On Wednesday, state lawmakers representing the 19th and 20th legislative districts and other local leaders made up a panel of inquisitors at Cascade Community Healthcare, a mental health service provider in Centralia, during an annual forum ahead of the Jan. 9, 2023 legislative session.
For about two hours, Lewis County care providers presented their work and expressed desired focuses for their elected and appointed officials on the panel of: 19th district Rep. Jim Walsh, and Sen. Jeff Wilson, 20th district Reps. Peter Abbarno, Ed Orcutt and Sen. John Braun, Lewis County Commissioner Sean Swope and Sheriff Rob Snaza, and Centralia Police Chief Stacy Denham.
The event shed light on services for mental illness, substance abuse disorders, housing and preventative care as necessary focuses for Lewis County, especially as measures to combat homelessness.
From the Housing Resource Center of Lewis County, Ruth Gutierrez’s presentation elaborated on services for homelessness. Her presentation offered insight on work that has been especially under scrutiny by Swope and his seatmates on the Board of County Commissioners over the last several months.
The organization is connected with individuals through a coordinated entry program, she said, adding “It’s not like it used to be when I started doing it. You know, somebody knocks on your door and says, ‘I need shelter,’ they can come in. Doesn’t work like that anymore. They have to go through a system of care.”
After being run by Centralia’s Gather Church for nearly two years, coordinated entry in Lewis County was adopted in November by the Salvation Army. In its new form, Gutierrez estimated there are eight households in coordinated entry, which includes families, adults and children. Several of those the nonprofit is working with, she said, are in high school.
While she’d love to help anyone who knocks on the door, she said, government funds come with strings on expenditures. However, Gutierrez said for those it does serve, the Housing Resource Center provides “wraparound care.”
She told the panel homeless individuals don’t raise their hand and say “when I grow up I want to be homeless,” but end up in the situation after tough circumstances. When she first got involved with the work, Gutierrez said, economic impacts were the most likely cause of homelessness. Now, it might be completely different — there is no “cookie cutter” explanation, and each individual requires a personalized game plan, she said.
After Abbarno asked whether success rates vary for homeless individuals based on them being local or not, Gutierrez said, “This is the odd question that everybody asks: ‘Well, did they come from here?’”
She added typically, the reason an already-homeless individual comes to Lewis County is because of some connection, be it a family member, friend or that it was previously their home.
Lewis County Public Health & Social Services Director Meja Handlen added she does think locals have a better chance of benefiting from community services as they might connect with a supportive group of loved ones. She said it helps to ask people experiencing homeless what brought them to the area and that service providers benefit from understanding an individual’s background.
Though, both Handlen and Gutierrez added, the definition of being “from here” is largely arbitrary — as providers, they are tasked with helping people of all backgrounds.
After spending time working in Thurston County, Gutierrez said she feels the Lewis County community is uniquely “centered” which might be an attractive feature to newcomers, but told Abbarno she didn’t have an answer.
Youth Action Council
As a partner to every law enforcement agency in Lewis County, Samantha Mitchell, forensic interviewer with the Youth Action Council described her agency’s work in local cases of child abuse, trafficking, exploitation, neglect and any other kind of maltreatment.
“We do not duplicate any other service in Lewis County,” Mitchell said.
This year, the agency has worked with 157 children in the county, she said, the highest number in its history. On the positive side, she shared her group has hired a new staff member to take on many of the heavy responsibilities of its work. Recently, Mitchell also worked with the Lewis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office to establish a child sex trafficking investigative task force, which she said will help local agencies better respond to community cases.
Mitchell added in her opinion, preventative care to combat homelessness starts in childhood.
“Every year, we should be asking every single person that we have homeless in our community what happened to them in their childhoods. And, what could we have done differently to make it so that they aren’t where they’re at now? Because I really think a lot of it starts there,” Mitchell said.
Other providers who spoke at the forum included Mindy Greenwood and Angela Bennett, with Cascade, Heidi Palmer, veterans coordinator with Lewis County, Christian Bruhn, director of United Way of Lewis County, Sherri Palmer, with the National Alliance of Mental Illness, Trinidad Medina, of Great Rivers Behavioral Health, Darin Goss, from Providence Centralia Hospital, and JP Anderson, CEO of CHOICE Regional Health Network in Olympia.
Wednesday’s program in its entirety can be found on the health care group’s Facebook page at @cascadecommunityhealthcare.
