Thurston County holds public hearing on draft 2025–2030 homeless housing plan; staff to incorporate comments

The Thurston County Board of County Commissioners held a public hearing Oct. 21 on the draft 2025–2030 local homeless housing plan required by the Washington State Department of Commerce. Tom Webster, senior program manager with the Office of Housing and Homeless Prevention, said the plan — due to Commerce in December 2025 — lays out strategies and tasks under five broad objectives: promote an equitable, accountable and transparent crisis-response system; strengthen the homeless service workforce; prevent episodes of homelessness; prioritize assistance for people with the greatest barriers and greatest risk of harm; and house people in stable settings that meet their needs.

Webster said the office posted the plan for a 30-day public comment period beginning Sept. 18 and had received seven written comments before the hearing. "In summary, I would categorize [comments] in two broad groups," Webster said: requests for more detail about housing development and affordable housing tasks, and requests for greater detail on serving unsheltered populations.

Public commenters urged additions to the plan that they said would help reach unsheltered people and support frontline providers. Ty Gundle, executive director of Olympia Mutual Aid Partners, said his organization supported the plan overall but asked for explicit tasks to maintain and expand year-round outreach and "shelter in place" services, to identify safe locations where people can shelter when camp closures are not available and to expand truly low-barrier shelter options. "Outreach and shelter in place services have gained a lot of recognition in our community as essential elements of supporting responses to homelessness that are low barrier, harm reductive, equitable," Gundle said.

Other speakers urged greater attention to particular populations. Angelica Wilson described personal barriers including autism-spectrum needs and housing instability on a Section 8 voucher; she urged protections for tenants in properties owned by large management firms and more specialized services. Residents and service providers also asked for improved data systems, protections against voucher expiration delays and investments to raise wages and benefits for the homeless crisis-response workforce.

Webster told the board staff will take written and oral comments into account, refine the plan and return a final draft to the Regional Housing Council in November and then to the board for formal approval in late November or early December. Commissioners thanked staff for the work and for the outreach already conducted.

The public hearing record will remain open through the close of the 30-day comment period; the board voted to close the hearing at the conclusion of testimony and staff work on the final draft will continue.