FEDERAL WAY, Wash. — Weeks after snow swept through Puget Sound, the response to helping the homeless population during extreme winter weather is causing controversy.
At a Monday briefing, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan accused Federal Way of buying bus passes to send people experiencing homelessness into Seattle city limits.
“We had an extraordinary effort during the snowy season, the ten days, to bring people inside,” Durkan said. “Not all of the cities in our region were either able or willing to do that. For example, there was one local city whose response to the snow was to authorize $1,000 for bus tickets to Seattle because they knew we had shelters. We can’t have that. We need to have a regional response where we are pulling together; where people can be served in the communities where they live.”
Staff said she was referring to a February 8 post by Federal Way Mayor Jim Ferrell, where he noted Reach Out, a shelter in town, was operating at capacity.
“I’ve also authorized up to $1,000 in emergency spending on bus passes to get people to a shelter in Seattle, the only place in King County that has guaranteed not to turn anyone away,” Ferrell wrote.
On Tuesday, his office disputed that the funds were specifically towards transport to Seattle.
“The cards were given to our police officers on the street so they could hand them out to those who needed transportation services,” Ferrell’s office wrote. “Officers ended up handing out 12 cards to individuals in the community. There was no directive provided to officers to tell those individuals where to go. While we utilized social media to spread local and regional resource information in real time, the ORCA cards provided individuals flexibility to give them options in order to find shelter.”
Ferrell declined to discuss the issue in an on-camera interview.
Mayor Durkan’s office did not respond when asked what alternative she’d recommend for Federal Way beyond sending her previous comments.
Advocates for the homeless previously said the winter storm presented a rare opportunity to get people into permanent housing – many people fleeing the cold were encountering services for the first time, and might not realize what was available to them.
Officials in Seattle opened 550 emergency shelter beds to bring people inside. They also organized a resource fair at one the emergency shelters in Seattle Center.
Compass Housing Alliance also expanded services during the snap of snow.
“People were coming from all over that we typically don’t serve,” said John Barbee, the group’s Emergency Services Director.
He added that the debate over where people came from loses the larger point about connecting people with services.
He said it doesn’t matter to him where someone lives when they arrive seeking help.
“For us, it’s about we’re going to serve the people in our community,” he said. “And community comes from everywhere. I don’t know how they get here, we don’t even ask how they get here. We just know there’s a need. They have a need. And we want to be able to answer that door and that calling for that need.”