The City of Aberdeen will urge the Grays Harbor County Board of County Commissioners to apply for funding for a low-barrier homeless shelter so the city can close its temporary shelter behind City Hall.
The council also discussed bringing back a proposal to sell its Michigan Street property, purchased originally for a larger, longer-term homeless camp.
Aberdeen City Council President Dee Anne Shaw provided a report from the city’s ad hoc committee on homelessness at Wednesday’s City Council meeting, saying the state is currently seeking city and county input for use of state homeless funds.
“Aberdeen does not want to be in the homeless shelter business,” said Shaw. “We urge the county to apply for funding to serve the whole county with a low-barrier shelter so we can close the (city hall camp) without displacing anyone.”
The term low-barrier in this case means that the shelter doesn’t put so many restrictions on those who might stay there that people are turned away for reasons such as not being sober. It doesn’t mean there aren’t rules and restrictions, however.
The council approved Shaw’s recommendation to proceed with drafting such a request to the county. For months, the city has tried to get the county to provide funding for its City Hall camp with COVID-19 housing funds, but were denied. The city has been funding the camp on its own for nearly a year at the cost of about $35,000 a month.
Councilman Tim Alstrom asked for an update on the current camp’s temporary use permit. The permit expired May 15, when the city had planned to close the camp, but with the governor’s moratorium on evictions, and the Attorney General’s Office direction to the city that closing the camp would violate that moratorium, the city was forced to keep the camp open.
City attorney Patrice Kent said that due to the “various declarations of emergency at the local and state levels specifically related to the pandemic,” the city has the ability to “overlook some rules, particularly with the temporary use permit” because the state is requiring the city to keep the camp open.
Under current city zoning laws, the permit can run up to July 15, said Kent, and the governor recently extended the moratorium on evictions through the end of July.
The permit “is not an issue because under the state of emergency with advice from counsel we have grounds to extend that,” said Shaw, because the state is requiring the city to keep the camp operating. She added that the state has also indicated that even moving unsheltered people from one location to another is not an option.
Alstrom then made a recommendation that a report authorizing Mayor Pete Schave to sell the city’s property at 421 S. Michigan St. — property that had been purchased by the city for a larger, longer-term homeless camp — be brought back to the council to allow for the sale of that property.
The proposal first came up at an April City Council meeting, when a Public Works report recommended the city sell the property for $65,000, an amount that would cover the city’s purchase price and the cost of clearing and grading the property. The council voted to table the proposal amid uncertainty as the then May 15 closure of the City Hall camp loomed.
“I’m bringing it off the table,” said Alstrom Wednesday. “It’s been sitting there and we’ve gone past the (May 15) point, let’s move to sell it or vote it down and end the issue at this point.”
Councilman Alan Richrod agreed with Alstrom, saying “if somebody is willing to develop it into a tax paying entity of some sort, let’s go for it.”
The discussion switched to a question of the asking price. Shaw asked for guidance on selling a piece of property for below its assessed value. Kent said the city basically had to recover its investment in the property so far.
Schave told the council there are two interested parties in the property, one wanting to build a warehouse for a current business, another looking at building a storage facility. One of those parties told Schave they “had $65,000 in hand and were ready to go.”
Councilwoman Tawni Andrews argued the city should “at least be asking for market value” for the property, currently $98,000 on the county assessor’s website. Councilman Nathan Kennedy agreed, saying “Just because we paid less than what it’s worth doesn’t mean that’s what we should sell it for.”
Councilwoman Kati Kachman that an opinion be sought from a local real estate broker.
In the end, the council agreed to bring the sale off the table and, with input from a broker, vote at its next meeting whether or not to authorize Schave to sell the property.
