PORT ANGELES — Community agencies continue to add homes and housing services to Clallam County, but there’s still plenty more to do.
While more units are being developed and programs expanded, “every single day we are losing affordable housing in this county,” Serenity House Executive Director Kathy Wahto said.
On Wednesday morning, Wahto and about 60 others concerned with homelessness gathered for an annual forum to develop strategies on how to serve everybody’s housing needs through a 10-year plan.
The plan calls for four action steps: prevent homelessness before it happens, move people into housing first and fast, increase the supply of permanent supportive housing, and deliver sufficient and coordinated supportive services.
Under these bold headings, more specific solutions target preserving current low-income housing, expanding outreach to the “chronically homeless,” and encouraging new partners such as faith-based organizations to develop affordable, multi-family housing.
A homeless count conducted Jan. 26 found 1,050 people who identified themselves as homeless in Clallam County.
Center for youth
What planners can already check off their list is the completion of the Dream Center, a drop-in center for homeless and at-risk youth near downtown Port Angeles, that opened in September as the result of the Homeless Youth Task Force.
More housing units have also debuted or are in the works since last year’s planning forum, including:
* Four single-family houses in Forks purchased from the U.S. Forest Service that will be available to low-income families through federal Section 8 housing vouchers.
* Sixteen new “sweat equity” homes through Habitat for Humanity and the Self-Help Housing Project of the Clallam County Housing Authority.
* Eleven units of permanent supportive housing in Forks.
* Seven additional units of emergency shelter for families through Healthy Families of Clallam County.
On the horizon is a 42-unit project in six two-story, wood frame buildings on Brown Road in Sequim to serve low-income families. A Bellevue company, Shelter Resources Inc., is developing the project.
