Pierce County, WA selected for 100-Day Challenge to combat youth homelessness
TACOMA, Wash. - Pierce County will soon participate in a national initiative to address a crisis among youth and young adults: homelessness.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) selected Pierce County Human Services to participate in its 100-Day Challenge, a national initiative inspiring creative community action to end homelessness among young people.
What they're saying:
"This major federal grant gives us a huge opportunity to focus deeply and boldly on youth homelessness," said Ryan Mello, Pierce County Executive. "Helping young people get to a place of stability so that they can have a chance at succeeding long into their life and have access to opportunity."
Pierce County Executive Ryan Mello
Big picture view:
HUD launched the 100-Day Challenge in 2017, with a purpose "to help catalyze community action to establish bold, creative, and innovative ways to help youth experiencing homelessness find stable housing."
Since its creation, "multiple cohorts of communities have engaged in challenges to accelerate efforts to prevent and end youth homelessness through intense collaboration, innovation, and execution of ambitious local goals."
Pierce County Human Services (PCHS) was selected to participate in the challenge for 2025. Last year, PCHS was awarded $3.5 million dollars to create a Coordinated Community Plan through HUD’s Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP). PCHS is the first in the nation to participate in both the 100-Day Challenge and YHDP at the same time.
"We think it’s going to pay dividends for generations, help get at generational poverty, get at generational homelessness when we can really solve this," said Mello.
What's next:
The 100-Day Challenge starts on February 5 at William Philip Hall at University of Washington – Tacoma. The initiative kicks off with a community event from 1-3 P.M.
Members of the public, community outreach teams, advocates, and local leaders will gather to share ideas and solutions to get more young people into stable housing.
"We really challenge our community to be bold, to be creative, to help us co-create solutions for this really challenging crisis that’s in front of us," said Mello. "If we want to be successful at getting at root causes of homelessness and providing solutions for folks, we have to understand the ‘why’ behind folks experiencing homelessness."
On Tuesday, Mello visited The Coffee Oasis in Tacoma, one of many community organizations providing resources to young people while addressing the issues of homelessness.
Despite so many different community efforts, the problem is growing among youth and young adults, and the effects are even more troubling.
"Not only not continue their education, it leads them to higher rates of suicide, extreme depression, substance use disorder, but also things like human trafficking. These are really serious issues that we can address when we address youth homelessness," said Mello.
By the numbers:
The county executive said there was a 140% increase in youth homelessness from 2017 to 2023. The latest numbers show about 1,800 young people experiencing homelessness in Pierce County, but Mello explained the data is under-reported.
"Kids couch-surfing and who don’t necessarily have a stable place to stay week after week, night after night. There are thousands more of those young people. They may not be part of that 1,800 sleeping in a youth shelter or in a park or under a freeway overpass and that sort of thing, but they don’t have housing stability," said Mello.
More than 2,500 students were experiencing homelessness or housing instability, according to an April 2024 report from Tacoma Public Schools.
"Our teachers, our counselors, and our school districts in Pierce County know thousands of young people who don’t have housing stability, and they’re couch-surfing in a different family's house or family friend night after night," said Mello.
The county executive said participating in the 100-Day Challenge will be critical in helping to determine the root cause of youth homelessness and finding permanent solutions. Mello said understanding the demographics of youth homelessness in the county will be an important part of the initiative.
"More than half of young people experiencing homelessness are people of color. About 30% are LGBTQ. And the reasons why so many are experiencing homelessness, to begin with, are because of things like family crises. A family crisis in this regard means they’re not welcomed in their own home because they’re LGBTQ, or because domestic violence is being experienced in their home," explained Mello.
Though 100 days won’t solve all youth homelessness, Mello said it does spark new possibilities.
"What I’m absolutely confident about after 100 days, we’re going to have renewed energy, renewed focus, and an end time to say we have real action in front of us that we can commit to together. Hold ourselves accountable and make some meaningful progress in a time-limited way," said Mello.
"I can’t think of something much more important than to work on helping young people create a better path forward for themselves and for their future."
The Source: Information for this article comes from Pierce County Executive Ryan Mello, Pierce County Human Services (PCHS), and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD.
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