Pierce County's Plan to End Homelessness
A Plan to End Homelessness
by Valorie Crout, Chief Program Officer
The Continuum of Care (CoC), Pierce County’s Oversight Committee for the Homeless System, is currently developing a 5-year strategic plan to end homelessness. The overall goal will be to significantly reduce the number of households that are unsheltered or experiencing homelessness. This effort comes with great leadership from all sectors of the community. Leadership from local government, city and county officials, public housing authorities, homeless organizations serving all population, school districts and many more are represented at the table. Associated Ministries’ seat represents the faith-based community.
As a faith-based agency, we are committed to see this work through and have taken on some of the responsibility outlined in the plan to end homelessness. One of our first tasks will be to form focus groups for people of color, veterans, youth and young adults, LGBTQ, and those that are chronically homeless to assess for equity within the system. We are committed to assuring that ALL people gain access to the same opportunities to secure and maintain housing, which is the foundation for wholeness.
We are interdependent on one another-each person’s success will be our own. With that said, every person of faith will have a role to end homelessness. We are the spirit, the heart, and the voice for social justice. As people of faith, we do NOT accept homelessness in our community!
Together, we can do this! I have faith!
To learn more about what homelessness like in Pierce County, please plan to attend any or all of our upcoming quarterly meetings: Thursday, March 16th 4-6pm at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 7410 South 12th Street, Tacoma, WA 98465; Thursday, June 15th 4-6pm at Bethlehem Baptist Church, 4818 East Portland Ave, Tacoma, WA 98404.
The final draft of the Plan to End Homelessness is scheduled to be completed by the end of March 2017. We will present the plan at one of the upcoming quarterly meetings.