On Tuesday, June 16th, the Thurston County Board of County Commissioners voted 3-2 to delay renewal of funding for 49 homeless services programs managed by 17 organizations. Unless this is resolved before July 1st, life-saving shelter, outreach, housing, medical respite, care coordination, rental assistance and eviction prevention services could be abruptly disrupted or halted for hundreds of Thurston County residents. Please contact the Regional Housing Council and Thurston County Board of...

The short summary At the beginning of this month, the City of Olympia announced the beginning of a regional effort to begin working towards the closure of the Jungle. A few weeks later, the first steps towards its closure are unfolding. On Monday, May 18th, the City of Olympia announced the start of the creation of a list of the people living at the Jungle. The notice states that everyone on the list will be offered shelter or housing before the camp is closed. The catch – the list will be...

Summary of the situation The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) has declined two separate opportunities to support closure plans for a camp located on their property along Percival Creek that would result in many, if not all, residents of the camp being connected with indoor shelter prior to the camp’s closure. In lieu of collaborating with community partners to pursue either of these opportunities, WSDOT leadership has instead decided to move forward with closing the camp...