Dear Members of the 41st District Legislative Delegation,

As residents of Mercer Island, we urge you to revise the laws relating to homeless shelters and low-barrier permanent supportive housing (PSH) in residential neighborhoods and places where children gather. Permanent supportive housing facilities allow drug use, have no employment requirement, and house individuals with mental and behavioral issues, substance-abuse issues, and criminal histories.

Under the changes required by HB 2266, permanent supportive housing must be allowed in residential neighborhoods without a public hearing. Mercer Island must also remove its existing local code protection, MICC 19.06.080(B)(3)(c), which required a 600-foot buffer for homeless shelters near places where children gather.

We understand that people who are unhoused with addiction, mental-health issues, or behavioral issues need housing, treatment, and support. But residential neighborhoods near homes, schools, parks, playgrounds, or daycares are not the right places to meet those needs.

This affects other cities across the state, but it is especially damaging for Mercer Island. We are a small residential island without an appropriate place for these facilities that is not close to homes, schools, parks, trails, senior centers, or businesses. We also do not have the scale of police, fire, and medical services to handle the demands these facilities would bring. This would put an unsustainable burden on our limited local resources.

Safety is one of the main reasons families choose Mercer Island to raise their children and seniors choose Mercer Island to retire. We have a thriving Town Center with parks and local businesses, where children, seniors, and other vulnerable residents can walk, bike, enjoy parks, and move around the community with a level of safety that is increasingly rare. The proposed code changes resulting from HB 2266 would put that at risk.

We have seen what has happened in parts of Seattle, including the International District, where street disorder, open drug use, and public safety problems, including prostitution and violent crime, have changed entire neighborhoods for the worse. Walk around the International District, where many families, including ours, used to visit often for shopping and restaurants. We shouldn’t import those problems into Mercer Island or residential neighborhoods in other cities and pretend our communities will stay the same.

We’ve elected you to represent us, and we hope these are unanticipated, unintended effects of the new law. Nothing is perfect the first time out of the gate, so we ask you to fix this before these unintended consequences ripple to our community and other communities.

We ask that you revise the law to allow:

1. Collaboration through interlocal agreements to develop and site emergency housing and PSH
2. Cities to maintain reasonable buffers of 750 feet or less between emergency housing, PSH, and similar facilities and residential neighborhoods or places where children are known to congregate, including homes, parks, schools, licensed daycares, the JCC, the Boys & Girls Club, and similar places
3. Public hearings to be part of the process for siting and approving such projects
4. Exemptions for small communities under 30,000 people, similar to the population-based exemption included in SB 5184.

This is not about denying help to people in crisis. It is about finding a better way to work together to address homelessness, addiction, and mental-health needs without sacrificing the safety and stability of residential neighborhoods in all cities.

Please commit to leading the effort to amend HB 2266 to allow cities the option for collaboration, practical siting safeguards, and preservation of the public’s voice in changes related to low-barrier permanent supportive housing and homeless shelters.