Homelessness solutions: affordable housing & community initiatives

0:00homelessness. And the data really shows that it's it's not mental health, it's not drug use, it's not weather, it's not all the other things we think about related to homelessness. It's you need enough housing right at rates that people can afford to >> People can afford. >> So we have not seen sufficient growth in housing here. So that is a key issue. But where we've seen success is that and an advantage of being in a slightly smaller area is we really know our community partners and people have rallied around some great initiatives. One was called the Anchor Community Initiative that addressed youth homelessness. Really building a system as the team describes as yes to yes. So

0:41at the time a youth or a young adult it might be experiencing homelessness and comes in asking for help, we can get them housed and get them connected to services so that that experience is brief and short and does not repeat. Um we also run a veterans program over a bigger area and um the team at BMAC were super proud of them won the Washington State Veterans Department award for excellent teamwork and service to veterans. They've done amazing work to help get veterans housed. And there are different resources and rules around veterans so we're able to connect somebody who might be living on the street and get them connected to

1:21a HUD VASH voucher. So we really get them into a long-term sustainable and stable housing situation much more quickly. So some pockets doing well, somewhere we still continue to experience it and continue to have challenges as more people um get displaced by costs or a medical emergency or other issues.