POULSBO – Months after expanding its rehabilitation center and opening a residential community for those recovering from addiction, Poulsbo is in the early stages of developing another facility for people recovering from addiction in North Kitsap.
On Wednesday, the Poulsbo City Council approved a $20,000 grant from the Department of Commerce to study recommendations and funding strategies for developing a nighttime diversion center to be shared with Bainbridge Island. Plans also aim to build several small recovery homes throughout North Kitsap.
Kim Hendrickson, Poulsbo’s director of housing, health and human services, said the diversion center will provide a low-barrier-to-entry facility primarily aimed at the homeless population. It will provide access to housing for individuals who want to begin the recovery process and then relocate them to transitional housing.
The city administration sees the diversion center as the center of a “hub-and-spoke” system that will provide all-round services for addicts. The plan is modeled on the Snohomish County Diversion Center in Everett, which opened in 2018.
The diversion center plans to provide individuals in recovery with temporary housing and access to case management and other services for 30 days. After that, clients would be discharged from the diversion facility and moved into smaller recovery houses with other residents who have also completed initial detoxification.
These homes would function similarly to the city-operated Nelson House, a five-bed home in Nelson Park that opened this year that serves men who have been sober for 30 to 90 days and have completed detoxification or residential treatment. The home offers its residents access to programs, recovery groups and job training.
Hendrickson said the second step, or “spokes” part of this model, is crucial. Having stable housing after a period of detoxification makes it more likely for people with severe addictions to get sober, she said. Without it, clients could end up back on the streets.
“It’s not going to work if there aren’t places to help people when they really need it,” she said. “It’s really important that people have a place to go.”
While construction of those facilities is still at least a few years away — initial plans are expected to be presented to each city council in early 2025 — the approval of the small grant formalizes the work of the ad hoc intragovernmental STEP (Shelter, Transitional, Emergency, and Permanent Supporting) Housing Group. The partnership, which includes officials from Poulsbo, Bainbridge Island, the county and nonprofit groups, has met a few times over the past year to discuss reconstruction housing.
Poulsbo Mayor Becky Erickson convened the group’s first meeting in September 2023. There was consensus among those in attendance that there is a great need in Central and North Kitsap for an overnight facility that connects homeless people with rehabilitation services. They also recognized the need for assisted living for people with substance use disorders.
“Partnerships are how we solve particularly big, difficult problems,” Erickson told the Bainbridge City Council. “The need for a mental illness and addiction diversion program is a big, difficult problem in North Kitsap.”
The Bainbridge City Council officially agreed in June to partner with Poulsbo on the project.
In a phone interview this week, Bainbridge Mayor Joe Deets said they want to continue to help people who suffer from substance abuse and have no one else. North Kitsap is underserved, he said, and there is a feeling the city needs to do something for itself and the broader community.
“These are our people,” he said. “These are people from North Kitsap County. We can’t say it all ends in Bainbridge.”
The effort to build a rehabilitation center is the latest effort by the small town of Poulsbo to combat substance abuse and provide public housing in North Kitsap.
Hendrickson said the city opened two STEP housing facilities last year. They include the Nelson House and the Nordic Cottages, an 8-unit housing complex for low-income seniors. The city also later opened and expanded the North Kitsap Recovery Resource Center, an outpatient treatment facility for Poulsbo and Bainbridge residents.
“This council has taken very drastic action in support of STEP Housing over the last few months,” Hendrickson said. “But the commitment obviously goes beyond these two projects.”
Conor Wilson is a Murrow News Fellow reporting for the Kitsap Sun and Gig Harbor Now, a nonprofit newsroom based in Gig Harbor, as part of a program administered by Washington State University.
