♪♪
-Welcome to City Inside/Out.
I'm your host, Brian Callanan.
A recent audit has shown about $13 million
in unaccounted funds for the King County
Regional Homelessness Authority,
part of a history
of financial problems for the agency.
So is it time to shut down the KCRHA?
-We're fixing our fragmented response system
so that we can make best use of our resources
to make a difference in people's lives.
-The KCRHA launched in 2019 with a noble vision...
to find a regional answer for the regional problem
of homelessness.
-You know,
I think that we are seeing some
some pretty significant success.
-But a parade of different
leaders over
the years
has overseen a series of financial troubles,
and the April audit
has some elected leaders saying the KCRHA
needs to be dismantled.
-It is time to find a different way
to make this very important work happen.
-The KCRHA’s current CEO, who requested
the audit, is pushing back.
-The audit did
not find evidence of fraud or misuse of funds.
-So what's behind the drive to close down the KCRHA?
-They are not a little bit in the red,
they are big time in the red.
-Our panel weighs in on
what's next for the embattled agency.
-We cannot afford to spend money on recreation
of new bureaucracies.
-Should the Regional Homelessness Authority
no longer be in authority?
That's next on City Inside/Out.
♪♪
Thanks again for joining us on City
Inside/Out here on the Seattle Channel.
I'm Brian Callanan
and I am joined
by two people with some
different perspectives on the future of the KCRHA.
One of those people is King County Councilmember Rod
Dembowski, who has introduced
a resolution to dissolve the KCRHA.
Councilmember Dembowski, good to have you.
-Thanks for having us.
-Also with us is Lisa Daugaard,
co-executive director of Purpose Dignity Action,
an advocacy group
that has worked on issues around homelessness
and public safety for decades.
Lisa, thanks for being here.
iIt's great to be here. Thanks.
-Let's jump in.
Councilmember Dembowski, to start with you
and talk about how we how we got here, if we could.
So you were on the County
Council in December of 2019,
which at the time voted to approve
this Interlocal agreement
to launch the Regional Homelessness Authority,
along with the Seattle City Council.
You were a co-sponsor on that legislation.
You voted to approve it in an eight one vote.
What was your perspective on the RHA then?
-Well, as transmitted, I was not supportive of it
when it came over and I worked really hard
with some other electeds and through the
Regional Policy Committee to modify it...
-Make some amendments. -Absolutely.
And it really changed it.
The idea originally, Brian, was to centralize
the region's response to homelessness,
bring the county, the city, and hopefully
our suburban city partners, the 38 of them together
and have a coordinated response around the region,
but also to take the politicians out of it.
That was the idea
to remove elected officials oversight.
That was what came over.
They wanted the folks with lived experience
to run this and spend 200
plus million dollars a year of taxpayer money.
I did not like that.
I felt that we should have an accountability
loop to the voters and the taxpayers
on the most important public policy
challenge of the last ten years.
Homelessness yet.
And so we
we added the elected oversight
and we brought the regional leaders in on
with an equal voice and did some reforms.
And on that basis, I said, let's give it a shot.
And that was kind of a trend
that was going on at the time
to bring and empower folks
who have lived through the challenges
personally to the table and have authority.
I just felt in our democratic system,
with taxpayer money
and a big public policy idea,
you ought to have some electeds there.
And that's that's what was set up.
-Okay. Thank you for that.
Lisa, let me ask you about this,
because I've heard
from so many advocates that
the way KCRHA was established didn't give it a great,
solid foundation from the beginning here.
What was your initial take on the KCRHA?
Did you have concerns about how it was structured?
-Yeah.
Let me just start by
saying, I think Councilmember
Domanski and I do have some
differences in perspective, but on this key point
about his initial stance, we strongly agree
this kind of public investment
has to be overseen by the people
who are elected to be responsible
for spending public funds.
And so that was always
a concern about the initial concept.
And I think it was it was correct to insist on
putting elected officials in a governing
oversight position,
whether they've discharge
that responsibility effectively,
I think is a separate question.
But I do want to go back to the origin story,
at least
what Councilmember Dembowski related.
That was what was said to be needed,
a regional approach or regional solution.
But the back story actually I think
is more interesting and revealing.
So in 2018,
the Chamber of Commerce Commission, the McKinsey
Company, to do an assessment
actually is pro-bono.
I guess they didn't pay for it, but they
that they nonetheless obtained this analysis
of what it would take to meaningfully
resolve unsheltered homelessness.
-I remember that.s
Yeah.
-King County and McKinsey,
I think unexpectedly to the Chamber,
found that it would require doubling the expenditures
of local investments
and that was a conservative calculation, assuming
that we didn't even need to build anything.
And their key finding was that all the talk
about sort of efficiencies and structural changes
would not...
You could do that perfectly
and you would not
make a dent
in our homelessness situation
because the fundamental problem
was one of resources.
And after that report came out,
there was an incredible sort of
focus by elected officials,
both at the from the mayor's office
at the time, Mayor Durkan and from the exec’s office
about how we needed the structural change.
And really
I think that was a diversion
and that was the
perspective of many of us at the time, many providers
that I mean,
you could
reorganize the structure, but that cannot substitute
for adequacy of resources and strategy
and that at the end you could do that.
But if you didn't address resources
and strategy, we would be in
essentially the same place.
And that is what happened. -Okay, Got please.
Yeah.
-On that point
and I think
this is one of the tragedies of
the Regional Homelessness Authority
is because of their failed performance,
there has been a reluctance
to deliver
more resources to them
because they haven't delivered on
treating our contractors
right. There's been delays there.
They haven't really delivered
on providing better services.
It hasn't been more coordinated.
And so those of us, who I'm the budget chair,
write checks for the public money
have not sent money there.
And in fact, you've seen the city
of Seattle withdraw funds.
-Yes. -And that, sadly,
is kind of one of the results.
Lisa's right there.
There is a need for more resources.
But would you write a check
to the King County Regional Authority?
Would anybody? No.
-But I do want to say,
because this was originally set up to, in my opinion,
divert from the question
of resources and sort of pretend
that a new structure would be a game changer.
I don't think there was ever
an intention
to increase the resources and in a way
that organization was set up to fail.
So the leaders that took I mean,
I think you would have to be crazy to take that job
because your the charge was massive.
It was absolutely not.
It doesn't have its own revenue source.
Nor was there
any commitment or promise to
really match the assignment
with the necessary resources.
From the beginning,
their assignment was to kind of pretend
that it was possible
with the cards that they held
to do an assignment that was not matched
with the resources that had been committed.
-I do want to move on to another point here.
And just get to the present day of this audit
that came out in April here.
And Lisa, let me start with you here.
So this audit said that the agency, KCRHA,
has received about $534 million over the past
six years.
It's currently about 38 million in the red.
The audit also said there's about $13
million unaccounted for on the books.
No evidence of fraud, the audit said.
But the risk of fraud still exists.
I hear what you're saying about
not getting enough resources,
but with the resources that they did have,
what do those numbers say to you?
-Yeah, I mean, there's
no question that this is not
you can't be in this situation.
You have to be able to account for every
dollar of public funds that an agency receives.
So that has to be it has to be fixed.
Nor are they
the only public entity
that has recently had similar findings.
So we can't we can't have this.
And this is one area where I know
I completely agree with Councilmember
Dembowski and all the other elected officials
that I have expressed concern.
Do you want a flag, though, that being in the red?
They were always set up to be in the red.
They again, they started out
they have to pay us there.
And we don't currently hold a contract
with KCRHA. -You mean pay a
service providers. -Service providers,
when when we perform services
and if they are not currently holding
reimbursements from the city
and the county, it doesn't matter.
They still have to pay us.
That going into the red practice really started
when appropriately there was public pressure
to fix the long delays in reimbursing contractors.
They do now pay us on time.
They're actually a high performing
public agency in that regard.
But in order to do that,
they had to create the structure of sort of
going into the red to make timely payments.
That's a
that's a set up to fill a situation that's not
necessarily of KCRHA’s making.
-Fair enough.
I do want to make sure I talk about this audit
with you,
Councilmember Dembowski, because I'm thinking
about the CEO of the KCRHA, Dr.
Kelly Kinnison.
She said at a meeting a few weeks ago.
She was the one who actually called
for this audit. She welcomes the scrutiny.
She's been on the job
since August of 2024, says during her time,
the agency has made some progress
when it comes to its financial reporting.
What's your response to that?
Have you given her enough time? What's your thoughts?
-Well, the the audit is is damning.
And by the way,
it only looked through June of last year.
We don't know what's occurred in the 11 months
since.
I'll tell you, as the chair
of the Budget Committee at the county council
and I also sit on something called the Executive
Finance Committee
that oversees this, we are their bank
at the county, and they've had in April
almost a $40 million deficit.
They are not a little bit in the red.
They are big time in the red.
And it's not just the timing of payments issue,
which is what we were told for many years.
We began to have an inkling
that that
could be worse than that,
and that is why this audit was supported.
They've overspent
the allocation by many, many millions of dollars.
They're in a debt and there's going
to have to be a bailout.
The city and the county
are going to have to bail them out.
So it isn't just a matter of timing.
It's kind of like, say, you've got a line of credit
attached to your checking account
and maybe your maybe your expenses
exceed your revenues a little bit.
But at the end of the month
of the year, you're true up to zero.
They're not trued up to zero.
They are millions and millions
and millions in the red.
And that's a problem. -Okay.
Can I talk about your hopes to deal with this?
I know you had a resolution
you've been
working on here to potentially dismantle
the KCRHA.
As I understand it, you're trying to potentially wind
down the partnership with the KCRHA
over the course of possibly 12 months.
I know this is a bit of a moving target,
but tell me what you're trying to do here.
-Yeah,so under the Interlocal agreement
that set it up as amended,
either the city or the county
has a right
to a passing of a motion
at the county or a resolution of the city
to start a dissolution process.
It envisions about a 12 month period.
Could be more, could be less, depending
on, you know, what's required.
And so we filed that motion
and the catalyst was this audit.
But I also I just want to say
the structure of this organization is
is you could fix all of the audit stuff.
And by the way,
they should have done it
in 2033 when there were audit saying that
they had problems and they said,
we're working on it now.
We're in 2026, hasn't been solved,
but this fundamental structure of this violates
a basic, fundamental principle
for me of service to the public.
And that is
if you're going
to be held accountable for something,
you better have the responsibility for it.
And it goes back to the setup.
We devolved responsibility over
to this separate entity with these boards.
-Do you regret doing that?
I mean, that's something you set up. -It is.
I mean,
we put the electeds there,
but you do not have that
direct line of accountability.
And therefore, I think the attention,
the motivation to get to get it right,
it's diminished.
And you see in L.A., for example,
they set one of these up years ago.
They're Los Angeles regional.
They've just voted to dissolve it
because it had the same financial problems
that they were not delivering on the results.
And L.A.
County said,
give us this authority back,
because we think with our
attention on the matter, it can work.
Let me give you one example. Sure. If I can.
If we dissolve this and say we bring back
some regional functions to the county,
we put about 43 million a year in the city,
puts about 100 million a year in,
the city can coordinate
with their human services department
along with providing these shelter services.
The county
we run, the regional behavioral health system,
that's a co-occurring issue in many cases.
You could see a better performing system overall
if you've got integration rather than separation
of service in this space.
So I think there's some opportunity
to deliver a better response
that have an end
that's governed
and paid
attention to by folks
who are working on it every day
that have direct accountability
to the voters who want this addressed.
-Okay, Lisa,
I want to make sure I draw you in here,
because the timing of
this is really important here,
because I've heard some
concerns from providers that say
ending this agreement with the KCRHA
potentially too quickly could result
in some serious instability
for people experiencing
homelessness as well as the
organizations that serve them.
Talk to me about this timeline.
A year,
maybe less, maybe more that Councilmember
Dembowski is talking about here.
Is that taking things too fast?
What do you have your eye on here?
-Well, first of all,
I don't want to speak for every homeless service
provider in the region, but I do appreciate that
the Coalition on Homelessness has provided
some really important leadership
here, and my organization is strongly aligned
with their position on this,
which is that we need to
we're asking the wrong question
about whether and when KCRHA should be unwind.
Many of us
would not have recommended going down this path
in the first place and warned
that it wasn't a solution.
But we are here now.
We don't get to go back in history and sort of undo
those mistakes.
We can only go forward in a way
that does the least harm
and that puts us collectively
in the best position to succeed.
So those should really be the questions.
And we're asking elected officials
to approach this conversation
now with a truly, genuinely open mind.
The resolution
that councilmembers Baron, Fain, and the Dembowski
brought forward that the county actually doesn't
does not presume an unwind.
It is a sort of exploration
calls for an excellent exploration.
Of course we support that.
But the key things that we collectively have
to bear in mind is
we cannot afford to spend money on recreation
of new bureaucracies, especially now.
When KCRHA was created,
there was an enormous one time
cost of building a new bureaucracy.
And I guarantee you there will be an enormous
one time
cost of undoing that bureaucracy
and creating two more in its stead,
both the city and the county are looking
at very serious structural budget
deficits, operating budget deficits.
And any dollar we spend on sort of
moving the deck chairs on the Titanic
about sort of the creation
of bureaucracies, is a dollar not available
to meet fundamental human needs.
So we should only do that if we absolutely
have to do that.
And there is not a way to carry forward
by taking control
of the structure that was built
and achieving
the accountability that Councilmember
Dembowski mentioned. -Yeah, What else?
-Sorry.
briefly, could you, Lisa, what was it?
-Well, I just wanted to say, I think there are
this could get worse and there are
there are things we could lose
or stand to lose that we must not lose.
One is
we are right in the moment where new federal funding
direction is about to be a continuum of care.
Money saved and KCRHA as it's currently organized
is that
is the sort of vehicle for our region to apply for
and receive that federal funding.
And they are doing
a good job of strategizing how we need to sort
of pivot
and put ourselves
in the best position to receive those funds.
They have some great staff and they have
been the project manager for the best single
response to unsheltered homelessness
that we've seen as a region for many, many years.
So we have
some assets there that we need to not lose.
-Can I put aside the federal piece just for a second?
I think there was something
you wanted to respond to earlier.
-My friend Lisa referenced the Titanic
and the KCRHA is the Titanic,
and there may be some cost to move
the deck chairs to the shore,
but we've got to do it.
And these short term issues with respect
to the continuum of care,
funding from the feds, that's
a one year, two year, maybe a couple of grant cycles.
We used to do that
at the county,
it was sent over to the case,
our state
that can be managed through
and it should be managed through carefully.
But I don't think
we should let
some of these short term transitional issues
take away from what we've got is a long term
structural issue here that needs to be addressed.
-But you're seeing the concern,
I think I've heard it
from some Seattle City Councilmembers, too.
They kind of know
what KCRHA is, but they don't know
what KCRHA 2.0 is.
So what would the homeless response for the county,
the region look like?
What can you present to assure taxpayers
that you are being accountable,
that their money is not going to waste?
-Well, you know,
I think KCRHA needs to answer those questions.
And the answer is
they haven't been accountable and their money
has gone to waste on a massive scale.
They've got nearly a hundred staff
there at the Authority.
I mean, they came out
with an unreasonable, ungrounded
plan for $12 billion to solve the problem.
That's the kind of conduct you get
when you're not engaged with elected folks
who are connected to the public.
Look, I, I think there's been we've had this mantra
homelessness is a regional problem,
requires a regional response.
-Do you believe that? -It is a regional problem.
But I don't think we're acting
and I don't believe necessarily
that a regional response is the right answer.
We've got to have some regional coordination.
But what works for the city of Seattle
isn't really
what the city of Auburn or the city of Bellevue
or the city of Kenmore want to do.
And we have responsible elected leaders,
city councils and mayors all over this county
who are stepping up in their own
jurisdictions and responding to this.
Lisa's outstanding organization
works with communities like in Burien
and in Seattle and up in Lake City.
She sees that communities want to respond.
And I think that
you actually may see more resources delivered
on a localized basis responding to local need.
If we, you know, empower those.
This notion of a top down Seattle based centralized
answer to 2.3 million people countywide,
our population
and the challenges in their communities,
it may be just too big, too cumbersome.
-I want to come back to you on that,
but I wanted to make
sure I brought you in here because this idea
of getting all the different cities involved,
that was a very important
part of launching the KCRHA
And I think about this,
King County and Seattle are the big, big money.
They're the big money in this.
There are seven other cities
that pay in a coalition of five cities.
In North King County got Bellevue and Redmond, too.
But all together,
those seven smaller cities are only paying in
about $440,000 for a $205 million agency.
Talk to me about that issue of having buy
in from cities
outside of Seattle,
because I think that was the push early, but
it didn't really happen.
Did that kill the KCRHA?
And I don't mean to use the word
the verb too strongly,
but what do you think about that?
-Yeah, I think that Councilmember
Dembowski is correct, that we have now
had seven years of running that experiment,
and it has not proven to be an effective way to forge
a county wide consensus on the way forward.
And I want to call out
Lorena Gonzalez when she was on the city
council, was the Lone City Council vote against.
And this was
one of the reasons that she cited
that she, the city and the county
city of Seattle and King County would pay for this.
And there is kind of a bet,
but with surrender
policy direction
to all the governments in the region.
And that just hasn't that hasn't worked. So
but I do think that we
you know, the $12 billion plan,
which is not that far off from what
McKinsey said it would cost, by the way,
to actually solve homelessness
in King County
and some of the more extreme
misfires have been corrected.
There has already been structural reforms,
so the governing bodies have been,
I think, appropriately restructured.
And I think, you know,
county and city
city of Seattle leaders are in a position,
should they so choose, to kind of pull on their
big people
pants and provide direction to this agency.
They have the power to do that.
It's awkward.
It's an awkward structure,
but it is not impossible to do that.
So to me,
it really again comes down to opportunity costs
for the scarce resources that we're talking about.
Talking about it will cost money to fix.
KCRHA
might be an interesting exercise to say.
It has to be cost neutral
and we have to make these changes.
So why do we have to cut in order to do that?
Not direct services, but
it will certainly cost more than that
to restructure these
these functions at the city of Seattle
and King County collectively.
So there is no free pass to unwinding this
and we can't pay for any
unnecessary administrative expenditures.
-Councilmember Dembowski
I want to make sure we
talk to this whole idea of getting regional buy in.
Homelessness certainly is a problem
without borders here.
How do you avoid going back to square one
where people
who are homeless around our area
just come to the cities that have resources?
I think that's a big concern here too.
-Yeah, I mean, there's some
there's some truth to that.
But I just want to remind folks, since 1968,
when the county charter was established
by the voters, we are the regional government.
We have systems and structures in place.
For example, our public health
department is regional.
We do it in partnership with the city of Seattle.
We have a regional policy
committee that brings together
City of Seattle councilmembers,
suburban city councilmembers,
county council members
to work on these kind of issues.
So there are forums,
infrastructure and systems in place
at the county as your regional government
to bring that work in.
We also have a philosophy and an ethos of supporting
our local city partners.
You know, again,
I don't think that all
parts of the response here need to be regionalized.
One size fits all.
We should support our local cities
and city councils and mayors
who care about this issue
because it's right in their neighborhood.
They want to make investments.
And I think that, you know, that,
frankly, is what's occurring. -Yeah. Okay.
Thank you.
I need to start wrapping up
and I want to get an idea of what people
can expect to see over the next few months
when it comes to the KCRHA.
Councilmember Dembowski,
I can give you about a minute here.
Is dismantling this agency a done deal in your mind?
-It's not. In my mind,
it should be done. Politically,
there's still a conversation to have.
So at the county, we've adopted
the resolution that Lisa mentioned
that we're going to look at what
it would take over the next 90 days,
what it would look like.
We’ll engage with stakeholders,
including providers, city partners and others,
to make sure that if we do do this,
that there would be a smooth transition,
no disruption or minimal to our service providers.
That's foundational.
And yeah, it's going to cost us some money.
But I think that we've spent a lot of money,
we've wasted a lot of money for six years
and I am not of the opinion that that waste will stop
if we let it continue just because
of the fundamental problems with the structure.
So that's what we do over
the next 90 days will have a conversation
and see in August where we are.
-Okay, sounds good.
Lisa, I'm going to let you wrap up here.
What are you going
to be working on over the next couple of months
as we head into summer
to make sure vulnerable populations
in our region aren't getting hurt by this?
-Well, I think
all of us are pleading with our elected officials
to enter this next period with open minds and not
set a table for a conversation
that has a forwarding conclusion.
And at that table,
I think it's not completely clear,
but providers need to be there.
The exclusion of experts in the field
from the formation of KCRHA
and its early months and years
is one of the reasons it's set off.
So in such a shaky way.
We need to not repeat that mistake.
So we ask that providers be at the table
for those conversations and that elected officials
genuinely have an open mind
to find the best road forward from here, even if
they as I think many do regret
that we started on this path.
This is where we are and we need to have a do
no harm, open mind stance for the next three months.
-Okay. Real quickly, -Lisa's absolutely right.
Providers need to be there,
but the taxpayer and the voter
and the general public's needs to be there.
Their interest needs to be there.
And I will tell you,
it is overwhelmingly apparent
that the emperor has no clothes here.
The public has said this has failed.
You need to end it.
And I go back to that
essential foundation of our democracy,
the feedback and accountability loop
and the trust
with the voters who write the checks.
And if they are not supportive of this,
this is destined to fail no matter what
the provider community wants. -Okay. All right.
-What comes next
also needs not to fail
that same public. And the expertise
of elected officials and providers is needed
to make sure that we're not back here
in a couple of years regretting this choice.
-Thank you both for that.
And we will be right back.
What are people saying online
about dissolving the KCRHA?
One person writes,
Another person says
We'd like to know what you think.
Email us at Contact@SeattleChannel.org
or find us on social media.
Great to have that feedback and a big
thanks to co-executive
director of Purpose, Dignity, Action,
Lisa Daugaard.
Also a big thanks to Councilmember
Rob Dembowski from King County Council.
Really appreciate you being here.
-It's been great. Thank you.
-Thank you so much for having us. -You bet.
And we'll see you next time on City Inside-Out.
♪♪