Drafter
Clerk 08/12/2015
Title
AN ORDINANCE adopting the Committee to End Homelessness in King County Strategic Plan and endorsing its goals and principles as a guide by which the county and other members of the Committee to End Homelessness will seek to address and eliminate homelessness over the next four years.
Body
BE IT ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF KING COUNTY:
SECTION 1. Findings:
A. Homelessness is recognized as a growing problem in King County and other places in the nation.
B. In 2005, a broad coalition of stakeholders came together to form the Committee to End Homelessness in King County, to focus on addressing and eliminating homelessness in King County.
C. Since the adoption of a ten-year plan to end homelessness in 2005-2015, our community has succeeded in ending homelessness for almost forty thousand people. However, our regional one-night count of homeless person estimates that approximateley ten thousand King County residents continue to experience homelessness on any given night. Almost forty percent of these people are unsheltered.
D. King County finds it unacceptable that such a high number of our citizens cannot find safe, decent and affordable permanent housing.
E. As a major contributor to the effort to end homelessness in the region, King County is committed to having its behavioral health, developmental disabilities, health care for the homeless and other health safety-net services, community services, housing, veterans services, community corrections and other law and justice services, work with each other and the Committee to End Homelessness to create more-effective housing and service partnerships, with the goal of addressing homelessness for persons with disabling conditions and reducing expensive and ineffective involvement in the law and justce and emergency medical systems.
F. King County is also committed to furthering the work of the Committee to End Homelessness through coordination with other council-directed efforts, including the Veterans and Human Services Levy Service Improvement Plan, Mental Illness and Drug Dependency Plan, the county Mental Health Recovery Plan and the governor's and executive's jointly convened Community Alternatives to Boarding Task Force.
G. The Committee to End Homelessness is a community committee formed by representatives of King County, the city of Seattle and other cities, foundations, the faith community, the business community, nonprofit organizations and homeless individuals.
H. As the designated Seattle/King County Continuum of Care under the federal Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act, and as the local homeless housing task force pursuant to Sections 3(9) and 8 of Chapter 484, Laws of Washington 2005, the Committee to End Homelessness has been recognized as the body to coordinate and oversee implementation of a strategic plan to end homelessness by the county and the other members of Committee to End Homelessness.
I. The Committee to End Homelessness has completed a new four-year strategic plan with a vision of making homelessness rare in King County; eliminating racial disparities; and assuring that, if someone becomes homeless, it is brief and only a one-time occurence.
J. The plan calls for the county and other jurisdictions in the region to formally endorse its goals and principles and to agree to help implement the plan in a continued partnership with the Committee to End Homelessness.
K. King County government intends to continue to be a key participant in the efforts of the regional Committee to End Homelessness through its participation in the Committee to End Homelessness governing structure by providing staff support to, and coordinating county managed resources with, Committee to End Homelessness efforts and through its provision of funding to the Committee to End Homelessness.
SECTION 2. The Committee to End Homelessness in King County, Strategic Plan (July 2015-June 2019), which is Attachment A to this ordinance, is adopted and endorsed as the guide by which the county intends to work with other members of the
Committee to End Homelessness to address and eliminate homelessness through June 2019.