HOMELESSNESS

WSCCOG SUBREGIONAL HOMELESSNESS STRATEGIC WORK PLAN

In April 2022, the WSCCOG Board adopted the WSCCOG Subregional Homelessness Strategic Work Plan, which builds from the Westside subregion’s local efforts and 2018 City Homelessness Plans to create a blueprint to address homelessness from a subregional perspective through high-impact solutions. The WSCCOG intends to use this plan as a guiding document to conduct a series of activities and convenings with members of the WSCCOG Homelessness Working Group to collaborate in achieving the goals and implementing the following actions as outlined below for this plan. This plan will be an evolving document that the WSCCOG staff and WSCCOG Homelessness Working Group can amend to reflect priorities that may change over time. The plan includes a set of strategic actions that identifies the lead agency and supporting agencies for each task. To access the work plan, click here.

The subregional goals identified in the plan include the following:

  • Prevention

    • Increase supports for renters to ensure they can stay in their homes and communities.

  • Behavioral Health

    • Expand sub-regional capacity to address the community’s behavioral health needs through increased collaboration and partnerships with the County, local hospital systems, philanthropy, and community partners.

    • Build robust behavioral health alternative crisis response systems including dispatch, first responder services, and crisis-receiving facilities in the region to appropriately connect people experiencing behavioral and mental health crises to the continuum of care and treatment services instead of the criminal justice system.

    • Expand first responder system capacity to support alternatives to law enforcement to address low-risk behavioral health crisis incidents.

  • Data

    • Improve data sharing across the subregion to better inform deployment of supportive services and development of housing resources.

  • High Road Career Pathways & Training

    • Leverage workforce development opportunities to:

      • Create high road career pathways for unhoused, formerly unhoused individuals, and homeless outreach service workers

      • Expand workforce and improve job quality and support homeless outreach service workers, and

      • Provide uniform and consistent training for frontline city staff who regularly interface with unhoused residents.

  • Housing

    • Remove barriers to and increase housing production through innovative development and financing strategies.

  • Communications and Advocacy:

    • Improve coordination and collaboration with public agencies (local, state, and federal) and local community partners to address homelessness.

    • Standardize a regional communication strategy to inform the progress and updates of outreach and other efforts to prevent and address homelessness.

    • Position WSCCOG to engage on behalf of member cities with county, state and federal electeds for district-specific funding and resources to improve homeless services and prevention.

    • Advocate for subregional support.

Updated August 4, 2022