The City of Sequim has received the 2021 International City/County Management Association (ICMA) Local Government Excellence Award for Community Partnership in communities under 10,000 population in recognition of the development of the Sequim Health & Housing Collaborative (SHHC).
The SHHC is a collaborative of six local nonprofit agencies formed to better assist the City in responding to substance use disorder, homelessness, mental illness, and food insecurity in the community. Healthy Families of Clallam County, Olympic Peninsula Community Clinic, Olympic Community Action Programs, Peninsula Behavioral Health, Sequim Food Bank, and Sequim Free Clinic designed the collaborative in 2018 after the City issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) following a 2017 Human Services Summit that evaluated the City’s human services funding and ways to better address the needs of the community. The City of Sequim entered into a three-year, $75,000/year contract with SHHC in 2019.
In 2020 the SHHC launched the Helping Our People Engage (HOPE) Outreach Program. HOPE has documented 832 encounters; these encounters prevented 54 households from homelessness, enrolled 78 households in intensive case management programs, and provided 160 shelter nights for households that did not qualify for traditional shelter options. SHHC also arranged another 569 nights of emergency shelter and provided more than 1 million meals in 2020, double over 2019. Working together the SHHC has accomplished more than any agency could have independently.
According to the announcement from ICMA, “the award recognizes the programs or processes that demonstrate innovation, excellence, and success in multiparticipant involvement between or among a local government and other governmental entities, private sector businesses, individuals, or nonprofit agencies to improve the quality of life for residents or provides more efficient and effect services.”
ICMA is the world’s largest association of professional city and county managers and other employees who serve local governments offering professional development programs, research, publications, data and information, technical assistance, and training to thousands of city, town, and county chief administrative officers, their staffs, and other organizations throughout the world.