Lake Stevens and the Homeless
Posted by Gary O'Rielly
on Feb 29, 2016
Our program last week was Mary Swenson, Interim City Administrator talking about the homeless in Lake Stevens and the impact on city services. Mayor John Spencer and Mary have approached the County seeking assistance. The County acknowledged that this isn't a city problem but a county problem. Every city is affected by large populations of the homeless. Lake Stevens needs to adopt a city plan to work with mental health agencies and the churches to help with the problem. Also, the City is looking at developing an ordinance that would give the police the tools to deal with the homeless issue. Arlington and Marysville have developed ordinances which has moved some of the homeless to Lake Stevens. Interesting that the city has very few panhandlers perhaps that because of the roundabouts in Lake Stevens.
Mary mentioned that there was a homeless camp just off Lundeen. She did mention that everyone does have rights including the homeless so the City contacted the Sheriff's Department to help deal with the homeless camp. They posted a clean up date and began the clean up of that camp on the date listed on the posting. Unfortunately, the police and sheriff's departments cannot use regular citizens to help in the cleaning up of the camp for health reasons.
In other comments, Mary spoke about the transition of the City to a new City. Mary has lived in Lake Stevens for over 30 years and watched the many changes that have been occurring with all of the new housing around 20th Street SE. She stated that the City needs to be a city friendly environment and predictability for new development and new businesses. Staff needs to accept and relish the new business-friendly environment that they are working in and accept it. In other news about the City, they are working on a sub-area plan with predictability for the 20th Street SE corridor and downtown. On transportation there is money in the budget for the US Hwy 2 Trestle but its still in the House and Senate budgets. The Mayor and City Council are going to Washington, DC to ask our congressional delegation for help fixing the Trestle. And, right now, the Mayor and Council are working on prioritizing the city street issues.
Mary is an very big asset to the City given her background and working relationships in the legislature and throughout the state. Mary retired from the City of Marysville in March 2010, joined Strategies 360 working with a variety of clients from municipalities to tribal interests and private industry. Another great program. Thanks Sam.