Yakima County to consider changes to homeless program charter to boost city representation

Yakima County commissioners reviewed proposed amendments to the Yakima Homeless Housing and Assistance Program charter that would increase city and town elected representation on the program’s executive committee and change how grant applications are scored.

Commissioner Curtis said the revision — listed on the April 8 agenda as Resolution 82-2025 — would increase the number of city and town elected officials on the executive committee from one to three and establish a new “city and town committee” to select which elected officials serve on the executive committee. “When you read through it, really, there’s only two fundamental changes,” Curtis said. “One is we’re increasing the number of city and town electeds to the executive committee from one to three. … The other caveat I would add is that, as you know, we made some changes last year to our competitive scoring committee to ensure that it’s the executive committee folks that are reviewing the applications for funding request and then putting forth their recommendation to your commissioners.”

Curtis told colleagues the executive committee will be the primary body reviewing funding applications and making recommendations to the Board of Yakima County Commissioners; if executive committee members are unavailable or must recuse themselves, commissioners would draw members from the new city-and-town committee to serve on the scoring panel. “Should we not have enough executive committee members to serve in that capacity, maybe do a conflict of interest or what have you, we would then go to our city and town electeds and select from them, those elected to serve on the scoring committee,” Curtis said.

Commissioner McKinney said he had read the proposed changes and appreciated Curtis’s explanation, noting the revisions were “in keeping with what we had discussed.” Commissioner Linde also said she had seen the updates and called them “a positive move.” No formal vote was taken during the April 3 work session; staff confirmed the item is slated for the April 8 meeting agenda under Human Services as Resolution 82-2025.

The changes were presented in the context of a recent “vote of no confidence” reported from the City of Yakima and follow recommendations from the homeless coalition’s executive committee, according to commissioners’ remarks. The proposal alters governance and the competitive-scoring process for distributing housing and assistance funds; specific funding amounts and implementation dates were not discussed during the work session.

The Board did not take final action on April 3; the charter amendments will be considered at the regular meeting on April 8.