1st Outreach Meeting For Everett Church Conversion To Homeless Shelter Filled With Frustration, Anger, Mistrust – More Meetings Scheduled

April 4, 2023

Everett

The only entrance and exit allowed would be on the Evergreen Way side.

Tyler Verda is a planner with Snohomish County Human Services. He expected the first in a series of outreach meetings about a plan to turn a church in central Everett, Washington into an emergency shelter for those experiencing homelessness to be with about fifteen to twenty people. More than six dozen folks showed up. The meeting was held Tuesday night at Hope Covenant Church at 4502 Rucker Avenue. This is the location for the proposed facility.

Early arrivals were sent to a room that quickly filled to overflowing and the meeting was moved to a larger room downstairs. Mr. Verda told the crowd his hope was to provide information about the planning that had gone on and to outline the timeline, programming and get input from the attendees. He stated he’d been hand delivering meeting notices and talking with residents in a one thousand foot perimeter around the church which he said equated to about 300 homes.

The process for selecting the church as a site for a shelter began after the City of Everett was contacted by Hope Church. The City then contacted Snohomish County and asked the County to look into the site as a shelter location. The Snohomish County Facilities Department checked the building to make sure it was structurally sound and could meet their needs for an emergency shelter. Facilities then worked with the County Executive’s office to come up with a purchase and sale agreement. Mr. Verda explained this part of the process was a real estate transaction.

When he was asked if this was a done deal he advised it was not and there were more parts to the process including outreach, a public hearing before the Snohomish County Council and a vote by the Council on the agreement. The outreach portion is now underway and a public hearing before the County Council has not been set.

He related that Snohomish County representatives had spoken individually to every single Everett City Council member about the shelter prior to the outreach starting. He said that in going door to door in the neighborhood he heard opposition, support, ambivalence and concern.

There are three proposed uses for the shelter.

First, this shelter would replace an existing shelter currently in the basement of a church in downtown Everett. 40 people from that shelter would be moved to this shelter and that shelter would no longer operate. (thus the argument that there would be no net gain in shelter capacity for Everett) The shelter would be owned by Snohomish County and operated by the Everett Gospel Mission with 24-hour, 7-day-a-week staffing.

Second, 50 people would use this location as a climate shelter primarily if it got cold, opening when the temps got to 34 degrees or less or if the temps got extremely hot. A current cold weather shelter in downtown Everett (at a different church) has stopped operating for the season and has not committed to winter of 2023-2024.

Finally as a distribution point for air conditioners for about 1000 people who were qualified by income limits. About 30 – 50 people at a time would be scheduled to pick them up from the property on a given day.

This is the point of the meeting where that frustration, mistrust and anger began to appear. Many in the crowd stated they spoke with Everett city council members who told them they know nothing of the plan. It was also noted that there already were numerous problems with theft, open drug use, human waste and trespassing in the neighborhood. More than one person mentioned that they had no issue with what might happen within the confines of the facility but were concerned with what happened away from it.

Another said Everett has done its part with having 13.2 percent of the County’s population but 60 percent of the facilities for dealing with treatment of mental health issues, drug treatment and homelessness services.

Many questioned whey there were no representatives from the Snohomish County Council, County Executive’s leadership team or leaders of Snohomish County Human Services who made policy decisions and could answer why this place was chosen and if there were other places under consideration. There were also no members of the City of Everett Administration or Everett City Council in attendance.

With regard to the outreach, one neighbor advised she walked the neighborhood passing out flyers to people advising them of the meeting and a large portion said they only heard of the meeting through her flyers or from a neighbor. Others questioned the criteria for how those who would be living at the shelter would be selected and expressed concern over admission of sex offenders. Others worried that the 40 person limit was just a starting point and given the size of the property which also includes two small houses, expansion at the site would be inevitable.

Things at times were heated and again it was mentioned that they only expected 15 – 20 people to come have a discussion. Many in the crowd questioned how out of 300 homes only 15 people would be expected to participate. Tyler Verda related he was willing to have as many conversations with 15 – 20 people as needed so there could be a manageable flow of information back and forth.

Additional meetings have been planned for Wednesday night (4/05) at 5:30 PM; Friday afternoon (4/7) at lunch time and Monday (4/10) at 5:30 PM. Those interested in getting information about those additional meetings can contact Kelsey Nyland with the County Executive’s office via email to be put on the attendance list. She promised to invite County elected officials and staffers and let attendees know who was coming. Her email is Kelsey.Nyland@snoco.org. All of the meetings will be held at Hope Church 4502 Rucker in Everett, Washington. Also here’s a link to the meeting sign up form.

For those who would like to express their opinion to members of the Everett City Council, they meet on Wednesday nights at 6:30 PM and people can comment in person or via Zoom. Here’s a link on how to participate via Zoom in an Everett City Council meeting.

To contact a member of the Snohomish County Council you can visit this link.

Megan Dunn is the District 2 representative on the Snohomish County Council and represents Everett. Paula Rhyne is her legislative aide and is also an Everett City Councilmember who represents the geographic district where the proposed shelter is located.

Again the facility purchase is being done by Snohomish County and they would own the property. The City of Everett would have to issue a Conditional Use Permit and has the ability to outline operating conditions for shelters and establish requirements before any permit would be issued.



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