PORT ANGELES — A quartet of guest speakers will explore the 2020 Charter Review Commission’s recommendation for meeting housing needs in Clallam County tonight.
The special meeting will be on Zoom from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. It is free and open to the public.
To attend, use meeting ID: 846 4758 7777 (passcode 466291) or call in at 253-215-8782.
Speakers will include Norma Turner, first vice chair for the commission; activist/local volunteer Ingrid Carmean; attorney and Port Angeles City Council member Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin, and Charter Review commissioner Mary Doherty.
The recommendation is that the county commissioners immediately take action to engage public and private organizations and businesses in creating affordable housing availability, apply ideas found to be successful in communities that have reduced homelessness and report progress to the community every six months.
Nearly all the county’s homeless have local roots, the commission said in its recommendation. It says that “the major causal factors for homelessness in Clallam are related to safe housing availability,” according to the Clallam County Housing Crisis Response Plan 2020-2024.
“Permanent housing and wrap-around services not only reduces the need for community services but allows homeless citizens and families to be able to become more stable, more reliably employable and more productive members of society,” the recommendation says, adding that what has made the difference in many communities is leadership form elected officials.
For more on the recommendation, or for the other four recommendations the Charter Review Commission has sent to Clallam County commissioners, see clallam.net/bocc/homerulecharter.html (under “Documents”).