Yet Another Letter sent to Bremerton Mayor
NWH Director, Anton Preisinger, composed the following letter and sent it Mayor Wheeler of Bremerton, WA, in response to the revision made to Ordinance No. 5482 following the 9/13/2023 Study Session (this ordinance is meant to update BMC Chapter 9.32 entitled “Unauthorized Camping”). The next Bremerton City Council meeting is scheduled for 9/20/2023. and this ordinance is on the Agenda. The meeting agenda and packet, containing the updated ordinance, can downloaded here.
Response to the Bremerton City Council Study session held on 9/13/2023. Please note, this is solely a response to the ordinance adjustments proposed on 9/13, the list of concerning issues with the rest of the ordinance has not diminished. It is not illegal to be homeless but it should be illegal to continue failing to act in the best interest of people experiencing homelessness.
The first proposed update simply brings part of the ordinance back into compliance with established federal case law. Well done.
The second proposed update, summarized in the meeting packet as providing “a definition of available shelter space that includes public or private shelter, transitional housing, or a permitted outdoor encampment, located either in the City, or in Kitsap County if free transportation is available,” is superficially very reasonable and hypothetically could open the door to more shelter choices for people. However, there are some glaring problems that do not appear to have been addressed.
To start, none of the shelters or transitional housing currently operating or planned within the county are set up to conduct intakes on a whim. They’re all coordinated through referrals and procedures which make them unable to accept drop-offs or walk-ins. The one exception is the Salvation Army which does not have capacity for the number of people needing shelter, and their plans keep changing as to what kinds of services they’ll be able to provide (largely because the city has failed to adequately support this service which they now cling to as a life preserver). Anticipating the Mayor’s insistence that more is coming, we need to see that progress first. It has taken several years to make incremental progress on the Pacific Building shelter project in Port Orchard. Anything the Mayor claims to have in the works is years away from realization and should not be included in any calculations of what is available to people today.
Shelter should not be considered available if the person needing help has been banned from utilizing the available shelter. The ordinance puts forth that “Shelter is considered available [even] if a person is…in violation of shelter rules.” Essentially, by counting a shelter “available” even when a person is unable to check in there, the ordinance as currently written, is making it a misdemeanor to violate shelter rules. There are many, many reasons that people end up on the wrong side of shelter rules. The shelters have every right to protect their guests and staff as they see fit with the rules they deem necessary, but if a person breaks those rules and is no longer able to access said shelter, how is it acceptable to count that shelter as available when determining whether or not to meter out enforcement? I have seen legitimate mental healthcare challenges and physical healthcare barriers result in countless people being turned away from many shelters. We can’t let those limitations of the services available close more doors than they already do.
The third proposed adjustment to the ordinance makes the insinuation that intoxication and drug use are “voluntary actions” which is in direct conflict with the current medical understanding of addiction. The most recent revision of the International Classification of Diseases includes many entries for different types of diseases involving addiction. I didn’t read through them all, but none of them even began to hint that addiction is a voluntary disease, the very concept is an oxymoron. Shelters will not accept a person who is actively intoxicated by any substance, yet the consequence of the ordinance you are putting forth is that those people will have a misdemeanor added to their list of challenges.
They will go to jail, lose most of their belongings, lose touch with resources, lose what remnants of hope they had remaining or were beginning to reconstruct with help from local outreach services, get released with a new charge on their records, and have no choice but to go back to exactly what they were doing again until someone else calls to complain that they exist.
In addition to the whack-a-mole of sweeps this ordinance is doomed to inject into our community, now the Mayor (this adjustment was included based on his direct request) wants to build a brand new revolving door in and out of our judicial system which will tax resources and result in absolutely zero positive outcomes for the community or the people being charged: It’s not a deterrent because people can’t choose their way out of these circumstances and it doesn’t offset the cost of anything because most won’t be able to pay and any fines that do get paid will be insignificant as a municipal funding source. Whatever problem this is supposed to address, the only actual outcome will be more harm to vulnerable people and a less healthy community.
Speaking of harming vulnerable people, there is abundant research showing that adding misdemeanors to a person’s criminal record makes it take longer for them to get into housing. What is our goal here? Do we want to punish these people endlessly or would we like to create an environment in which they can succeed? For just one example, according to Success in Housing: How Much Does Criminal Background Matter? A Research Project Initiated by Aeon, Beacon Interfaith Housing Collaborative, CommonBond Communities, and Project for Pride in Living (the Research Collaborative), Conducted in Partnership with Wilder Research, authored by Cael Warren and released in January 2019, the impact of a single misdemeanor can make it harder for a household to find housing for 2-7 years after a conviction. And this ordinance is proposing to impose this on someone who is already vulnerable simply because that person doesn’t accept what the city decides to be adequate shelter for a single night. People have animals, they have community, they have jobs, they have family, they have a trauma-induced fear of shelter systems and authority, they have countless reasons not to accept the shelter being offered them and they are being given very little reason to trust that anything will be different if they do accept.
Should the Mayor and Bremerton City Council be struck with inspiration to focus on something that will produce positive results, I urge that attention be focused on actually providing those resources listed in the proposed ordinance as being essential, “public or private shelter, transitional housing, or a permitted outdoor encampment.” Table this 5482 garbage ordinance for ten years and come back to it once you’ve successfully stood up an inclusive shelter with wraparound services, or sufficient transitional housing options, or a permitted outdoor encampment with services, or all of the above because we need a full toolbelt in order to properly serve our community. Start with the services and your camping problem will take care of itself or, at the very least, you’ll finally be able to arrest some people without compromising the Constitution of the United States of America.
Anton Preisinger
Founding Executive Director
Northwest Hospitality