Whatcom County’s Housing Advisory Committee next meeting is next week on Thursday, February 13, 2025. What the HAC is doing right now is significant for two reasons, among others. First, they are the only County government appointed advisory group providing ongoing direct focus on homeless sheltering services through their shelter subcommittee. Second, the HAC is in the beginning stages of planning and gathering public input to create a 5 year Homeless Housing Plan .

I was able to attend and make a screen recording of most of the December 12, 2024 Whatcom County Housing Advisory Committee meeting, which is the last time the committee met. One of the early presentations in the meeting described the planning process for the 5 year plan. My notes from the Housing Advisory Committee discussion of the plan are included later in this blog post.

The Housing Advisory Committee meets regularly only six times each year. As far as I remember, it was the first HAC meeting I have attempted to attend. It turned out that I was 15 minutes late in logging into Zoom for it.

Unfortunately, this meant I missed the 5 minute update from the HAC Shelter Subcommittee, along with the 5 minute update on Severe Weather/Winter Shelters by Health and Human Services Manager for the Whatcom County Health and Community Services Department, Ann Beck. Those reports came at a critical time with the most hostile winter days lying ahead for folks living outside.

But with this committee, if you snooze, you lose, because there are no recordings of the meetings posted on the committee meeting web page, and it appears that minutes for each of the meetings show up online only after they are approved by the committee at their next meeting two months later. Beyond this, the web page only provides links for meeting agendas and some meeting materials.

Under current circumstances, if the County is truly desiring that all hands show up on deck to end deadly dangers from. homelessness, drug use, and racism, then offering more generous and meaningful access for community members to participate in solutions seems to be a course correction that is in order.

Meanwhile, back in September 2024, the 2024-2029 State of Washington Homeless Housing Strategic Plan was released. In a Washington State Department of Commerce announcement the following month, it stated, “Beginning this year, Commerce will work with counties across the state to develop their five-year homeless housing plans for 2025-2030.”

A few months later, when I logged into the December 12, 2024 HAC meeting, it was just in time to catch all but the first minute or two of the presentation on the upcoming Whatcom County 2025-2030 Homeless Housing Plan. This part of the meeting also included committee discussion related to the plan. Whatcom County Housing Program Specialist, Janie Oliphant gave the presentation.

Above: Screenshots of slides shown during the presentation on the process for Whatcom County’s 2025-2030 Homeless Housing Plan during the 12/12/2024 Housing Advisory Committee

There was significant focus on public engagement in Oliphant’s description of the process being proposed for the 5 year plan. However, during committee discussion there were opportunities to observe paid official’s nervousness about hearing from the public and some voiced skepticism and fatalism vs. offering encouragement and helpful resources when community members brought forth their own ideas and described their efforts to be contribute.

Below are my notes from the presentation and discussion:

At 8:45 a.m. during the meeting (00:00:00 on my recording) Janie Oliphant is going over the groups and stakeholders who have been specified as invited participants in the 2025-2030 Homeless Housing Plan 

00:01:30 She goes over the required components  in the plan. According to her statements these seem to be components being required by Washington State Department of Commerce. 

02:24 Janie Oliphant describes the framework for developing the plan, which she said she believes is the meat and potatoes of what the plan will become.

She said there were again certain things they had to include, but she noted that the slide being shown at that point displayed how staff had “further operationalized” that framework.

She read the text in the field for assumptions: “Assumptions: Phenomena that exist outside of the control of our local housing system that impacts how it functions and performs.”

00:17:28 – Housing team plus Janie Oliphant (the person who presented on it in Dec.) (I think Ann Beck added “and staff”) would run (facilitation and administrative work associated with) the planning for the 5 year homeless housing plan

[Specific draft project plan was said to be in the packet for the meeting. It also seems she may have shared that doc on screen. However the only documents included in December meeting materials that are posted to the HAC webpage are the 12/12/24 HAC meeting agenda and the 10/10/24 meeting minutes] 

They will establish a subcommittee to execute the planning

The request of the subcommittee members is to be present and available, to offer comments and feedback, and to be able to comment on the drafts in advance 

Samya Lutz [City of Bellingham Housing & Services Program Manager] had a question about how the coalition [Whatcom County Coalition to End Homelessness] fits into the planning – Oliphant said that’s likely open to debate and inclusion 

The hope is for WCCEH to help get the word out to the public events and to participate – she indicated it is an easy opportunity for the public to engage so we already have an interested body

If we want to include them in a bigger way, we can figure out how to include that 

Ann Beck [Whatcom County Health and Community Development Services Human Services Manager] asked if they have been going to Reddit to ask everybody what they think. There was laughter from the group after that question. She continued, “because there’s a lot of ideas out there being generated.” Oliphant said no, she’s not a Reddit user herself. Laughter and crosstalk made the rest of her response indistinguishable.

Von Ochoa [HAC committee member] next 00:19:28

Suggestion of using model of the Bellingham Plan Board Game for the City’s Comprehensive Plan (which he felt didn’t get enough response and circulation) and send to all boards and commissions to actually play it and send results. Also invite every neighborhood group and every city to do the same thing. Sumas round table. Use accoutabili-buddies. Folks show up to a site, get fed, and work on it. Collaborative competition.

The Bellingham board game was a map of Bellingham city limits: Where would you want an urban village, for example; How would you add in associated services and opportunities?; Types of housing you would use.

Samya Lutz: the plan was developed for COB Comprehensive Plan. She is curious how Von Ochoa sees this regarding the Plan to End Homelessness. She links it is very different from the Comp plan. The plan to engage community broadly is something to replicate. There’s a need to really engage people who are going to be impacted by the plan. 

Von Ochoa: Thinks Housing plan is also intertwined. He is one of the working poor. Can’t work enough to not get priced out. Immigrant and refugee students – education access is a thing. We don’t have enough staff members to support all of our students. How does that play into students who’ve experienced inter-generational trauma also experiencing homelessness? Not enough support for literacy and mathematics. Food insecurity. The amount of food getting dumped. There’s not a robust enough food recovery system to address that. Health issues contribute to homelessness.

Playing the game with each other can build empathy. Not enough people are showing up in good faith.

Janie Oliphant likes the idea. She had not been aware of the Bellingham board game previously.

00:28:02 – She is interested in helping the County provide data surrounding the need for homeless housing (the focus of the plan) so that can provide a framework for people not deeply aware of community needs in this area to give helpful public feedback.

She wanted to know if committee members were supportive of creating a subcommittee to be focused on this plan and their input around this.

Samya Lutz suggested that the WCCEH steering committee operate as the subcommittee and then perhaps add some other people to be joining it. She suggested that the people on the subcommittee meet possibly every month instead of every other month. (It wasn’t clear if she meant the subcommittee would meet every month or if the people serving on both groups would end up meeting every month because they would be meeting on the HAC every other month and then the subcommittee meeting on the off month).

Janie Oliphant made some suggestions related to including a rep from small cities or behavioral health orgs. Dan Duane [HAC member] made suggestions of getting in touch with certain folks in the next couple days [couldn’t distinguish who he suggested.]

They want to have the first subcommittee meeting by January 24, 2025.

00:33:35 – a motion is made to empower HAC chair to establish a subcommittee for the 5 year plan. Dan Duane mentioned assigning it to the WCCEH and Samya Lutz said something about combining with other staff (city and/or county?) members.

00:34:20 Von says he is in support of this direction but notes that at WCCEH steering committee meetings they struggle with having more than 10 people show up when there are around 25 people on the roster who are invited and can attend and for whatever reason are not there.

He notes that people want us to raise the threshold on the severe weather shelter and then we don’t have enough people to operate it. We need more players.

Another male at the meeting said he wondered what people thought about the number of members needed for the subcommittee.

Janie Oliphant notes that there is a list of people that need to be invited to participate. And she asks if folks think that the subcommittee would host those sources of input outside the subcommittee. She asks Dan if he is thinking it’s on the table that the subcommittee – either if WCCEH ends up forming it or HAC does – would include all the people that they are required to invite by the state to participate in the plan.

It also sounds like the option regarding WCCEH means they would be in control of the subcommittee rather than HAC.

00:37:35 Von Ochoa says he has been hearing how people are strapped/at capacity and communications department is also filled up.

He wrote a script for the Bellingham Plan to promote it and to create a tutorial video. He asked for help with that. He volunteered to do the voice-overs and had another planner that was willing to do it with him. He sent it to Communications. They thanked him but said they didn’t have capacity, but said if he made the video they might boost it. Von Ochoa says he doesn’t have that skill set. When it came to doing a Spanish version of a permanent supportive housing video, he tried it but was very displeased with his version, so he used something like AI and sent it in. They said they likely couldn’t use it because of the standards they have and then Ochoa never heard back. A couple days ago he tried again using his own voice for a Spanish version of the permanent supportive housing video and is hoping he hears back. He doesn’t feel he has enough inroads in the Communications Department to help boost these signals and he would like some help and guidance with that.

Ann Beck asked if he was talking about the County’s Communications Department. Von Ochoa said the permanent supportive housing video material he had sent to Michaela and Chris.

Ann Beck said communications is hard because they have 3 people for the department so “it’s kind of whatever’s going on is where a lot of their attention is.” They also have somebody out right now, plus they have the severe weather shelter which is where a lot of their focus goes this time of year.

Ann Beck said she did hear Von Ochoa though and thinks communications is something the County has struggled with in this work in general. Housing team is having a meeting next week to talk about how they talk about their homeless housing system. They are very aware their Council doesn’t quite understand how it is set up and the way that they’re going around contracts. It’s an ongoing conversation. She appreciates Von’s feedback on how they can tap into skills and resources on this committee.

A vote was taken on the motion and all voted Aye (no opposed or abstentions).

[5 year plan discussion was scheduled for 15 minutes of presentation/discussion and actually took over 40 minutes]