SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — Spokane Valley City Council will get an update on the Spokane region's new homeless housing plan for the next five years at its meeting Tuesday. The current plan is set to expire at the end of this year.
The Spokane region's current homeless housing plan was created in partnership with Spokane County and the city of Spokane. Before the new plan can be adopted by the Continuum of Care board, which is the decision-making body for the region, regional partners are collecting community input on the drafted version.
A five-year homeless housing plan is required for the Spokane region to receive state and federal funding related to homelessness. The draft of the new plan before Spokane Valley City Council Tuesday night outlines the new objectives the region needs to meet.
They include:
- Promote and equitable, accountable, and transparent homeless crisis response system
- Prioritize those with the greatest barrier to housing stability and the greatest risk of harm
- Prevent episodes of homelessness whenever possible
- Seek to house everyone in a stable setting that meets their needs
- Strengthen the homeless provider workforce
The plan includes several actions to meet the identified objectives. Such as developing and maintaining a "By-Name List" (BNL) as part of the objective to promote a homeless crisis response system. This is a real-time list of all people in each subpopulation experiencing homelessness such as youth, chronic singles and veterans. The plan says this is a known best practice because the robust data helps coordinate access and service prioritization.
The proposed plan would also create a system-wide "move on strategy." According to the proposed plan, this strategy would help identify when a client is ready to move on from permanent supportive housing (PSH) with intensive services and into a more independent environment. The plan says this would free up a supportive housing bed for another vulnerable individual.
As for strengthening the homeless services workforce objective, the plan includes strategies that would improve retention of homeless provider workers, improve provider safety and decrease the time their positions stay vacant.
The plan isn't finalized yet and the Continuum of Care board is seeking input through a community survey.
"This is an opportunity for those who live in the region in Spokane Valley, the city of Spokane, throughout the county to help advise how [the] region addresses homelessness," Jill Smith, Spokane Valley city spokesperson said.
The survey will be up until December 1. Then, the Continuum of Care board will update the new five-year plan and submit it for federal funding by the end of the year. It still has until December 2025 to submit the plan to the state's Department of Commerce.