5 Year Homeless Housing Plan: A Community Roadmap for Housing Stability
Many people have never heard of a Five-Year Homeless Housing Plan. Others may have heard the term without really knowing what it means. Yet these plans quietly shape how communities respond to homelessness, how resources are used, and how people access help.
HopeSource is serving as the lead agency for the Five-Year Homeless Housing Plans in Kittitas County and Adams County. This role gives us a unique opportunity to help guide a process that is both required by state law and deeply connected to the well-being of our communities.
This blog is a simple introduction to what these plans are, how they are created, and why they matter.
What is a Five-Year Homeless Housing Plan?
Five-Year Homeless Housing Plans exist to bring coordination and accountability to a complex issue. Homelessness affects housing, health, income, safety, and community connection. Without a shared plan, efforts can become scattered, resources misaligned, and people can fall through the gaps.
Under Washington State law, each county must develop a Five-Year Homeless Housing Plan that sets a shared direction for preventing and reducing homelessness. The plan applies countywide, across cities, towns, and unincorporated areas, and outlines clear goals, strategies, timelines, and measures of progress.
Guided by the state’s homeless housing strategy, these plans align local efforts with statewide priorities while remaining grounded in local needs, resources, and realities.
The plan also plays a practical role. It secures eligibility for state homelessness funding and helps guide how local resources, including document recording fees and other public funds, are invested. That makes the plan both a legal requirement and a critical tool for local decision-making.
How the plans were developed
These plans were not created in isolation. Serving as the lead agency means convening partners, translating state requirements into local action, centering lived experience, and keeping the focus on people rather than paperwork.
The process included listening to people with lived experience of homelessness, working closely with service providers and frontline staff, engaging local governments and public agencies, and collaborating with healthcare, behavioral health, education, law enforcement, and community partners.
Community input helped shape priorities, identify gaps, and ground the plans in real experience rather than theory. The result is a roadmap built from local voices and shared responsibility.
A connection to Whole Person Care
Housing stability rarely stands alone. People often need support with income, health, transportation, safety, and connection at the same time.
These plans reflect that reality by encouraging coordination across systems rather than siloed solutions. The approach aligns with Whole Person Care by recognizing that people are more than their housing status and that stability grows when support is coordinated across all the parts of life that matter most.
Why this matters to our communities
Five-Year Homeless Housing Plans shape how communities respond to homelessness today and into the future. They guide how resources are invested, how agencies work together, and how progress is measured.
Most importantly, they represent a shared commitment to ensuring that people facing homelessness are met with timely, coordinated, and compassionate support.
These plans help move communities toward fewer people experiencing homelessness and more people finding stability.