On Sept. 30, members of the Whitman and Walla Walla community gathered in Olin Auditorium to learn more about homelessness and housing insecurity in Walla Walla County at the 2025 Homeless Housing Community Forum. 

Gregg Colburn, co-author of “Homelessness is a Housing Problem: How Structural Factors Explain U.S. Patterns” and Associate Professor in the College of Built Environments at University of Washington, presented a slideshow containing some of his findings and highlights from his book.

Walla Walla County’s Five Year Homeless Housing draft plan was also introduced at the forum. The plan will be presented to the Board of County Commissioners for 2026 to 2030 and aims to “reduce homelessness and housing instability in Walla Walla County by fostering community collaboration and using a continuous quality improvement framework.”

This plan was created in accordance with Washington state law, which requires each county to submit a five year homeless housing plan. Jordan Green, who acted as a facilitator at the forum and works as the Executive Director of the Walla Walla Alliance for the Homeless, views the plan as a guideline for future projects to help and alleviate homelessness in Walla Walla County.  

“[Think] about the document as the high-level steering of the county as they respond to homelessness,” Green said. “So that as solutions become available and possible or as organizations come looking for funding or as we’re trying to connect with builders and developers and landowners, we can see how those projects align with the plan.”

This plan includes a snapshot report of individuals in the community experiencing homelessness and an annual point in time count that shows that, as of 2025, 197 people were reported to be experiencing homelessness in Walla Walla County. According to Green, though, this count is understood to be an undercount, in part due to difficulties collecting data from homeless populations. 

Rebecca Finkes, the Senior Homeless Housing Coordinator for the Walla Walla Department of Community Health, hopes that the five year homeless housing plan will lead to reduction in homelessness in the community and improvements to our local systems. 

“I also hope that the shared values and priorities identified in this plan foster resilience in our community so that we can weather continued uncertainty at the federal level,” Finkes said in an email to The Wire.

The Department of Community Health (DCH) is a public health and community services department that seeks to “improve the quality of life and wellbeing of communities within Walla Walla. As Senior Homeless Housing Coordinator, Finkes is responsible for supporting local responses to reduce homelessness. 

“One of the values of this plan is to ‘lean local’ – which is a commitment to advancing change and small scale improvements in all the ways we can control through local expertise and partnerships,” Finkes said. 

The plan’s second objective is to “strengthen the homeless service provider workforce.” In this step, Walla Walla County plans to support the homeless service staff workforce and invest in the training and well being of homeless service staff. 

This goal arises from widespread causes to homelessness, which Green explained as system-level events like everyday costs for rent, low wages and individual-level events like potential struggles with drug use and degrading mental health disorders.

“Ultimately, [the individual-level events] are just the event that makes it all happen, but only because so many other things have happened before it — like pricing of the housing market or lacking availability of units for rent,” Green said.

In Walla Walla County, average Fair Market Rent (FMR) for a one-bedroom unit costs $1,181, which would require a minimum hourly wage of $22.71. The minimum wage in Walla Walla is $16.66 an hour, meaning that to afford a one-bedroom unit at FMR, you would need more than one full time job. 

“It’s easy for us to see that person on the Main drive of Walla Walla and say ‘that’s homelessness.’ And it is, and hopefully we can care for that individual,” Colburn said. “But when we think about and equate that person with homelessness, what we’re missing is the women and children who are in a shelter every night, we’re missing people in Seattle who are living in their vans and showering at the YMCA. This is a much broader community of people than just those we see on the street.” 

After Colburn’s presentation, members of Walla Walla community organizations who are working to support people experiencing homelessness were invited to the stage for a panel.

Kristy Capps, Registered Nurse and Navigator of the Walla Walla Fire Department CARES team, described the different ways that the department provides outreach and assistance to those in the community. Capps’ and the CARES team’s aim is to reduce hospital readmissions and emergency room visits by navigating resources. 

Members of Walla Walla County like Green, Finkes and Capps are hopeful that by enacting strategies and supporting local organizations, they will be able to combat homelessness and provide care to unhoused people locally.