Every Door Matters
There’s no quick fix for homelessness, but there is a proven path. Our community needs an open door at every step, from the first night indoors to a permanent home.
Homelessness can happen to anyone.
Most people lose their homes because of forces beyond their control, like high housing costs and incomes that don’t keep up.
were counted homeless in Yakima County’s Point in Time count
experienced homelessness in Yakima County, by the state’s fuller count
of people counted in 2025 were chronically homeless: living with a disability and homeless for more than a year, or four or more times in three years.
The largest groups experiencing homelessness include:
- Individual adults
- Families with children
- Veterans
- Older adults
- People experiencing chronic homelessness
- Unaccompanied youth
A door at every step
No single program can serve everyone. An effective system finds people, gives them a safe place to stay right away, and connects them quickly to care and housing. Each step depends on the one before it.
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Outreach
Outreach workers go to where people are living, like encampments, cars, and riverbanks, and keep showing up. Over time, that consistency builds the trust people need to come inside or accept help.
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Low-barrier emergency shelter
The core principle is harm reduction: keeping people safe, warm, and alive rather than policing their personal habits. No sobriety or ID is required to get in, though clear safety rules still apply. Once people are indoors, help can reach them.
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Treatment & stabilization
With a stable place to stay, people can begin addressing what keeps them from moving forward, whether that’s mental illness, addiction, or a medical condition. Clinicians and peer counselors help them start care and stick with it.
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Transitional & supportive care
Structured programs give people time and support to build daily living skills, stay in recovery, and get ready for housing. People with complex, long-term needs may move into settings with ongoing care.
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Permanent housing
The goal is a home of their own. Depending on need, that might be supportive housing with services on site, short-term rent help through rapid re-housing, or an affordable apartment.
Not shelter instead of housing. Shelter until housing. Remove any step, and every step after it gets harder to reach.
Why not just move everyone into supportive housing?
Permanent supportive housing is one of the most effective tools we have. It’s also far too small for the need, and it isn’t the right fit for everyone.
Beds open one at a time. When a unit becomes available, it’s filled from a waiting list prioritized by vulnerability through the county’s coordinated entry system.
Not everyone qualifies. Supportive housing is designed for people with complex, disabling health conditions. Others need rapid re-housing, transitional programs, or affordable rentals.
Shelter is the waiting room. Long shelter stays are a sign of too few housing exits, not too much shelter. Until a door opens, shelter keeps people safe and connected to case managers.
Getting people indoors saves lives
Shelter saves lives
higher death rate for people sleeping outside than for the general population
In a 10-year Boston study, people sleeping outside also died at nearly 3 times the rate of homeless adults who stayed in shelters.
Moving people along costs lives
of deaths could be linked to repeated forced moves
When people are forced to move again and again, they lose contact with the clinicians and case managers who know them. A national study projected this toll over 10 years for unhoused people who inject drugs.
Housing plus support works
still housed after three years
In a Denver study of supportive housing, participants also spent less time in jail and made fewer trips to the emergency room.
We bring the care to people who need it
Comprehensive Healthcare brings services directly to Camp Hope, a low-barrier emergency shelter in Yakima, so getting help doesn’t depend on getting a ride.
On site now
Peer support counselors, every day
People with lived experience on site daily, building the trust that makes a next step possible.
Physicians who make the trip
Medical providers travel to Camp Hope to see patients where they already are.
Complex case management
Support and de-escalation for residents with behavioral health needs.
A review of 61 U.S. studies found transportation is a major barrier to health care, leading to missed appointments, delayed care, and missed medications.
Coming soon
Accessible, affordable care, right where people are
The center will offer mental and physical health care for non-emergency needs, both on a walk-in basis and by appointment. It was funded by more than $1 million from Washington state.
as staffing allows
Thursdays, 2:30–5:30 p.m., as providers are available
Health care
- Non-emergency medication refills
- Chronic condition management
- Screening for diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol
- STI screening and treatment
- Hepatitis C screening and treatment
- Health education before discharge
Recovery and coordination
- Peer support for people in recovery or on their way to recovery
- Weekly peer-led group meetings
- Care coordinated with primary care physicians and social services
- Focused skills training and development
Space to learn and connect
- A 30-person classroom for workshops and presentations
- A family room where residents can meet with family or their treatment team
Expected opening: Early 2027
cabins for individuals and families seeking mental health or substance use treatment, where they can build the skills to live independently
cabin for someone in acute crisis who isn’t able to stay in a shared living space
Cabins expected to open: Late 2026
What people often ask
Low-barrier means fewer rules to get in, not no rules. Removing entry requirements brings people indoors, where clinicians and case managers can reach them and treatment can begin.
Usually because the next step is full. Supportive housing and affordable rentals open slowly, and people can only move on when a spot becomes available.
Programs serve different people with different requirements. Some require sobriety or program participation; others serve only families or youth. Low-barrier shelter reaches the people other programs can’t.
Research shows repeated displacement pushes people away from the case managers and clinicians who know them, and leads to more hospitalizations and deaths.
Every one of us is part of the solution
Stay informed
Subscribe to Vibrant Communities, our community newsletter, for updates on this work.
Subscribe →Share what you learned
Pass this page along to friends, neighbors, congregations, and community groups.
Follow the county’s plan
Yakima County’s Homeless Coalition meets publicly, and its five-year plan tracks progress online.
Learn more →Support local providers
Shelters and housing programs across the county rely on donations and volunteers.
Need help now? Call Comprehensive Healthcare’s crisis line at 800-572-8122, call or text 988, or dial 211 for shelter and housing resources.
Sources
- National Alliance to End Homelessness. Who Experiences Homelessness; Crisis Response; Emergency Shelter Learning Series. endhomelessness.org
- Yakima Herald-Republic. “How new housing projects are helping people out of chronic homelessness in Yakima County.” May 19, 2026. (Citing WA Dept. of Commerce Snapshot of Homelessness, expenditure reports, and performance tracker; Yakima County Five-Year Homeless Housing Strategic Plan.)
- Yakima Herald-Republic. “Yakima County leaders say 2025 homeless count only tells part of story.” Sept. 8, 2025.
- Yakima County Department of Human Services. Coordinated Entry – Yakima County. 2021.
- King County Regional Homelessness Authority. Definitions: Low barrier shelter.
- Roncarati JS, et al. Mortality among unsheltered homeless adults in Boston, Massachusetts, 2000–2009. JAMA Internal Medicine. 2018;178(9):1242–1248.
- Barocas JA, et al. Population-level health effects of involuntary displacement of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness who inject drugs in US cities. JAMA. 2023;329(17):1478–1486.
- Urban Institute. Housing First Breaks the Homelessness-Jail Cycle: Results from the Denver Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond Initiative. 2021.
- Syed ST, Gerber BS, Sharp LK. Traveling towards disease: transportation barriers to health care access. Journal of Community Health. 2013;38(5):976–993.
- Comprehensive Healthcare. Comprehensive Healthcare and Camp Hope awarded state funding to build on-site behavioral health center. April 27, 2023.