The local Salvation Army will run the upcoming pallet home community for the homeless in Longview.
The city announced the partnership to run the shelter community, which has been named HOPE Village, on Thursday afternoon. Fifty pallet homes are planned to built on Alabama Street in Longview sometime in November after being approved by the Longview City Council over the last few weeks.
The village will be run by the Longview chapter of the Salvation Army with support from the regional office in Seattle. As the host organization for the site, the Salvation Army will have an office amidst the pallet homes where they help residents connect with counselors and case managers as they look for a permanent housing solution.
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“It was important to have someone with the experience, someone who had the infrastructure to scale up and be able to operate one of these communities,” Longview’s assistant city manager Kris Swanson said.
“We will continue to work closely with city leadership in an effort to ensure we are able to provide a safe, healthy and orderly community that focuses on longterm housing and programs that guide individuals towards a hopeful future,” Jonathan Harvey, General Secretary for the Northwest Division of the Salvation Army, said in a statement Thursday.
Longview considers the pallet homes enhanced temporary shelters, not a longterm solution for the unhoused. The announcement Thursday said the homes are “intended to be a first step toward helping these individuals find permanent homes.”
The city arrived at the deal with the Salvation Army over the past week using the emergency declaration. The emergency conditions allowed the city to settle the contract without going through a competitive bidding process, which some people criticized at Thursday’s council meeting as a lack of transparency. Swanson said the city was following the council’s direction from August and working on an aggressive timeline to replace the current camp.
The city and Salvation Army are still negotiating the final details of the contract, including the requirements for anyone staying in a pallet home and the final cost.
Longview police see benefits of ‘enforcement blitz’
In addition to the new site managers, the city announcement said the Longview Police Department initiated an “enforcement blitz” in and around the current campsite after neighbors’ complaints about suspected nearby increased crime. Since the end of August, the Longview police have run nightly foot patrols in the Highlands neighborhood and the blocks around Alabama Street.
Capt. Branden McNew said the patrol officers had been able to stop multiple burglaries in progress because of the increased presence. Officers have also cracked down on citations for smaller offenses like illegal camping, taking shopping carts from stores and disorderly conduct. The result has been a steep decline in criminal behavior, to the point McNew said officers have “almost become bored” on recent shifts.
“In the first few weeks, it was very easy to observe criminal behavior,” McNew said. “Officers that go down there now are observing almost none.”
The police actions are supported by the presence of Northwest Enforcement, the private security firm contracted by the city to watch the Alabama Street camp on nights and weekends. The security firm focuses more on enforcing the rules within the camp than serious crimes, which are reported to the Longview police.
Once the pallet community is in place, McNew said the department would likely ramp down the foot patrols because of the excessive overtime it requires.
“With our staffing levels, we cannot continue this tempo of work indefinitely with the number of officers we have,” McNew said.
