EVERETT — A fund established by the city in February to collect donations to help people living on the streets has brought in nearly $12,000, including $1,000 from the Henry M. Jackson Foundation.
The Flex Fund grew out of Everett’s Community Streets Initiative as a means to provide ready cash to meet critical needs for homeless people.
“Right now we’re using it for our Community Outreach and Enforcement Team, for our social worker’s work, and also for the CHART team,” said Everett police Sgt. Mike Braley.
The police department’s outreach team was another Streets Initiative recommendation to pair police officers with social workers to better meet the needs of people who are homeless, suffering from mental illness or addiction. The CHART team focuses on those people who use a disproportionate amount of services, including police calls, jail time and hospital emergency room visits.
The Flex Fund bridges a gap in services, Braley said, providing a ready source of cash to meet immediate needs, such as a meal or a stay in a hotel.
“Before we had this fund, officers from our unit would pay for some of these out of pocket, whether it’s an overnight hotel stay or food,” Braley said.
About $2,900 of the fund has already been spent, with about a dozen people receiving some form of help from the fund so far. For small expenses, the social worker attached to the outreach team handles the transaction on the spot. Larger expenses get passed up to Braley, or in some cases, the CHART team.
The largest expenses so far have included air fare for a small number of people who have been sent to rehab centers out of state.
This came about through Everett’s partnership with a nonprofit organization called Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative.
Since the partnership was announced earlier this year, four people have been sent to long-term recovery, mostly at the Bella Monte Recovery Center in southern California, Braley said. The Flex Fund has covered part or all the cost of the air fare for those four people, he said.
Two of those people have since returned to Everett, Braley said. He doesn’t know where the others went.
“It ends up being more self-reporting,” he said, adding that he wasn’t aware of any problems with those who have returned.
Other expenditures from the fund include overnight hotel stays for people who are in crisis and awaiting more stable housing to open up, or even buying meals or coffee for people the outreach team is helping on the street.
“Sometimes they’ll pay for coffee for them, or they’ll even pay for meals if they’re getting people off to an appointment,” Braley said.
The other purpose of the fund was targeted at the population at large: to give people a place to donate money that they can be assured would help homeless people, and which would not be used for drugs or alcohol.
It might also make a dent in another problem, that of homeless people clustering in a single location, often on Smith Avenue near the Everett Gospel Mission. Providing money or meals to people there, the thinking goes, reinforces their presence there.
The Everett Police Department now makes periodic sweeps of the area, removing people who appear to be camping along the street and arresting others who are selling drugs or otherwise victimizing the homeless people there.
Donations of food and clothing, however well-intentioned, have contributed to a garbage problem along Smith Avenue. City officials encouraged people to contribute to the Flex Fund and other organizations already doing that work.
Gary Watts, who owns a garage near the mission, had urged the city to clean up the area and enact tougher ordinances.
He recently came to the City Council to report what progress he’d seen: None.
“Honestly there’s no difference today than there was two and a half years ago, even with the increased policing,” Watts said. “I’m out of ideas.”
Watts took the opportunity to encourage the city to move forward with its plan to build low-barrier housing for homeless people.
The city also has published a list of nonprofits that people can contribute to in lieu of handing out cash or food.
“The idea was to get people to stop getting people giving the direct donations and to funnel the money to other nonprofits that are available,” Braley said. “We’re still seeing people doing the direct donations down around the Mission.”
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.
How to help
Checks can be mailed or delivered to City of Everett, Community Streets Initiative Fund, c/o Jaimee Hudson, 2930 Wetmore Ave., Suite 9E, Everett, WA 98201. For more information, call 425-257-7195 or send email to jhudson@everettwa.gov. Donations to the Flex Fund are tax-deductible. Checks should be payable to the City of Everett. A list of nonprofits is online at https://everettwa.gov/1391/Safe-Streets-Get-Involved.
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