City of Lakewood press release.
Lakewood, Wash. – The Comfort Inn near 84th and Hosmer in Tacoma will be converted to an emergency homeless shelter. Residents are invited to a Q&A session on Monday, Nov. 22 to discuss plans for the shelter and ask questions.
To attend, contact Darren Pen at dpen@safest.org with your contact information.
Pierce County, Tacoma, and Lakewood participated in the purchase for a total cost of $8.8 million. Lakewood contributed $1.0 million. The Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI) will operate the facility. It is expected to open before the holidays.
Lakewood residents have expressed both positive and negative comments about the purchase. Homelessness is a very complex issue, and shelter space is only part of the City’s broad response. Residents are invited to ask questions and express concerns during this Q&A session.
Please, what ever these Higher Powers That Be, don’t let CCSWW/NHA be involved at all. Miss management of the chronically homeless population at the Nativity House Apartments on Hilltop has over taxes the City of Tacoma’s police and fire department multiple times during any given week.
Be ready to hire more police and first responders, because the City of Lakewood will soon figure this out quickly. Simply hiring a private security company won’t be able to stop all the problems. You’ll need police to hold the increased crime from this population.
I’m not against helping the chronically homeless population, because I worked at the NHAs. Most of the problems are caused by penny pinching nonprofits not having the balls to holding folks accountable for poor choices and bad behaviors. NHA was to be a drug free program. That’s going to be the City’s biggest hurdle.