Pierce County to expedite regional approach to homelessness; consultant let go
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Pierce County ends consultant contract, unclear portion of $1M voided.
- County will take on URA implementation after consultant mapped services.
- Local jurisdictions to consider resolutions while interlocal agreements are negotiated.
Pierce County has terminated a million-dollar contract with a consultant helping to plan and implement a regional approach to addressing the homelessness crisis.
The county says it is terminating the contract because the time for planning is over, and the time to begin the new approach is now.
When the Comprehensive Plan to End Homelessness was established in March 2022, one of the first steps it outlined was to bring local leaders and stakeholders in Pierce County to the table as a way to coordinate efforts to reduce homelessness across jurisdictions.
The body known as the Unified Regional Approach (URA) to homelessness started to form in 2024 when the county held its inaugural meeting, hosting representatives from more than a dozen cities across the county.
In an interview with The News Tribune at the time, Pierce County Council Member Jani Hitchen said the URA was being established because the county’s current response to homelessness is a “patchwork” of community organizations, agencies and jurisdictions working without coordination. She said that approach has allowed people to “slip through the cracks” of the region’s social-safety net.
One of the goals of the URA, according to Hitchen, is to create a “unified regional organization” that would work together to determine what services and supports exist in different communities and jurisdictions and to identify gaps.
Later that year, the county hired third-party consultant, Uncommon Bridges, under a $1 million contract to help plan and implement the structure of the URA and the responsibilities and roles of its members. That process was anticipated to take two years.
Bryan Dominique is a spokesperson for the Pierce County Council.
On March 27, Dominique told The News Tribune the council would move to terminate the contract with Uncommon Bridges as the county is at a “natural point to transition into implementation.”
“Over the last year, Uncommon Bridges has done a lot of work to get an actionable design developed, including mapping out the current service environment,” he wrote in a statement to The News Tribune. “As we move into the implementation phase, this was a natural point to transition work to Pierce County.”
Dominique said terminating the contract is not a setback to implementing the URA and rather more indicative that implementation would be expedited.
“Our team at Uncommon Bridges and Pierce County agree that this is the exact right moment for Pierce County to take more prominent role in driving implementation,” Uncommon Bridges said in a statement to the URA’s leadership.
A press release from the Pierce County Council described the move as a “mutual decision.”
According to Pierce County, Uncommon Bridges was contracted for $1 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds over a 25.5-month period. The county told The News Tribune there will be about $288,700 left unspent in the contract.
“They have done great work,” Dominique told The News Tribune. “The county as a region is now closer to a functioning unified system because of this work, which is identified as the number one strategy in the county’s Comprehensive Plan to End Homelessness.”
Uncommon Bridges convened three task forces — Finance, Operations, and Governance. According to the county, the task forces included not just service providers and government staff, but an Elected Leadership Group and people with experience navigating those systems.
He said Pierce County will now take on implementation of the URA as it facilitates and administers many of the state and federal resources awarded to the region’s homelessness response.
“The design phase produced a shared baseline, and over the coming months, local jurisdictions will consider resolutions of intent to support the regional effort while interlocal agreements are negotiated.,” Dominique said. “These [interlocal agreements] will establish the legal and administrative guardrails to effectively manage a robust regional approach.”
