PORT ANGELES — Cut homelessness in half in Clallam County by 2015?
It can be done — it will be done — say social service providers who work with people who have no sure, safe place to lay their heads.
The goal means finding shelter for more than 500 people, most of them in Port Angeles, if the number of homeless people stays at 2005 levels.
More than a third of them reported during January’s homeless census that they have physical, medical or mental disabilities.
Nearly half were single, but they included 237 minor children.
To tackle the job, Clallam County has established a Homeless Task Force comprised of representatives from 15 agencies.
The task force will be supported in turn by an advisory group of about 80 individuals and groups, including the Shelter Provider Network of 51 organizations.
The agencies all are partners in a statewide program to halve homelessness in 10 years.
The state Legislature funded the local effort with a $10 surcharge on the county auditor’s fee to record a document.
The surcharge will produce about $100,000 a year, with which task force members and supporters hope to leverage larger grants. The county also will compete for a share of $14 million in state money.
Kathy Wahto is optimistic about the effort — so optimistic she thinks all homelessness could be eliminated in 10 years.
“It may take us 10 years,” she said, “but this is a solvable problem in a county like ours.”
‘Huge undertaking’
Wahto, executive director of Serenity House shelter for the homeless, compares the effort with building the Olympic Discovery Trail — once someone’s dream, now nearing completion across the North Olympic Peninsula.
“That’s a huge undertaking with the private-public partnership and grant money,” she notes.
“If we can do one, we can do the other.”
The chief strategy, said Wahto, is supportive housing that helps tenants keep their homes.
“It makes low demands on the resident but that also has on hand the kind of services that will keep the person successful in the housing,” she said.