Get ready, Tacoma! Join us for our second Annual Rock with a Reason Benefit Concert, an unforgettable evening benefiting the Tacoma Rescue Mission. Every ticket purchased helps provide hope, shelter, and critical services to individuals and families in our community. Come ready to have fun, make memories, and rock with a reason! WHEN: Thursday, October 15, 2026WHERE: Spanish Ballroom,…
Category: Homelessness
Oct 15 Pierce County invites public input on Five-Year Homeless Plan
Pierce County Human Services will host a virtual Community Feedback Session on Wednesday, Oct. 15, from 5 – 8 p.m., to gather resident input on the Draft Comprehensive Plan to End Homelessness Update. This session is the last of three public meetings held this year to inform the plan, which serves as Pierce County’s required State Five-Year…
Hungry, homeless children
Are you one of those truly kind people who sees the television advertisements for hungry, homeless children starving in Africa or India or poor sorrowful pets that need forever homes and writes a check? So good of you to do so, really. If I tell you there are starving, homeless children, over 200 of them,…
May 23 court reconsideration hearing for Spanaway Concerned Citizens
UPDATE: The Court stood by its decision, 5/23/2025, 9:34 a.m. Testifying were Atty David Bricklin for Spanaway Concerned Citizens, Atty Margaret Archer for TRM, and Dave Owen for Pierce County. The Honorable Thurston County Superior Court Judge Carol Murphy has asked for responses from Tacoma Rescue Mission and Pierce County to our motion for reconsideration,…
Effective homeless family program to expand
By Marianne Lincoln Over a month ago, the board of Family Promise of Pierce County voted to add a dba (doing business as) name to its license. The name Family Promise of Puget Sound was added due to interest from Kitsap, Thurston and King Counties, in the project started in Spanaway. With all the noise…
Is the Good Neighbor Village being a good neighbor?
SPANAWAWY CONCERNED CITIZENS — We still have a real chance to stop the “Good Neighbor Village” project—and we are not giving up! Spanaway Concerned Citizens has filed a motion in Thurston County Superior Court, asking the Honorable Judge Carol Murphy to reconsider her recent dismissal of our Land Use Petition Act (“LUPA”) challenge. This motion…
May 9 Gala for Family Promise
On May 9, Family Promise of Pierce County will be holding a Gala Dinner and Auction Fundraiser at the Parkland School Gymnasium. The event will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. at 214 121st Street South, Parkland, WA 98444. General admission is $75 per person, VIP tickets will be $125 per person. You…
Help! It’s COLD out there!
Two operations in the Parkland Spanaway area have been reaching out for assistance as they try to help others who are without housing in this cold Winter weather. Family Promise of Pierce County, located in the Parkland Community Center at 121st and Pacific Avenue was called up to be the warming center for Pierce County….
Warming Centers are open – Parkland Community Center
Pierce Transit partnered with the Pierce County Department of Emergency Management to provide free rides to warming centers through Jan. 22. The free rides are in effect starting Jan. 19, according to Pierce Transit. There will be a free bus, Runner and SHUTTLE paratransit (for registered SHUTTLE customers) rides to local centers and shelters. “The…
Is the “Good Neighbor Village” being a good neighbor?
By Spanaway Concerned Citizens As concerned citizens, we rely on our elected officials to make decisions regarding topics that significantly impact the well-being of our communities — addressing critical issues such as providing housing for our chemically dependent, chronically homeless individuals is undoubtedly important. However, does this effort justify compromising regional environmental integrity and public…
Jan 22 Spanaway Court Appeal to be heard
[Updated with corrections.] At 9 a.m. on January 22, 2025, the Spanaway Concerned Citizens administrative appeal to the Pierce County Hearing Examiner decision regarding the permitting of the Good Neighbor Village will be heard at the Pierce County Annex. The event will be available on Zoom if the public wants to watch. The meeting room…
Prickly Pete is homeless
It’s a bit ironic and terribly sad if you love wildlife. All the neighbors tried to explain to the Hearings Examiner what the Tacoma Rescue Mission and the former County Executive just refused to get through their heads. The Spanaway Marsh property already had numerous residents. Residents that could not attend the hearings or testify…
Unhoused people are like everyone else, until…
By Marianne Lincoln Becoming unhoused is a very difficult thing to experience. It happens to many very ordinary people. It could be a medical situation, a job loss, sale of a rental property, death of a spouse whose pension or income helped support the household, or many other traumatic life events. Many people have close…
Groundbreaking for Good Neighbor Village draws supporters and protestors
By Marianne Lincoln Good Neighbor Village, the village of tiny homes that the Tacoma Rescue Mission and the Pierce County Executive’s office are trying to build in Spanaway, had a groundbreaking today, November 21, 2024. The event was an invitation only event at the farm site near the intersection of 176th and Spanaway Loop Road….
Helping the homeless a better way
Family Promise of Pierce County is part of a nationwide organization that is helping families get re-housed after a catastrophic event leaving them without a home to live in. Last year the group in Pierce County was organized, garnered grant monies, hired a CEO, hired and trained case management staff. They officially opened in January,…
Emergency Shelter in Spanaway – Dedication May 8
Family Promise of Pierce County would like to invite you to the dedication of its Day Center and Emergency Center. May 8, 2024, 2 p.m. at 216b165th St. S, Spanaway, WA 98387. Please RSVP to Denee Kubena, DeneeKubena@familypromisepiercecounty.org. Family Promise of Pierce County began with the presentation of an idea by Pastor Samara Jenkins of…
Stop the Village meeting March 2
By Spanaway Concerned Citizens We need YOUR help to stop the tiny home Village from being built at the end of 176th & Spanaway Loop Rd on our wetlands. Are you aware that this proposed village now includes a roundabout on Spanaway Loop? Yep. Bring your questions, bring your friends & neighbors and help us…
Homeless? Spanaway has a different plan
By Marianne Lincoln Early next year will be a lot faster than 4 years from now*. That is the plan of the newly formed affiliate startup, Family Promise of Pierce County. Pastor Samara Jenkins, of Spanaway United Methodist Church, already involved in the Safe Parking program, was out visiting group after group, pitching this idea….
The Role of Public Comment in County Hearings Is Deliberately Being Violated
OPINION: By Claudia Finseth At their public meeting on November 15th, the Parkland-Spanaway-Midland Land Use Advisory Commission voted unanimously to recommend to the Hearing Examiner to deny the placement of the county executive’s priority project tiny home village on the Spanaway Wetlands. They ultimately felt, as the greater community feels, that high density development on…
Spanaway came out in force to say, No!
Tonight was a who’s who of Parkland Spanaway and Midland. The land use hearing for a conditional use permit for the Pierce County Village, being pushed by the County Executive’s office and the Tacoma Rescue Mission, attracted a room full of people and a speaker sign up list longer than they had time at the…