by Jim Scarantino | Dec 2, 2021 | General
451 children. 213 families. 75 volunteers. 35 businesses. Originating with the efforts of a Chimacum schools bus driver broken-hearted for kids who received no Christmas gifts, Jefferson County’s Christmas for Children now brings joy to more kids and families than ever before.
In 1973 several children told Janice Schauer, a school bus aide, that they had not received any gifts for Christmas. The following Christmas, out of her own pocket, she bought socks and other modest gifts for the small children on her bus route she knew to be in need. This was the start of “Tri-Area Christmas for Children.”
Schauer’s daughter, Laurie Schauer Liske, and her husband Tony then took up the program. They were followed by their son Tony and his wife Kelly, the third generation of the Schauer/Liske family to spearhead this highly organized, very cost-effective, far-reaching and growing outpouring of Christmas spirit.
Assembly of gifts for children from an earlier year
A similar program to serve needy Port Townsend children folded in 2013 and the Tri-Area Christmas for Children group took up the call, nearly tripling in size the number of children reached. Known now as Christmas for Children, it serves families in Port Townsend, Nordland, Chimacum, Port Hadlock-Irondale-Chimacum (the “Tri-Cities”) and Port Ludlow. The numbers, so far: 451 children in 213 families getting loved on, by 75 volunteers and 35 businesses hosting Giving Trees. You can pick up a tag and fulfill some child’s Christmas wish at the businesses on this list.
Kelly Liske says that kids get more than just the gifts on their wish list. “They also receive toothpaste, floss and toothbrushes donated by local dentists, socks, hats and gloves, candy assembled by a local Girl Scout Troop, and stuffed animals. I would say that the community, together with our financial support, is likely spending over $50,000 each year on this project. Our organization works on a budget of less than $10,000 annually…. We could not do this without the support of the community and their generous giving!”
As explained on the group’s website: “By October 1 of each year, applicants who are seeking gifts for their children fill out an application, which is then submitted to program volunteers to generate “tree tags” for the ‘want’ and ‘need’ for each child. Those tree tags are then distributed throughout Jefferson County to approximately 35 “Tree Hosts” to be placed on “Giving Trees”. The local businesses that accept the tags see that their customers or employees take the tags and then purchase the items requested. The purchased gifts are returned to the Tree Host site by a set date to be picked up by our teams.”
Liske encouraged Port Townsend Free Press to hurry up if we wanted photographs of the giving trees. “The tags go fast,” she said. She was right. The Giving Tree we found at Evergreen Fitness (shown in the feature photo with owner Michelle West) had been picked nearly clean, as members took up the children’s requests by plucking tags from the tree.
Christmas for Children depends on generous contributions from the local Rotary, Elks and Kiwanis groups, as well as financial support from local businesses. The Jefferson County Fair Board is a key partner, making its buildings available for storage, assembly and distribution of the Yuletide haul. Christmas for Children has developed a close relationship with the Marine Corps Toys for Tots program and makes deliveries for them. Says Liske, “Toys for Tots can’t supplement any clothing items or anything really other than toys per their mission and guidelines, so the cash donations that come into [Christmas 4 Children] are used to purchase the items that are considered needs rather than toys (socks, hats, gloves, coats, shoes, clothing, diapers, hygiene items, blankets, car seats, etc.).” Donations may be sent to Christmas for Children 1240 W. Sims Way #286, Port Townsend, WA 98368.
The organization doesn’t want any children overlooked. “Teens always get forgotten,” says Liske. “Most people like to buy toys for little kids, so we have an abundance of items typically for the 0-8 year-old group. The 9-16 year-old group are hard to buy for and we typically are short of donations in this area!”
Christmas for Children will be assembling the gifts and other supplies for needy children at the Fairgrounds on December 17 and 18. Families share the outpouring of the community’s generosity and Christmas spirit on December 19. Christmas doesn’t end December 25. “There are often gift tags that are left over from the Giving Trees that our program must try to fill,” the group’s website states. “That is where it is vital that we receive cash donations throughout the year.”
by Jim Scarantino | Nov 27, 2021 | General
Port Townsend’s most costly public housing project sits empty. Four and a half years after being floated here from Victoria, B.C., the 1950s building, known as “The Cherry Street project” or “The Carmel House” continues to deteriorate. The doors have never been closed, letting birds and inclement weather inside. Moisture protection for the bare plywood walls has all but peeled away. Rain spouts have fallen off. The stucco is cracking; chunks of it have fallen out. The remains of a homeless camp are still evident where parking and gardens were planned. Inside, city inspectors have “observed multiple hazardous conditions such as holes in walls and floors large enough for a person to fall into.”
City Council avoids the subject of this colossal failure. For fourteen months there has been no public discussion about what to do with a relatively small project (8 modest apartments) that will cost over $3.3 million upon completion, should that day ever come. What was billed as a quick and easy “affordable” housing project has turned, per square foot, into possibly the costliest residential project on the Olympic Peninsula. By contrast, at the same time city council was buying into this boondoggle in 2017, it could have spent less than half the amount the Cherry Street project would eventually gobble up to acquire a 36-bedroom completed, operating apartment complex forty years younger than the Carmel House. As it is, the Cherry Street project, if it is ever completed, could come in at around $700 per square foot.
The city gave valuable land and a lot of money to Homeward Bound Community Land Trust so it could turn this old building into habitable space. In July 2020 Homeward Bound defaulted on its loan from the city. The city had to take the land and building back. The loan was supposed to have been enough to get the old building rehabbed and ready to rent. As a result of the default, city taxpayers are now on the hook for more than $1.4 million in principal and interest on the bond that generated the funds to loan Homeward Bound.
Instead of cutting its losses and selling the land for the best price possible, on September 28, 2020, city council decided to hand everything off to another local nonprofit. The City Manager was instructed to give it debt-free to Bayside Housing. Even with such a sweet deal, Bayside didn’t happen to have on hand the money needed to finish the project. It wanted the three hundred grand left over from the loan, all that had not been spent by Homeward Bound. It also wanted a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant to get going.
The city didn’t offer any financial help. As we reported in June, Bayside asked the county for $1.6 million to fix up the old building and another $200,000 for various related project costs. It still also wanted $300,000 in cash from the city and that $500,000 block grant. Their request for this pile of public monies has not moved forward.
The city must now regret turning its back last October on a $1 million cash offer from Keith and Jean Marzan of Port Townsend. They wanted to bail taxpayers out of this mess and build affordable housing on the site. The Marzans believe they were treated with disrespect, if not contempt, and have no intention of offering their help again.
A New City Council Should End the Long-Running Fiasco
Three individuals responsible for this mess are leaving city council. Michelle Sandoval, Ariel Speser and Pamela Adams voted to authorize spending the funds to buy the building and transport it here back in April 2017. They also voted to float the bond and loan the proceeds to Homeward Bound. In the superficial council discussion on April 24, 2017, when council got the city involved, Sandoval spoke glowingly of the project, and how proud she was that council was spending public funds to import the old building and barge it across the Strait of Juan de Fuca. She wanted the city to throw in even more money than was being discussed.
City Council may wish this meeting would go down the memory hole. They approved the project and committed the city without ever conducting their own inspection of the building, or having seen any kind of construction plan or even a basic pro forma on how this could ever be a viable affordable housing project. The group to which they gave the project, Homeward Bound, did not then exist except on paper. It had no experience with any project of this nature. It had no staff and no funds. The city had to give them a $30,000 “organizational grant” so they could get a board of directors together and set up a website.
Sandoval is an experienced real estate broker. You would think she would have shown the same concern for taxpayers that one hopes she shows clients considering buying an old house. At that critical April 24, 2017 meeting, she spoke at greatest length and most emphatically to persuade the rest of the council to commit the city to the project. She wanted the city to jump on this as “low hanging fruit.” This project had “been a long time coming,” she said. “Bully for us,” she added. “My plea is that we put our skin in the game here [and] show the community we are willing to put our money where our mouth is. This is a great start. I’m really excited about it.” The link to the video of the meeting is here. Sandoval’s comments begin at the 6:51 mark.
“A long time coming”? Then where was the building inspection, the construction plan and estimate, the feasibility study to determine if Homeward Bound could execute the project, renovate the building, rent it at affordable rates and pay the city back? The internal project estimate done by Homeward Bound, revealed in an investigative report here, was condemned by the president of Homeward Bound as “completely bogus.”
This was a pet project of Sandoval’s. Minutes of meetings of the board of directors of Homeward Bound showed Sandoval sometimes in attendance and the meetings being held at her office. A Homeward Bound director reported to fellow board members that Sandoval would give $10,000 to the group. One of Sandoval’s realtors, Paul Rice, in 2019 addressed city council and requested another $1 million. He was speaking as Homeward Bound’s president. [Minutes of Homeward Bound directors and public meetings were once regularly posted on the group’s website, hbclt.org. They are now gone, as is Homeward Bound’s own account of how it fumbled the Cherry Street Project and why it defaulted on the city’s loan. More on this, below.]
Ariel Speser objected to looking into Homeward Bound’s finances and capabilities, as requested by former council member Robert Gray in the May 2018 council meeting that was considering extending the loan to the group. Councilors Amy Howard and David Faber sided with Speser. They “had confidence” in Homeward Bound, which, after a year, had not even moved the old building off its temporary wooden supports onto a stable foundation, had blown its original loan deadlines, and had come nowhere near having the building ready to rent in the fall of 2017, an important representation made to city council when it sought initial funding in April 2017 to bring the building here from Canada.
All city councilors, except for Robert Gray, voted at every opportunity to move forward with the project, give away land worth $600,000, incur a hidden interest subsidy of more than $400,000 and obligate taxpayers to repay a bond that will cost them a total of more than $1.4 million. They voted to extend the loan to Homeward Bound even though, as Gray pointed out, Homeward Bound’s own pro forma showed them going into default in two years! Gray wanted a delay so the city could undertake its own due diligence. He couldn’t get a second for his motion. The link to the May 7, 2018 council business meeting where this debate occurred is available here. Gray’s critique of the project’s finances and his observation that the project, under its own terms, was predicted to go into an early default, begin at the 8:24 mark on the relevant agenda item.
In a separate May 28, 2018 analysis, Port Townsend Free Press reported that Homeward Bound was guaranteed to default under the very terms of its loan agreement with the city. The way the loan was set up, and considering that Homeward Bound would have no income with which to make its first loan repayment—despite a two-year grace period—default was inevitable. Robert Gray and Port Townsend Free Press called it right: Homeward Bound broke its promises and stuck taxpayers with the bill.
Scrubbing History
Homeward Bound wants people to forget it ever had anything to do with the Cherry Street project. They have renamed themselves “Olympic Housing Trust” and scrubbed references to the Cherry Street Project from their website. They have not, though, changed their website’s URL, which remains hbclt.org. The image for their website is still a view outside through windows of the Carmel House. Their board of directors is the same cast, by and large, that was responsible for mishandling the Cherry Street Project. Kate Dean, chair of the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners, from the very beginning has played a key role in Homeward Bound—creating and training and serving on its board of directors—and continues as a director of the [whitewashed] Olympic Housing Trust.
These folks have good reason to want people to forget their involvement in the Cherry Street project. On the one hand, the city set them up for failure. They had no experience or expertise with anything of this nature. The project never could work. It was unfair to dump such a huge, predestined failure on presumably well-intentioned, but spectacularly unqualified and incapable volunteers. That’s why we once wrote about “The Tragedy of the Cherry Street Project” [PTFP, 12/12/18]. On the other hand, this group was not always straightforward, to put it mildly, in its pursuit of public funds. That’s why we published the report, “Multi-Million Dollar Fraud on Taxpayers: The Cherry Street Project Unmasked” [PTFP, 6/27/20].
A Majority of the New City Council Does Not Own This Debacle
None of the newly elected City Councilors—Ben Thomas, Aislinn Diamanti, and Libby Urner Wennstrom—bear any responsibility for this mess. Council member Monica Mick Hager campaigned against the wastefulness and incompetence of this project when she ran for office in 2019. She has been the lone council member to push for cutting the city’s losses and selling the land and building to the highest bidder.
The other city councilor now serving who did not vote for this disaster is Owen Rowe, who came into office after the damage had been done. He did, however, vote to try to keep the project going by giving it to Bayside Housing. In city hall emails, obtained by Port Townsend Free Press through a public records request, he has complained about our reporting on the Cherry Street project. Yet he has never contacted us to point out anything we got wrong.
The current City Manager, John Mauro, had no hand in launching the project or providing Homeward Bound with a huge loan it could never repay. This is an albatross draped around his shoulders by his predecessor and a city council with different personnel.
It is time for the City of Port Townsend to admit failure, abort the Cherry Street Project, cut its losses and move forward.
The building is worthless and a money pit. As we have reported over the years, the 1950’s building can never be brought up to code and made habitable at any reasonable cost, and the costs continue to mount as construction prices soar and the building ages and falls apart. Have we mentioned the little problem about asbestos and lead contamination? It was a little detail withheld from the city by Homeward Bound until it surfaced inadvertently. We covered it in our report “Multi-Million Dollar Fraud on Taxpayers: The Cherry Street Project Unmasked.”
The land, however, is very valuable: 1.5 acres with utility connections fixed and upgraded at taxpayer cost. The city had valued the property when it gave it to Homeward Bound at $600,000. That was 2017, before a problematic old water line was fixed. In 2020 the Marzans offered $1 million. It may bring an even greater price today.
The empty eyesore of an unusable building remains the stumbling block. The city still has $300,000 from the bond that was not burned up by Homeward Bound. Those funds could pay for crunching the building and removing its remains.
Or the city could try to get someone to buy the building and take it away, just like the city did when it paid to have the Carmel House lifted off its foundation in Victoria, B.C. and barged to Port Townsend. Right. There may be a sucker born every minute, but that doesn’t mean another sucker can be found for this white elephant.
Back in 2018 when the city issued the bond that raised the money to loan to Homeward Bound, it opted to pay a higher interest rate so the bond could be repaid early without any penalty. It actually expected Homeward Bound to come roaring off a huge success with the Cherry Street Project, repay the loan in less than ten years, then charge into its next big affordable housing venture. The cost taxpayers have been and will continue paying for this bit of delusional thinking isn’t cheap: an additional $3,000 annually for a term of 20 years that started in 2018.
Time to get real. Tear the Carmel House down and cut taxpayer losses. Make the land available for housing. Sell it to the highest bidder and use the proceeds to pay off the loan early (no penalty, yay!). Stop wasting tax dollars and maybe do something concrete on the affordable housing crisis.
There Must Be Accountability and Consequences
What if there’s still not enough to pay off the bond? Accountability must be demanded; malfeasance must have consequences. Putting taxpayers into this deal was beyond breach of the fiduciary duty city councilors owe their constituents… it was reckless, gross negligence, and wanton disregard of common sense and prudent business practices.
No due diligence whatsoever was attempted. City council failed to support Robert Gray’s motion to give the city time to conduct its own due diligence because a red warning light was blinking brightly: Homeward Bound’s own numbers showed they couldn’t meet their obligations. Instead, the city council, with the exception of Gray, gladly and blindly accepted hearsay representations from Homeward Bound that a couple of people in banking and construction had looked over their numbers. Nothing in writing from those “experts” was presented to or demanded by city council before giving Homeward Bound a lot of public money. Those experts weren’t even present to take questions.
If directors of a private organization, for-profit or non-profit, had acted as did city council, there’s no doubt they would be facing personal liability.
Those councilors who pushed and voted for this project—Michelle Sandoval, Amy Howard, David Faber, Ariel Speser, Deborah Stinson, and Pamela Adams—should make up any shortfall out of their own pockets. Though legislative immunity presents obstacles, the city should take action to hold them accountable if they don’t act honorably and step up voluntarily.
Michelle Sandoval did say she wanted “to put our skin in the game” and “put our money where our mouth is.”
Sadly, we can predict (a) not one of them will accept personal responsibility and (b) the city will let them off the hook, unlike the taxpayers who have to pay for the damage done by city officials utterly failing their constituents. I am afraid we will be as prescient in this prediction as we were in foreseeing Homeward Bound’s default and the ultimate failure of the Cherry Street Project.
Port Townsend Free Press has been on this story from the beginning. We’ve been the only media to conduct any sort of independent investigation into the city’s largest public housing venture. Unlike our local papers, we’ve done more than reprint press releases and take dictation. You may access all our reports by entering “Cherry Street” in the search box in the upper right. The following sample of reports, based primarily on documentation from city files, provides a fairly compete behind-the-scenes picture of this debacle.
Cherry Street “Affordable” Housing to Cost More than $2 million, May 28, 2018
The Tragedy of the Cherry Street Project, December 12, 2018
What’s Happening with the Cherry Street Project? October 29, 2019
“Completely Bogus” Numbers–More Problems and Delays for Cherry Street Project,
Cherry Street Project Welcomes First Tenants, February 28, 2020
Default the Cherry Street Project Now, April 22, 2020
Multi-Million Dollar Fraud on Taxpayers: The Cherry Street Project Unmasked, June 27, 2020
by Jim Scarantino | Nov 13, 2021 | General
What housing crisis? County Commissioners plan to make it even harder to afford housing in Jefferson County. They intend to increase the property tax levy at the same time that gas, food and all other costs are spiking. Homeowners already struggling to make ends meet will have to pay even more money to the county to keep from losing their homes.
The Commissioners have put taxpayers on notice that they intend to raise the ad valorem tax by 1%, something that has become an annual ritual for them. Raising property taxes makes housing more expensive. It also makes rentals more expensive, as landlords pass along rising costs to tenants.
Back in 2017 the BOCC declared a housing emergency. That emergency has been constantly reaffirmed in commissioner discussions. But the BOCC has never acted as though it took the emergency seriously. It has never taken advantage of the emergency declaration to loosen regulatory and land use restrictions, which drive up the cost and and limit the supply of housing. And every year it continues to add to the cost of housing by raising property taxes.
How bad is our housing affordability crisis? Try finding an affordable rental. Good luck with that. And good luck to the first time home buyer. Young people who grew up in this county have no hope of buying a home here.
The crisis is real and strangling our economy. Employers lose workers, or prospective hires go elsewhere because they can’t afford to live here. We have people with jobs living in their cars, for heaven’s sake, because housing is so insanely expensive. Many members of the creative class, who have made Port Townsend such a special, vibrant place, are leaving because they can’t afford to live here.
The Housing Solutions Network explains how bad it is:
- Jefferson County is the second most unaffordable county in Washington state, after San Juan County—and nobody gets a house in San Juan County unless they are a millionaire or fortunate to inherit an island property.
- Median home prices have jumped 65% in just five years, from $276,600 to $455,900. The minimum wage boost is insignificant when measured against such huge inflation in housing prices. Other incomes in Jefferson County have been almost stagnant.
- Rental vacancies range from absolutely nothing to only 1%, meaning that even those with incomes can’t find a place to live.
- 29% of renters pay 30% and more for housing.
Let’s hope housing activists speak out against the BOCC making housing more expensive for everyone. These painful tax increases hurt the poor, seniors, workers and young people the most. There is nothing “progressive” whatsoever about the BOCC’s property tax increases.
Anybody reading this who lives in Jefferson County knows too well the staggering property tax bills hitting them every year. Very few homeowners who do not have appreciating significant stock portfolios are seeing their incomes rise at the same rate their property tax bills keep going up.
The county is the beneficiary of unprecedented federal largesse. At the October 11, 2021, meeting of the Board of County Commissioners, acting county administrator Mark McCauley, in response to a question from Beth O’Neal, stated that Jefferson County has already received $3.129 million and will receive another $3.129 million in May 2022. Furthermore, the county expects another $4 million over the next two years from Washington State revenue sharing of those federal funds starting in September, 2022.
The BOCC has already raised taxes this year by increasing the sales tax rate to 9.1%.
There is always reason to question how the BOCC is spending the tax money it is already collecting. The same BOCC that again wants to raise taxes on a county still struggling with the economic costs of the COVID lockdowns and mandates, on top of inflation at the highest level in 20 years, found enough extra money to give out $337,000 in bonuses to county workers. Those bonuses were from taxes paid by many people who lost their jobs and saw their businesses close during the lockdowns.
Affordable housing requires affordable property taxes. To keep the cost of housing from continuing to rise, property taxes must be held in check, even reduced. That is a direct and immediate step the BOCC could take to do something to address our housing affordability crisis.
It is time they act on the emergency they declared.
The hearing on raising property taxes yet again will be November 15, 2021. The Commissioners will be protected from facing angry, scared taxpayers as the meeting will be on-line. Written comments may be sent to jeffbocc@co.jefferson.wa.us. Follow instructions in the public notice on how to participate in the Zoom meeting. Click here to read those instructions.
by Jim Scarantino | Nov 8, 2021 | General
A crisis of faith. Anybody who has recently traveled outside Washington State has good reason to seriously doubt the necessity for the lockdowns and mandates decreed by Governor Inslee and our public health officer. Other states are much freer. Some never locked down. Others required only looser restrictions for a much shorter period of time than we have experienced. Yet those states are doing better. You can feel it and see it in the shops and restaurants, in the museums and churches, in performance halls and on the streets.
I have taken two long trips since our public health officer required vaccine passports to dine out and masks indoors for everyone. One excursion was a 4,600 mile road trip through seven other states. We reached Iowa on a route across Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, and Nebraska. After wandering back roads and visiting small towns and villages amid Iowa’s cornfields, we returned on a northerly route through South Dakota, Wyoming again, Montana, Idaho’s panhandle and Washington’s Palouse country.
After leaving Washington, we were required to wear a mask only once, in the Pendleton factory store in Pendleton, Oregon. But the restaurant where we ate in that town told us not to bother.
In Idaho we saw next to no one wearing masks.
In Salt Lake City, Utah, some of the waiters and store clerks wore masks, some did not. Customers dared show their faces. We caught Michael Bublé at the Vivant Arena. His performance had been rescheduled two times since the onset of the pandemic. Admission required proof of vaccination. (I had weighed much of the evidence and studies, including articles on this site, and decided my health needs were best served by getting the Moderna vaccine.) Inside, the sold-out crowd of nearly 20,000 was maskless, as was Bublé. I can’t imagine him delivering Louie Prima’s “Just a Gigolo” through a blue surgical face covering. Some members of his orchestra wore masks—like the piano player—but not, of course, the men blowing saxophones or trombones or his backup singers.
In Wyoming and Nebraska, some employees at truck stops wore masks, as did some travelers. If the station were part of a national chain, the staff usually wore masks, but not at independent businesses. Nobody wore masks in the huge Cabela’s flagship store in Sidney, Nebraska.
Monumental taxidermy exhibit, Cabela’s, Sidney, NE
Mask wearing was entirely voluntary throughout the trip. The vast majority of people we saw chose not to wear masks.
In Dodge City, Iowa, the woman in the featured photo at top haphazardly wore a mask, but only as part of her costume. She was dishing out free cups of mac n’ cheese and mashed potatoes at a gas station, “just to cheer folks up.” That’s Iowa friendly, for you. Iowa really is a cheerful and amiable place. People meet your eye and smile at you on the street, in the stores… everywhere.
It was great to see so many smiling faces again. It’s a shame we had to travel to the center of the country for that pleasure.
The iconic Taylor’s Maid-Rite, Marshalltown, Iowa
For over a week we had seen no signs requiring masks until we were inside the Badlands National Park. At the bottom of a hill in the middle of nowhere sat a diminutive National Park Service tourism center. It announced that federal law required masks. About half the people complied. At Mount Rushmore nobody paid attention to placards repeating President Biden’s mask decree, though some people in masks did pose for photos with the four presidents—maskless—towering behind them. Go figure.
Like its big sky and sprawling landscape, Montana was wide open. We got snowed in for two days in Livingston and holed up in a chain hotel. The staff wore masks, sort of. One of our fellow stranded travelers walked his dog after the blizzard lifted. He was out there alone making tracks in a patch of white and wearing a surgical mask. God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy, so the Billy Currington song goes. Rather than “crazy”, it might be more accurate to say this man was “irrationally terrified.” But that would never work in a country song.
When we reached our hotel in Spokane on the return leg I caught the evil eye from a masked hotel clerk as I passed through the lobby trundling luggage to our room. Right, I’m back in Jay Inslee’s domain. It took me a while to locate the mask I had stuffed somewhere in the van. At least we did not have to pull out our vax passports for the unexpected delight of a dinner of fiery Ethiopian food. Showing our papers in order to dine out would not happen again until we had returned to Jefferson County.
We saw no bodies in the streets along our route. No black crepe over doors. I know that’s overstating how we would measure the success of these states’ measures against COVID. But I paid attention to local news and read nothing about any medical crises.
Jay Inslee points to Idaho as a way of trying to convince people his dictatorial decrees and their costs and impositions are medically necessary to save lives. Yes, Idaho has gone through a challenging period of time as it struggled to maintain the delivery of medical services to everyone. But so did Washington. Starting in March 2020 for several months Governor Inslee flat out prohibited any medical procedures except treating COVID, addressing immediate threats to life (e.g., gun shot wounds) and surgical abortions. Hospitals were never close to overwhelmed. (See my article from last year, “You Can’t Believe Jay Inslee: His Big COVID Hospital Crisis Lie.”)
Please recall that Seattle received an emergency Army field hospital and sports arenas were turned into expansive hospital wards. Except for Inslee’s photo ops, these facilities were never used. Hospitals were actually quite empty and laying off nursing staff. Inslee ignored the pleas of the Washington hospital association and medical society to let doctors care for their patients. One can only wonder how many people Jay Inslee killed and caused to suffer grievously. One can only wonder how many cancer cases advanced to more serious stages because of Inslee’s orders that blocked preventive care and kept surgical theaters empty. I have a friend who was rushed not long ago into surgery to remove part of his cancerous colon. A fairly young man, his colonoscopy had been cancelled by Inslee’s 2020 order. The log jam caused by the disruption of delivery of medical services pushed his rescheduled appointment out almost a year. He was in the ER before that postponed appointment came around. He is now undergoing chemotherapy.
And, of course, there’s Florida, which I did not reach on my travels. That state has been mocked by our Governor and former public health officer for minimal restrictions that favored upholding the merits of personal and economic freedom. Yet Florida for some time has had the lowest per capita incidence of COVID infections in the country. Its economy is booming and it is not suffering infrastructure problems. Meanwhile, Inslee’s government has slashed ferry schedules and announced that mountain passes may not be regularly cleared of snow because the Washington Department of Transportation has lost so many key people to his vax mandate penalties.
I am writing now from Pennsylvania. In the past week I have worn a mask only in the senior facility where I’ve visited family members. The rule there is a bit nonsensical. The octogenarian walking to dinner must wear a mask, though they may be alone in the hallway. Inside the dining room, by way of contrast, I saw over a hundred senior citizens seated at tables talking and laughing without masks. Everyone has been vaccinated, and there have been no outbreaks of COVID since the start of the pandemic. The ladies playing cards in the Bistro and chatting in the lounges on the resident floors, I will add, regularly ignore the masking rules and management has let them be.
Life seems normal here. One can shop at the historic Allentown Fairgrounds Farmer’s Market. No need to cover your face to stock up on smoked pig’s ears or smoked beef trachea. And don’t pass up the fresh scrapple, a Pennsylvania Dutch delicacy. Yum.
I am heading back to SeaTac in a short while. Except when I am eating and drinking, I will have to wear a mask from the time I return my rental at the Philly airport until I reach my own car at SeaTac. Allowing people to remove their masks at any time during their flight seems to undermine the rationale for mandating masks at any other time. All those passengers crammed in a metal tube without masks eating and drinking (and stretching out their meals to extend their taste of liberty) would seem to risk spreading COVID—if there were a real risk. Alaska Airlines assures us that the air filtration systems in their planes are amazingly effective, rendering cabin air perfectly safe to breathe. I believe them.
I scored a first-class seat on the return trip. Conceivably, I could eat and drink for the six-plus hours it will take to cross the continent. “Another coffee, please.” “Do you have more nuts?” I could then nibble my cashews and almonds one at a time and order a drink to sip afterwards and then request a bag of popcorn and stretch that out. And then, of course, I would again need to wet my whistle, very, very slowly.
Rick Steves says travel “acts as our greatest teacher.” So what are the lessons of traveling beyond our fear-riddled, mandate-hobbled community? The answer is obvious: It doesn’t have to be this way.
by Jim Scarantino | Oct 15, 2021 | General
Local laws can no longer stop religious organizations from hosting the homeless on their property. Tent encampments, tiny homes, safe parking programs, RV living and church buildings used as dormitories and apartments cannot be prohibited by municipal codes or county ordinances.
In 2019 the Washington Legislature enacted a set of laws that explicitly authorize religious organizations to “host the homeless” anywhere on their property, inside or outside buildings. Cities and counties are prohibited from imposing conditions other than those necessary to protect public health and safety. “Necessary” means no less restrictive alternative can be found. Even if “necessary” to serve those goals, the conditions imposed by a city or county may not “substantially burden” the decision of the religious organization regarding the location of a temporary tent encampment, tiny homes village, safe parking program or use of buildings to host the homeless.
The laws are dense, packed with a litany of restrictions on the powers of local government. RCW 35.21.915 applies to most cities and towns. RCW 36.01.290 applies to counties.
This is true separation of church and state. The sovereignty of churches was recognized in medieval times—or so Hollywood tells us in films where the king’s pursuit ends at cathedral doors. Here, in the real world, the legislature has recognized a limited, but still robust sovereignty for church properties.
These laws remain untried and untested in Jefferson County. Earlier in the year the Housing Solutions Network began meeting with churches to encourage hosting programs. Now two churches are going to put the new laws to use. New Life Church Assembly of God in Port Townsend has announced a safe parking program—allowing people to sleep in their cars and RVs. The church already has an RV on its property. The full program, which will accept up to five vehicles to start, is expected to launch mid-November. Another religious organization is on the brink of initiating a safe parking program and I will leave that announcement to them.
These programs would otherwise be illegal under Port Townsend’s prohibition against tent and RV camping. All zoning restrictions are likewise unenforceable against church programs to shelter the homeless.
The tiny home village at the Port Hadlock Community United Methodist Church is not an exercise of that church’s authority to override county ordinances. The quaint village of attractive shelters sits on church property covered by a long-term lease with OlyCap. The project was done in compliance with the county’s regulations, not despite them. That project has motivated other religious organizations to step up and pitch in. I write this article in the hope that it motivates someone to approach their church leadership to consider their own homeless hosting program, be it as modest as providing refuge to just one fellow human being.
In this article I use “churches” and “religious organizations” interchangeably, though the latter term is far broader. The latter term would apply, of course, to a mosque or temple. It also applies to a Unitarian fellowship or Quaker meeting. It would also apply to the home churches scattered around our area, each of which, conceivably, could undertake their own hosting program on residential properties.
This is huge in a small way.
Churches do not need to exhaust the process and bear the cost of obtaining a conditional use permit. All that is required is for the church to hold a public meeting where concerns of neighbors and others may be aired. Then the project may proceed without further ado, even over strenuous objection from neighbors and city officials. (More on that below, under the heading, “Grace.”)
The law, incredibly, puts the burden for providing public notice for the meeting on local government. The religious organization can act quickly, giving the city just 96 hours notice. Then it is up to the city to put out word in newspapers, on its website or via street signs near the meeting place.
The city or county can’t stop the project. It is exempt from all the laws used to delay and frustrate housing development and efforts to shelter the unhoused. There are only a few narrow exceptions, none of which would apply to a safe parking program or tiny home village. Port Townsend’s pre-existing emergency tent encampment rules might apply to a tent encampment, but would not govern RVs on a church property. I also conclude that a church could place mobile homes on its property despite any contrary local regulations.
In the case of a response to a declared emergency, the church can accept homeless on its property without any notice to government or public meeting. The Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners declared a housing emergency in 2017, and reaffirmed that declaration in 2019. That is a sufficient emergency declaration to obviate the legal necessity of scheduling and holding a public meeting. Any church in Jefferson County that takes in someone washed up at their door in need of shelter is on solid footing in immediately letting them pitch a tent, park an RV, move into the church or an outbuilding, or occupy a tiny home.
I think every church should have a foldable cot and inflatable mattress ready in a closet, and, if they have the space, an RV, mobile home and/or tiny home available for such emergencies. “Anyone who sets himself up as ‘religious’ by talking a good game is self-deceived. This is the kind of religion that is hot air, and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from a godless world.” 1 James 26-27 (The Message translation).
Constitutional Foundations
This extraordinary development of legislatively carving out refuges from local laws—laws that have contributed greatly to the affordable housing and homelessness crises—is the result of courts’ recognition that serving the homeless is an expression and practice of religious beliefs. The protections of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section II of the Washington State Constitution operated long before the legislature acted. The right of religious organizations to use their property is actually broader than the statutes in question, which, as the Municipal Research Service Center of Washington has stated, merely attempted to codify and recognize judicial rulings.
The First Amendment right of a church to use its property to care for the homeless was recognized by Congress in the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIP). This law applies the same prohibition against substantially burdening the use of church property. What constitutes “substantial burden”? As explained by the Seattle University School of Law Homeless Rights Advocacy Project: “A substantial burden exists if the religious organization would have to endure additional delay, uncertainty and expense….” Faith is the First Step: Faith-Based Solutions to Homelessness, Means & Rankin (2018).
The rights of a religious organization are even greater under the Washington State Constitution. Washington’s constitution guarantees, “absolute freedom of conscience in all matters of religious sentiment, belief and worship” so long as the practices are not “inconsistent with the peace and safety of the state.” In 2009, in City of Woodinville v. North Shore United Church of Christ, the Washington Supreme Court held that a temporary moratorium on homeless encampments constituted a substantial burden on the church’s religious beliefs and practices and therefore violated the state constitution. The Washington Supreme Court has employed the same “no less restrictive alternative” and “substantial burden” analysis found in the new statutes.
Either We Have An Emergency, or We Don’t
The legislature recognized that we have a dire homelessness crisis, and did not hem or haw about turning religious organizations loose to do something about it.
Churches had encountered one regulatory obstacle after another in seeking to use their property to help the homeless. Winning a lawsuit years down the road was a hollow victory to a church that could barely meet its own overhead, let alone pay for lawyers and legal costs. Very few churches can shoulder the costs of fighting government. And as the cases worked their way through the courts, people in need were denied help.
The legislature disarmed local government, nearly completely.
Zoning and building codes, and enforcement discretion and abuses, are sometimes used to stop projects incrementally instead of issuing an outright permit denial. No more death by a thousand cuts. A city can’t wear down a religious organization by requiring costly insurance. It can’t impose hope-killing time limits or permit fees. It cannot limit the number of homeless being helped, or restrict shelter to only tents, or only RVs or only cars or only tiny homes and then regulate those units to death.
Religious organizations must reasonably comply with fire codes. They must provide portable toilets and wash stations if there is no access to bathrooms. Electrical wiring must, of course, be inspected for safety. The law says that a local government can enact an ordinance requiring a memorandum of understanding (MOU). But the local government can demand very little in the MOU. Mostly it can make recommendations for the religious organization to accept or reject.
Local code enforcement officers and community development directors may not like seeing their powers and discretion nearly cancelled on properties under their jurisdiction. The legislature heard from churches and homeless service agencies about how those powers were being abused to kill their programs. Even if the obstruction was unintentional, merely a routine enforcement of local regulations, the legislature said, “Enough. We have a real emergency. Get out of the way and let religious organizations do what they can to help.”
Grace
Religious organizations would be well advised to show neighbors and city officials the same love and grace they want to show the homeless. Port Townsend residents near churches no doubt fear the prospect of another Fairgrounds encampment disaster. The Fairgrounds tragedy was an example of government neglect and incompetence. Ironically, it was government insistence on onerous, counter-productive regulations that exacerbated the problems. By the city insisting its unrealistically burdensome and costly regulations be enforced, OlyCap, the only agency with the resources to have competently managed the Fairgrounds as an emergency shelter, had to stand back. The Fairgrounds became a Wild West complete with violence, criminality, disease (addiction the most prevalent) and the loss of life.
Religious organizations need to dispel those fears and work closely with local government, service providers and law enforcement to show how to care properly for the homeless. They are not likely to start with the hard cases—the seriously mentally ill and drug addicted. They just don’t have the resources and skills. They are likely going to start with the “easy yesses.” These programs require background checks and are closely coordinated with law enforcement. Social service agencies are engaged to help the churches and the guests. These programs have been very successful elsewhere for many years, with no reports of harm to the surrounding neighborhoods.
Overlake Christian Church in Redmond, for instance, has been hosting young men in its safe parking program. These are individuals early in their working lives who don’t have the cash for “first, last and damage deposit.” By saving up money while they are holding an entry-level job, many have been able to stand on their own feet and move into their first apartment. OCC’s parking program keeps the temporarily homeless from becoming the chronically homeless.
However a church chooses to proceed, it must have a heart for everyone impacted. It is not easy. I have been the point of contact for a campaign by a neighbor of my church who wants a homeless couple moved from where they have set up a stable, healthy home. Their nice RV is separated from the neighbor’s house by a tall, solid fence, and is well over 100 feet from the property line and mostly obscured by an outbuilding. The couple is quiet, tidy and considerate. I find the repeated complaints incomprehensible. I try to see it from the neighbor’s eyes, but can’t. Maybe that comes from growing up in a city of row houses and twins. I just don’t get it.
I strive to respond with courtesy. I pray for compassion and a softening of hearts. I pray for myself that I don’t pridefully stand on the law. But I realize that the law that allows churches to help the homeless is the product of a considered democratic and thorough legislative process. Those bills passed overwhelmingly. Because the homeless may live on church property under the clear terms of the law, they have as much right to eat and sleep where they are as anyone else. I cannot surrender their rights. They would be devastated by the message that they count less than others merely because they have less than others, and that all those professions of love were unreliable. Defending their rights under the law—gracefully—is doing justice.
One Life At A Time Does It
Forget about “ending homelessness.” It’s not going to happen, and there’s nothing a religious organization can do to make it happen. There have always been homeless in this nation. The recent epidemic is, however, truly unprecedented. It has been caused, we are finally learning, not by “the failures of capitalism.” It was capitalism that built apartments and starter homes for generations (and all those affordable row houses in my home town). Exclusionary, aka “snob” zoning and building codes endlessly ratcheting up the cost of construction are the antithesis of free enterprise, by the way.
We have learned that our epidemic of homelessness is caused by the “catastrophic and profound loss of community.” That is the on-the-streets, in-the-trenches observation of the Mobile Loaves and Fishes Ministry of Austin, Texas, the organization behind the ground-breaking and successful Community First! housing development for the chronically homeless.
It is also the conclusion of scholars not beholden to the homelessness-industrial complex, that too often has leveraged the homelessness epidemic for political power and lucrative grants that continue and increase regardless of results. “Homelessness is a condition of disengagement from society–from family, neighborhood, friends, church, and community,” Alice Baum and Donald Burnes wrote in perhaps the definitive book on homelessness. Christopher Rufo, who has produced some excellent documentaries in addition to his scholarly writings, reached the same conclusion, but calls this societal disintegration “disaffiliation.” See my April 20, 2021 article, “Our Fifth Column in the Fight Against Homelessness: Churches.”
This is an opportunity to connect with people who have lost meaningful connection and the sense that they are loved. The genuinely friendly smile delivering a cup of hot coffee to someone who has spent the night in a cold car… you’ve just shown them Jesus without saying a word beyond, “Good morning.”
With the legislature making it clear that little stands in the way of churches employing their resources to shelter the homeless, churches are without excuse in failing to act. It need not be an involved program serving dozens of people, requiring huge expenditures of volunteer time and resources churches may never have unless they accept government funds—a very unwise course for any church. Instead of a grandiose War on Homelessness, it could be as simple as letting a veteran pitch a tent below the stained glass, or a family who have seen their rental sold out from under them using a classroom to keep warm and stay together until they find a new home.
We tend to think in macro terms and set ourselves up for failure and self-recrimination. What difference will it make? The problem is so huge. It is beyond us. We are helpless against such odds.
“There are no great things, only small things done with great love.” That is my favorite quote from Mother Teresa. There is also the starfish story. It has been told many ways. I know this one:
One night a storm washed upon the beach thousands and thousands of starfish. They lay gasping for life on the sand as two men walked along the shore. One started tossing the starfish back into the water, a single dying starfish at a time, He was making no noticeable dent in turning the situation around. “Why bother?” the other man said. “What difference does it make?” His companion bent down to reach a struggling starfish and tossed it back into the sea. “It makes a difference to that one.”
Note to self: Pay attention to the bending down part of the story. That’s important, too.
