MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake city officials will sponsor a town hall meeting June 2 to discuss how the city plans to proceed following the closure of the Open Doors Sleep Center. City Manager Rob Karlinsey said Friday that an update on the plans will be provided to the Moses Lake City Council at 5:30 p.m. May 13, prior to the regular council meeting. 

Council members voted to close the sleep center April 18, a decision that has provoked a lot of discussion since it was announced. Lizabeth Murillo Busby, Moses Lake housing and grants manager, said city officials want to know how residents want the situation addressed. 

“This is one of many meetings to come,” Murillo Busby said during “Coffee and Conversation” sponsored by the Downtown Moses Lake Association on Friday. 

The sleep center will close June 30, when the state grant that funded most of its operations expires. Council members opted not to renew the grant.  

“The direction that council is going is, we’re taking a step back. We’re taking a step back because the majority of council believes that it’s not the responsibility of the city to be providing an actual housing service, which, just to clarify, is probably a correct statement,” Murillo Busby said. “Now it’s trying to figure out, what can we do? Can we support agencies by funding them in some manner? Can we enact programs to help educate the community?”  

Heather Mason, a business owner with a coffee shop downtown, said there are resources to help people experiencing homelessness in the community. However, information on those resources seems to be poorly organized and difficult to find.  

“I am blown away by how many resources there are in town,” she said. “Every time I talk to somebody, I’m like, ‘What? I didn’t know that was here.’ So, I hope, in light of moving forward with hopefully some kind of strategic plan where we can start to care for these people, let’s somehow – I don’t know how – but let’s somehow get aware of what resources are out there. (Let’s) have all of those people who represent those resources get together.” 

Moses Lake Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services Director Doug Coutts said the city is working on a webpage that would have as much information as organizations wanted to provide on local resources.  

Marisa Cairns, career and training specialist at SkillSource, said a more active approach might also be needed. 

“We pour a lot of work into our websites and things; I have found that doesn’t always work. A lot of people don’t engage that way,” she said. “I’m wondering if we could expand on a model that we do already. We do a van tour. We actually pick people up in a van and we have visited lots of agencies.” 

One key to making people more receptive to seeking those resources, she said, might be to have people who’ve experienced homelessness make some of the contacts. 

The Columbia Basin Herald has reported on a variety of groups and individuals that make contact with unsheltered individuals in Moses Lake and the surrounding area, including Nokey Pando. Community member David Hunt has also worked with those experiencing homelessness, and a variety of groups are available to help those in need. Anyone with information about homelessness resources that have not been covered is encouraged to send that information to [email protected] for possible coverage. 

Coutts said the city’s webpage will need cooperation from the resource providers to be most effective.  

“All these different organizations will be responsible for submitting their own information, and listers will go through it to make sure it’s not just (a business) wanting to be on it,” Coutts said.  

Jeremy Lopez, a financial advisor for the Office of the Insurance Commissioner of Washington, said cooperation will be key in any effort to address the problem. 

“We all have to come together to make it work, we can’t pinpoint the city versus a nonprofit organization to try to tackle it alone. Everybody has to come to help these individuals, or it’s just going to get worse,” Lopez said.  

Matt Paluch, president of the Moses Lake Community Coalition, said any solution will require more than government action.  

“One of the biggest problems with this is that nobody – no one entity – wants to organize everybody together. We’re all working in our own silos and doing our own thing. You can see nobody is really wanting to take the lead. So how do we get to that point?” Paluch said. “And I think the way to do that is, we’re going to have to have a group of citizens that say, ‘We will we responsible for this.’ Not make it the county’s job, not make it the city’s job, not make it a nonprofit’s job, but just say, ‘OK. We’re a group of citizens, we’re your constituents, everybody get in here and let’s actually do something.’”

Paluch said though he thought the sleep center was and is a valuable resource, it couldn’t address the issue of homelessness adequately. 

“We need a group of citizens to come together and take the lead on this. Otherwise, I don’t see how it’s going to happen, because nobody wants the political (challenges) this issue has, because there’s no solution to homelessness. But there are things that you can do,” he said.  

    Jeremy Lopez of the Office of the Insurance Commissioner of Washington talks about ways to alleviate some of the challenges surrounding homelessness during a Friday meeting.