City staff presented a proposed yearlong initiative on Oct. 21 to develop a data-driven, community-informed homelessness strategy for McKinney. The program — presented by Margaret Lee, Housing & Community Development Director — was introduced to councilors as "Better Together" (the name was changed from an earlier working title) and would include community engagement, a needs assessment, and an implementation plan.

Lee said the initiative would break the issue into three strands: symptoms of homelessness (impacts on public space and infrastructure), the homeless experience (individual needs) and root causes (affordability and system gaps). She proposed hiring an external facilitator, forming an ad hoc council committee to work with staff, issuing a request for proposals in November and selecting a contractor by February. The planned schedule would allow a March kickoff, a needs-assessment report in May, an initial strategic plan in August, an implementation plan in September and adoption of final documents in October of the following year.

"To develop a strategic approach for the initiative, we would like to propose some guiding principles…" Lee said, outlining five principles that emphasize shared responsibility, public safety for all residents, individualized services delivered with dignity, data-driven decisions and prevention as well as response.

Council reaction was mixed. Councilman Cloutier said he was skeptical that a yearlong planning process would produce immediate results and urged more direct spending on rapid rehousing pilots, saying repeated study without funding is a pattern he feared would continue. "I just I feel like we know most of this and we're doing a lot of it. And we keep bumping up against the barrier that is the cost of housing," Cloutier said.

Mayor Pro Tem Grimes (identified in the transcript as Mr. Grimes) said the proposed process was valuable for organizing community input and stressed that the "unity" described in the proposal referred to a unified process rather than unanimous agreement on outcomes. Councilman Beller expressed concern about the first guiding principle and said he was uncertain the community could produce a united approach; he volunteered to serve on an ad hoc committee.

Lee said the initiative would be coordinated with ongoing programs — including the McKinney Homeless Coalition’s SOAR program and warming/cooling station efforts — and staff will continue to pursue funding opportunities through consolidated grants and other sources. She noted several groups already act on parts of the problem and framed the initiative as a way to align resources and identify gaps.

No formal council vote to authorize the facilitator or to form the ad hoc committee occurred during the Oct. 21 work session; Lee said a resolution with the updated initiative name would appear on the regular agenda later that night for council consideration.