated by another court.

“The idea is, all those pieces of the puzzle, all those pieces have to work together toward getting somebody to a point where they’re able to have a sustainable life on their own,” Larson said. “That’s where the person is going to get their dignity from. That’s compassion — to get a person on a sustainable path to live a successful life. That’s compassion. It’s not compassion to let people rest in place.”

Kirsten York, CEO of the Multi-Service Center (MSC) in Federal Way, also spoke to this challenge when asked about the recommendations of the task force.

“Navigating systems for individuals in Federal Way in need of services and support is challenging. Especially if that individual is under-resourced, houseless, sick, ill, under incredible amounts of stress, language barriers, etc.,” York said.

While MSC regularly collaborates between partners and external organizations to support the people they serve, having someone within the city to support with this coordination would have a big impact, York said.

“This would be incredibly helpful for our work,” York said. “The more outreach and support coordination available to individuals and families in the community, the better we can serve them in a trauma-informed, equitable way suiting their needs specifically for that individual or family.”

York added: “City leadership support around additional funds for positions like this within our organizations is critical to connect folks to services and reduce barriers to access those services getting critical funds out to those who need it most.”