Intentionally or not, last month’s joint session of the Yakima County Commission and the Yakima City Council might’ve been a tentative step forward in dealing with local homelessness issues.
The April 22 talk should’ve made it clear to everyone — including the five council members who voted in favor of a March 4 resolution expressing no confidence in the Yakima County Homeless Coalition — that local efforts are working.
And despite city concerns about coalition transparency, this is no time to leave or undermine what’s been a largely unified local effort to address a difficult and longstanding community problem.
The progress might be slow and the results might not be obvious, but the numbers are undeniable and encouraging.
Consider this: County figures show that while the percentage of the population experiencing homelessness has been rising at the state and national levels, it’s actually been declining locally for the past three years.
In the past five-plus years, according to county Human Services Department Director Esther Magasis, local programs have helped 5,768 people go from living on rental assistance to permanent housing.
“There’s the 15 people on Naches (Avenue) and the nearly 6,000 people we’ve housed,” Magasis noted during the joint session. “The 15 people on Naches are what people notice.”
Maybe that explains the city’s frustration with local efforts to deal with issues revolving around homelessness.
Emphasizing a need for transparency and accountability, the council’s no-confidence resolution called for local cities to have a greater say than local nonprofits and for the county’s Human Services Department to be removed from managing the coalition.
But Deputy Mayor Matt Brown, who proposed the resolution in February, is already a member of the homeless coalition’s executive board. Brown missed four of eight total meetings last year. The meetings are open to the public — hard to figure how much more transparent the coalition could be.
At any rate, the April 22 joint session seems like a reasonable start to getting everyone back on the same page. Airing concerns and questions in a direct and open setting helps avoid misunderstandings and murmured resentments.
We suggest further joint sessions until the city’s concerns are allayed — and we strongly urge city officials to drop any further thought of breaking away from the coalition and trying to confront homelessness on their own.
Common sense and sound statistics suggest a unified, versatile, community-wide approach is the most effective way to deliver effective and efficient services.
Let’s work together to find people homes, not split into warring factions.
Yakima Herald-Republic editorials reflect the collective opinions of the newspaper’s local editorial board.
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