Yakima County to present homelessness data at joint city–county meeting; commissioners debate data source and slide scope

Yakima County commissioners on April 17 agreed that county staff will present a 10-minute slide deck about homelessness at a joint city–county meeting next Tuesday, and they directed staff to tighten the slides while preserving key data points, including HMIS bed counts and a point-in-time comparison.

The presentation, prepared by staff member Esther, originally contained 11 slides; Esther said she could remove three informational slides to meet the 10-minute limit. Commissioner Lindy and Commissioner Curtis supported keeping an “outcome” slide and the HMIS bed-count slide in the reduced deck so elected officials have capacity data available.

Esther told commissioners she had added a chart showing the homeless population as a percentage of total population at Lindy’s request and said the slide includes a footnote explaining the data source. She said: "point in time is not a complete count of homelessness, but it's not a complete count of homelessness anywhere, so it can still be used as trend comparison data." Esther said she would provide the slide deck to commissioners and coordinate sending it to city staff if the commissioners approved the final version.

Commissioner Curtis cautioned that the county’s homelessness counts can be interpreted in different ways. "When we talk about 'the population of our unhoused communities, there's always, a big there's 2 camps. 1 is like you use the point in time count, then the other camp is you use what's in the HMIS response system," he said, noting the two measures are not directly comparable. Curtis said he supported including the chart but not dwelling on the methodology during the 10-minute presentation.

Commissioners directed Esther to send a draft slide deck by the end of the day and asked staff to coordinate delivery to the City of Yakima (staff contact Vicki Baker and others) so the city could publish the joint meeting agenda. Commissioner Lindy asked that staff request responses by 10 a.m. the following morning; Esther said she would proceed if she received no objections.

County staff and commissioners discussed placing public comment at the end of the joint meeting discussion to allow maximum time for council and county remarks; Mayor Byers had emailed the county about the joint meeting and the city planned to publish the meeting notice the next day, Esther said.

The presentation decisions were procedural direction to staff; no formal vote or binding policy change was made at the work session.