EVERETT — A nonprofit that provides substance use disorder counseling would like the city to reverse its ban on having such services on the first floor of buildings in downtown.
The city won’t because more social services doesn’t fit with the vision for downtown, a city official said to the group.
The Center for Human Services make inquiries to purchase a building downtown near Romio’s and the Colby Diner, because it’s close to the courthouse, so clients and counselors could walk to drug court sessions.
The building doesn’t have enough space to use just the second story, organization director Beratta Gomillion said, and “it wouldn’t be a logical purchase” without being able to use the first floor.
“The City established a clear direction to try to encourage distribution of social services throughout our community,” city Government Affairs Director Jennifer Gregerson wrote to Gomillion in a July 21 email obtained by the Tribune. “We do have a density of them in the downtown as you and your realtor have noted. However, increasing those services downtown is not the long term vision for that area.”
City staff won't be bringing the zoning code to council for further consideration at this time, city spokeswoman Simone Tarver said.
The Center now has some decision-making to do for what it may do next, Gomillion said July 21.
The Colby center would have focused on counseling for substance use disorders, Gomillion told the Tribune.
In 2018, the City Council set the zoning to allow opioid treatment clinics but limit them from being on the ground floor downtown as a compromise measure to meet federal law.
The Center was told this restriction includes substance use counseling.
“I question the logic” of this part of the restriction, Gomillion said.
The nonprofit does not administer medications such as methadone or suboxone; it refers patients to clinics for those, Gomillion said.
The first-floor rule got rolled into the Metro Everett plan which reset zoning across almost all of downtown. The city’s zoning language to restrict “clinics” takes an interesting path: All and any clinics are banned from the ground floor, except the code’s definition of a clinic specifically excludes doctor’s offices, dentists, eye doctors and chiropractors.
Until the 2018 compromise allowed any opioid clinic on upper floors, the city capped its number of opioid clinics downtown at one. A methadone clinic provider wanting to open triggered reopening the policy. A weighty factor in those talks is that federal law requires opioid addiction treatment clinics to be allowed under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which considers clients in recovery as having a disability. Conversely, downtown businesses heavily opposed adding more.
Gregerson, writing on behalf of Mayor Cassie Franklin, encouraged the Center to consider pursuing a different location in Everett. Bringing more behavioral health social services in Everett is a city goal, Gregerson wrote.
Looking at downtown, “you need us,” Gomillion told the City Council. Center board members joined in petitioning council last week.
The Shoreline-based nonprofit opened in 1970 and provides mental health services, behavioral health services, positive parenting guidance classes, as well as substance use disorder treatment. It has grown to have five centers, and each are tailored to the localized needs of the area it is serving.
One of its locations is in Everett’s Silver Lake area.
Aug. 1, 2023: This story has been updated to remove the specific address.
