-Looks like everything's coming together.
-After more than three years living on the streets,
it's moving day for Kyle.
-I'm beyond excited. This is my angel.
Oh.
-The King County Regional Homelessness Authority
is making progress opening doors,
but demand far exceeds supply.
-We need more housing, need more treatment resources for folks.
-All those in favor, please say "Ay."
-And while the county is pushing for a regional route
to solving homelessness,
more suburban cities are passing public camping bans.
-We're working together. We have different ideas
-It's waste of resources.
-How can the authority unify the county's 39 cities,
as it launches a new five-year plan to end homelessness?
-The voters have been clear. This is enough.
-We check in with Mark Downs,
the C.E.O. of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.
-This really could be the model.
-Turning up the heat on homelessness
as the temperature drops outdoors,
next on "City Inside Out."
♪♪
Welcome to this edition of "City Inside Out."
I'm your host, Brian Callanan,
the King County Regional Homelessness Authority
has gone through plenty of challenges
since its launch in late 2019.
It took more than a year to hire a C.E.O.,
and the authority's request to have its budget
nearly doubled in 2023
has drawn criticism from a number of elected officials.
But the agency says it's making progress,
getting people out of unauthorized encampments
and into housing, especially in downtown Seattle.
This December, the KCRHA plans to release
its five-year plan to end homelessness in King County.
And this week, we're looking at how close that goal truly is
to becoming a reality.
-Yeah, it's a good day to move, man.
-Kyle Uecker is excited.
-Here we go.
-This 39-year-old, homeless for the past three-plus years
and managing an addiction to painkillers,
is moving out of a tent near T-Mobile Field.
-This is my angel, right here, man.
-Yvonne Hernandez, also formerly homeless,
is now a systems advocate
for King County's Regional Homelessness Authority.
-You can push, yeah, and I'll pull.
-He's moving Uecker into one of 310 housing units
the RHA will pay a year's rent for
through its landlord incentive program.
-Well, I hate to see you go, but not really.
The RHA, using a by-name list
of nearly 800 homeless people in downtown Seattle,
has 41 people matched up with housing,
and has fully moved in 13 others as of mid-November --
a small, but growing, number that Kyle Uecker
is just glad to be a part of.
-It's been three years.
It's been a long trip, long road.
I reached the finish line, and I'm happy as can be.
-But the journey for the RHA itself,
established in late 2019, has not been an easy one.
-You know, I think there's, like,
a sense of compassion fatigue.
-Joe Conniff, also formerly homeless,
is co-director of the RHA's
Systems Advocate Peer Navigation Team,
who's well aware the county and city of Seattle
declared a homelessness emergency
more than seven years ago.
-For our housed residents, and our unhoused residences,
it's like, you know, "Have we seen a lot of progress on that?"
-In the midst of the pandemic,
it took more than a year for the RHA
to hire a chief executive officer.
But since then, the agency has set up a housing command center
to coordinate resources,
a searchable online regional database
of homelessness services, and a voucher program
that's placed more than 1,100 people into housing --
one of the best totals for such a program in the country.
-The community is very receptive,
particularly unhoused neighbors.
They're the ones that matter the most.
And our team's out there, and we're getting great response.
-Now, the RHA is trying to get local leaders to respond to
a major budget increase request for 2023.
The city of Seattle currently pays 2/3 of that bill.
-We're very invested in the regional strategy working.
-Andrew Lewis, head of the city council's
Homelessness Committee,
is encouraged by the progress the RHA has made.
They are really firing on all cylinders,
and getting people out there in the community,
to get folks inside.
-But in a tight budget year for the city itself,
Seattle will add some, not all, the new funding
the RHA is requesting.
And the RHA will have less shelter space
to work with in 2023,
after King County's planned expansion of an existing
270-bed homeless shelter,
with services and case management,
was scrapped following an uproar from the Chinatown ID community,
what Lewis calls a misunderstanding
of a critically needed resource.
-When we're talking about enhanced shelter,
and then there's people on site who who will make sure
the location is safe and secure,
that -- that doesn't really pose an issue
to the surrounding community.
And we -- as leaders, we need to make that very clear.
-But there's another message
leaders outside of Seattle are making clear.
They're taking a different approach to homelessness.
My residents would not be okay with a line of tents
running down Fourth Avenue.
It just wouldn't work.
-The RHA criticized Kent mayor Dana Ralph for strengthening
the city's ban on public camping this fall.
But she says the law is intended to help people who are homeless,
not put them in jail.
-We want to get people connected with services,
and we need to protect our environment.
-Ralph has criticized King County's inability
to deal with a massive unauthorized encampment
just past the Kent border, on unincorporated county land
by the Green River, that's existed for years.
-All those in favor, please say "Ay."
-While Ralph applauds the RHA's goals,
and its efforts to tailor different approaches
to different areas of the county,
she says parts of the regional response to homelessness
have simply come up short.
-We want to be collaborative, and work together.
We just know that what we're doing now isn't working.
-I love you to death, man.
-The system is working for Kyle Uecker,
now employed, going through drug treatment,
and with a caseworker who will be regularly checking in.
-If he wants to get into basketball,
if he wants to go into singing,
if he wants to get back to school,
it's up to him.
Like he said, he has a job right now,
but the sky's the limit for him, at this point.
-The question now -- what's the limit
on our region's patience with the RHA,
a new agency that's shown some promise but still has far to go
when it comes to shutting the door on homelessness.
-It's nice meeting everybody.
Peace out.
-And here I am with Marc Dones,
the C.E.O. of the Regional Homelessness Authority.
Mark, thank you very much for being here.
And I wanted to talk about this --
when I had you on the show last year, at about the same time,
you were just getting into the job,
and you told me you thought of your position
as bringing people together, and bringing them along,
meaning you're not leading by fiat.
It's a collaborative process.
You're trying to get a lot of people together
to solve this complex problem of homelessness.
So, easy question to start --
how successful do you think you have been in that goal?
-[ Laughs ]
-Well, thank you for having me. It's great to be here.
It's great to be here in person, and not virtually.
-Yeah.
-You know, I think that we are seeing
some -- some pretty significant successes.
I think, you know, we are, you know, seeing a new ILA --
inter-local agreement -- wind its way
through council votes in North King County.
Right?
We saw -- I think our first vote passed 7 to 0.
Right?
And so, I think we are really beginning
to have the conversations with jurisdictions across the county
that are leading them to have faith, right,
that this, again, will not be a dictatorial enterprise,
or something that is not going to take into account
the very nuanced interests of communities
of all 39 of our cities.
Right? -Right.
-So, I think it's going well.
I think, you know...
you always want things to be faster than they are.
Right?
But, you know, the -- the -- doing good community work
that's going to bring people along is -- is better than,
you know, speed that's going to cause things to break down.
-Thank you for that.
And I'd like to focus on something specific
to downtown Seattle.
Because, March of this year,
you were talking with the Seattle City Council
about this goal of functional zero homelessness
in downtown Seattle.
You said this was possible,
I believe by next year, in 2023.
-Yeah.
-And the Partnership for Zero, the philanthropic group,
is gonna be helping out with that.
Please explain, if you could, what functional zero is,
and if that goal is still on track.
-Yeah.
So, functional zero, it's a little bit of a wonky term
that basically means that there are extremely low levels
of unsheltered, you know, street homelessness.
You know, there are details about that,
but I'm not gonna belabor those.
That's basically what it means.
the -- So, we got HUD technical assistance,
or HUD TA,
in order to launch this project.
A TA team was on site starting in September.
We spent most of September, a little bit of October,
doing a lot of process architecture.
And I know that that sounds, again, pretty wonky,
but the system that my team inherited had sort of
grown into doing things that, frankly, weren't our job.
And, you know, we -- we know, for example,
that we need a strong behavioral health system.
We know that we need a strong public safety system.
Right?
Our job, as sort of the emergency room
for the county, with regard to homelessness,
is really just to rapidly rehouse folks.
And so, what we had to do was build out a process
that was really just focused on doing three things --
identifying eligible units, identifying eligible households,
and then moving those households into those units.
Right? And that feels very simple.
But I think, as we all know, if any of us have tried to rent,
that that's not as simple as we want it to be.
So, we really laid out that process architecture,
and then begin to deploy a field team to -- to do that work.
And I feel like we're doing really well, to be honest.
I think -- you know, so, when I last looked at data
earlier this week, I believe we had about,
I think 17 households that had moved in.
We had another 26 households that were in the process of,
you know, beginning to identify a unit.
They were applying for, you know --
you know, putting in rental applications,
that kind of stuff.
We had about 114 households
that were in the process of getting access to ID, right?
That's the -- that's the big --
the big barrier for a lot of our folks
who've been chronically homeless,
and have lost a lot of their, you know, identifying documents,
birth certificates, that kind of stuff.
-"Not on paper," as they're often called.
-Exactly.
And you need that in order to -- to get access to housing.
And so, to have 114 households really, like, in that process,
I think is -- is quite positive.
So, you know, if our -- our total number of folks
who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness
in the downtown core,
again, when I looked earlier this week, was about 770.
So, to be within a month at about 115 households
are in the process of getting key documents.
I feel good about that work.
And if we can hold that pace,
I think that, when we are having this conversation,
you know, hopefully in the summer next year,
we'll be looking at a very different downtown.
-Great.
I wanted to talk about KCRHA's budget,
because tis the season, right now, in November.
First off, that headline from last week,
The Times called it a "budget mistake for the authority,"
this assumption that $9.4 million
in federal pandemic relief money would be available.
Turns out these are one-time funds.
They expire at the end of this year.
So, I know you've been working with Seattle and King County
to try to shore up this difference, here.
What happened here? What's the solution?
What impact is this gonna have on your work?
I think, you know, one of the things I appreciated the...
I appreciated the article itself.
The headline was a little bit more scare-quotey, I think.
You know, so, from -- from my perspective, we --
our team did identify that these were one-time funds.
We know funding sources. We understand that.
I think that, you know, there was some discussion
over the course of the summer,
with the mayor's budget office, about the impact of that lapse.
Ultimately, I think we collectively concluded
that there was a need to ensure that some of those funds
were going to be available for providers in 2023.
And so, we began to work on -- on making that possible.
And, you know, I think that the thing
that I took a little bit of umbrage with
was I think the term in the headline was "scramble."
And I just don't think a six-month process
is a scramble.
-You've been going through it for several months.
Okay. Yeah.
-You know, I think they're -- you know,
"scramble," to me implies, like, "Oh, we found out in October."
And, like, you know, like, that is not the case.
You know, I think we've had really productive conversation
with Director Dingli at the -- in the mayor's office.
-Yeah.
-Really great conversation with budget chair Mosqueda.
Right.
-And the Authority, you know,
has really been focused on identifying underspend
that we could put towards this.
And so, you know, basically,
since we had this initial conversation in the summer,
we started monitoring our invoicing,
monitoring like, "Okay, so where are there pots of money
that we don't think are gonna be fully expended
by the end of the year,
that we can put towards closing this gap?"
Right?
And so, by the end of last week,
I think, of the 9.4,
we'd identified 8.8 million in underspend
that we were going to be able to put forward
to close the gap in 2023.
And so, we're working with our council and city colleagues
to then close the remainder.
-Okay.
-So, that, I think, is how I would --
would talk that through.
And I think, you know, what that means
is that the actual budget gap is actually only about, I think...
what, like $600,000?
-Yeah. Less than $1,000,000. -Right.
So, that is a very different discussion than, you know.
"Oh, the Authority and everyone
is scrambling to find $10 million."
-And I appreciate you clearing that up,
'cause I wanted to talk about the budget
a little more broadly with -- with you, here,
'cause it appears that the KCRA is not going to get
all that it was asking for from the city -- city council.
And knowing that Seattle provides
the majority of your funding, that's a big deal.
I wanted to talk about that,
what your budget's gonna look like next year.
And also, if you could, talk about the push
for accountability to Reagan Dunn
on the county council,
saying "We need financial performance audits
for the KCRHA next year."
Let's talk funding and accountability, please, Marc.
-Sure.
So, you know, I think that, when we proposed our budget
in the spring, I was very clear at the time,
like, "You know, this is a budget proposal."
And most agencies get to do that kind of work,
frankly, not in public.
-Right.
And so, it doesn't have the narrative of,
"Oh, well, you didn't get what you wanted.
That's a rebuke."
-Okay. Okay.
-And in reality, every agency director proposes a budget
that is probably way outside of what is fundable.
And then, we work with our executives
and our legislative partners to then, you know,
make what is possible against the balance
of priorities that folks have.
-Got it.
-So, you know, the fact that Mayor Harrell came in,
and I think proposed about a 13% or 14% increase
over base funding.
Similarly, I think, you know,
our county colleagues have looked at,
you know, adding some additional funding in ARPA.
So, it will be one-time money, but it is additional funding.
So, I think that that is not the -- the, you know,
sort of, "Oh gosh, you know, the Authority put forward
this transformational budget, didn't get any of it."
That's not what happened.
Right? -Right.
-We got what our authorizing as environment --
authorizing environment pardon would support.
And I think that in -- in --
inside a, you know, record shortfall,
inside, potentially, a, you know --
rising inflation, you know -- you know, we're teetering on,
you know, will there or won't there be a recession.
-Right.
-You know, so, if that's the economic background,
and we're getting additional investment,
I actually think that says that people do feel good
about what we do,
and want to make sure that we can be successful
in bringing our unhoused neighbors inside.
-Thank you for breaking those pieces down, too.
-I wanted to talk about this five-year strategic plan
that you're hoping to come out with before the end of the year.
It's talking about ending homelessness in our region,
and I'm very excited to hear about it.
Is there any sort of preview you can give us
as to what -- what you're gonna say?
-Yeah.
You know, I think it shouldn't surprise anyone that, you know,
a number of the things in the plan
will focus on ending homelessness
for certain populations.
We're gonna focus, I think, on youth and young adults.
We're gonna focus on families.
And then, really driving down the number of folks
who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness.
I mean,, that has to be our focus, right?
I think that, you know,
Seattleites and -- and broadly, you know,
residents of King County, have been very clear
in their discussions with me directly, and with our team.
And I hear, certainly from our elected colleagues, right,
like, we know that voters are concerned, first and foremost,
about, like, not seeing people who have to live outside.
Right?
And I -- you know, from my perspective, you know,
I'm honestly less concerned about, like, you know,
how they got to that position, because, you know, for me,
it's -- it's -- it's apolitical, right?
It is simply that the voters have been clear.
This is enough.
And so, we really have to hear that,
and deliver on what folks are asking for.
So, I think that, you know, we're gonna really make it so,
essentially, no kid sleeps outside, right?
Like, no youth, young adult homelessness,
no children with families.
Right?
And then, driving down that population
of what we call our "single adults"
through our broader unsheltered work.
I think the other thing that you'll see in the plan
is a real focus on performance, and system performance, right?
You know, I've been very clear,
as I was when I wrote the initial audit in 2018,
this system does not perform.
And it is not because people are not good at their jobs.
It is because the architecture of the system
doesn't actually support them in doing their jobs.
And so, a lot of what we're going to be focused on,
particularly through our rebid process in 2023,
is taking something that feels a little bit
like a Frankenstein, right, where it's just like,
"Well, why is that attached to that?"
Right?
And turning it into something that has a clearer,
and more holistic, approach towards taking folks
from that experience of unsheltered homelessness,
all the way into a position of being housed.
And doing it quickly. -Yeah.
-And that's, I think, the third thing that,
you know, you'll really see is, you know, our orientation
is absolutely going to be towards, again,
functioning as an emergency response.
And so, you know, I think that it is not appropriate
for the answer to everything to always be,
"Well, it's gonna take us 15 years to house this person."
Like, we -- like, you know,
there has to be some recognition,
I think, in how we spend our money,
that the idea that we're gonna build
our way out of this crisis over 20 years
isn't -- that doesn't align, again,
with what it's clear that voters are asking for,
or even, you know, from my perspective,
with being maximally responsive to human dignity and suffering.
Right?
Like, this is a humanitarian crisis,
and we've got to act like it.
-I wanted to touch on one piece in particular,
if I could, briefly, with you, here.
Emergency housing vouchers. -Mm-hmm.
-For the reasons that you're about to tell me,
I hope, this has been a very successful program...
-Yeah. -...here in King County.
I wanted to figure this out.
It sounds like -- We Are In reported
it's doing twice as well as similar programs across the U.S.
Why has this been successful? Where could this go from here?
What happened with this?
-You know, I think the first reason,
and really the biggest reason, it's been successful
is unprecedented partnership.
I think that, you know, going back to what, you know,
we started this conversation with, you know,
the Authority really wants to lead through partnership.
We don't believe that doing things alone
is the right way to get things done.
And so, we partnered very deeply
with our Housing Authority colleagues --
particularly, you know, our King County
and Seattle Housing Authority colleagues.
And they were able, in turn, to, you know,
do a lot of administrative work
to make the process more seamless for folks.
And then, we executed over 80 MOUs
with community-based organizations,
to generate referrals into the voucher program.
-"Memorandum of understanding." Keep going.
-Thank you.
Government jargon. -Yes.
-And, you know, but I think that the -- the -- that's the core,
is just all of this partnership really sort of wrapping around
these, you know, 1,300 -- 1,314 vouchers,
and saying "This resource cannot go to waste in this community --
not with a crisis of this scale."
-Yeah.
-And so, we really, really worked hard to make sure
that folks who were experiencing unsheltered homelessness
would have a person they could connect with,
who could help them fill out the application.
And that that, you know, would -- that, in turn,
you know, the housing authorities made it
so that any application filled out on any housing authority's,
you know, letterhead, et cetera, right,
would be accepted, and -- anyone, right?
So, a lot of that work, I think, is why we've seen that success.
And, you know, I'm hopeful -- our Housing Authority colleagues
and I actually had some discussion in D.C.
last week, you know, lifting this up
to the Department of Housing and Urban Development,
and other legislators, and saying like,
"You know, this really could be the model, right?"
A homelessness system and a housing system
that aren't just finally talking to each other,
but are working together.
That could turn this around.
-Yeah.
-The one other thing I'll add, just 'cause I think
it's important for viewers to understand,
is that we also did a lot of work
to engage private landlords.
And I think that that is really a significant departure
from where we have been, in the homelessness space...
-Right.
-...of, you know, only relying on
what we could access through public funding.
-Got it.
And also important to see the outreach workers
that are there have the lived experience of homelessness, too.
And that's a big, big part of this.
I need to move on to another piece, here.
Some concerns in the city of Kent.
Switching gears, here, a little, with you.
They passed a law recently to strengthen
the ban on public camping. they have there.
A number of cities around the county have done this.
I wanted to talk about this.
I know you meet with the city of Kent,
and talked about this, and meet with the mayor down there,
Dana Ralph.
I did, too.
What are your thoughts about laws like that?
How does that impact the work of the KCRHA?
And what does it say about this relationship
between the KCRHA and the cities
that are outside of Seattle?
-Yeah.
So, one, you know, I will say I meet with Mayor Ralph
every other week, right now, where we're trying to to work
with them on a project that we're pretty excited about.
I will maintain, you know,
what I have said from the beginning, right?
Like, as a policy position,
I am not in favor of these kinds of,
you know, what we call "criminalization activities."
Right?
But I also think that, like, you know,
there has to be room for nuance there.
Many of our smaller communities,
they don't have outreach staff -- any -- any of them.
Right?
Like, you know, so we've got, for example, in --
looking at Auburn, another community
that folks bring up consistently, right?
Like, Auburn just got to a place
where they're able to fund two outreach positions, right?
So, there's not a lot.
There's like -- there's not really --
there's not a resource that is doing
that connecting of people who are unsheltered with,
you know, either shelter or emergency housing,
you know, access in many of our communities.
And so, what is left is, you know, police officers.
-All the time. Yeah.
-And -- And having had conversation
with a number of, you know,
folks in law enforcement across the county,
I think they're well aware that they're not well-positioned
to really solve homelessness.
Right?
But what they're saying is, you know,
"I don't --" Like, "Unless there is a law that tells me
what my lane is..."
Right? -Where the guardrails are.
-Yeah. Like, "Then --"
Like, "Then I don't really
feel comfortable being engaged at all."
Right?
And so, I think, for our jurisdictions
that don't have that robust outreach,
the creation of these ordinances
often helps clarify, for law enforcement,
"This is the role you need to play," right?
Now, the Authority is, again,
working with all of these jurisdictions to say,
"We want to have a future where that's not the case."
Right?
"We want you to have outreach teams.
We want you to have enough emergency housing
or other shelter options in your jurisdiction
so that, like, you know, we are able to execute
these appropriate connections to care."
And again, you know, looking at the progress
in -- in North King County, and in other jurisdictions,
I feel like that's something that folks are behind.
-Yeah.
I need to wrap up with you.
I wish we had some more time, Marc,
'cause it's been a great conversation.
But I did want to catch up with you, with regard to this.
Year to year, I've been able to talk about this with you,
which has been great, and I can't wait to connect
with you in a few months, when it's gonna be 2023.
But I guess I'm wondering what you're gonna be able
to tell me next year at this time.
Will that one point in time count be lower?
I know it hit a record high last year.
What are you expecting?
Some thoughts about that, to wrap up.
-I don't think, you know,
next year we'll be talking about the point-in-time count.
I think we'll be talking about downtown,
and I think we'll be saying, "We do not see the same numbers
around chronic homelessness in the downtown core."
I think we'll be talking about continuing to resolve
very large entrenched encampments.
Right?
I'm working on another one right now, in South County,
that I'm hoping to tee up for a resolution early next year,
that's got about 100 people living in it.
You know, that's the -- that's the work
that I think we'll be talking about next year
is continuing to to lift up these moments that are,
to some degree, proof of concept.
Right?
That show that we really can do this.
And the other thing that I think we'll talk about next year
is how, again, we have restructured the system,
so that it's not that Frankenstein,
but it's coherent, and makes sense,
and is an engine that can really be used to --
to end homelessness in our region,
so that, the year after that, I think we'll be able to say,
you know, fingers crossed, right,
like, "We've ended homelessness for youth and young adults.
We've ended it for for families."
Right? -Right.
-And we're really making significant progress
on those strategic plans.
And, you know, I will also say that, you know,
for the -- for the viewing public,
if those things haven't come to pass,
I won't have a problem saying that,
and I won't have a problem talking about,
you know, what we ran into, and what shifts we've made.
I think that, you know, one thing that I am committed to
is always being transparent,
and making sure that folks understand
that their public dollars
are being used to the highest possible and best use.
-Thank you very much.
Marc Dones from the King County RHA.
The C.E.O. there. Thank you very much.
And we will be right back.
♪♪
"What are people saying on social media
about regional homelessness?"
One person writes, "Maybe the KCRHA can demonstrate
that they're actually being efficient in helping solve
the homelessness crisis
before more money is shoveled their way."
Another says, "It's not poverty. It's not addiction.
It's not mental illness. It's not liberal policies.
It's the availability/affordability
of housing."
We'd like to know what you think.
Send us an e-mail at contact@seattlechannel.org,
or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Coming up next time,
Seattle voters were narrowly split
on whether to change how city leaders are elected,
but overwhelmingly favored an alternate system
called "ranked choice" voting.
We take a closer look at how it's worked in other cities,
and what it will take to implement it here by 2027.
That's on the next "City Inside Out.":
I hope you join us.
♪♪