Many of you have heard me talk about “permanent supportive housing” in previous posts.  Washington state’s Housing Trust Fund is the essential tool for the creation and preservation of permanent supportive housing. In order to keep up with the community need, an additional $100 million in funding should be added to the Housing Trust Fund. More than 70 percent of people served by the Fund make less than $17,540 per year, making it a vital resource in the fight to end homelessness.

Funding the Housing Trust Fund now with $100 million would allow Washington…

(Photo from the SKCCH website)

Here are the early results of last night’s One Night Count in King County.

Last night, hundreds of volunteers for the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness fanned out throughout the County.  Between 2:00 AM and 6:00 AM, more than 130 teams of volunteers found 2759 people sleeping on the streets, in parks, in their cars, in temporary shelters and in makeshift campsites.

More later…

(Part 1 can be found here)

Updated at 11:10 AM, Friday January 29th:  Here is the article from today’s Seattle Times.

…

(Photo from the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness)

In addition to all of the great feedback on the site this week about our Hunger Challenge, here are a few other items that I wanted to let folks know about:

…on this gray day after reading in the Times how community volunteers are cheering up the supportive house sites run by DESC, a United Way grantee. With the help of the volunteers and a local artist, once-drab walls are now sporting bright hues, making the atmosphere less institutional and more welcoming for the once-homeless people now living at the Union Hotel.

…of Dolores Gancher, a homeless woman taken under the wing of Seattle Times staff members. It’s a good reminder that in solving homelessness, both individual kindness and systemic efforts play their part. By Nicole Brodeur.

I am a big fan of skill-based volunteering. While warm-body volunteering is great, I really like it when people take a skill that only they have and use it to help others. Even a seemingly unrelatable skill can be used to make a difference. Help-Portrait is a great example of this.

Help-Portrait was a simple 4-step project that banded photographers together for a good cause. Here’s how it went:

1. Find someone in need (shelters, hospitals, the streets, etc.)
2. Take their portrait
3. Print their portrait
4. Deliver it to them.

Many people experiencing homelessness…

Local Updates:

City of Seattle accepting public comments on Housing Levy plan

In November, Seattle voters overwhelmingly voiced their support for affordable housing by renewing the Seattle Housing Levy (a United Way of King County policy priority). Now, the city must determine how to distribute those funds. The Office of Housing is accepting public comments on the Draft Administrative & Financial Plan (A&F Plan) for the newly approved 2009 Seattle Housing Levy.  The A&F Plan guides implementation of the levy for the next two years (2010 and…

National Housing Trust Fund linked with House jobs bill

The House of Representatives is currently debating a $75 billion “Jobs for Main Street” bill that includes $1 billion for the National Housing Trust Fund (NHTF), as well as $65 million for project-based vouchers to be distributed with NHTF dollars.  Fully funding the NHTF would not only guarantee affordable housing for King County’s most vulnerable populations, but would also provide a shot in the arm for the state’s ailing economy. According to the National Low Income Housing…

Earlier this morning, Governor Gregoire introduced the first draft of her 2010 Supplemental Budget, which as expected contained dramatic cuts to several UWKC priorities. A snapshot of some of the most important reductions is listed below. For the full budget document, click here.

It should be stressed that the governor is planning a second budget with a proposed revenue package that would ameliorate some of the cuts, and that she repeatedly stated that the budget did not reflect her values or those of Washington state. However, even with…

Governor Christine Gregoire is scheduled to release her budget December 9 at 9:00 a.m. You can view the press conference at http://www.tvw.org/index.cfm?bhcp=1. With the state facing a projected $2.6 billion shortfall in the coming fiscal year (beginning July 1, 2010), it will be a “cuts only” budget requiring elimination of entire programs and services unless new revenue sources are identified. Details of the Governor’s budget will be available after 9:00 am at http://www.ofm.wa.gov.

The programs most at risk are those that are state-only funded, such as…