Tacoma officials briefed on unified regional approach to homelessness; design phase underway

Tacoma’s Community Vitality and Safety Committee was briefed Sept. 25 on a regional effort to coordinate homelessness services across Pierce County and move from planning into implementation.

Caleb Carbone, homeless strategy systems and services manager with Neighborhood and Community Services, and Liza Burrell, policy and program development lead for consulting firm Uncommon Bridges, told the committee the project is in the design phase and that elected leaders will soon be asked to narrow the set of options task forces generated for operational, governance and finance changes.

The work is organized in three phases: scoping, design and implementation. Burrell said the design phase is the longest and that the project team plans a public kickoff to implementation in March. She said the project’s purpose is implementation rather than another study: “This is not a study. We are producing a lot of documents, but this is really a process to get government elected leaders who are accountable around homelessness issues to come to agreement on things they are willing to move forward and then do it.”

The project uses an elected leadership group, a staff planning group and multiple task forces. Task forces of about 16–18 people each drafted roughly two dozen recommendations addressing what Burrell called “11 problems to solve,” including shared intake and data systems, standard contract language, interlocal governance structures, and a regional approach to funding and contracting.

Carbone said Tacoma is participating in the elected leadership group, staff planning group and the task forces. Council members on the committee also said they serve on the elected leadership group and urged elected officials to move to implementation. Councilmember Siedelge said the region needs to “get something done quicker,” adding, “This is not another study or assessment or feasibility.”

Presenters said the design work this summer produced system visualizations intended to give elected leaders a clear picture of current funding, contracts and operations before they choose which proposals to explore in more detail. Burrell said the visualizations and the task‑force recommendations will be brought to the elected leadership group at its next meeting, and then back to task forces for operationalization. The final design will be delivered to elected leaders in February, with a public implementation kickoff planned for March.

Speakers and committee members raised recurring themes from scoping: that Tacoma carries an unequal share of shelter and service capacity for the county, that trust among jurisdictions and providers needs to be rebuilt, and that elected officials will be the ones to define the scope and authority of any regional structure. Burrell said the consulting team is intentionally keeping options emergent—ranging from shared contracting and data platforms to potential new governance structures—because there was no clear appetite at scoping to recreate the King County Regional Homelessness Authority model in Pierce County.

Next steps listed by presenters include the elected leadership group meeting next Monday to set priorities from task‑force recommendations, a second round of task forces in early October to operationalize the elected leaders’ choices, and a public meeting during the design phase to gather broader feedback. Materials, meeting summaries and the task‑force recommendations are posted on the project website, Burrell said.