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Background <br />As part of the Hometess Housing 5-Year ptanning process, the ptanning committee <br />conducted a community survey that was fitted out by anybody in the community. After <br />reviewing the resutts of the suryey, the committee wished to gather more quatitative <br />information about hometessness in Kittitas County. As a resutt, the committee decided to <br />hire an independent facititator to run five focus groups to gather opinions, thoughts, and <br />ideas about hometessness in Kittitas County. The perspectives gained witt hetp inform <br />priorities for the 5-Year P[an. <br />Methods <br />The five focus groupswere hetd between November 5th and November Bth,ZOZ4 in the <br />Hopesource training room and on the centra[ washington University campus. <br />. People with Lived Experience with Homelessness: 5 participants. Service Providers: 5 participants (Eltensburg Pubtic Library, Kittitas County Pubtic <br />Heatth Department, HopeSource, Kittitas County Recovery Community Organization, <br />APOYO) <br />. Law EnforcementlLocal Government: 4 participants (Kittitas County Sheriff's Office, <br />Kittitas Potice Department, Ettensburg Potice Department, City of Ettensburg)o Community llembers: 6 participants <br />. Central Washington University: 8 participants (students, facutty, and staff) <br />Participants were given a list of the focus group questions as wetl as an information <br />sheet/consent form prior to the meetings. The first few minutes was spent doing brief <br />introductions inctuding an icebreaker question, going over the focus group format and <br />participation guidetines, and collecting consent forms (Appendix A). <br />The questions and prompts that were asked of the focus groups were mostty in an open <br />discussion format or a round robin format. The facititator frequentty cal.ted upon <br />participants to ensure equitabte participation. Some questions invotved some individual <br />brainstorming and then sharing top ideas with the group. <br />Each focus group was recorded and the recordings sent to a transcriptionist for transcribing. <br />The transcriptionist transcribes for content and meaning and [eaves out language fitters and <br />unrelated conversations. (Quotes provided may not be word for word.) <br />The facititator then reviewed the transcriptions, identified themes where appropriate, and <br />used them to provide the resutts in this report. <br />4