After meeting eight times together during the late summer and fall, the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners and the Port Townsend City Council have approved a joint agreement on homeless housing and affordable housing. 

The county voted unanimously to approve the agreement at the commissioners’ regular business meeting Nov. 19, while the city council voted to approve the agreement that evening.

The interlocal agreement, or ILA, allows the county to distribute funds collected from document recording fees to affordable housing and homelessness housing and to create a plan for affordable housing in Port Townsend and Jefferson County. 

“It’s frustrating because it’s not enough money to really do something big and significant, so it will largely continue to fund the homeless shelter,” County Commissioner Kate Dean said. “There is a backlog because those funds weren’t being distributed over the last few years, so there will be a larger chunk of money. We’re probably going to have about $400,000 to distribute next year, and that is enough money to do something significant with.”

Dean expressed hope that the agreement will spur a larger action, such as building more affordable housing. 

The ILA will form a “joint oversight board,” which will be composed of one elected representative from the city, one from the county, and three members recommended by a Homeless Housing Task Force.

The Homeless Housing Task Force is another part of the ILA and will be formed by a facilitator chosen by both the city and county. The task force will convene to develop a local five-year homeless housing plan, which is required by law to be adopted by the Board of County Commissioners by Dec. 1, 2019. 

Previously, two similar ILAs were adopted, in 2003 and 2005. The ILAs were set to expire Oct. 1, but at a meeting between commissioners and city staff Sept. 17, the city council passed an extension to the ILAs, which will expire Nov. 25. 

In the past, the ILA was used to fund the homeless shelter in the basement of American Legion Post 26, which serves about 33 people and has now become a year-round shelter. The ILA also funds the Haine’s Street Cottages. Both the shelter and the cottages are run by OlyCAP. 

The new ILA will continue to fund OlyCAP to provide those services through April 30, 2020.

However, other housing organizations, such as Dove House Advocacy Services and Habitat for Humanity, came forward at a meeting on Oct. 1 to ask that they be allowed a “seat at the table” in the discussion for allocation of funds. 

“One of the reasons that the city wanted to renegotiate all of this was to shine light on the fact that the county had not had any disbursement of the funds for quite some time,” said City Council member Michelle Sandoval, who participated in the ad hoc committee on housing with the county. “The other housing providers that testified at that meeting (on Oct. 1) had come to the city and asked that we help them. That was the impetus for renegotiating all of this.”

But County Commissioner David Sullivan said funding the homeless shelter at the American Legion will use most of the funds. 

“This is enough to keep the homeless shelter going, this is enough to continue the core services that provide referrals for families when they don’t fit the homeless shelter model, to find placements for them in the community, but it isn’t enough to provide much extra,” Sullivan said. “It’s really not enough to make progress on what everyone knows the solution is, which is increasing supply.”

City council members had hoped to receive more clarity on the ILA’s budget that disperses the funds to OlyCAP, but with time running short before the current ILA expired, they did not. 

“This has been a lengthy process,” City Council Member David Faber said at the council meeting Nov. 19. “I am 99 percent of the way there in terms of my feelings on this; I think it’s a great improvement over the existing former ILAs. It paves the way for a much more transparent and robust process.”

However, Faber noted he felt “almost blackmailed” by the county on some points of the agreement, such as funding the OlyCAP shelter through 2020, instead of ending the funding earlier to re-evaluate the budget.

“This process has only seemed to entrench city county division,” Faber said. “When we have been looking for good budget information for months now, we have been unable to get a clear explanation.”

However, Faber and other city council members said they hope the new ILA will open more opportunities for funding other housing providers in the future.

“It’s not about the amount of money there is, it’s about the process, and it’s about the law,” Sandoval said. “The law dictates that the city and county jointly decide on how this money is going to be spent.” 

Despite small disagreements throughout the process, the city and county came to a joint agreement, and after several revisions, the ILA passed.

One thing both Sandoval and Dean had in common was a hope for long-term change in the form of building affordable housing or a larger shelter in which the shelter clients have more immediate access to social services instead of relying on an interim shelter.

“This is a Band-Aid here at the shelter,” Sandoval said. “I thank the American Legion a lot for this, as well as COAST, as well as OlyCAP. But it is not as productive and long-term a solution as we need.”