Thursday, October 1, 2026
The Thurston County Regional Housing Council is developing its 2025-30 Homeless Housing Plan, which will guide countywide efforts to address homelessness over the next five years, with a focus on prevention, shelter and long-term housing solutions.
The plan is a comprehensive strategy required by the Washington State Department of Commerce as a condition of funding.
Tom Webster, Office of Housing and Homeless Prevention Manager, and Jackie Velasco, Thurston County Resource Hub Program Manager, presented the plan at a meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 27.
In her presentation, Velasco detailed five strategic objectives for the county’s Homeless Housing Plan:
The housing plan focuses on creating a transparent, accountable and equitable crisis response system. By developing a robust data dashboard and cross-system collaboration, the plan aims to provide clear, evidence-based insights into how the county addresses homelessness, with a specific focus on supporting underserved populations.
Recognizing the historically high turnover and burnout among direct service providers, the plan focuses on supporting and retaining professionals. Strategies include fostering collaborative learning, investing in professional development, ensuring equitable compensation and creating opportunities for equitable compensation. The plan aims to reduce burnout by improving cross-system collaboration, enhancing technical support, and providing clear resource navigation.
The plan aims to address housing instability and reduce the risk of homelessness by coordinating with adjacent sectors, such as employment and health care, enhancing system flexibility through policy reviews and strengthening early intervention practices. The plan focuses on building partnerships with landlords, including educational campaigns and mitigation resources to encourage more flexible rental criteria.
This objective focuses on prioritizing assistance for individuals facing the greatest barriers to housing stability and the highest risk of harm. The strategy involves creating an equity-informed prioritization framework, identifying high risk and underserved populations, and expanding pathways for immediate safety and stabilization. The plan aims to improve emergency shelter options, develop more urgent housing responses, and review existing vulnerability assessment tools to ensure they capture a broader range of experiences. By redesigning outreach practices, the county seeks to engage and support individuals who may not currently be accessing homeless services.
The strategy focuses on maintaining and expanding housing options with flexibility, maximizing resources and leveraging system coordination to increase housing access. The plan advocates for policy changes to support housing stability, including tenant rights, landlord protections and housing quality standards. Additional considerations include exploring safe parking options and addressing barriers that prevent long-term housing security.
“This is not meant to be just a check box plan,” said Velasco of the draft plan. “We want a document that can serve as a ‘North Star’ so that when we are faced with tough funding decisions, we already have community-wide shared priorities to help guide what to prioritize.”
Under those objectives, housing council staff developed strategies shaped by surveys, listening sessions and direct feedback from people with lived experience of homelessness, and targeted outreach sessions were held at tiny home villages and unsheltered encampments.
Given limited annual funding, Velasco outlined a strategic resource allocation approach for tough funding decisions: first, maintaining existing services, then improving coordination and data sharing, followed by expanding capacity as resources allow, and finally using capital funds to build new affordable units.
Several members of the housing council praised the inclusion of preventative measures.
“A lot of what we do is response, but I’m consistently nervous about people falling into homelessness, said Robert Vanderpool, Olympia council member, who sits on the housing council. “I appreciate the focus on prevention, especially as budgets tighten.”
The draft plan is set for a public hearing in late October, followed by a 30-day comment period. It is due to the Department of Commerce by the end of December, after formal approval by the Board of County Commissioners.
Housing council members also urged staff to provide annual updates not just to the Department fo Commerce, but directly to the city councils across the county. Webster said the team would commit to broader reporting.
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Southsoundguy
Maximum grift.
Tuesday, September 2, 2025 Report this
Quadlok
What is the grift? Who is getting rich on this in your mind?
Tuesday, September 2, 2025 Report this
CobraCommander
Hey SSG here's your grift:
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-family-billions-presidency-1235405843/
Imagine if Obama did this
Tuesday, September 2, 2025 Report this
Claire
The homeless situation will never be solved. Too many municipalities and their employees get paid.to solve homelessness. That's the grift.
Tuesday, September 2, 2025 Report this
ddttwo2
This is the crap you get when you live in a blue state deal with it!!
Tuesday, September 2, 2025 Report this
TomBoucher
Prevention dollars are well spent, I learned during my career, but also usually hard to pin to a particular benefit. Keep fighting for them though--it's common sense to address early causes rather than later, more costly effects.
Tuesday, September 2, 2025 Report this
OlyBlues
Looks like the county moved their spin machines to the Resource Hub for the summer.....
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
Southsoundguy
The homeless-industrial complex as described to me by a man who used to oversee king county homeless response. It’s the network of consultants and nonprofit ngos that soak up that money. Its purpose is to perpetuate itself. Anyone saying otherwise is ignorant or malicious. Billions have been spent on this issue and we are told it’s always getting worse.
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
JKRector
Getting “into the weeds” with specific preventive priorities beats complaining without homelessness, hands down… kudos for those who plan and take on the responsibility to do what needs to be addressed.
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
Southsoundguy
Except the people claiming to be doing something about it ARE THE PROBLEM.
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
Porter
There are approximately 1000 homeless in Thurston county. There is approximately $20,000,000 per year spent on homeless in Thurston county. Simple math right?
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
JW
More money, more waste. The endless black hole of NGOs and non-profits.
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
Boatyarddog
@Clair hey here is an Idea, less solve the Homeless Problem then we can LOSE Whatever Grift you all worry about.
But SSGUY will always bring something meaningless to the Table. That person is ONLY Trolling the conversation.
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
Boatyarddog
@ ddttwo2, I love living in a State where people care about solving poverty, and removing the evil fools that call it someone elses Problem. Its NOT only Blue states, Your POLARIZED.
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
Boatyarddog
@SSGUY it only gets worse if you do nothing, and don't help.
Your clearly a CAPITALIST OPPRESSOR! SSGUY, your concerns are ALL ABOUT YOU.
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
longtimeresident
What's holding up the Habitat for Humanity housing on Boulevard Rd.? Fix it NOW, whatever it takes. All this planning on paper and then nothing happens. It is disgusting.....
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
LindaD
If you want to see grift, look at the wealthiest people around the world. There are no easy answers. Throwing rocks is easy, but solves nothing.
The Housing Council people need a little realism. Some homeless are working people who simply cannot earn enough. Others are agents of chaos and will cause problems wherever they go. Seattle built lots of affordable housing, then the market caught up with housing only a little more expensive. Then the working people who prize peace and quiet moved out, leaving the chaos agents, which will turn these buildings into "public housing" nightmares.
Housing people like to talk about wrap-around services for the chaos agents, but that's very expensive, and, understandably, nobody wants to be anywhere near them.
I own one rental in Olympia that falls within the affordable range. The new city housing laws are impossible. I'll get out as soon as I can, which means some corporation will buy it and raise the rent. It would help if the Housing Council would treat housing providers like me as well as they treat the chaos agents causing the problems.
You can provide all the stable housing in the world, but if you put unstable people in your stable housing, it will fall into chaos. The Housing Council needs to face some realities if they hope to succeed.
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
Quadlok
Some of you are denser than osmium I swear. Conspiracy addled, self centered, ignorant, hateful people.
No, in fact, there is not some conspiracy by nonprofits to perpetuate homelessness. What there is are people like you that view too many of your fellow human beings as nothing but trash to be removed from your site in a way that doesn't cost you in a way you notice.
And above that is the root cause, which is a ruling class that views us as nothing more than numbers on a spreadsheet. If you don't make line go up or amuse them they would prefer you to die.
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
JohnGear
Spokane city council is trying to get state Ok to attack the housing shortage problem at the root rather than trying to just treat the result of the problem. Olympia should join them and push to be included. To a great extent, our tax system is our public DNA -- it shapes EVERYTHING. Our DNA punishes people for building improvements (like housing) while it rewards wealthy speculators who can sit and wait for property appreciation on their empty lots, while any rentals they do own are also enjoying higher rents by the shortage. We need a better civic DNA -- a tax code that encourages full development of urban land and that discourages land speculation and withholding.
https://www.khq.com/news/spokane-eyes-19th-century-tax-reform-to-fix-zombie-houses-and-empty-lots/article_6b6221ee-e99c-11ef-9e7e-17309bf1f39a.html
SPOKANE, Wash. — As housing costs continue to burden residents across Washington, Spokane is looking to lead the state on housing policy once more — this time with an out-of-the box tax reform to fight “zombie houses” and encourage landowners to build on their empty or under-utilized lots.
Known as a land value tax, the proposal falls in the same ballpark as a property tax, but instead of billing owners for the improvements they make to their property, it only looks at the assessed value of the land.
In December, city leaders approved a 2025 state legislative agenda that included a request to Washington lawmakers to allow them to pilot the wonky tax policy that advocates believe could nudge landowners sitting on the sidelines.
The goal is to encourage growth, lower bills for some taxpayers, stabilize tax burdens for everyone and disincentivize undesirable behavior such as speculating on land and allowing buildings to fall into disrepair.
“What we want to do is, and this is being used all over the world, is reward the temerity of people that want to have four walls and a roof, as opposed to those that have, say, a vacant lot or substandard building,” Pennsylvania-based economist Joshua Vincent said.
While more housing could come online were the pilot program successful, proponents anticipate it would drive developers to build more of other types of buildings as well. Advocates argue the current property tax model in places like Spokane punishes all property owners for making improvements that benefit everybody.
Advocates argue that lowering taxes on development and raising them on empty land will make building more profitable and protect the likelihood that a landowner would get a return on investment for building.
“If you want to have a good environment for people to build, to work or to live, the lighter touch the tax man has on the investment of a building, the labor and the work and the capital that go into a building, then you'll have cheaper buildings, better buildings, and it becomes more affordable,” Vincent said.
Vincent was invited to speak at a Spokane City Council study session in November to explain how and why such a tax reform could work. He’s an advocate for land value taxes, and his belief in their effectiveness comes from his experience in Pennsylvania.
While land value taxes aren’t common, they’re also not new. A variation of the idea was popularized by American economist Henry George in the 19th century. And some communities in Vincent’s home state of Pennsylvania have taxed land at a higher rate than buildings – or only taxed land – for decades. Vincent estimates about 20 jurisdictions in Pennsylvania have some form of land value tax.
Denser development and more stable tax bills in those communities have driven Vincent and others to be evangelists for the tax model. Soon, leaders in Spokane may join the movement.
“I think we're really ripe for testing this concept,” Councilmember Kitty Klitzke, who has been the policy’s chief advocate on the city council, said. . . . (rest at link)
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
Southsoundguy
Arrest the vagrants and send the druggies and crazies to an institute. Solved. You are welcome.
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
Southsoundguy
Quadlol, it’s not conspiracy, it’s human nature.
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 Report this
Boatyarddog
SS GUY! Diminutive Logic with a flair for Plain stinky stupidity. SHUT UP is YOUR best Strategy!
Saturday, September 6, 2025 Report this
Boatyarddog
Thank you for your unbridled opinions Q.Loc, C.Comander, and Others.
Wednesday, September 17, 2025 Report this