photo by: Douglas County screenshot

Assistant County Administrator Jill Jolicoeur walked the Douglas County Commission through a presentation about the county's draft five-year strategic plan for tackling homelessness and housing issues Wednesday, March 29, 2023.

The draft version of Douglas County’s strategic plan for tackling housing and homelessness could be ready for final approval in a matter of months, and its overall objective is to achieve “functional zero” homelessness by 2028.

Assistant County Administrator Jill Jolicoeur presented the draft plan to Douglas County commissioners during a work session Wednesday. The plan lays out goals on a year-to-year basis for a handful of priority areas geared toward reducing homelessness. The goal is for policy, system and environmental changes to pave the way for the county to achieve that “functional zero” milestone, meaning the number of people experiencing homelessness never exceeds the community’s capacity to move folks into permanent housing.

“Really, the goal statement is that we’re going to have a strategic planning framework that addresses homelessness and the need for affordable housing solutions throughout Douglas County,” Jolicoeur told commissioners. “It’s pretty straightforward.”

The plan identifies more than a dozen low-income populations Jolicoeur said would be the focus of these efforts, including Black, Indigenous and people of color and LGBTQ+ folks who are experiencing or are at risk of homelessness, single-parent female-headed households and survivors of domestic violence.

To reduce disparities for those groups, Jolicoeur said the plan was to employ a few key strategies, like using a trauma-informed holistic approach while developing policies and procedures and engaging folks with lived experiences. The plan also relies on comprehensive review of various land development codes and county regulations that create barriers in the development of programs and services that could help people in any of those at-risk groups.

The plan could be finalized and presented to the Lawrence City Commission and Douglas County Commission for approval by June, Jolicoeur said. It’s the culmination of about 18 months of collaboration between the county, the City of Lawrence and about a dozen housing and homelessness stakeholders like the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority, the Lawrence Community Shelter and Family Promise.

That work started with supportive housing and homelessness needs assessments from the Corporation for Supportive Housing and the University of Kansas’ Center for Public Partnerships and Research. Those studies paved the way for the planning team to identify focus areas, split into work groups and begin drafting the plan.

Jolicoeur said the group has pinpointed five key focus areas: equity and inclusion, affordable housing, supportive housing, systems and emergency shelter. Last year’s needs assessments played a crucial role in fleshing out each area, she said.

The studies found racial and gender disparities in who experiences homelessness warrant further attention, for example, so the plan lays out a number of ways to address that issue in the coming years. That includes having performance indicators in place to measure the impact of those disparities by 2025 and implementing organizational assessments and supplemental training for local agencies and governments by 2027.

The studies also identified a deficit in affordable and permanent supportive housing options, estimating that Douglas County needs 381 total units of supportive housing to meet its current needs. By 2028, the plan sets goals for having 1,500 affordable rentals and 400 affordable homes, plus more than 100 units of permanent supportive housing and another 35 units of transitional housing.

“… There is a role for transitional housing in this plan,” Jolicoeur said. “One of the things that we know is that Bert Nash (Community Mental Health Center’s) Transitions facility has been incredibly successful. The only problem with it is it’s always full, so we wanted to make sure that we deliberated and created some similar goals around our homeless single individuals that are in need of transitional housing services with substance abuse disorder and mental health services available, and the same for our families.”

Between now and June, the team working on the plan will first give a similar presentation to City of Lawrence leaders next week and then engage in listening sessions with various stakeholder groups throughout April and May. The first of those is a virtual session set for Thursday, April 20, from noon to 1:30 p.m. Another virtual session with the Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods will take place sometime in mid-April or mid-May.

Two in-person community sessions are also set to take place during May — one on Friday, May 5, from 9 to 10:30 a.m. at the Union Pacific Depot, 402 N. Second St., and the other on Thursday, May 18, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vermont St.

“In terms of where we’re at with this conversation at a community level and my time here at the county, I feel so good about the county and the city’s partnership in this space,” Jolicoeur said. “It’s the best it’s ever been, and I’m really looking forward to moving forward.”