>>  CHALLENGE With over 11,600 homeless individuals counted on our streets or in shelters during the most recent point-in-time count, King County now has the third-largest homeless population in the United States, ranking behind only New York City and Los Angeles. >> APPROACH KCHA is experimenting with new ways to effectively use housing assistance dollars to address the region’s growing homeless population. Through the creation of low-threshold entry points and targeted housing programs, 50 percent of households entering our federally assisted programs in 2017 were previously homeless. SYSTEMS COORDINATION KCHA works to coordinate across the behavioral health, housing, and homeless systems to more effectively address the needs of our community’s most vulnerable households. In 2017, we expanded our work with school districts to house homeless children, dedicated 80 subsidies to “moving on” strategies for households ready to leave intensively staffed supportive housing programs, and continued to refine strategies to house homeless youth, survivors of domestic violence, and chronically homeless individuals. ENDING VETERAN HOMELESSNESS Partnering with the Veterans Administration, we expanded our programs for homeless veterans by an additional 150 project-based vouchers, the most awarded to any Public 2017 ANNUAL REPORT 15