As our community faces an acute homelessness crisis, Cottage Hill Place addresses the need for Permanent Supportive Housing units that meet the housing first/harm reduction guidelines. Cottage Hill Place Phase I construction began February 2024. It will be finished by January 2025 and will begin housing residents by March 2025.  By building 16 Permanent Supportive Housing cottages in Phase I and 20 Permanent Supportive Housing cottages in Phase II, Cottage Hill Place will address Yakima Valley’s goals of reducing homelessness, increasing housing stability and offering supportive services to our community’s most vulnerable populations.

Cottage Hill Place will also feature an onsite community center that will have a community kitchen, laundry facilities and private meeting rooms where residents can receive case management and wraparound supportive services.  Justice Housing Yakima believes that Permanent Supportive Housing is more than just a building with services and that long-term housing stability is the greatest measure of success.  To increase opportunities for success, residents will have consistent access to essential, wrap-around supportive services from experienced agencies and organizations that have the capacity to provide; education and employment assistance; legal aid; medication monitoring; mental health and substance use disorder treatment and counseling; healthcare services; trips to food banks and cooking classes/demonstrations; social outings; and more.

Chronically homeless individuals often rapidly cycle through various public services and disproportionately use emergency services, law enforcement, fire and rescue units, emergency rooms, detox programs, jails, judicial systems, shelters and more at a great cost to taxpayers.  Additionally, homelessness often exacerbates already volatile family situations, unstable mental health issues and unaddressed substance use disorders.  Cottage Hill Place is a cost-effective solution that lessens the strain on already overburdened public systems and provides housing stability to individuals as they seek to gain strength and control in other areas of their lives.

With great consideration being taken into trauma-informed facility design, program development, staffing patterns, program values, resident interaction, lived experience input and feedback from our community-wide-continuum-of-care, Cottage Hill Place guides individuals toward long-term success and assist in avoiding a return to homelessness.