Sluggish home sales have led to a shortfall in funding for homeless services in Washington. (Credit: Susan Shain / NWPB) Listen (Runtime 1:01) Read In Washington, the slow housing market […]Read More
Sojourners' Alliance, una organización sin ánimo de lucro de Moscow, Idaho, ofrece viviendas de transición, refugios y recursos a los habitantes de la zona.Read More
Sojourners’ Alliance building in Moscow, Idaho. (Credit: Phineas Pope / NWPB) Listen (Runtime 1:01) Read Sojourners’ Alliance, a nonprofit organization in Moscow, Idaho, provides transitional housing, shelters and resources for […]Read More
Four days a week, Kevin Ruby’s team is responding to calls and, often complaints, about people experiencing homelessness in Tacoma.
“We always are trying to put people in touch with resources,” Ruby said. “It's just the resources right now, this week, last week, this time of year in general, include a lot more often water, cooling shelters, transportation to cooling Read More
Mike Shull, left, Mary Crick, middle, and Della Farance speak at a table in the Garden Terrace common room. (Credit: Jacob Ford / Wenatchee World) Listen (Runtime 4:13) Read In […]Read More
An attorney representing unhoused Clarkston residents filed a motion Friday for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against Clarkston.Read More
Recent funding from the Washington State Department of Commerce will help keep one Pierce County housing project running. Project Open Door serves people experiencing chronic homelessness. Read More
As a community grapples with what to do about the growing homeless population, unhoused residents say the grind of daily life makes it difficult to make progressRead More
Modular homes are assembled at Mercer Mass Timber in Spokane Valley, Washington. An expansion of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit could fund more housing construction projects in the Northwest […]Read More
The tide of evictions many predicted, has come.
As the pandemic waned and rental assistance dollars from federal programs like the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act dried up, some feared there would be an increase of evictions. Read More
The City of Tacoma is facing a gap in funding, a gap equal to paying for 307 beds in emergency shelters set up across Tacoma.
Tacoma and other area municipalities have recently enacted restrictions or bans on homeless encampments. Read More
Escuelas rurales necesitan más recursos para estudiantes sin vivienda adecuada en Washington Central
Algunos estudiantes de las zonas rurales del centro de Washington carecen de vivienda estable. Los distritos escolares tienen programas para ayudar a los estudiantes. Aun así, los recursos pueden estar lejos y ser de difícil acceso. Read More
Students experiencing homelessness are more likely to suffer academically and are more likely to drop out of school compared to their housed peers, according to the latest legislative report in […]Read More
Some students in rural central Washington are facing housing instability. School districts have programs to help students Still, resources can be far away and hard to get to. N-W-P-B’s Johanna Bejarano reports.Read More
This year’s funding for Tacoma Rescue Mission homeless shelters has decreased. That means next month, the mission will have to decrease the number of shelter spaces available.
As of June 23, the mission had 24 spaces available in their women’s shelter and 39 in their men’s shelter. But by July 1, those will go away, according to the mission. Read More
For Jami Pitman, her child’s elementary school changed their lives.
Eight years ago, when she enrolled her child in Bellingham Public Schools, they were homeless. Pitman said she sought housing support from the Opportunity Council, an organization that provides a variety of wraparound services. Opportunity Council is part of the county’s coordinated entry system. The Read More
Houses under construction in Richland, Washington. More homes are needed in urban and rural areas, said Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell. (Credit: Lauren Paterson / NWPB) Listen (Runtime 00:53) Read The […]Read More
The Tacoma School District has the largest number of students experiencing homelessness in Washington. Month after month, more students and their families are counted as homeless in Tacoma, the third largest city in the state.
“We started the fall at 1,626, and as of the end of April, we're at 2,382,” said Taj Jensen, director of Title, Learning Assistance Programs Read More
Organizers from the housing justice group Tacoma For All and their supporters gathered with signs and megaphones Thursday afternoon to show their support of the initiative, known colloquially as a tenant bill of rights, which Tacoma For All hopes to get on the ballot for voters this fall.
The rally took place before a meeting of the city’s Community Vitality and Safety Read More
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee emphasized housing construction and homelessness response during his 2023 State of the State address on Tuesday. The issue is a bipartisan priority for the state Legislature, but approaches differ among the lawmakers who convened in Olympia this week.Read More
Washington state voters and lawmakers appear to be in close alignment on their top priorities for the incoming Washington Legislature. The 2023 session gavels to order at noon on Monday, January 9.Read More
It’s been cold and wet the past few weeks in Tacoma. That’s had an impact on the residents of Tacoma’s new temporary tent-shelter mitigation site, Forging Paths, off of 35th and Pacific Avenue.
A resident at the site, who preferred to go by his first name Cash for privacy reasons, said one downside of living at the site has been a lack of preparation and foresight for Read More
The Tacoma City Council passed an ordinance to ban camping within 10 blocks of emergency shelters in the city.
Zev Cook, a staff organizer with Home in Tacoma For All, says they’ll be taking the city to court over the ordinance. Read More
Next week, Tacoma City Council is scheduled to vote on an ordinance that would ban public-camping within 10 blocks of homeless shelters.
Council member John Hines, who represents district one, introduced the ordinance. He said his goal is to make shelters, and the surrounding neighborhoods around them, safer. Read More
Local Health Care Provider Says Rate Of Homeless Patients Increased During PandemicRead More
A HUD pilot program looks at ways of improving aid to help for homelessness in minority communities Listen NWPB’s Lauren Gallup looks at a pilot program aimed at better helping […]Read More
The Tri-Cities Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Department of Humans Services are coordinating to do the Annual Point in Time count this Thursday. Point-In-Time counts inform the agencies on how many individual homeless people are living in our community.Read More
The Tri-Cities prepare to hit the streets to count the homeless population Listen Read The Tri-Cities Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Department of Humans Services are coordinating to do the […]Read More
For the third time this month, Deschutes Parkway, which curves past Capitol Lake along the edge of Washington’s Capitol Campus, has been closed due to a violent crime.Read More
Renters who are behind on their rent in Washington will get a few more months of protection from eviction. On Thursday, Gov. Jay Inslee announced a new eviction moratorium that will run through September 30. The current moratorium expires June 30 — the same day the state is set to fully reopen.Read More
Every January, in the middle of the night, thousands of volunteers and outreach workers spread out across the country to count the nation's homeless population. They search highway underpasses, wooded areas, abandoned buildings and sidewalks to locate those who are living outside. But this year, because of the pandemic, the annual street count has been canceled or modified Read More
Starting around 2010, there has been a significant increase in spills coming from RVs and other vehicles in Seattle. It was happening as the number of people living out of their vehicles was on the rise. By one count, 891 people lived out of their vehicles in Seattle and the surrounding area in 2010. Now that number is close to 3,000.Read More
The governor said in a news conference Wednesday that he’s concerned about housing insecurity during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Read More
There's a growing consensus that a more punitive approach hasn't worked for Spokane. Nationwide, the homeless population is rising. In many communities, it can feel like an intractable problem. Yet cities like Spokane are starting to show some incremental progress with some prevention programs. Read More
When Washington lawmakers convene a short, election year session on Monday, Jan. 13 they’ll confront a range of issues from homelessness to gun control to whether to expel state Rep. Matt Shea.Read More
A new homeless shelter in Seattle is exclusively serving Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Pacific Islanders. It's one of the first facilities of its kind in the country helping to house the more than 1,000 Native people in the city experiencing homelessness.Read More
It's billed as one of the most livable places in the country with its good schools, leafy streets and safe neighborhoods. That's what makes Boise, Idaho, an odd backdrop for a heated legal fight around homelessness that is reverberating across the western United States.Read More
The state of Washington now finds itself grappling with an issue that’s been front and center in Seattle, Portland and many other cities -- people who are homeless living in dilapidated recreational vehicles parked on public streets.Read More
Mark Lloyd started his guerrilla toilet distribution project after he saw encampments popping up and spreading in his Seattle neighborhood, just east of downtown. He felt compelled to become involved, get to know the people and see what they needed. Read More
Seattle is grappling with a crisis of what is sometimes called "visible homelessness" — people who live in the street and struggle with mental illness or drug addiction. It's a population that often commits small crimes, such as disorderly conduct or shoplifting to pay for drugs. And public frustration is growing.Read More
Homelessness is often considered an urban phenomenon. But those who work on homeless issues say rural homelessness is a growing problem, too. That's true across the state and across the country. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, NPR, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health reported in May that one in three rural Americans say homelessness is a problem in their Read More
A new proposed bill aims to employ the homeless in three cities in Washington. Washington State Senator, Hans Zeiger of District 25, sponsors this bill and hopes it passes in April.Read More
Microsoft is investing $500 million to help develop affordable housing and address homelessness in the Seattle area as the growth of tech companies in the region continues to flood the real estate market with high-salaried workers, leaving many other people behind.Read More
The city of Portland will not change how it enforces its anti-camping law, following a sweeping opinion by a federal appeals court on Tuesday that similar rules might violate the constitutional rights of homeless citizens.Read More
Matthew Desmond estimates that 2.3 million evictions were filed in the U.S. in 2016 — a rate of four every minute. "Eviction isn't just a condition of poverty; it's a cause of poverty," he says.Read More
Listen Orondo, Washington, lies on the Columbia River between Chelan and Wenatchee. Its population fluctuates with the growing season as migrants work surrounding fruit orchards. This small town’s school district […]Read More
Former Washington governor Mike Lowry, an unapologetic liberal who advocated for higher taxes and social programs, died Monday from complications related to a stroke. He was 78.Read More
