by Cameron Sheppard, Washington State Standard
June 3, 2025
This article was first published by the Tacoma News Tribune.
One of Tacoma’s largest homeless shelters plans to expand to more than double the number of beds it has available.
The $20 million project is expected to be completed by summer 2026.
Tacoma Rescue Mission is the largest homeless shelter operator in Pierce County. The organization’s largest shelter is in Tacoma at 425 South Tacoma Way.
Duke Paulson, executive director of Tacoma Rescue Mission, told The News Tribune the organization is planning to expand the men’s shelter from roughly 90 beds to a capacity of 205.
The roughly 24,000-square-foot, multi-floor project will be built adjacent to the current men’s shelter.
Paulson said the beds in the expansion are designed to give a more “dignified” stay than other traditional congregate shelters in which beds are laid across a large open space. He said these bunks are inspired by the Tacoma Rescue Mission’s women’s shelter, which was updated during the pandemic to give people more privacy and space.
The bunks include a personal storage area, outlets for charging phones and built to not be in direct line of sight of each other.
“That way no one is coughing on you,” Paulson said.
On May 20, Paulson gave a presentation on the new shelter expansion to the Pierce County Council’s Health and Human Services Committee.
Paulson said the shelter was built around 2000 and had 75 beds primarily for single women experiencing homelessness.
“At that point, it was built with the idea that if we could house 60 people, we would be solving homelessness in Tacoma,” he told the committee.
Now, the shelter regularly serves 120 people a night. During the pandemic and inclement weather conditions, Paulson said, the shelter served upwards of 220 people a night.
“The need is so much greater,” he said.
The planned expansion will more than double its current bed capacity, as well as its addiction-recovery program capacity. It also will add more toilets, showers and sinks for residents.
Paulson said the project also will install a roof over the campus courtyard to offer year-round dining space and a venue for health clinics, career fairs and other events in nearly 4,000 square feet of space.
“The challenge for us is that we are going to keep the shelter open while this project is going on,” he told The News Tribune.
The expansion has been in the works for nearly a year, with previous estimates for project completion by the end of 2025. Paulson recently told The News Tribune that summer 2026 is a more accurate estimate.
On May 28, he said Tacoma Rescue Mission selected a contractor the previous week. Meetings with the city’s planning department now need to be scheduled.
The $20 million project has been funded by contributions from every level of government. Paulson described the funding process as “complicated,” taking nearly eight months for lawyers to determine the terms and requirements of the funding.
Tacoma Rescue Mission’s grant writer Emily Koo reported securing $5.5 million from Pierce County for the project, $5 million from the Washington Department of Commerce, $4 million in federal funding, $3.5 million from the City of Tacoma, as well as funding from private donors.
The project is going to be constructed at a time when Tacoma is anticipated to lose more than 300 of its homeless shelter beds in June due to a funding shortfall. City officials have maintained optimism they will be able to get state funding made available in the budget to support local homeless programs, but the timeline and process for getting the funding remain unclear.
Paulson told The News Tribune he is worried about how the loss of shelter beds will impact the community if those individuals are displaced.
This article was first published by the Tacoma News Tribune through the Murrow News Fellow program, managed by Washington State University.
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