Tacoma’s homeless have no options amid shelter closures, sweeps, advocates say

A month after losing nearly 200 shelter beds, homeless outreach workers say the City of Tacoma continues to remove encampments, leaving those living unhoused with nowhere to go.

The city says it does its best to offer supportive services to those living unhoused while also keeping public areas safe and clean.

“Our goal is always to bring people indoors and into a system of care,” city spokesperson Maria Lee told the News Tribune. “The City’s ordinance, which designates areas where camping is not permitted, is implemented with the overarching intent of encouraging individuals to accept available shelter and resources.”

Dionne Jacobson is the homeless outreach director at St. Vincent de Paul’s Community Resource Center in South Tacoma. The outreach team at St. Vincent de Paul works to build trust and rapport with those experiencing homelessness in the area with the hope that they will trust them enough to accept services to get off the street.

The job is not easy. Trust can be difficult to earn as those living unhoused are wary that contact from outreach workers means encampment sweeps are soon to follow, St. Vincent de Paul outreach staff told the News Tribune.

Jacobson said housing and shelter resources are scarce, and shelter closures in Tacoma have compounded the issue.

Pierce County’s Emergency Shelter Availability dashboard reported roughly 60 shelter beds available on Aug. 13. Many shelters have waitlists, do not accept walk-ups, or have specific age or gender requirements. For example, about 20 beds were available for women over the age of 24, but some of those shelter beds still require waiting on a list.

Jacobson told the News Tribune the number of people looking for shelter or a cool place to stay amid the summer heat has drastically picked up since the city closed several shelters.

She said St. Vincent de Paul’s Community Resource Center, which is not much larger than a portable trailer or two and staffed by fewer than 20 people, hosted more than 110 people looking for shelter from the hot weather on a single day in July.

Outreach staff at St. Vincent de Paul told the News Tribune the city’s encampment removals have not seemed to slow down despite the decrease in shelter and resources.

By the end of June, the City of Tacoma closed nearly one-quarter of the shelter beds it had at the beginning of 2025 due to a funding shortfall.

According to data reported by the city, more encampment removals have occurred in June and July this year than last year. In June and July this year, the city reported removing 79 encampments compared to 55 in June and July last year.

Lee attributed that to an increased focus “on ensuring that designated zones remain clear and accessible for the public.”

“We are encouraged by this progress and remain committed to a strategy that provides compassionate support while ensuring our public spaces are safe and welcoming for the entire community,” she told the News Tribune.

Jacobson said the removal of encampments, which typically includes throwing out people’s belongings, makes it more difficult for those living on the streets to survive.

“There is a heightened sense of people having to keep themselves safe,” Jacobson said. “We are traumatizing human beings.”

Outreach staff there have spoken out against the city’s encampment removals in the past, saying it disrupts their relationships with those living on the streets and displaces people rather than addressing the root causes of homelessness.

“They have nowhere to go at night, nowhere to go during the day,” Jacobson said. “You aren’t solving the problem by moving people.”

In October 2022, the Tacoma City Council passed an ordinance that prohibits camping and the storage of personal belongings in a 10-block radius around temporary shelters and all public property within 200 feet of Tacoma’s rivers, waterways, creeks, streams and shorelines. Under the ordinance, violators face fines of up to $250 and up to 30 days in jail.

In September 2023, the former Tacoma city attorney signed onto an amicus brief written to the Supreme Court regarding Grants Pass v. Johnson – a case heard by the Supreme Court in 2024 concerning local governments’ authority to criminalize public camping without providing services for the unhoused. The brief, written on behalf of the city, argued municipalities should have leeway to enforce bans on camping in public spaces.

In June 2024, The U.S. Supreme Court decided that local governments have the right to implement and enforce policies that ban camping in public – supporting Tacoma’s authority to enforce its ordinance.

Lee said the city’s Homeless Engagement Alternative Liaison (HEAL) team conducts outreach at encampments to offer services and resources before ordering a camp’s removal. As of Aug. 5, she said, only two arrests have been made since the ordinance was implemented.

The city reported removing more than 8.6 million pounds of debris from homeless encampments since implementation of the ordinance. According to the city, it has spent $4,535,136 to remove debris in accordance with the ordinance as of June 17.

Jake Nau is a street outreach manager for St. Vincent de Paul and an outspoken critic of the city’s encampment-removal policy.

Recently, Nau told The News Tribune he thought the city was unfair to conduct encampment sweeps without providing an alternative place to be. He said that until the city has the resources to give people a place to sleep inside it should have a contained place where camping is allowed.

“Have a place that is unsweepable,” he said. “A place where homeless people can be homeless.”

While the city’s ordinance primarily targets areas within 10 blocks of a shelter, the city also removes encampments outside of those areas.

“Our efforts are concentrated within a 10-block radius of shelters,” Lee told The News Tribune in an email. “The intent is straightforward: when individuals are so close to a safe bed and comprehensive services, our focus is to help them take that crucial step inside.”

According to Lee, 18 of the 79 encampments removed in June and July were outside of “no camping zones.”

“While removals can and do occur outside this radius, they are infrequent and are reserved for situations that pose a significant public health or safety risk, such as the obstruction of a public right-of-way,” Lee said. “These actions require specific approval from the City Manager’s Office and are not undertaken lightly.”

Nau said housing and shelter resources are scarce and connecting people with them can be difficult. He said many people he has spoken to said they have been given empty promises of housing or shelter.

“People will laugh at you if you tell them you can get them into housing,” he said.

According to data from the city, of the 251 contacts made by the HEAL team in June and July, 185 reportedly accepted services. Of those, 34 were placed into shelter.

“We recognize there are no simple solutions,” Lee told The News Tribune. “The City must balance the urgent needs of our unhoused population with the health and safety of the entire community. While we understand the desire for a designated open camping site, our strategy has been to invest in environments like our Stability Site, which provides a safe, managed space with direct access to the resources that lead to permanent housing.”

Nau said the city’s encampment-removal policy does not work to address the root causes of homelessness without a stable place for people to live and adequate housing resources for them to transition.

“That’s the piece that is missing,” he said. “You can’t say we are going to do this long term, but not do anything now.”