Why We Need an Action Plan
Did you know? Over the past five years, the community submitted more than 300 reports of individuals experiencing homelessness in Kirkland. While some of these reports involved the same individuals or situations, each one required a coordinated City response. Additionally, the City's Homeless Outreach Coordinator has contacted 160 unhoused or at-risk residents in nine months. Because homelessness is often underreported and regional rates continue to rise, these trends suggest that homelessness is not only present in Kirkland but also growing and at risk of reaching a tipping point.
The City’s Response: A Continuum of Care
For years, City staff has partnered with local non-profits, faith-based organizations, county, state, and federal partners to respond to the community’s unhoused residents through a comprehensive approach. While this long-time commitment is, in part, why homelessness in Kirkland has historically been less visible than other cities of its size, our city is not immune from broader national trends or the myriad issues or events that can cause someone to become unhoused.
The City’s goal is to prevent homelessness and, when it does occur, to transition individuals back into stable housing as soon as possible. To this end, the City currently invests in five strategies that provide a continuum of care for people who are, or at risk of, experiencing homelessness.
Read More about Kirkland’s Homelessness Continuum of Care
Looking Ahead
As the City invites the community to contemplate new policies, programs, and services that will shape our homelessness action plan, we will approach these conversations guided by the same principles that have shaped our response to date:
✓Ensuring Kirkland remains safe, welcoming and economically vibrant
✓Making homelessness in Kirkland rare, brief, and non-recurring by providing paths to stable housing
✓Fostering a balanced, person-centered approach that considers the varied interests of everyone in Kirkland—housed and unhoused—with compassion
✓Upholding the evolving laws and codes to which everyone in Kirkland is bound while not imposing additional restrictions on unhoused residents due to their circumstances
✓Partnering with rather than duplicating the work of non-profit, faith-based, county, state, and federal programs
✓Not opening our parks, roadways, alleys, underpasses etc. to unauthorized sleeping, parking, or camping
✓Not taking on disproportionate resource burdens or becoming a regional attractant for unhoused residents
Where We Need Your Help
To help evaluate the continuum and inform the action plan, the City invites the community—through a comprehensive engagement process starting in early 2025—to listen and consider, together, how might we:
- Respond to the fast-changing dynamics of homelessness in our region?
- Ready for a sudden and significant increase in Kirkland’s homelessness population?
- Identify and address the gaps in our current homelessness response?
- Address causes to help prevent homelessness in Kirkland altogether?
Homelessness is a complex topic with no quick fixes that provokes many different perspectives. The City is committed to a respectful process that leads Kirkland to a reasonable, sensible and responsible action plan and balances the needs of all Kirkland residents, including our most vulnerable.
To learn how to get involved and stay informed, visit the City's What's Happening page.
Lend your Voice
Does your community or neighborhood group want to talk homelessness with City staff at a future meeting? If so, please reach out. We'll come to you!