♪♪
-Hello. I'm your host, Brian Callanan.
How will a wave of newly-elected progressive local leaders
respond to homelessness,
as the regional authority dedicated to that crisis
faces major budget cuts and other challenges?
[ Cheers and applause ]
Seattle and King County voters have said,
"Out with the old and in with the new."
-Good afternoon. Seattle Police Outreach.
Anybody home?
-But a decades-old challenge of homelessness
isn't going anywhere.
-I talked to you yesterday.
-The King County Regional Homelessness Authority
is struggling with budget cuts,
dwindling support from the federal government,
and criticisms from the county's executive elect too.
-The regional homelessness authority
has not produced the results that we would like to see.
-And Seattle mayor-elect Katie Wilson is under pressure
to deliver on her campaign promise
to add 4,000 shelter units.
-What we've seen over the last four years
is that Seattle has lost shelter capacity
every single year.
-How will the change in local leadership
and federal threats
to our region's Housing First strategy
shaped the work of homelessness agencies countywide?
-We're actually making it harder
for people to stay housed.
-Our panel weighs in. -How do we stop this inflow?
It's not a one-size-fits-all,
so we need to think about the continuum of support.
-New York City
actually has a bigger homelessness population,
but Seattle has a larger unsheltered homeless population
than New York City.
-Asking advocates some hard-hitting
homelessness questions,
next on "City Inside/Out."
♪♪
And joining us to weigh in on this topic,
we have Dominique Alex, CEO of Mary's Place,
which provides shelter, outreach,
and homelessness prevention services all around King County.
Thank you very much for being here.
-Thank you for having me.
-We also have with us Christopher Ross,
President of the Compass Housing Alliance,
which provides shelter and housing
in 20 locations across the Puget Sound region.
Christopher, good to see you, too.
-Thanks for having me.
-And also with us, Jon Grant, chief strategy officer of LIHI,
the Low Income Housing Institute,
which provides affordable housing and shelter
all around our region here.
Jon, good to see you again. -Thanks for having me.
-Let's jump into it.
Jon, I will start with you here.
Some big headlines recently when it comes to
federal funding for homelessness.
So Seattle and King County
have built a homelessness response system
based on a Housing First model.
So this is the concept
that if someone has stable housing with services
that will help them recover medically or get employment,
get off drugs or alcohol.
The Trump administration is basically rebuking that idea.
It wants more money in short-term solutions
like shelters or housing programs
that require people to work
or require people to accept
mental health or addiction treatment
as a condition to get housing.
This sounds like a major policy change.
I just wanted to know
how is this going to affect the work that LIHI does?
How will this affect our entire region?
-Well, it is a really serious issue.
And we're talking about, just in King County alone,
$65 million that is going to be impacted by these changes.
And that Housing First model,
it's premised with the idea that the best way
to stabilize folks is to get them inside.
And when you get folks inside,
you can connect them to services,
connect them to treatment and all those types of things.
Um, what the Trump administration has done
is kind of flip it on its head
and say, "No, you can't get housing
until you've addressed all those issues before."
And so what we know
from evidence-based models and experience
is that is a ineffective way
to help folks get stable.
Um, we know that folks that have substance use disorders,
the best way to get them connected to treatment
is to stabilize them in housing.
And now only 30% of the total award
can be used for those types
of permanent supportive housing programs.
It essentially cuts up to $34 million out of providers
who are providing housing,
um, out of their budgets.
And it completely destabilizes the entire sector.
-We'll dive into this a little bit further.
But, Christopher, maybe I can just
kind of go down the line here.
Compass operates shelters, affordable housing units, too.
If the feds are saying, if you can follow me here,
"All right, put more money towards shelter.
Could you take the federal dollars
and put that over there, and then maybe
get some backfill from city and county governments
to help out in these permanent supportive housing?
I'm just trying to figure out how this might work
from a dollars and cents perspective.
-So speaking only to our personal situation,
um, it would represent --
We take about $1 million in our overall budget
from Continuum of Care,
and we would be able to, looking at the reduction in that,
be able to pivot and be able to still keep our operations going.
And we don't foresee an issue with having to displace people,
at least at our level.
-And Continuum of Care as this federal situation
where dollars come in.
-So we're optimistic in how it will impact
our clientele that we serve.
But what we are worried about is all the other individuals
and all the other communities
that may not have that same advantage.
And for us, it's a matter of being able
to offer supportive services to our tenants
and being able to convert some of our --
perhaps some of our buildings in the way we approach it
into transitional housing,
which is what is taking now a lot of the space.
And in the transitional housing, unfortunately,
that is also viewed as a 24 month --
18 to 24 months is a limited amount of time
before the people have to then move on.
And that is not something that we can always support
because there aren't options for them to move on to.
So it's a continuum, and for us,
the objective is going to be to keep people safe and stable
and try to activate both our internal model and our donors
and the community to see if we can make sure
that everybody still has a safe place to stay.
-This whole idea of treatment,
I know a lot of people think of it different ways,
but just my experience with it
and talking with different providers
and talking with people who have been through the system,
it's not a situation -- "Okay,
you went to treatment for a month.
You're fine. Moving on."
Can you help me with that part of it?
Because I don't think a lot of people
understand that piece of this situation.
-I think we're all struggling to understand
exactly how they see this being implemented.
But the idea that a tenant moves in
and has to then go into a treatment program,
if they self-identify that they have an issue
with either mental health or a drug or alcohol,
and that they are prescribing to a program
and then staying with that program...
We haven't -- I haven't seen the guidelines personally.
And so my team and my head of programs
might have a better handle on this,
but we have not seen what those requirements would be.
Um, making them available I think is great,
just as a human component to make sure
we're meeting people where they're at.
The difference with this new administration
is that it is a term of lease.
It is a term condition to be in the housing
and how we apply that and how --
how deeply we go after somebody who doesn't comply with that,
that is going to run up against both our values
and our compassion, and it's going to be a challenge.
So I don't know the path forward exactly how we'll implement it.
But the objective is to keep people housed at every turn.
-This is a work in progress. I definitely know that.
Dominique, talk to me about this.
How does this federal policy
change, affect Mary's Place, do you think?
-For Mary's Place, our families are coming in
to receive shelter services.
Our teams are going out to meet them in their cars and tents
to get them into a housing solution
as quickly as possible.
For us, with the Continuum of Care,
we are not as deeply impacted as our partners.
But if one of us is impacted in this ecosystem,
what happens is we're all impacted.
Our families transitioning into those housing solutions
where they have to then go and try to figure out
how they're going to keep their housing
after finding that stable place
and having that opportunity to thrive,
because that's the type of partnerships that we have,
all of that's at risk.
And taking that a step further,
where other things have been notified
as all of these things are at risk,
like housing, affordability, food, childcare,
when those things aren't stable, we're also not stable.
-I have a really challenging follow-up question for you,
if I could, Dominique.
You and everybody at this table, a lot of people
have seen the Trump administration,
its approach to DEI.
We're talking about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
That's not something they're really on board with.
But I think about what Mary's Place does.
I saw it on your website here.
35% of the population of King County are people of color,
but 90% of the guests at Mary's Place
come from communities of color.
Are you concerned that in serving people of color,
as you do,
you could make yourself a target in some ways?
And I feel like I need to ask this question.
I know it's a tough one. -Yeah.
For Mary's Place, our commitment,
including what's in our mission statement,
is to ensure that no child sleeps outside
by centering equity and opportunity
for women and families.
We will continue to serve who comes to our doors,
because it is about the need that shows up.
And we have learned from guests' voice,
from how we've been doing this,
from the people on the front lines,
how to do that best.
And that includes thinking about those best practices
and evidence-based things that we know work
through equity practices. -Okay.
Thank you very much for wrestling with that.
Christopher, let me jump back to you
for a question about our recent local elections.
We have a mayor-elect in Katie Wilson for Seattle
who's talking about adding 4,000 emergency housing units,
which could include tiny homes
and using empty workforce affordable housing.
We have a new King County executive in Girmay Zahilay
who told me a few weeks ago,
right here at the Seattle Channel,
the county's response to homelessness
is not providing the results he wants to see.
I know they're coming in with some new ideas,
but maybe not so much experience as elected officials here.
What is your message to our new mayor
and our county executive? -What a great opportunity.
-I would want to stress that the focus needs to be
bringing people in so that they have safety,
but a pathway to housing.
And we are having a moment.
So we know through our point-in-time count,
that King County has over 16,000 people
that are homeless at any given moment in time.
And I believe our current shelter count for beds
is somewhere around 6,000.
So, easy math.
There's about 10,000 people sleeping unsheltered.
That's either in tents or cars or doorways or parks.
And we need a cogent plan
to address that 10,000-person shortfall,
while also looking at permanent supportive housing
in some capacity for them to graduate into.
-Okay. Thank you for that.
Dominique, if you had a wish list
for the city and county, what would that be?
What are you hoping for from these new administrations?
-One of the things that I can say right now
is we operate the emergency intake line
for all the families seeking emergency shelter.
And every day we're getting 50 to 60 calls
of families seeking shelter tonight.
But because the system is so full across the county,
only one or two are coming in a week.
And so for us,
it is really thinking about, how do we stop this inflow?
It's not a one-size-fits-all.
So we need to think about the continuum of support
between when someone is in crisis
and how do we meet them,
to how do we stably house them,
but most importantly,
how do we prevent them from coming back or at all
so we can reduce trauma on children,
keep families together and keep people housed.
It is way more cost effective and humane.
-Right. I hear what you're saying.
Jon, let me jump over to you
because I know you've heard it over the years --
local leaders talk about building more shelter space
on the campaign trail,
only to see these visions not come to fruition.
This time around, do you actually see
LIHI's dream of a major expansion
of tiny house villages, for example?
Is that going to come true?
-I believe -- you know,
I like to believe that it's possible.
You know, we are down at City Hall
constantly talking to council members
about the need to invest in emergency shelter
and enhanced shelter programs like tiny house villages.
And we saw tremendous gains.
We saw $11 million included in the budget to expand shelter.
But then the news came out about the CoC funds
that fund permanent supportive housing get cut.
And the council, uh, you know,
had little choice but to encumber those funds
to find out what happens to the CoC dollars.
So now that shelter money is in jeopardy.
Um, so every time it seems we make a step forward,
we have to take a step back.
And I think it's important for folks in Seattle and King County
to know, like, Seattle is in a really tough spot.
Like, you know, New York City
actually has a bigger homelessness population,
but Seattle has a larger unsheltered homeless population
than New York City.
It sounds like that's unfathomable,
but it's correct.
And so that means that we need to have a rapid expansion
of emergency shelter options like Mary's Place has to offer,
like our organizations have to offer,
because we simply won't be able to build enough housing
fast enough to meet the need. -Okay, Dominique,
let me jump back to you.
A question about the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.
This is an agency that's been through a lot
since it launched in 2021.
Recently, the authority had to cut 13 employees --
that's a 22% reduction in staff --
due to some budget concerns.
It's had five leaders in the past four years.
I mentioned before that the executive-elect
is not all that happy with the results
of the regional approach here that's going on.
I know Mary's Place has received funding from KCRHA in the past,
so I need to ask another challenging question if I can --
does the county need the KCRHA?
Should it be eliminated? What do you think about that?
-We believe in this regional approach.
We need a system that can bring providers together.
We need to know data that's centralized.
We need to understand what the resources
and the need are in our community.
So from a place of will KCRHA -- do we need KCRHA to work?
Yes, I do believe so.
And I do believe that if we all work together
and we listen to the people who are providers,
the people who have lived experience,
and we work together with our public and private partners,
we can make this work.
But it is going to take all of us
to see its success. -Okay.
Jon, I know that LIHI has raised concerns
about KCRHA in the past,
but your organization has received some funding
from the authority too, to help build
some tiny homes, for example.
Do you think the authority should be eliminated,
or what role do you see the KCRHA playing
going forward here?
-Well, I think it's important to remember
that KCRHA is a combination of the city of Seattle,
King County and other cities in the in the region.
And the idea there is really, like,
you can't really kick the can down the road.
You can't pass the buck.
At the end of the day,
it's still the city and the county
making these funding decisions on how to support KCRHA.
So if we're seeing an overall deficit
in the needs of shelter and the needs of housing,
KCRHA is not the institution to fix that.
It's still the city and the county
and the elected leaders that make those decisions
to fund those priorities,
to enable KCRHA to implement its mission.
So I think we have to look at it holistically.
And I think it's actually a mistake when we point KCRHA
and say, "This is really the problem,"
when really it is about finding the political will
to end homelessness. -Thank you for that.
Christopher, some thoughts here.
Compass, I know gets some funding from KCRHA
through that organization there.
What changes do you think need to happen at the authority?
Should it go away altogether? What are your thoughts?
-I've got great examples with what they both said, my peers.
So I agree with what Jon said on many levels,
but I also agree very much with what Dominique said.
At the end of the day, we do need to have,
I believe, a unified leader.
We need to have a cohesive plan,
and we do need to have direction
and having it broken into disparate areas
or different leadership and different cities
is not going to work.
We've proven that model doesn't work.
So I don't think KCRHA has actually had
a fair shake in that.
It has gone through five leaders,
it has gone through a lot of changes.
It's gone through, I believe,
three mayors in the period of time.
So it's very hard for an organization to normalize.
And I'm a personal advocate of,
I think this team and Kelly Kinnison, Dr. Kinnison,
the head of KCRHA,
I believe have the right smarts and IP and compassion
to actually lead the organization.
We just need to get behind it and let them get traction.
It's only been a year
since she's been in position. -It's a good point,
and I know there's a lot happening
with that organization.
So we will see over the next year here.
Christopher, I know we've been talking about
a lot of tough news here on the homelessness front.
I wonder if I could point towards some
of the positive news or maybe some brighter news too.
I understand Compass has an announcement coming up.
Can we talk about that on the show, please?
-Sure. I'd be happy to.
So we're starting some new affordable housing projects,
both in the King County
and also looking up in Whatcom and down in Pierce County.
So getting back in the affordable housing space
is something that we're really excited about.
But it is a slow process because it takes many years.
-Just to site these different places or find --
-We have the sites.
We have actually site control on a number of locations,
both in Bellingham and down in Pierce County and Tacoma.
The issue is just the funding and the modeling.
It takes several years
to get any project like that off the ground.
The more immediate need is actually around sheltering.
And in the King County area, close to the CID,
we have a project that we're proposing
that we're getting ready to announce.
And we would --
As a doing-business-as name,
we're just calling it Compass Center 2
because it helps replicate some of what we currently do.
It would be a state-of-the-art shelter,
which would be the first contemporary shelter
being built in King County.
The only other shelter for a contemporary shelter
actually would be Mary's Place in Burien.
It would be the first -- Congratulations to you.
And then we would do transitional housing
and permanent supportive housing on top.
But the jewel of this project would be our welcome center,
which would be the first main two floors,
and that would be a diversion program
that would allow people
that are experiencing housing instability
to come in and actually find the resources
and the support that they need,
so they don't actually slip into homelessness.
And creating a welcome center
is fundamentally not a new concept,
but the idea of aggregating all of those services
and allowing somebody to come in
and be able to be treated with compassion
and trauma-informed
and understand what services are available.
Because right now,
if you're experiencing housing instability,
it's challenging.
You have to be a really adept individual
to be able to navigate the two-on-one
and all the different resources that are available to you,
and presumably doing that
while juggling housing instability
of jobs and kids.
So we believe by aggregating it into a welcome center
and making that available to the public,
we can actually start shortening the funnel
of people going into homelessness altogether.
-And I don't mean to cheapen what you're doing at all
by saying a one-stop shop, but it feels like that.
There's a lot of different options there.
-It's a very appropriate way to think of it.
-Okay. -I like that.
-I'm interested to see what happens next there.
Dominique, could you break down a little bit more
this research project you're doing
with the Notre Dame Lab for Economic Opportunities?
I thought this was very interesting,
reading about this.
It sounds like you're testing out some different ways
to prevent homelessness, which, as you said before,
is super important, especially for families.
What's this all about?
-Yeah, our prevention program,
which is one of the ways that we support families,
is really thinking about,
how do we provide rental assistance
to keep you in your hard-won homes,
reducing that trauma on children
and breaking those generational cycles.
And so we teamed up with the University of Notre Dame's
Lab for Economic Opportunities
to do a four-year study.
And we're about halfway through.
And what we've done is really thinking about
two control groups.
The first one is families can get a one-time assistance.
And the second control group is really thinking about families
can be returners and with a high cap.
And so we're studying -- -We're talking dollars here?
-Rental assistance. Yes.
So that we can make sure that they're staying there
if they're at imminent risk of eviction.
-Got it. We also provide
stability support.
So not just, you know,
here is a check to keep you in your home,
but also, what do you need to stay there?
And then having that opportunity to thrive.
And so we are marching down that.
It's really specified to families,
which is also a study that was built
off of one that was happening
with University of Notre Dame's LEO program
and Destination: Home in Santa Clara County.
So this is something that isn't just for Mary's Place,
but something that we'll be able to share
with our partners and the state
and hopefully on a national level
so that we can prevent homelessness
not only for families,
but also building off of that study
for individuals as well as youth, right?
Thinking about the whole continuum.
-Yeah, you mentioned youth, uh,
dealing with trauma because of homelessness.
Can you touch on that really quickly?
Because I think that's a piece of this
maybe not a lot of people think about or talk about.
-Yeah, of the 1900 families that we served last year,
60% of them were children, mostly under the age of eight.
And one of the things I really like to think about
is family homelessness, if we can address it early
and keep families together,
we actually are prevention for youth homelessness
as well as adult homelessness
because we're keeping them together.
We're providing the resources.
So if it's mental health, if it's addiction support,
it's keeping kids in school.
We know that when kids miss just a couple of days of school,
those long-term impacts on even graduating are impacted.
And so you think about all of that prevention
and early intervention that happens --
it really sets up kids for success.
Having to be kicked out of your home,
not having a place to stay,
not knowing where your next meal will come from
or when you'll see your friends again --
that's really traumatizing for kids.
And so moving them and --
keeping them in their homes
is really, really important to stabilize them
and saying, "We see you, you deserve a home,
and you deserve to grow up in community
and have those opportunities to thrive."
-Thank you for breaking that down.
Jon, I wanted to talk about LIHI partnering up
with the New Hope Community Baptist Church
up in the central area of Seattle.
This was very interesting.
You two broke ground recently
on an affordable housing project
called the New Hope Family Housing Program there.
I thought this was very interesting
because the development is on church-owned land,
and I wanted to go down this path.
Is it your hope to find more properties like this
to build out more affordable housing units?
I'm assuming there's some cost benefits going on here.
Talk to me about this. -Yeah, well,
I really want to sing the praises of Reverend Jeffrey,
who's been a leader in the community
for a very long time.
He's the pastor of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church.
-Yes. -And they were the, um --
our partners to build this affordable housing together.
And I think many churches are finding
that they have some surplus land,
and they want to find a mission driven plan
to develop it to support the community.
And it's really seen as an anti-gentrification effort
because we want to make sure that the folks that,
you know, came to this church and grew up in the community
can still afford to live in that community.
So we were thrilled to partner with them
and be a development partner
so that we could kind of share our skills and knowledge
around development, uh, with this church
and help them create their own development organization
called the New Hope Community Development Institute.
-Thank you. I was mixing up the names.
-A lot of acronyms and names.
But that is the entity that the church is a part of
that will eventually own and operate the building.
-Okay, and are there other possibilities like that --
teaming up with churches or what have you down the line?
-Yeah, we've actually done this before.
So there are a lot of churches, and I want to call out --
there's the Nehemiah Institute,
which is an organization that helps give technical expertise
to faith-based organizations, churches, etc.,
to develop their land into affordable housing.
So we do think there's lots of opportunity there.
-Okay, thank you very much for that.
We need to wrap up.
I really have appreciated this conversation here.
I want to leave our viewers with your take
on where our homelessness crisis is going in the next year.
The next point-in-time count, as you all know,
is coming up at the end of January,
January 29th, 2026.
Do you foresee we'll have an increase
in people experiencing homelessness or a decrease?
I know it's just one number, Jon,
but it's one that so many people pay attention to.
Can I start with you with that question, please?
-Whether we'll see an increase or a decrease in homelessness?
Um, you know, I want to remain optimistic.
We have some incredible new leaders
with executive-elect Zahilay, mayor-elect Wilson.
I think that with new leadership,
we will see a renewed effort to try to bolster
and increase affordable housing and support services.
So I'm going to lean on the optimistic side
and hope to see that it decreases.
-Okay, we'll see where that goes.
Christopher, big picture, help me out here.
Where do you see our homelessness crisis
going next year?
And again, I'm looking at this point-in-time count
because so many people key in on that.
But it's the stat that so many people pay attention to.
Where's that number headed?
What do you think? -I hope, which is not a plan,
that it will stay at least where it's at.
I don't foresee it actually going down
in the very near future.
-Why is that? -Um,
because I think the inputs and the data sets just prove that
we're actually making it harder for people to stay housed
than we are actually making it easier.
And so the economic trends are continuing.
But my optimism and a lot of my strength
comes from the fact that --
Two things -- one, this is the work we signed up for.
I actually am proud to be in this position and with my peers,
because this is what we --
We've always been dealing with challenges like this.
This may be a little bit more strong winds than we're used to.
But the other is that Seattle was built on innovation.
I mean, this town knows how to actually build
and produce and scale,
and I find it unreasonable and silly
that we have not applied that same level of innovation
to our housing and shelter services support.
And I believe that with this new administration
and with the leadership of my peers,
the people at this table and the others,
that we can actually harness that level of innovation
and come at this problem with a different lens
this time around. -All right.
Looking forward to that.
Thank you very much for that, Christopher.
Dominique, if you could wrap us up here,
your expectations for the new year
when it comes to homelessness crisis --
I'm looking at that point-in-time count especially.
Is it going to go up or going to go down?
What do you think about that?
-Based on what we have seen,
we have seen this crisis get worse.
And with a lot of the threats in the community,
I want to be a realist here,
to think that this could potentially get worse
before it gets better.
But I know that this is solvable
despite what we may have ahead of us.
But to the point made earlier by Jon, we have new leadership.
We have an opportunity to innovate.
We have wonderful leaders in this community.
And so one of the things that I would say is,
even though it's going to get worse potentially here,
we have done this before.
We just went through the pandemic,
and our community stepped up big.
There was a lot of support
and a lot of great minds together,
and we solved some things.
So I believe that this is solvable,
and it's going to take some time.
So I'm asking for patience, because I think a lot of time
we want things quickly to happen.
But together, it's possible to make things better
in this community
and to keep people housed. -Thank you for that.
And we will be right back.
What are people saying online about how our region
is responding to the homelessness crisis?
One person writes, "Housing First does not work.
Show me the results or stop funding failure.
Full transparency, open data
or stop the hemorrhaging of taxpayers' money."
Another says, "Housing First was developed
because treatment first failed.
If coerced care was the most effective approach,
Housing First would never have been invented."
We'd like to know what you think.
Send us an email at contact@seattlechannel.org
or find us on social media.
Very thankful for that input.
Jon Grant, Christopher Ross and also Dominique Alex,
I'm so glad that you were here too.
Thanks for being here. -All: Thank you.
-And we will see you next time on "City Inside/Out."
♪♪