[Lacey, Washington] Commission OKs Tent City

re-posted from Save Feral Human Habitat and The Olympian

Council will decide whether to allow homeless shelters
By Christian Hill | The Olympian

The city planning commission unanimously recommended an ordinance that would permit homeless tent cities on church property, and allow the encampments to be within 300 feet of a school or day care center.
Both of those practices are banned under the city’s current law, passed by the City Council in April. The planning commission’s recommendation, issued during a meeting Tuesday night, sets up another City Council vote on the issue for the second time in less than a year.

The council can adopt the commission’s recommendation, change it or ignore it.

“We’ve done our best,” Commissioner Carolyn St. Claire said. “It’s just time to send it on.”

“They can take them or leave them,” Don Melnick, the commission’s vice chairman, said about the City Council. “We know that.”

Commissioner O’Dean Williamson abstained from Tuesday’s vote because he was absent during the commission’s discussion earlier this month.

The commission said it concluded based on testimony from church leaders and other information that the indoors requirement is unworkable because churches don’t have adequate space.

It also noted that, based on an analysis by the city building official, the requirement might not be safer for camp residents because some churches might not be designed for use as an overnight shelter.

When they approved the city’s current homeless-encampment law, council members argued that the homeless would be provided more safety and dignity if they were housed indoors.

The planning commission also raised a concern about the requirement under the federal Religious Land Use and Institutional Persons Act, which bars governments from imposing land-use policies that place a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a church.

It noted that the distance requirement could perpetuate unfounded negative stereotypes of the homeless. The ordinance requires prospective tenants to undergo criminal background screening and sign and abide by a code of conduct. The commission recommends instead requiring some type of visual screening between an encampment and a neighborhood.

Two Lacey churches have expressed interest in serving as a host for Camp Quixote, a two-year-old tent city in Olympia.

Time line

•Late 2007: The Lacey Planning Commission recommends an ordinance that allows churches to house the homeless outdoors in tents, similar to ordinances enacted in Olympia and Tumwater.

•April 2008: The council adopts the ordinance with a 4-3 vote, but it makes a late change requiring churches to house the homeless indoors.

•October: After advocates for the homeless challenge the ordinance on procedural grounds to a state growth hearings board, the board concludes that the late change without a public hearing violated the law and remands the ordinance to the city.

•January 2009: The planning commission has a public hearing.

•Today: FEB 18, a state House committee, will have a hearing on a bill drafted in response to the council’s action that prohibits local governments from requiring churches to house the homeless indoors.

•March 2009: The Lacey City Council will consider the planning commission’s latest recommendation during a work session. A vote would occur at a future meeting.