Tacoma’s new safe parking site has served only 2 people — but one is already housed

The parking spots, all 20 of them, are ready. On black asphalt under the shadow of Holy Rosary’s iconic, towering steeple, they’re numbered and marked out in fresh white spray paint — waiting to be occupied.

On Monday, Catholic Community Services — with the help of roughly $1 million in funding — opened the first safe parking site for people experiencing homelessness paid for using City of Tacoma money. The big idea, long in the making, is to provide a temporary refuge for 20 vehicles and up to 40 people every night, utilizing a fenced lot behind one of Tacoma’s most well-known Catholic churches, which has gone largely unused since 2019, when the century-old building was deemed unfit for mass.

Standing in the empty lot, Catholic Community Services housing services director Alan Brown, who’s tasked with overseeing the city’s foray into sanctioned safe parking, said it had been slow going so far, which surprised him.

Given the undeniable need for safe parking sites in Tacoma — the city’s homelessness response plan calls for 100 spots across multiple locations — Brown figured admittance would be brisk once the lot opened.

Instead, as of Friday, just two vehicles — and two people — had been served by the safe parking site at 424 S. 30th St., Brown said.

“I was expecting that we would fill up quickly,” Brown told me, over the ambient noise of traffic speeding past on Interstate 5.

“I’m still expecting that. … There are a lot of people living in their cars. This has been a need for a long time,” he said.

First come, first served

That’s not to say the new safe parking site has been an early disappointment. Far from it.

Just ask Joe, a roughly 60-year-old Air Force vet who had been living in the cab of his pickup truck since 2021.

Joe, who asked The News Tribune not to use his real name to maintain his privacy, said he showed up at the Holy Rosary safe parking site on Tuesday, eager to take advantage of the site and the services it has to offer. A few weeks ago, he learned the safe parking lot would soon be opening, thanks to a random Google search. According to Brown, Joe was the first person to put his name on the waiting list.

Joe said he arrived at the site expecting to find a secure place to park his truck and a bathroom and kitchen he could use. Compared to the crude survival techniques he’d developed since becoming homeless — like using grocery store restrooms and existing on pre-made meals — it sounded like just what he needed while he continued his search for housing.

What Joe wasn’t expecting, he said, was to spend just one night at the safe parking lot before the on-site staff was able to help him get into a place of his own.

“I don’t know what to tell you. I was surprised, and I was glad to find it,” Joe said in a molasses Southern accent. “Living in your vehicle is boring, and it doesn’t do much for your self-esteem, either. Having to move from spot to spot, to keep people from running you off, it’s really humiliating. A lot of people are stuck in their vehicles, and it’s a shame, because it’s not something that you choose to do — let’s put it that way. ”

According to Brown, it’s success stories like these that provide the motivation for Catholic Community Services’ safe parking site.

In this case, CCS staff learned that Joe was a military veteran during the standard intake process, which made him eligible for rental assistance through the agency’s Supportive Services for Veteran Families program, Brown said.

Joe, who primarily lives on his Social Security income, said he already had a place to rent — he just needed the money to do it.

In the span of roughly hours, his visit to Tacoma’s new safe parking site changed everything.

“Being out of the vehicle is kind of new right now,” Joe told me.

“I’m overwhelmingly elated, for lack of better words.”

‘A big first step’

According to Caleb Carbone, Tacoma’s homeless strategy, systems and services manager, opening the safe parking site at Holy Rosary this week represents a “great start” — even if the lot has mostly been empty so far.

For one thing, the site is designed to largely rely on referrals from the city’s HEAL team — which includes law enforcement and homeless outreach staff — as well as referrals from other area homeless services providers. When local outreach workers encounter someone living in their vehicle they’re now able to direct them to the safe parking site, which is great, Carbone said, but getting the word out takes time.

Carbone also told The News Tribune that sanctioned safe parking is a new shelter model for the city — and one he anticipates will be replicated elsewhere — so working through the process of getting the Holy Rosary site up and running will help to improve similar endeavors in the future.

One benefit of the safe parking model, Carbone said, is that many of the people who utilize the service — like Joe — are “a lot closer to stable housing,” increasing the potential for “quicker exits” into stability.

“I think every shelter is different. We’re four days into it, and we knew going in that we would have a lot of learning to do,” Carbone told The News Tribune on Thursday. “It provides an example for other providers of what’s possible. … Just getting this ball rolling is a big first step.”

Brown, who has done homelessness-related work in the Tacoma area for nearly two decades, agrees.

In the future, he hopes the safe parking site at Holy Rosary will be able to expand the number of people it’s able to serve — including those living in RVs, which are currently barred from the lot.

While the first week at Tacoma’s new safe parking site might have been slower than expected, it’s only a matter of time before things pick up, he believes.

“It looks like the dam will burst Monday,” Brown said Friday, via e-mail.

“We started to get a bunch of referrals yesterday that are in the background check process now, and we anticipate those folks will come in.”