The Department of Commerce plan outlines securing new funding to improve response coordination and provide new housing units and emergency beds.
by Mai Hoang
More than 200,000 Washington residents – a record number – experienced homelessness or housing instability during July 2023, according to a new report from the state Department of Commerce, which outlines statewide goals for addressing this issue over the next five years.
That’s an increase of 10% from July five years earlier. And the report notes that higher growth in homelessness was found in more rural communities. Yakima, Whatcom and Stevens counties reported increases of 17%, 13% and 14%, respectively.
The State of Washington Homeless Housing Strategic Plan lays out a five-year plan for addressing the state’s housing affordability crisis as one way to address the record number of Washington residents who are unhoused or housing-unstable, and also spells out a strategy to provide more emergency housing across the state.
The plan outlines strategies and goals through 2029.
The state Legislature requires Commerce to develop this report every five years and to provide annual reports on the state’s progress toward meeting those goals. The plan was designed after engaging with various organizations and individuals, including local governments, nonprofits, faith groups and those who have experienced homelessness or housing instability.
The plan is created with five objectives:
- Promote an equitable, accountable and transparent homeless crisis response.
- Strengthen the homeless service provider workforce.
- Prevent episodes of homelessness whenever possible.
- Prioritize those with the most significant barriers to housing stability and the greatest risk of harm.
- Seek to house everyone in a stable setting that meets their needs.
The plan also acknowledges that homelessness disproportionally affects those from historically marginalized communities, including Black and Native American households, those in the LGBTQ+ community and youth and young adults.
The plan measures success by examining exits from various interventions, from visits to drop-in emergency centers to permanent supportive housing.
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Commerce plans to work now with counties statewide to help them develop local five-year plans for 2025 to 2030 that align with the goals and objectives outlined in the state plan.
Here are the plan’s key strategies:
Pursue state and federal money to fund new housing units and emergency beds.
Commerce officials state that pursuing affordable housing is crucial to addressing the state’s growing unhoused and unstable-housing population. That effort includes securing sufficient state and federal funding to subsidize the construction of the 1.1 million new permanent-housing units the state anticipates will be needed over the next two decades, including the 200,000 units it believes will be necessary in the next four years.
Commerce also wants to pursue funding to add 90,000 non-congregate emergency housing beds over the same period to offer to those currently living outside. About 18,000 units will be needed in just the next four years alone.
Provide support to attract, train and retain the state’s homeless-services workforce.
The report acknowledges the high turnover among workers who provide homeless services. The plan outlines several measures in response, including developing an inflation-adjusted funding source dedicated to cost-of-living increases for staff; and providing funding, training and technical assistance to build capacity and reduce the administrative burden for service providers, including those in rural communities. Another goal is to promote career paths for those with lived experience of homelessness and housing instability to lead efforts to prevent and end homelessness.
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Expand coordination and connection between service-provider systems.
Commerce notes that homelessness often touches several different provider systems, including behavioral and public health, jail and prison systems and foster care. Better coordination among those systems will be needed to ensure that unhoused or housing-unstable residents get the necessary help, including public benefits. Commerce said sharing power across systems helps improve efficiency. Key goals include monitoring and improving housing pathways for people in institutions such as prisons.
Commerce also aims to coordinate efforts among homeless crisis-response systems, civil legal-assistance organizations and dispute-resolution services to resolve tenant/landlord conflicts and prevent people from losing housing.
