EVERETT — City Councilwoman Liz Vogeli put forward an ordinance to temporarily shorten the waiting period for a homeless encampment to get a permit to exist with official approval.
It didn’t make it to a vote last week. However, it’s not dead: the ordinance is tabled and more information will be returning to council in coming weeks, City Council President Judy Tuohy said.
Five of Vogeli’s council colleagues did not speak up to give a second, a procedural nod to advance to a vote, at the July 29 meeting.
Vogeli’s ordinance would have shortened the public notice period to nearby property owners from 45 days to just a week, and require a public hearing within those 7 days.
Why not? Councilwoman Brenda Stonecipher, for example, said more details should be made available before making a decision. Other council members, such as Scott Murphy, expressed concern about how quickly the ordinance arrived on the agenda without giving the public more time to weigh in.
Vogeli sprang the ordinance at the July 22 meeting, and it was refined for the July 29 meeting. Originally, Vogeli sought to require no waiting period for a homeless encampment to get a permit because of the emergent nature of public sheltering needs.
Vogeli proposed the idea as a solution in response to the closure of a quickly assembled camp of 100 people on a lot on Rucker Avenue. Nonprofit organizer Robert Smiley set up the camp in July and paid a land lease for the space, other media reported. But without a permit, or notice to the city, the city cleared it out within days.
The Rucker camp opened as a way to help people dispersed from a temporary, unsanctioned camp at the County Campus after that got cleared out July 5.
With the coronavirus pandemic, “it is really an emergency for the health of our residents to be able to shelter-in-place” by setting up camps, Vogeli told her colleagues.
The county has a quarantine center for people who test positive for the coronavirus and either can’t stay home or have no home, but it only is for people who have already tested positive.
It spurred attention. Nineteen people sent written comments to the council about the ordinance, and a handful of others gave support with verbal comments.
“We need our homeless in monitored camps where we can help them immediately and then transition them long-term,” resident Brenda Bolanos-Ivory said. “When they’re not in a structured camp, we lose them.”
The proposed ordinance would help a small, coordinated camp being planned for the parking lot of Everett United Church of Christ, supporters such as The Rev. Carol Jensen of the Everett Faith in Action group said.
“There’s nowhere for people to go while waiting under a 45-day process,” Seth Bauman of Everett said.
He’s been “shocked and appalled and upset of the city’s treatment of camps during this crisis,” Bauman said.
Under Vogeli’s ordinance, the shortened timeframe would return to a 45-day notice period after the county stays in Phase 4 of Gov. Jay Inslee’s Safe Start plan for two months.
Everett’s city code allows for establishing temporary homeless camps. The code requires such a site to have services such as shelter, food and sanitation, provided by a sponsor and are supervised by a managing agency.
Mayor Cassie Franklin was absent from the July 29 council meeting.
