WAKE COUNTY, N.C. — There’s a new approach to end and prevent homelessness in the Triangle.

The Joint Homelessness Task Force between Wake County and the city of Raleigh met for the first time Thursday. The group consists of stakeholders from all different areas, including people who have experienced housing and food insecurity.

The idea is to make sure everyone is on the same page when it comes to resources and a common goal. Some members say the approach should be more collaborative in order for it to be successful.

“It was a beautiful group of people who were brought to the table with lots coming from a lot of different perspectives. And I’m honored to be here to share what I know from the lived experience,” said Kara Sanders, a member of the Joint Homelessness Task Force. “It takes people with lived experience to say, ‘I don’t appreciate how you treated me. That’s not what I need. I need something totally different.’”

Members of the group represent nonprofits, grassroots efforts, the faith community and Wake County elected officials.

One official with the Wake County Public School System estimates the district serves anywhere from 4,000 to 5,000 homeless students every year but says that number is growing closer to 6,000.

Sanders is one of the members who can share her own experience with housing insecurity. She believes her perspective needs to be valued more when discussing solutions.

“Nobody wants to take and see lived experience as valuable because of the very things I said. You don’t have an education, you know you can’t. What do you know? You know, as if we don’t know what it’s like on the receiving end of being treated with no respect and no dignity and knowing what that feels like,” Sanders said.

The group is designed to be a collaboration between the boots on the ground and those who can direct funding to help end and prevent homelessness.

“What we have found, the research has found, is it doesn’t matter how much you fund it, what your situation is, the folks who have the worse homelessness problems have the lowest housing availability, which makes sense,” said Vickie Adamson, Wake County commissioner for District 7. “One of the things we’re seeing that’s different is pre-pandemic we saw a lot of the same folks who cycled through our systems. Well about 30% to 40% of the people coming into our homelessness system have never received services before. So they don’t have what you typically think, drug problems, alcohol problems. These are families that can’t pay $1,900 a month for rent. Pre-pandemic their rent was $900.”

Adamson also says there’s an affordable housing shortage that simply can’t meet the current demand or needs of the community.

“The county has been building about 1,000 affordable units a year and our prices have doubled with building materials, labor. This year we’re probably only going to be around 500 units and that’s $11 million to do that and before the pandemic $11 million would get us more than 1,000 units,” Adamson said.

Adamson says the solution is not as simple as finding a home for someone but believes they are making progress when they offer more complete services.

“If it was about giving you a key and putting you in an apartment, we’d fix it. But some people need services to stay housed. Of the folks in 2021 that we housed and we provided wrap services, 95% of them are still housed, which is incredible rates in the homelessness world,” Adamson said.

Many members of the group say the area’s current system addressing homelessness is “broken.” Members hope that by bringing all these perspectives and resources together, new solutions that actually work can be found.

“Houses can be built, people can be put in homes. But to eliminate homelessness, to end and prevent homelessness it has to go deeper,” Sanders said.

The task force will meet on the second Thursday of each month for the next nine months. A final report of the group’s findings and recommendations will be shared February 2024. All of the meetings are open to the public.

“Our goal is that homelessness in Wake County will be one time and short-lived. Our goal is to get someone rehoused in 30 days,” Adamson said.