When faced with a long list of tasks, the temptation is to start with the easiest to complete. Sometimes that can help build momentum toward taking on tougher tasks, but it can also divert attention and energy from the overall goal.
That appears to be what happened earlier this week when the Everett City Council planned to discuss three proposals linked to the city’s struggles with homelessness and addiction issues. The council was to discuss three ordinances at its Wednesday meeting, two of which were recommendations that came out of Everett’s Community Streets Initiative. The initiative, launched last year by Mayor Ray Stephanson, brought together representatives from businesses, social service groups, churches and law enforcement to develop strategies that would do more than treat the symptoms of homelessness and addiction in the Everett area and instead address the underlying causes.
The task force used consensus to develop a list of 63 recommendations, and work has begun to implement them. Some, like investigation of a housing levy, are longer-term goals. Others were seen as easier to implement.
But among those recommendations are those that some, including members of the Community Streets process, see as more punitive toward the homeless, reported Herald Writer Chris Winters earlier this week.
One proposed ordinance would establish an alcohol-impact area, barring the sale of certain cheap but high-alcohol beverages. Another would ban panhandling at intersections with a traffic signal and on median strips. A third proposed ordinance, one that wasn’t discussed or endorsed during the Community Streets process, would prohibit people from sitting or lying on sidewalks or camping or erecting tents on public rights of way. The last ordinance, drafted in response to a homeless encampment between the Everett Gospel Mission and Everett Station, was removed from the council’s agenda for Wednesday.
City leaders were correct to drop the third from consideration, at least for the time being; one reason being Community Streets members wanted more information about it. The City Council, of course, is free to consider any ordinance it chooses, but linking the one barring encampments to the other two threatened to muddle their fair consideration. It’s also doubtful a ban on sitting on sidewalks would endure a court challenge.
The pros and cons of the two remaining ordinances can be debated but, particularly for reasons of safety, the ordinance barring panhandling at street corners and on medians should receive the council’s consideration and without distractions.
There are scores of worthy strategies that need the larger community’s consideration and support in the coming weeks and months. Anything that would draw attention and energy away from them should be discouraged.
On a related note, it’s encouraging that a bill proposed by Rep. June Robinson, D-Everett, which allows ambulances to take those with mental health and substance abuse problems to crisis clinics or treatment centers rather than emergency rooms, has passed both House and Senate and is on its way to the governor’s desk. Previously only law enforcement officers were allowed to make that call.
As we’ve said earlier, efforts like these will allow Everett to address the causes of these problems rather than simply displace the people who are suffering with them.
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