Oak Harbor Mayor Ronnie Wright assembled a task force this week to create a plan for the increasing number of homeless people in the city.

The creation of the task force follows public complaints about homelessness in Oak Harbor and a large turnout to a town hall meeting with SPiN Café, a nonprofit day center for homeless and low-income residents.

During the first meeting Wednesday, task force members focused on identifying community needs and setting a timeline to address the issues.

Within six months, Wright plans on securing funding for a feasibility study, perhaps through the community safety grant Police Chief Tony Slowik recently applied for. Within a year, the goal is to have the feasibility study complete and to have plans to build a “one-stop shop” facility that will house a range of services for homeless people.

Wright said the goal is to have the facility built within three years.

Soon, other community assets will burgeon as well, if plans go as hoped.

Chelsea McGuire, executive director of Welcome Home Oak Harbor Senior Memory Care, said she was recently approved for a nonprofit substance abuse treatment center. The next step is meeting with the city and finding a location.

Island County is developing a therapeutic court, a specialized court that allows for closely monitored programs to guide participants to recovery.

Bill Larsen, deputy director of Human Services in Island County, said up to 80 new units of subsidized housing will open by early next year.

In addition, a proposed new county code may include services that will help homeless people.

The task force was comprised of ten council members, county staff, city staff and a pastor.

Councilmember Barbara Armes said the island needs a comprehensive list of resources that doesn’t currently exist.

“(Homeless people) have to feel like they belong,” she said. “We can’t keep shuffling.”

McGuire suggested an on-island helpline so people in crisis have access to immediate responders.

“The opposite of addiction is connection,” she said. “The opposite of homelessness is helping people feel connected to their resources.”

The bulk of the complaints about the homeless problem is the location of SPiN Café, said Councilmember Bryan Stucky.

More than complaints have risen in the past year. According to Slowik, crime has, too.

After SPiN Café moved to Barlow Street in 2023, police have responded to 1,237 calls within a 600-foot radius of SPiN, 52% more than the average of the five previous years. Most of these calls are trespass complaints, warrant arrests and shoplifting.

This has resulted in an overall monthly call increase for the department, Slowik said.

Michele Hines, executive director of SPiN Cafe, said the location of the facility near Island Transit and close to a laundromat and grocery stores is important for the people who are served.

Stucky doesn’t agree with the “not in my backyard” perspective, he said, but perhaps there is a compromise.

A positive aspect of SPiN’s central location is that it has brought the issue to the forefront of the community’s attention, McGuire said.

“I’m actually really grateful that there is the visibility going on,” she said, “because I think that’s what pulls the community together.”

Councilmember Christopher Wiegenstein, who said this issue is the reason he ran for city council, suggested that current homeless programming could be moved from SPiN and that the current building could be used for a different level of care.

Regardless of the location, SPiN Café provides services needed in the community, Slowik said. It helps fill a void that municipalities cannot.

Hines said SPiN needs to include laundry and showers. She wants to buy the building that the nonprofit rents with federal or state money and install those items. Currently, SPiN patrons use the public pool shower, and both SPiN and pool patrons dislike that. Dutch Maid, where SPiN patrons do laundry, urges for other solutions, Hines said.

Hines would like increased counseling programs and staffing, she said.

“That drug component is vicious,” she said. “It’s enormous, and it’s vicious, because the drugs are so cheap. We have a zero-tolerance policy.”

There is extremely limited intensive outpatient programs on the island, she said.

Daily, Hines refers patrons to Island County. The county supplies mental health counseling, Larsen said, but in an ideal world it would not have to. The funding, programs and requirements are complicated.

“It’s a spiderweb that would cause you to run out the other side,” he said.

Island County Human Services transports people into intensive outpatient programs or a detox center off island if they don’t meet the requirements of the Ituha Stabilization Facility in Oak Harbor.

The county offers a recovery navigator program for people with substance abuse, mental health problems or criminal involvement, as well as an opioid outreach program.

“My goal is to find a way to yes,” Larsen said. “We’re going to find a way to get them into one of the programs that we have.”

Ideally, the county could put someone through a detox program, an in-patient program and then an out-patient program, he said. Currently, patients go into detox, they are held over until they can get into in-patient treatment and there is no out-patient treatment.

“We’re doing everything that we can ad hoc, but there is too many gaps in the system especially in the services available here on island,” he said. “We’re working the problem, but the problem’s getting bigger. The numbers are getting bigger.”

More services will attract more homeless people, Stucky said.

The solution to attracting higher numbers is to limit the beds available after a feasibility study assesses the island’s needs, Wiegenstein said.

One thing that is clear is that homelessness is more than what’s immediately visible on the street corner, Larsen said.

“People think they know what homelessness looks like,” he said. “What they don’t see is the families who come in who were struggling and on the edge and then they got an RV, and the RV broke down, and now they are in with their two kids, and they are out of options, and they are doing everything they can not to be there.”

The “Pathways to Stability” task force will meet again in March after receiving more information about a potential feasibility study from state Rep. Dave Paul, Wright said.