Amid Housing Crisis, Local Churches, Organizations Do Their Best

With news reports of tent cities and sidewalk panhandling debates, there is a tendency to look at homelessness as an issue affecting Washington’s largest cities only. 

But homelessness and poverty exist in abundance in Lewis County — and the face of those issues is as unique as the community itself.

“We sometimes get grouped with Thurston County but we’re really unique with our own problems,” said Meja Handlen, housing coordinator for Lewis County Health & Social Services.

“We have big city problems with a small county budget,” added Danette York, director of Lewis County Public Health and Social Services.

Lewis County ranks 16th among 39 Washington counties in terms of population and 20th among 39 counties for number of homeless individuals (132) listed in the 2018 Point in Time count. But looking at only those who are homeless in the legal sense of the word is not seeing the entire picture of those struggling in Lewis County. 

About 14 percent to 16 percent of Lewis County’s population has an income below the federally designated poverty line. And in a period of just two years, the population of Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed (ALICE) — those whose income is above the poverty level but below the basic cost of living — jumped from 23 percent to 33 percent of Lewis County residents. By comparison, the state average is 11 percent living below the poverty line and 26 percent considered ALICE.

“To see it jump like that is eye opening,” said Angela French, resource development director for the United Way of Lewis County.

Paying attention to poverty and ALICE numbers are important because of what is called the benefits cliff. An ALICE family may make enough to exclude them from government programs that could help take some stress off their family budget. For example, a family of four in Washington state can have: a maximum monthly income of $3,793 to qualify for WIC benefits; a maximum monthly income of $3,975 to qualify for food stamp benefits; and a maximum monthly income of $972 to qualify for Washington Apple Health coverage.

“If they had one emergency happen in their life, have their car break down or they have a medical emergency, they won’t be able to make it,” French said.

“People who live in poverty can’t improve themselves because if they do, they can’t get benefits so then they can’t get ahead,” added Linda Raschke, community resource director for the United Way of Lewis County.

The Point in Time count also does not reflect homeless students, who are defined as anyone under the age of 18 in an overnight accommodation insecure situation, said Brian Adams, counselor and homeless liaison for the Chehalis School District. In the 2017-2018 school year there were 558 students identified as homeless in Lewis County schools (743 if you include the Southwest Washington communities of: Rochester; Oakville; and Castle Rock where Vader students attend). That’s about 5 percent of all students who are homeless in Southwest Washington. The statewide average is about 3.75 percent. Chehalis had 130 homeless students last year, in the first half of this academic year, 136 students have already been identified.

“Unfortunately, it has been going up the last four or five years,” Adams said. “Of course, it could be because we’re doing a better job of identifying the kids.”

Adams has served as the Chehalis School District’s homeless liaison since the position was first federally mandated in 2002. He said in many ways he feels fortunate because his district has a lot more to offer kids than some. Still, he said the pressures and strains of a struggling population tend to bleed into the educational system.

“Sometimes it just feels like we’re just putting band-aids on the wounds. Is it solving the problem? Not really,” Adams said. “School used to be a place of education. Now, it’s a place to eat, sometimes to get warm clothes, a place to be because they don’t want to be home. If you’re now asking us to be the ones to solve these problems, we don’t have those kinds of resources. We need help.”

Rising numbers and changing demographics is a story told frequently by those working on the front lines with local families in need. Dallas Smith, director of Lewis County Head Start, said when she began working in her field 25 years ago, most families accessing services through Head Start were single parent household and registered with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Smith said the majority of families today tend to be blended and doubled up families. 

“If you want to talk about financial strain, if you’re a man trying to support two families it’s hard enough to support one,” Smith said. “That presents its own stress and strain on children.”

One issue affecting agencies’ ability to combat homelessness is that Lewis County is very rural, with a relatively large geographic area and populations spread out within. Another issue is a pervasive generational poverty, meaning that the attitudes, contributing factors and issues that cause one generation to struggle are often passed on to the next generation. 

“We have generational poverty, generational homelessness,” said Jennifer Humbert, housing services support for Reliable Enterprises. “Right now, we’re seeing grandkids of the same people we served before coming into our shelter.” 

A quick glance at statewide voting history will tell you that Lewis County also tends to be socially and politically conservative, more so than most metropolitan areas of Washington. This can present issues for agencies who face an uphill battle shattering general misconceptions about homelessness and poverty. 

“There’s this myth that these people are from somewhere else, but most of the time they have lived here. They’re not just here for the services,” said Ruth Gutierrez, director of the Housing Resource Center of Lewis County. “Most of them come here or they have a family member they come to live with and it doesn’t work out.”

At the opening of the severe weather shelter at the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds last month, County Commissioner Edna Fund noted that impact to businesses as well as an influx of strangers coming to access services were two of the concerns she heard from many community members before the shelter was opened in the winter of 2017-2018.

 “When we first opened it last year, we had people saying ‘they’re coming from Tacoma and Seattle’ and I think when they find out the demographics, they’ll find out that’s not true,” Fund said.

It is also those small-town sensibilities that could be Lewis County’s saving grace. In the past few years, coalitions have been built between private, public and faith-based entities hoping to find a way to leverage their work to eradicate homelessness. 

“We have great volunteers. We have a community that really does care. They may be pull yourself up by your bootstraps, but they’re willing to tell you where those bootstraps are,” Handlen said.

Arguably, Lewis County’s greatest natural resource may well prove to be its people. When asked what Lewis County needs in order to be successful battling homelessness and poverty, the majority of those asked responded that we need people who care.

“The more people who understand and really speak to the issue the more equipped we’ll be to find answers,” Handlen said.

One example is the work of the Hub City Mission, a Bethel Church entity that hosts meals and a food and clothing pantry at their mission in downtown Centralia; a non-profit bike shop inside the City of Centralia-owned outdoor pool building; community outreach meals at the V.R. Lee Building in Chehalis, City Hall in Bucoda and elementary school in Onalaska; and the severe weather shelter at the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds. Pastor Kyle Rasmussen explained the model is based on the belief that the complicated issue of poverty and homelessness is going to be solved through building relationships with people and helping them find a purpose in their lives.

“We’re trying to leverage the best resources we have and that’s people,” Rasmussen said. “Let’s do something different, not just a food program but a relationship program.”

The concept of relationships really speaks to the services being two-sided, noted Pastor Josh Gering, director of the Hub City Mission. He noted that the Hub City Mission is as much about meeting the needs of those in poverty, as it is giving volunteers a chance to meet those affected by homelessness and hear their stories. At lunch at the Hub City Mission, people are served plates of food by servers and volunteers are encouraged to sit down and dine, too.

“I think one of the major things to help someone who is mad at the homeless population is to come here and have lunch with us and get to know these people,” Gering said. “I think just getting to know someone. We really try hard here to get to know people.”

Getting a handle on the pulse of the struggling population can also reveal small things housed people may not realize are hugely important to those who are homeless. The Hub City Bike Shop is a perfect example. The ministry began simply as a few guys offering to fix up bikes in an alley and today, every Tuesday, the group does repairs from the much more comfortable location of the Veterans Memorial Pool building. Shop Manager Dave Smith explained that in working with the homeless population through the Hub City Mission, they learned that people without cars often use bicycles to get where they need to go. The shop offers repairs to anyone of any income for the cost of a freewill offering and all money raised is cycled back into the work of the Hub City Mission.

“They have their independence, have their means of getting to where they need to go,” explained Hub City Bike Shop volunteer Mary Beth Ellis of Pe Ell. “You see these people —  they’re homeless, they’re trying to get work and this is how they get around.”

The service means a great deal to Charles Park, who brought his bike into the shop with a flat tire on a recent Tuesday. Park mostly stays in the Centralia area and said his overnight housing ranges from the severe weather shelter when it is open to camps or sometimes just hunkered down on the sidewalk with a sleeping bag. He said he rides at least four miles but sometimes eight to 10 miles a day on this bike so doing without it would mean not being able to get where he needed to go.

“It’s precious. It’s absolutely precious,” he said of the services at the bike shop.

Understanding the needs of struggling populations and offering help in a judgement free way is the challenge for local agencies. Reliable Enterprises Director Brett Mitchell said that often means agencies must willing and able to really get to know their clients and be willing to change course as the needs change.

“In small communities, we have to look at one kid, one family or one individual at a time and what do we need to do,” Mitchell said. “Yes, there’s some drug use, there’s domestic violence and mental health, the standard fall backs but I find people do not know enough about just generally getting by. They just don’t know what to do.”

United Way of Lewis County Director Debbie Campbell explained that the newest concept in the fight against homelessness is navigators, case workers who help on an individual basis. In this model, the ultimate goal is a “hot handoff”, so someone who comes into an agency isn’t just given a piece of paper with a bunch of phone numbers and sent home to navigate the system by themselves but is instead helped through by a person who knows the system.

“The system is so big and so daunting I think a lot of people don’t even know where to go,” Campbell said. “So now this literally does mean now I’m going to walk with you one on one.”

Strong agency partnerships are needed to make a system like this work, Campbell noted. The United Way of Lewis County has set a benchmark of “30 by 30” meaning the goal is to pull 30 percent Lewis County’s residents out of poverty by the year 2030. To this end, the United Way has facilitated summits of stakeholders to talk about the issues specific to Lewis County. In an era of fund-raising struggles for all nonprofits, Campbell said this is how the United Way of Lewis County chooses to become a force for change.

“That hasn’t happened before. Typically, people are so siloed. So often information about funding is held really close to the chest for fear that someone else might take it,” Campbell said. “Oftentimes I think people don’t realize these are things that are happening here and trying to bring those people to the table to get the word out is important.”

“It’s really the first time we’re seeing these organizations come together and talk about there are these problems here and say ‘let’s be real and talk about it,’” French added.

United Way making a change in the way it approaches funding. In the past, the agency was an umbrella, annually funding myriad programs that worked for the betterment of the community. With a smaller pot of money available than in years past, the aim must be to focus the funds available to where they will make the largest impact on the 30 By 30 goal.

“In the future, it may be more of an RFP program than a grant proposal, that’s how we’re going to make the biggest impact and see change in Lewis County is by working collectively,” French said.

Though the exact focus of the 30 By 30 campaign has not yet been determined, French said she thinks it is likely that issues such as daycare and preschool access will float to the top of the list. She gave the example that if a child isn’t reading at grade level by third grade, they are four times more likely to drop out of school. Statistics like this point to the importance of early intervention being a key to breaking the cycle of generational poverty.

“I heard from a teacher recently who commented wouldn’t it be nice for even half of the kids in Lewis County to have access to preschool?” French said. “It would mean that by and by the education rates would rise and the health and welfare of our community would, too.”