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Resident urges county to use vacant jail space and manufactured-home communities in five-year homelessness plan
Summary
A public commenter presented ideas for the county's required five-year homeless plan, suggesting use of existing county jail space for emergency shelter and rezoning manufactured-home communities to create affordable, managed parks; the commenter cited state data estimating roughly 426 homeless individuals in the county.
A resident speaking during public comment urged the Kittitas County Board of County Commissioners to consider using existing county property and manufactured-home communities when preparing the county's required five-year homeless plan.
The commenter said the state produces several reports useful to planning, citing the "AHAB" snapshot of county housing stock and a statewide "table 4" that the speaker said compiles homeless counts from multiple databases. The speaker said the statewide compilation currently shows "around 426 individuals" identified as homeless in Kittitas County.
As immediate shelter options, the commenter suggested investigating vacated jail space ' specifically lower-level bunk areas ' as an emergency shelter with beds and meals, and recommended exploring rezoning approximately 500 acres at Springwood Ranch and converting manufactured-home communities into managed parks or community land trusts so residents could mortgage manufactured homes while the land remained in trust.
The audience and commissioners listened; the commenter's remarks were recorded into the public-comment portion of the April 1 meeting.
