The Aberdeen City Council removed a request for proposal (RFP) for an item of discussion that’s been awfully unpopular — a village for the unhoused.

The issue was recommended by the city’s Homelessness Response Committee to remove the city’s part of the application for funding from Grays Harbor County toward the acquisition for public property for the purpose of constructing a homeless village.

Debi Pieraccini, both an Aberdeen city councilor and the head of the Homelessness Response Committee, said on Wednesday night at the council meeting, “It’s something we had to do.”

“When we removed the camp from under (Chehalis River) bridge, I would say half the population left, a lot of them found places to stay and some of them went back home,” Pieraccini said. “So we have a small amount (of unhoused people) and it’s not enough for the city to invest in a huge property.”

While the city council is not going to approve a city-built venue for the unhoused, it would help a nonprofit, should one choose to build one.

“We have agreed to partner with a nonprofit if they want to seek out that RFP,” Pieraccini said. “We’re encouraging them to do that. They’re excited, they have a plan and they’re looking at a couple properties that could work. We’ve agreed to partner with them to help any way that we can.”

Sydney Swor, Aberdeen City Council president, supported removing the RFP, but she wasn’t the only one. It was a unanimous decision to remove it.

“It’s always been my opinion it should have been done hand-in-hand with the county and that it should primarily fall with the county overall, in addition to the community resources that are within this county and not on the individual cities,” Swor said. “So I think we made the right choice in putting it back in those hands. Hopefully, they’re willing to step up the same way we were going to do.”

Contact Reporter Matthew N. Wells at matthew.wells@thedailyworld.com.