Before the police sweeps in March, recalled Amy Reynolds, the deputy director of the homeless services nonprofit Share, there were tents and structures that about 60 homeless people had built up near the shelter that her organization operates in downtown Vancouver.
Responding to safety and health concerns posed by the encampment, Vancouver police cleared the camps, and some of those homeless people, Reynolds said, found places to camp downtown or at the sound wall on Mill Plain Boulevard.
Others walked about five blocks to the parking structure next to Clark County’s Public Service Center on Franklin Street, which has created a logistical and legal problem for the county.
Bob Stevens, the county’s deputy manager who oversees county building facilities, said that since the sweep, more people are camping out in the 480-space parking structure next to the building, which he said has created safety issues as well as concern from county staff.
“I’m not sure which way we’re going to go,” Stevens said of how the county will respond. “(We have) a lot of sympathy for the homeless.”
But Reynolds, as well as Andy Silver, executive director of the Council for the Homeless, hope that as the county considers its options for the parking structure, it also looks for a broader solution for Clark County’s growing homeless population.
“Rather than looking at this as just an issue about the parking garage or around Share House, I think if we come together as a community, we could get further and get everyone’s needs met,” said Silver.
Since 2015, the city of Vancouver, partially in response to area’s rising homeless population, revised its unlawful-camping ordinance to allow camping on most publicly owned property between 9:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. if shelters are at capacity.
Stevens said that the ordinance applies to the county’s parking structure, which is in downtown Vancouver.
“The problem is, some of our employees arrive early in the morning before (the ordinance expires),” said Stevens. He said some county employees’ jobs start as early as 5:30 or 6 a.m., and they have arrived to find a tent pitched in the middle of their parking spot. He said one employee almost backed over someone sleeping in the garage. He said the situation has created sanitation issues, as some campers have left hypodermic needles or trash. He said he’s gotten at least a dozen formal complaints about the situation, but the county currently has no mechanism in place to address it.
Stevens said there are basically two options for the county, both of which need to be approved by the Clark County council. He said the county could opt for its own camping ordinance, which would allow security guards to instruct campers to pack up at an earlier hour. But he said if people are still allowed to camp, the county would probably need to provide porta-potties or some sort of wash station to keep it sanitary.
Alternatively, he said, the county could declare the structure a limited-use facility, which means that it can be used only by people who have business with the county. He said that in January, the county implemented the same policy in the Public Service Center after homeless people became an increasing presence during the harsh winter. He said homeless people used bathroom sinks to wash, got the furniture dirty and wandered the halls, sometimes getting into confrontations with customers.
He said the county also hired four security guards to enforce the new policy.
“It’s worked remarkably,” he said of the policy.
As homelessness has risen in Clark County, Reynolds said, the shelter at Share House, like others, is routinely at capacity. A single-day census of the homeless population conducted earlier this year found 269 unsheltered people, up by 41 from last year’s count. Today, the county council and the Vancouver City Council will hold a joint meeting on the issue.
“I’ll leave the language of their ordinance to them,” said Reynolds. “But this is a great time to recognize that the need is growing in our community and we need to do something active on that.”
Silver said that if the county excludes homeless people from camping in the garage, they’ll just go elsewhere.
“Unfortunately, when you have shelters full and housing programs full, when you move people around, they still have to go somewhere,” he said.
