April 20, 2006

By TIM HARRIS

Last week brought the end of a nine-month standoff between the city and SHARE/WHEEL. The group provides 300 shelter beds nightly, in addition to their roving tent cities, with just $260,000 in city funding.

At issue was whether the homeless-led group would participate in the Safe Harbors data collection program. Both sides had dug in with their own versions of the “nuclear option.” The city seemed poised to defund one of Seattle’s most venerable homeless empowerment institutions. SHARE/WHEEL threatened to retaliate with new homeless encampments located in city parks. An 11th-hour deal found a compromise both sides could live with. The city also restored funding to several other emergency shelter providers.

While the city talked about a “new paradigm” in which shelter without supportive services isn’t enough, in the end, they came up against reality: more services cost more money. More money means fewer beds. Fewer beds means more danger. Increased danger means more dead people. And more dead people wasn’t what folks had in mind when they signed on for ending homelessness.

SHARE, with their self-managed model, will always be the most cost-effective shelter in town, and that’s not something to be tossed aside.

The city’s shift in priorities was unilateral, precipitous, and premature and threatened to undermine the coalition strategy to end homelessness that is still forming. In the end, the need for unity prevailed, and we all won.