In Silverdale, a county team continues to address encampments in compassionate way

SILVERDALE -- If you look closely into the woods off of Highway 303 on "Hospital Hill," just east of St. Michael Medical Center in Silverdale, you might catch a glimpse of a tent or tarp canopy. Jarrod Moran looks closely, nearly every day.

“This is my big one,” said Moran, coordinator of the Kitsap County HEART team, or Homeless Encampment Action Response and Transitions.

The encampment size fluctuates, but about 11 to 15 people live there, in a small stand of trees that looks down at the southbound lane of the highway. Since the encampment began in February, Moran has visited nearly every day, as the HEART team works to find housing for each person.

The HEART program came together in March 2022 in order to address encampments on Kitsap County owned public property, the most high-profile of which may have been a major situation in Port Orchard's Veterans Park, which was cleared in April 2022 after multiple demands by the city that the county intervene. Over about a year and a half of existence since, the HEART team has been working diligently to help people get out of encampments around Kitsap and into better living situations.

"You don't see what we're doing," said Moran. "We're busy."

The HEART team operates everywhere in Kitsap other than the municipalities with their own law enforcement, which means Moran doesn't address city issues like the MLK Way encampment.

"It stinks because I don't go to Bremerton," said Moran. According to the county's point-in-time data from a survey conducted each winter, 58% of homeless people live in Bremerton.

The HEART team consists of representatives from the county's parks, stormwater and solid waste divisions, and the Kitsap County commissioners' office, as well as the new Homeless and Housing manager, Carl Borg, who replaced longtime manager Kirsten Jewell this summer. Moran wants to collaborate with as many other government organizations and non-profits as possible.

The actual team on the ground is smaller, consisting of Moran, Deputy David Wolner with the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office, and a representative from Kitsap Community Resources, who works with the Housing Solutions Center.

Right before she left the county to work as the Housing Policy Manager for Washington state, Jewell said, “We wanted to create a different approach than we often hear about in other jurisdictions, where 'sweeps' of encampments are common and do not offer people any alternative housing options.”

Even apart from legal considerations which have made West Coast cities hesitant to sweep encampments, Moran wants to work from a place of compassion by offering everyone living in the camp a bed. He recognizes that traditional encampment sweeps hurt outreach efforts.

“They’ll do a sweep, and you’ll lose a participant for six months,” Moran said.

If the HEART team’s founding mission was to address encampments, then it appears Moran has been successful. He said that there used to be seven or eight along Clear Creek Trail, from Old Mill Park on Bucklin Hill Road to the wetland areas near Trigger Road. Now, there’s only one.

But Moran, who said he now personally knows most of the homeless people in Kitsap County, is aware of other smaller encampments, whether those are made up of RVs or tents on state property near highways.

“You probably can’t go a couple miles without passing one,” Moran said, adding that he checks up on Veterans Memorial Park in Port Orchard regularly, to make sure that another large encampment doesn’t return there. If the encampment is only a couple people, “we can usually move it along faster,” said Moran.

Without any dedicated shelter beds for the HEART team to send people to, Moran can't clear encampments as easily. “[It’s] really hard to do when you don’t have infrastructure to fix the problem,” said Moran.

Without beds, Moran said he must "manage [the encampment] until we can get them out one at a time.” Managing means keeping the encampment clean and the people stable, while building trust and hinting at resources like Kitsap Recovery Center that people must voluntarily enter.

Moran knows the importance and challenge of building trust with people who had been homeless for many years. If you have been homeless for seven years and been burned by people offering help, said Moran, “Why would you engage?”

One man asked Moran for a cup of coffee, so he had brought him a cup earlier this week on the day a reporter visited the site with him, and planned to do the same every day.

“I have to go in, build that, build that level of trust… Let them know that they will see me every day,” said Moran. “If it comes out of your mouth you have to follow through.”

The HEART team also deals with more than simply finding housing. Moran estimated that up to 99% of people living outside are dealing with addiction. Dalles, currently living at the camp, initially put the number at 90%, then revised it: “Probably more than that, honestly.” Dalles said he has been taking opiates since he was 12 or 13.

Close to a year ago, Dalles moved to Silverdale. He had lived in Belfair, but he said there were more opportunities in Kitsap, like panhandling in this area. He walked into the camp with a bow and arrow.

“I just mess around with it. Shoot it at targets I made,” said Dalles. On a stump near the center of the encampment, there was a target pocked with holes. A small, tan dog named Callie followed him around.

“They help out a lot,” said Dalles, referring to the HEART team. Moran said the same about him: Dalles keeps the camp tidy.

Moran’s first, biggest, and most public challenge was the Veterans Memorial Park encampment, which the HEART team cleared the same month that it launched. At the time, some homelessness advocates expressed concern that the sweep was premature.

Moran said that 39 of the 41 people removed from the park in April 2022 received either shelter, family support, or case management services, which paid for motel rooms. Sixteen people who started in a motel worked with case management to eventually sign leases.

In all of 2022, the HEART team referred 46 people to the Quality Inn in Bremerton, where people are placed both through Kitsap Rescue Mission and Kitsap Community Resources. They also enrolled 17 people in an emergency motel program. HEART outreach filled out 155 Housing Solutions Center applications, of which about a third managed to get off the waitlist and into housing. As of a couple of months ago, nearly 200 people were on the waitlist. Moran said that it has only gone up since then.

A few weeks after the Sun first visited the encampment, one person told Moran that they were ready for treatment, and he had just learned that a bed had become available with the Kitsap Rescue Mission. Out of all the remaining Housing Solutions Center applications, Dalles had the highest vulnerability score, so he could have the bed if he wanted it. Moran was excited to tell him.

Moran admits there have been hard days. But after nearly 18 months, he has learned a lot.

“I can honestly say it’s like the most rewarding year,” said Moran. “We’re clicking now.”

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Kitsap HEART team closing homeless encampments, finding solutions