First Convening of the Unified Regional Approach

Office of Jani Hitchen, Pierce County Council, District 6 news story.

Almost one year ago, I convened elected representatives and staff from across the county to discuss how we could work together in a more effective way. This was our first step to establishing a Unified Regional Approach, or URA for short, which was one of the main ideas that came out of the county’s Comprehensive Plan to End Homelessness. 

We had about a dozen different jurisdictions present and staff from several other organizations. The conversation was about the makeup of the different workgroups and how we will get to some level of agreement. We also identified what we hoped to come out of this work. 

Some overarching themes were about coordinating and understanding how different jurisdictions work in the area of homelessness. There was a call out to hear from people who do the work for each part of our county and a desire to think smarter to reduce people slipping into chronic homelessness.

If you want to learn more about the initial thinking, I wrote a blog entry about the URA in April 2024. Overall, I was thrilled and excited to see this collaboration happen between leaders from every part of our county. It was the first and very important step.