Councilmen's pitch to merge Longview's homeless efforts with county's is pure politics

Boudreau, Halvorson want to return control of city's homeless funds to county commissioners, who were hostile to city plans in the past

Two members of the Longview City Council’s new conservative majority are off on the wrong foot.

Councilman Spencer Boudreau and newly seated Councilman Erik Halvorson want the city to dissolve its housing program and renew its (formerly troubled) partnership with Cowlitz County.

This is pure politics, a thinly veiled power and money grab instigated by these council members’ opposition to the city’s creation of Hope Village. To put it even more bluntly, it is attempted sabotage.

The city has a multitude of challenges (some of them listed below) that need the council’s attention. It should not waste time undercutting a successful program that these council members incorrectly perceive as unpopular.

The public needs to give the council an earful about this when it convenes at 6 p.m. this Thursday in Longview City Hall.

A year ago, the City Council split from the county homeless program so it could  create the city’s own plan, with Boudreau casting the lone no vote. Having a plan is a prerequisite to get document recording fee revenue, which can only be used to address homelessness.

Splitting with the county meant the city took control of its share of recording fee revenues. Those totaled $167,000 last year, well short of projections for $300,000 due to a cool-down in the housing market.

The council's decision was driven by frustration with the county homeless task force’s inability to find a permanent homeless camp to replace the squalid, unsupervised Alabama Street camp.

The commissioners also refused to help fund Hope Village, the Salvation Army- supervised pallet home community that the city created in December 2022 to replace unsupervised Alabama Street encampment.

The 50-resident, controlled-access project has cleaned up blight, reduced crime and helped homeless people get drug and mental health counseling. To  date, it has helped 48 people find permanent housing. Its success has brought officials from Astoria, Camas and and other cities around the region to evaluate it as a model for their own homeless housing needs.

Longview now is developing its own five-year priority list of measures through a  task force to further address homelessness. It is headed by City Councilwoman Ruth Kendall and is due out soon.

Boudreau and Halvorson are asking the city to apologize over a matter the county mismanaged for years. Give me a break. 

In their proposed resolution, Boudreau and Halvorson state that the city’s decision to separate from the county was a mistake. 

The move “was not aligned with the best interests of the community,” and it asserts that the council “regrets the missed opportunities for collaboration and partnership with Cowlitz County, neighboring cities and engaged citizens in mitigating the impacts of homelessness.” 

Balderdash and poppycock. They’re asking the city to apologize over a matter the county mismanaged for years. Give me a break. 

The city split with the county because the county was failing, leaving the city to contend with public outcry over the wretched Alabama Street encampment that Hope Village replaced.

Boudreau is trying make the city’s homeless initiatives subject to the whim of his allies on the Cowlitz County Board of Commissioners, especially Commissioner Arne Mortensen. 

Mortensen, who is up for re-election this year, has shown total disregard for the unfortunate. He recently opposed Community House on Broadway’s request for $2 million to help build a homeless shelter for teenagers. Even Commissioner Rick Dahl, who usually sides with Mortensen, agreed with the request, which passed on a 2-1 vote.

So this is an attempt to handcuff the city and perhaps even undermine the future of Hope Village. In the current political environment, there’s no reason the city should cede its authority to design and finance homeless programs.

(The city paid a little more than  $1 million last year to  operate Hope Village. It was entirely financed by  a state Department of Commerce grant that the city hopes to renew this year. As of today, however, a 2024 funding source has not been determined, and revenue from document recording fees alone will not be adequate.)

Boudreau is a leader of a four-member bloc on the council, three of whom were elected last fall and who raised reservations about Hope Village during the campaign. He and Halvorson opposed the council’s decision in December — before Halvorson and the other newly elected council members were seated — to extend the Salvation Army contract to operate Hope Village for two years. They asked that the contract be extended for only six months to make time for exploring different models and alternatives to Salvation Army management.

Critics’ assertions that the November election gave them a mandate to scrutinize and second-guess Hope Village is hollow.

We’ve been here before. No other group  has come forward to run the project. These critics have never proposed any alternative, and my guess is that they just don’t want to spend public money to help the destitute.

Their objections seem rooted in the justifiable public anger over the unsupervised camp that Hope Village replaced. Hope Village has been a success a so far, and I believe it enjoys public support.

Critics’ assertions that the November election gave them a mandate to scrutinize and second-guess Hope Village is hollow. Only 38 percent of registered Longview voters cast ballots. Councilwoman Ruth Kendall, the council’s chief architect of Hope Village, handily won re-election. Halvorson won comfortably, but the other two skeptics elected  — Kalei LaFave and Keith Wright — prevailed with small or modest majorities. 

There is no mandate here — and there certainly is no alternative to Hope Village at this time or the foreseeable future.

The project certainly is not the only answer to the city’s homeless problem, which has many causes and will require a range of solutions. But it is working well and should be given further time to prove itself. And the city should keep control over its money and its own plans to address homelessness.

Dismantling or disrupting the city’s efforts is foolhardy when there are so many other problems to worry about. The council should bury Boudreau and Halvorson’s wrongheaded and politically driven effort.

City has lengthy, difficult list of tasks and troubles ahead

Here is a list of just a few of the major challenges the city of Longview faces, based on conversations with city officials and past reporting. They are not in any order of priority.

• Encouraging development of affordable housing to help ease homelessness

• Improving public safety and addressing the fentanyl crisis

• Stemming the skyrocketing costs of incarcerating misdemeanor drug offenders

• Addressing $16 million in deferred maintenance to city parks

• Solving persistent staffing shortages, especially for police, prosecutors and public defenders

• Developing plans to replace or refurbish public facilities, including city-owned downtown parking lots and water and sewer lines, some of which are a century old

• Finding means to cope with the rising costs for labor and liability insurance. The cost for liability coverage has doubled in two years.

• Adjusting budgets to cope with tax and revenue restrictions and the possibility of reduced state revenue sharing