Good afternoon everyone.
Thank you for being here.
Today, Seattle, King County are announcing
announcing the next steps we are taking to stabilize,
right-size, and reset the King County Regional
Homelessness Authority.
These are significant changes to how we deliver our regional
response to homelessness.
And Mayor Wilson and I want to explain why
we're taking these steps.
Several years ago, leaders from King County, the City
of Seattle, and around the region launched KCRHA to
advance an important idea.
Homelessness is a regional crisis that requires
a regional solution.
It does not stop or start at the borders of any one city.
That idea still holds true today.
We need a regional response to homelessness,
but that response must be accountable, financially sound,
and capable of delivering the results that people experiencing
homelessness, service providers, taxpayers, and
our entire community deserve.
KCRHA was created to strengthen regional coordination,
reduce fragmentation, and help us respond
to the growing scale of homelessness more effectively.
It's no secret that over the past six years,
this organization has experienced significant
leadership turnover, multiple audits, and most recently, an
independent forensic evaluation that identified serious
concerns related to financial management, governance, and
internal controls.
In response to that forensic
evaluation, Mayor Wilson and I directed KCRHA to develop
a corrective action plan to fix the issues that were
uncovered. When the corrective action plan came
back to us, it showed that progress was being made
in some key areas but it was also insufficient and
made clear that more action was needed.
It didn't provide the clarity, timelines
or urgency needed to fully address the findings of
the forensic evaluation.
We have two new administrations
in Seattle and King County.
Mayor Wilson and I have inherited a lot of issues
but we will not maintain the status quo just because
change is hard so today we are taking further action
to stabilize right size and reset KCRHA our aim is to
strengthen this organization's foundation improve
accountability and put the agency in the strongest possible
position to fulfill the responsibilities that are
entrusted to it.
First, we have been taking action to
stabilize KCRHA.
Strong organizations require strong
financial systems.
Beginning this week, King County and
the City of Seattle will embed an independent financial
compliance team within KCRHA to to strengthen financial
oversight, improve internal controls,
support timely payments to providers, and help
ensure the agency remains well positioned to
secure critical federal funds.
This team will provide regular progress updates to KCRHA's
Finance Committee as well as to my office and the
Mayor's office.
Second, we are right-sizing KCRHA's focus.
That means narrowing its scope of work to focus
exclusively on its core regional responsibilities,
including holding and distributing the federal
continuum of care funds.
We will also align responsibilities across our
homelessness response system with the organization's best
position to carry them out.
That's why today, King County and the City of Seattle
are announcing that the administration of city and
county funded homelessness service contracts will
transition back to King County and the City of Seattle
through a phased implementation beginning in January of 2027.
Throughout that transition, our teams at DCHS and
HSD will work closely with providers to maintain
continuity of services, minimize disruption, and ensure
people experiencing homelessness continue to
receive the support that they depend on.
The city and county will also work with
KCRHA and its partners to ensure we have a strong
continuum of care strategy and effectively respond
to federal funding requirements.
I have confidence in DCHS and the
team that will lead this transition at the county.
They bring deep expertise administering complex
housing and homelessness programs and I know they
they are committed to partnering closely with
providers to ensure this transition is thoughtful,
deliberate and focused on the people that we serve.
Third, in addition to resetting KCRHA's operation, we need to
reset our regional approach to homelessness.
Today's actions are about strengthening KCRHA to achieve
its core responsibilities, but but they also create an
opportunity to have a broader conversation about the future,
about what our regional homelessness response should
look like in the years ahead.
That conversation can't happen at City Hall or King County's
Chinook building alone.
It must include our 39 cities, our state and federal partners,
service providers, labor, philanthropy, businesses,
people with lived experience, and communities
across the region.
Mayor Wilson and I will do the broad stakeholders
that is needed to shape that next chapter.
And together, we'll shape a system that is
stronger, more accountable, and better equipped to
meet the needs of our region for years to come.
We know these are significant changes, but I want
to take a moment to be clear about what these
announcements are not saying.
It does not mean King County or the City of Seattle
are walking away from regional collaboration.
We remain firmly committed to a regional homelessness
response system.
What is changing is how responsibilities will be
organized so that every part of our homelessness response
is being carried out by the organizations that are best
equipped to do that work.
I also want to be clear that today's announcement should
not be seen as a reflection on the dedication, the
talent, or the integrity of the people who work at KCRHA.
Every day, they take on incredibly difficult work
in service of our most vulnerable neighbors.
And thousands of people across our region have been housed
because of their efforts.
We are deeply, deeply grateful for their service.
Above all, our responsibility is to ensure this transition
strengthens our regional response without disrupting the
services that people depend on.
But strengthening KCRHA is only one part of the work ahead.
At the same time, we're advancing broader efforts
to prevent homelessness, expand housing, and
strengthen coordination.
In March, as you may recall, I launched my Breaking
the Cycle Executive Order, which advances work to break the
cycles of those interconnected issues of homelessness,
substance use disorder, and repeated involvement
in the criminal justice system with housing at
the center of that effort because we know that addressing
homelessness requires more than responding after
people lose their homes.
It requires strengthening the systems that help
people remain housed.
It requires expanding affordable housing, addressing behavioral
health needs, and creating better long-term outcomes.
Our work group is already working hard and will
deliver recommendations to me later this year that will
help shape future regional homelessness strategies.
We're also advancing our goal of opening 500 net new units
of housing in 500 days, which includes 80 new tiny homes,
which we will be building in Seattle's Central District.
This week, I also convened the first meeting of our
new revenue work group to explore what could become
the first countywide housing levy in King County's history.
If this is successful, it could create a generational
investment in emergency housing, supportive housing,
affordable housing, and the long-term solutions that
our region needs to break the cycle of homelessness.
Also, on my 100th day as King County Executive,
I issued a Better Government Executive Order.
We are raising the bar with the goal of becoming the best-run
local government in the nation.
Public excellence requires making difficult decisions when
the facts require it, managing public resources
responsibly, and building public trust through
accountability and results.
We also recognize that implementing these changes
will take time, thoughtful planning, and close
work with our partners.
I want to recognize many of those partners who are here
today standing alongside me, including State Representative
Nicole Macri, who's here, SEIU 1199 Northwest President
Jane Hopkins, and Plymouth Housing CEO Karen Lee.
All of them will be speaking today.
I also want to recognize our partners who
aren't speaking today but also here my colleagues
from the King County Council I see Councilmember
Barón and Councilmember Rhonda Lewis, KCRHA
governing board members are also here we have KCRHA
CEO Dr. Kelly Kinnison who is in somewhere in the back
as well hello Dr. Kinnison we have King County
department and executive office leadership a number
of you who have been working on the breaking
the cycle workgroup thank you also for being here
and just everyone who has helped inform the work
that brings us here today I also want to take a moment
to thank Plymouth Housing and this and the CEO
Karen Lee for hosting us here at Blake House today
just to contextualize a little bit for all of you.
Blake House opened in 2023 and is part of the first
affordable high-rise to open in Seattle in over 50
years. It has over a hundred units for seniors and
veterans who have experienced chronic homelessness and
provides the critical wraparound services they
need to recover and thrive.
Finally thank you to our media partners for joining
us today and helping to get out this really important
information and most importantly I want to thank Mayor Wilson
and the City of Seattle and her whole team for collaborating
on this incredibly complex work and with that I would like
to turn it over to Mayor Wilson.
Thank you so much for being here.
Well, thank you to the executive who has laid out, I think,
very thoroughly what we are doing and why.
So I'm going to ad lib a little here and try not to just
entirely repeat everything that he said.
So as the executive mentioned, the King County
Regional Homelessness Authority was formed
for some really good and important reasons.
Homelessness is a regional crisis.
It doesn't stop at the borders of any one city.
And in order to be successful, we know that we need to take
a regional approach that is based in collaboration
and on a really realistic understanding of this crisis,
its causes, and how we help people out of homelessness.
And the agency has faced really deep challenges
since its founding.
And I think when I reflect on the reasons for that,
And also, I know that many people in this room have been
through multiple iterations of imagining our homelessness
response in this region.
When I reflect on the reasons for those challenges,
one that sticks out to me is that this agency
was given incredible responsibility without
sufficient capacity or authority to really
effectively create and drive an overall strategy for addressing
the homelessness crisis in our region and I think
that the audit really reflects this reality
and also of course brings to light specific problems
that have to be urgently addressed so the actions
that we are announcing today are aimed at
strengthening the King County Regional Homelessness
Authority as the foundation for an effective
regional response.
So we are stabilizing, right?
We are embedding outside consultants
who can shore up the agency's ability
to manage its finances, shore up its ability
to do compliance.
This is really, really important as we focus the agency on
its core regional functions.
The King County Regional Homelessness Authority
is our designated applicant for continuum of care
funds and we recognize the deep importance that
we are able to submit the strongest possible
application for those federal resources.
The agency will also continue to be the
vehicle for coordinated entry and for our homelessness
management information system.
So these are properly regional functions
and our goal here is to really allow the KCRHA to focus
on those regional functions effectively and responsibly
and with accountability.
And as the executive mentioned, we are reabsorbing our
city and county contracts to the city and the county.
And this, I feel, is really, for me, a matter of taking
political responsibility.
It is a reflection of the fact that I and the executive,
as new elected leaders, We are really the ones
who have been given the authority by voters to drive
a response to this crisis.
And we need to welcome and accept that responsibility.
And that is what we are doing with these actions today.
In doing this, we recognize that what is so crucial is
continuity and stability.
For the service providers who are out there every day doing
the hard work of serving our homeless population and
helping people into shelter and stability and housing,
and continuity for the people that we are serving,
because ultimately this work is about people.
And so we are trying to do this in a deliberate and
measured way so that we do not have disruption that
is harmful to the people that we are aiming to serve.
And as we do this, we recognize the deep importance of alignment
and coordination between the city and the county and
all of our other partners.
And our teams have been hard at work, honestly, throughout
this year, meeting almost daily to make sure that we are
doing this work with that alignment and that coordination.
And I'll just close by saying that although we are in this
really challenging moment for this agency and for our
region and our homelessness crisis generally, right,
we just got the results of the recent point
in time count.
We have seen another significant increase,
especially in our rates of unsheltered homelessness,
which we should all feel is unacceptable and feel a real
urgency around addressing that So we are in this challenging
moment, and at the same time, I want to say that I
am filled with a lot of hope.
I'm filled with a lot of hope because we are in a
moment again where we have new leadership that is
really, I think, committed to tackling this crisis with
the urgency that it deserves.
And I think there is a huge amount of alignment in terms
of the values and the vision between the executives
breaking the cycle initiative and the shelter acceleration
work that we have embarked on at the City of Seattle.
We are in a moment where we can learn from the past and we can
also learn from other cities that have seen some success in
greatly reducing their rates of homelessness from Denver
to Boston to San Francisco.
I think we are open to drawing all the lessons that
we can from other places.
And we can learn from and we can expand on the successful
models and the work that is already being done here.
And we have a lot of that as well.
And I just want to call out one example.
And this was reported on, I believe, in the Seattle
Times, among others.
during the World Cup over the last few weeks, over the
last couple months, there has been a concerted
effort to navigate people who have been sleeping
unsheltered in Pioneer Square into shelter with
services. This has been a collaboration between
multiple service providers including Purpose Dignity
Action, DESC, the Downtown Seattle Association
working with Community Solutions and they have
successfully navigated over 70 people and these are
the people who are hardest to serve into shelter with
services and I'll say that the shelter that we recently
opened up in Interbay the first large shelter of
our shelter acceleration efforts has been key to
providing that space to to bring people inside to.
So this is a demonstration of what works.
We know what works and we have an opportunity now
to expand on what works and to really make progress
on this issue which has been so challenging for so long.
So I'm here with a sense of hope and I am so grateful to the
partnership with King County, all of the people
and organizations who are represented here today,
and we will move forward and we will do this work together.
Thank you.
And I think I'm turning it over to Representative Nicole Macri.
Thanks, Mayor, and thank you all for being here.
It's actually quite fitting, I think, that we're here
today at Blake House, which is such a great example
of what regional, state, and federal partnership can
really deliver for people who need stable housing
and wraparound services.
So thank you, Karen, for hosting us today here and
the entire team at Plymouth.
I am Representative Nicole Macri, and I want to thank
the executive, the mayor, and all of the partners,
including our service providers, our labor and community partners
whose work really together has brought us to this moment.
The public rightly expects urgency, accountability,
and results from those of us who are entrusted
with responding to homelessness.
They expect us to use taxpayer dollars wisely, be transparent,
and to make changes when systems are not working
the way we intend them.
That's why today's announcement from the mayor and the
exec are so important.
The idea behind regional response to homelessness, I
agree, remains the right one.
Homelessness doesn't stop at city boundaries and
neither should our solutions.
The desire to bring jurisdictions together to
address a shared challenge is a good and worthwhile goal.
But regional coordination must be matched by a real sense
of urgency, strong financial stewardship, clear lines of
responsibility, and public confidence that our resources
are being managed effectively.
The plan that you heard today, I think, begins to
deliver on those values.
It takes seriously the findings of the forensic review.
It advances the stronger accountability and
clearer oversight that taxpayers deserve.
It builds a more stable foundation for a regional
homelessness response.
And most importantly, it keeps our focus on the people who
depend on these services.
Throughout my career, both in my community work
and in the legislature, I have worked towards
a vision where in our communities everyone
has the opportunity to live in safe, stable housing
and have their health care needs met.
This includes older adults
trying to age with dignity, families working to keep
a roof over their heads and food on the table for
their children, veterans who've served our country, and people
living with disabilities, including those living with
complex behavioral health needs.
For them, most especially, stability matters.
As these changes move forward, people receiving services
should not experience disruption in care.
Providers should be able to focus on serving people rather
than navigating uncertainty.
And the workers who deliver outreach, shelter,
supportive housing, and case management should have
the support they need to continue to do this work.
I want to especially recognize the people who
keep our homelessness response system running.
Every day, frontline workers across our housing, healthcare,
human services, and public sectors, including at KCRHA,
help to connect people to stability, maintain essential
services, and ensure that public dollars are used
effectively and transparently.
And I want to recognize that no single entity can
solve homelessness alone.
Federal resources matter.
State investments matter.
Counties, cities, service providers, labor organizations,
health care systems, philanthropy, businesses,
and community members have an important role to play.
And our greatest progress comes when we can partner effectively.
This partnership is especially important right now as we work
to protect federal funding.
This plan reinforces the strong governance, accountability,
and fiscal stewardship that taxpayers and our
federal partners expect, while helping ensure that
critical resources remain available to support people who
are experiencing homelessness throughout our region.
At the same time, accountability runs in both directions.
Local communities have a responsibility to administer
public resources effectively, and federal agencies
have a responsibility to follow the law.
This week's federal court ruling in favor of Attorney General
Nick Brown's lawsuit against HUD was an important victory
for communities in Washington and across the country.
It affirmed that HUD must follow the law when administering
these programs, and it protects our ability to
continue delivering services to people who need them.
The most recent point in time count reminds us
that homelessness remains one of the most urgent
challenges facing our region.
That reality demands both accountability and partnership.
It requires us to learn from what has worked, improve what
has not, and bring together governments, providers, workers,
businesses, philanthropy, and community members around
a shared commitment to swift and sustainable progress.
Every resident, worker, and visitor in our region benefit
when more people are housed, when services are effective,
and when public resources are managed responsibly, and
when our neighborhoods are healthy, safe, and thriving.
That's what today's announcement is intended to advance.
There is much more work to do, and I look forward to
continuing the work together.
Thank you.
And I'm going to turn it over to Jane.
Good morning, everyone.
I'm Jane Hopkins, and I'm a registered nurse
and the president of SEIU Healthcare 1199
Northwest, a union of more than 38,000 members,
healthcare workers.
It might not feel like it today with the World Cup out there,
but this is the most important thing that's happening
in our community today.
Outside people are excited.
I am sorry.
I will...
Outside our streets are alive.
There's joy, there's hope, and there's celebration.
It reminds us what it's like when we are all of one mind
and we all come together.
I love that.
My dad was a soccer player, you guys say soccer, in
England, in Sierra Leone.
And so I'm really excited about the excitement
that's out here today.
But when that's all gone, what are they going to remember?
What are we going to be talking about?
Today we're here to make a pivot that
doesn't need to be done but is going to be done because
we have to do that so that everyone has a home to return to
at the end of the day.
Our union of healthcare workers includes
those of those at the front line of homelessness like
DESC and Harborview and emergency departments
all across the county.
We are guided by the clear fact that every single one of us and
the entire healthcare system are better when people are housed.
It is the right thing to do.
It is the effective thing to do.
Whether we're asking to take care of other
people, whether we're thinking about pocketbooks,
our hospitals, our businesses, or ourselves.
But it's not an easy thing to do.
That's why I'm really excited to be here because this was
not an easy decision to make.
We have not succeeded and so we have to keep asking if we
are on the right track, make make changes when we learn
that we must do better.
Our members support this effort that strengthens accountability,
protects services, and keeps the focus on housing people.
That is why we are encouraged by the steps that have
been announced today.
This new path gives us opportunity to sharpen
our regional homelessness authority focus.
It recognizes that regional coordination remains essential.
It asks KCRHA to focus on the functions that really,
truly regional, that strengthens accountability
accountability for resources and trust to all of us.
For those people we serve, success means continuity.
It means counselors, case managers can focus on
helping people instead of navigating uncertainty.
It means someone sleeping outside today continues
to receive services tomorrow, next month,
and next year.
As this transition moves forward, we
must support the workers like Jarrell Campbell, who is
in the room today, who makes this system function
every day.
Frontline caregivers, outreach workers,
case managers, housing housing specialists, support
staff, and people solving the problem every day.
Maintaining a stable workforce and uninterrupted
services must remain the center of this effort.
Joy, hope, connection, and celebration of healthy bodies,
determined minds, and working together.
That same spirit doesn't have to leave our streets
today as the World Cup ends.
It is the spirit that our members bring to
the work every day.
And if this region and our partners stand with them,
we can bring everybody home.
Our community deserves both compassion and accountability.
This plan is about making sure every dollar is
spent responsibly every provider can focus on
delivering services and every person experiences
is experiencing homelessness has a clearer path home thank you
good afternoon elected officials friends and members
of the press my name is Karen Lee and I am one of your
service providers and I'm also the CEO of Plymouth Housing
I'm especially grateful to be here today we are
at Blake House which was named after Blake Nordstrom
This building exists for people who have been
told no too many times.
Most of our residents have been homeless for
over a year, have complex medical and support needs,
and all of our residents are human beings deserving of
dignity, stability, and hope.
So many of these residents I've seen over the years and
since it opened and I've talked to a few and I'm going
to highlight one today but before I do that I just want
to say there's a resident that lives here in the third floor
that slept for seven years right here across the street
and his his room overlooks his former sleeping area.
And he talked about why he chose that area.
He talked about it was on a corner, it was safer here,
and that he could see danger coming.
And today he has a guitar collection, and he's working
and improving himself.
Another resident here had a home that he rented
with several others, and then the building was razed,
and he no longer could afford a place to live and he was
homeless for over a year.
Our site director here, Baruch, told me another
story about a resident here named Tina.
And when Tina moved into this
building, she had lost nearly all of her vision to
cataracts. She struggled to get food, she couldn't read her
mail, couldn't read her cell phone, and she couldn't keep
track of critical identification information.
And she became increasingly isolated.
But our staff didn't give up on her.
They brought her meals, they helped her replace
her documents, they walked alongside her to
her appointments until she was finally able to receive
the care that restored her vision and this didn't
happen because of one agency or one program it
happened because people show up day after day and
because there's a stable system that allows our staff
to do their work as this transition moves forward
let's remember who this is really about somewhere in
the county today another person is facing the same
barriers that Tina once did and to our gentleman on
the third floor there's a fence around where he used
to sleep and and I've had people come and beg on
this door here and beg to move in to Blake House and
it's quite quite sad regardless of which entity manages
contracts our neighbors must remain at the center
of our focus and every decision that we make we can't
allow this transition to come at the expense
of people because people sleeping outside cannot
wait I'm very encouraged by today's commitment to a
regional response because homelessness
does not stop at city boundaries and our response
cannot either people deserve access to housing
and services wherever they are and across King
County the need is greater than the resources that are
currently available and as a provider operating in
three cities soon to be four we understand that
our regional approach is exactly exactly what we need
at Plymouth we are ready to do our work and we love
our work.
No one can face this crisis alone and
it's why we'll continue working every day with our
partners, with you, the city, King County, KCRHA and
anyone else who wants to volunteer.
Providers are ready to lead and deliver.
Now we ask our public partners to work alongside us so that
we can achieve the results that this community deserves.
In the end, people won't judge this transition
by an organizational chart, but they'll judge
it by what truly matters.
Did more people move inside?
Did more people find stable housing?
And did they stay housed because that's what matters
whether we keep our promise and keep our promise to
those who today don't have a place to stay thank you and
I'll turn it back over to you executive
Thank you so much, Karen, for just keeping our eye
on what really matters.
Thank you to all of our speakers, especially
those of you who were able to humanize the
people who are suffering from this crisis that
we're all trying to solve.
We know that the announcements that we made today are not easy.
They're not going to happen overnight.
They're going to require really thoughtful implementation
and strong collaboration, but that's something that every
single one of us in this room and beyond are committed to
because there are a lot of people counting on us.
And with that, we'll take some questions, and Callie
will call on people.
Yeah, we are going to take questions.
Please raise your hand.
We'll start with Michelle in the back.
Thanks very much.
Michelle from KOMO News.
I was curious on how much federal funding
is at stake here, one, And then two, what are the
contracts worth that we're talking about transferring
from the city and the county?
Yeah, I believe the continuum of care funds that the KCRHA
receives are about $67 million, and those go on to house
about 4,500 people.
And then what was the second part of that question?
The city and county contracts that will be
transferred will be worth?
I don't have that number.
Anybody have that number?
About $160 million, it's over 200 contracts.
Alejandra then Erica.
Yeah, so several council members have actually called for the
dissolution of KCRHA.
Council member Dembowski just put out a statement
that he said this is a failed experiment,
Mayor, Executive.
Why do you not support these legislations to dissolve
KCRHA at this point?
You want to start off?
Yeah, thank you for the question.
Homelessness is a regional problem, and I
think as we've laid out, there are some really
core functions that are really properly regional.
The King County Regional Homelessness Authority is
the designated applicant for continuum of care funds.
We have the Homelessness Management Information System.
We have the Coordinated Entry System.
And so we think it is really important that we
are focusing this agency on those core functions.
Female Speaker: Erica, question for either the
mayor or executive, both.
In what way -- I mean, this seems like a return to the
pre-KCRHA status quo for the most part, with I think
some other changes, you know, coming.
So I guess the question is, you know, would you
characterize it that way, and does this mean that the
agency has failed?
Eric Green: I would not characterize it that way.
I, as the mayor mentioned, there are some core regional services
that will remain with KCRHA.
And so those are continuing to stay regionalized.
And then with respect to the contracts that are coming
back to the city and the county in the short term,
it is true that a provider will have to respond to two different
entities versus one entity.
But I am confident that Director Kim at HSD and
Director McLaughlin at DCHS are going to work together
to harmonize the terms of those contracts, to make the
responsibility of responding to those contracts as streamlined
and simple as possible.
And like we mentioned before, in the long run, our
goal is to create a more effective regional system.
And that requires much more than the input of
just me and the mayor.
We want to make sure that we have the broad stakeholdering
with providers, with cities, with federal and state
partners and beyond to really build something that
is resilient and has the buy-in of many more people.
Yeah, just to add to that, I think that the assumption of
city and county contracts by the KCRHA was not
terribly successful.
So that is not saying the agency was a failure, but I think
that that particular part of its function, talking to service
providers, right, that was not a successful part of its work.
And I think the other thing to point out is that, you
know, right now the city and the county both have
homelessness funds that they deploy separately
and contract separately.
So the status quo right now is not that there is only one
entity that service providers are having to apply to.
Already many many service providers are separately
contracted with the KCRHA the city the county
and so as we're
we resetting those contracts back to the city in the
county we are our teams are exploring how we can make
sure that we are doing that in a way that creates
consistency and simplicity for service providers and
so we're not we are not going to go back to the way it
was before.
We are going to make sure that we are combining our
processes in some fashion to be determined to make this
as clear and simple for the
organizations that are applying for funding.
Hi, do you think the changes over the past six years
focusing really on structure, how we manage bureaucracies has
kind of distracted from the real core solutions that are needed
and perhaps the real fundamental need to address
homelessness requires just resources and scaling
up the investments to levels that maybe are common in other
countries, European countries, but really in the U.S.
We're not yet experienced since the
Reagan era to really handle the issue.
So to the first part of your question about
whether all of the focus on structure has distracted
from how we really address the crisis, I think that
that is true, although structure is important.
What I would say is that resources are one piece of
this, but I think also we can do a lot better with
the resources that we have.
I think that this is really a matter of
making sure that we are spending the resources
that we have as effectively as possible, and that
means that we need to be thinking about how across the
whole system, from how we are interacting with people who are
unsheltered, to how we are doing our shelter and what kinds
of services we are providing, you know, through a range of
different kinds of shelter, to the pathways into housing,
through to public health and interactions with Heart Review.
There are many, many pieces to the system
that need to be put together in the right way,
and that has, I think, not been done.
I mean, there are certain areas where collaborations have
been really successful, but I think across
the whole system, we are not aligning
all of the players, all of the organizations
in the most effective way, and that is the work that,
regardless of what the kind of overall structure
looks like that is the work that we need to be doing
and the work that I think both I and the executive
and our council members and everyone in this room is
committed to yeah yeah Guy that's a really great question
DESC put out information this week that showed
that the provider network that KCRHA is working with every
year houses thousands of people.
It's just that the people coming into homelessness
are coming in at a much higher rate than people
are able to exit.
And so it's my opinion that even if
KCRHA was batting at 100%, do I think that our homelessness
crisis would have ended?
The answer is no.
I think the mayor right, we need to be doing a
lot better with the resources that we have, but also to meet
this moment at the scale that it requires absolutely requires
much more resources, much more effective systems, and
that's what some of the work that we described outside of the
KCRHA system is designed to implement with
better government, with the Breaking the Cycle
initiative with a shelter acceleration plan and
also partnering with our state and federal
partners who do have much more flexible tools for raising the
revenue that's needed to truly put a roof over everybody's
head and give everybody wraparound services that
that are needed to help everybody get onto
a path of recovery.
Brandon? Understanding the technical aspects of the
continuum care, HMIS, as well as coordinated entry,
what about the work itself of getting people indoors
and off the streets?
Is sufficient for you two to say
KCRHA should stick around?
I think it should stick around to manage those
regional functions that you described before.
But in terms of the work of getting people off of the street
with the basic homelessness contracts that exist,
I believe that the city and the county's departments
have the expertise needed to administer those contracts.
And the provider network is still going to exist, right?
Those providers are the ones out there on the street doing
outreach, providing people resources, getting people into
housing, and I think they will continue to do that effectively.
I'm thinking that David and then the next question.
Or let's go to Connor since he had the last question first.
Yeah, Mayor Wilson, you talked about the political
responsibility of homelessness.
Why is the governing board of KCRHA not sufficient
to bring that political responsibility onto the
shoulders of elected officials?
I mean, I think we've just seen in practice that hasn't
been the way that it's worked.
And I don't necessarily want to get into all the kind of
exact structure of the agency that maybe has made that hard.
But I'll just I just think that it is demonstrable looking
at how the history of the last five years or whatever has
gone that that has not been the way that that agency was
structured or has functioned.
And so for me, I just, you know, in this moment, I believe that
this is the right move so that the executive and I and our
council members, our respective jurisdictions, working with
other cities, jurisdictions around the county, we can
really put our brains to work figuring out with all of our
service providers what is that approach that is going to
be successful in that moment.
And that is the work that we are already have
separately committed to doing.
Right. So the executive and his breaking the cycle
initiative, we in our shelter acceleration work.
Right. This is work that has already started.
And so in this moment, the
correct home for that work is in our administrations,
in collaboration with with everyone else, as opposed
to at the governing board.
Connor, and then we'll go back to Michelle and Erica.
So, we're all talking, like this whole press conference is
about the KCRHA, but they're not taking questions right now,
and the last time I checked, they're in the back of the
Why was the decision not to have them up here make a
speech and answer questions?
Because it seems like we're all talking about them, but they're
not here to answer questions.
They are here and available to take questions after the
press conference is over.
Well, that was the choice I had to have.
I think just being able to talk about the future
of narrowing its scope and making sure that as we
plan for a future that is broader than the organization,
that's kind of what we wanted to talk about up here.
I'll go back to Michelle and Erica.
Thank you.
So fair to say significant shift, not eliminating KCHRA,
but shrinking it significantly.
So with that in mind, is there any sort of job loss,
any other consequences as a result of this?
Mr. Could you repeat the question one more time?
The Press: Yeah, sure.
Just because we're not eliminating KCHRA,
that's not what you're proposing,
but you're shrinking it significantly.
That said, is there any job loss or consequences as a result?
I think there will be what if we're narrowing the scope
to just focusing on those core regional functions
We do anticipate that there will be
transitions of positions at that organization
cost on the transfer to send those contracts from
The agency to the city in the county
I mean, if someone wants to come up, I mean, you know, I
think the city and the county, we're both working on our plan.
This is partly why this announcement coming is
coming at this time is because we are working
on our plans to staff up in order to be able to
handle those contracts.
And we may or may not have, you know, facts and figures
at this point about costs.
But the hope is that, and the assumption is that once that
happens, our overall system will be able to work more
effectively and efficiently.
To give you specific numbers, at King County, we're looking
to hire between 10 to 12 people to work at DCHS to help manage
and administer those contracts.
Erica? The Press: The changes -- the
stuff that's staying at KCRHA right now is basically all
for short-term reasons -- the continuum of care, federal
contracts, point-in-time count -- they've got to finish that.
What do you anticipate will happen after all that's done?
I mean, is the ultimate -- is it likely that ultimately this
agency is going to get shut down and those functions
are going to move back?
I think severe weather shelter is also a case area.
Erica, I think the short answer is we don't know yet.
That's what the broad stakeholdering
is designed to do, is to give us a path
forward in the coming years that is co-designed by
all the necessary people and not just the
mayor and myself.
Do you have any thoughts on what you would like to
see as an ideal outcome?
I want to see an effective homelessness response
system that dramatically reduces unsheltered
homelessness on our streets.
I'm going to go back to Brandon.
Councilmember Dembowski and Rivera in the City and
County who have sponsored the dissolution legislation
have celebrated this saying this is a first step towards
unwinding the agency.
Is unwinding inevitable right now?
The answer is no.
And I would also note that this is a press conference,
but it's not a celebration.
We're not taking a celebratory attitude toward this.
I actually think this is a sober moment of taking responsibility
and taking necessary next steps.
But in terms of is the entity being dissolved, the
answer at this time is no.
And not just that it's not being dissolved, it is
being strengthened, right?
So we are trying to position it so that it can perform those
core functions and crucially
being a strong applicant for continuum of care funds,
that is the intention of these actions to actually
strengthen, stabilize the agency so that it can
perform those functions
really, really well.
Guy, can we go back to Connor?
For the 60 to 70 or so KCRHA employees that will
presumably be laid off, is there any plan to have them
transition, either giving them preferential
hiring into HSD or being CHS?
And will they also be given severance?
Is there any specifics at this time?
I don't think we have specifics at this time, but we're
in conversation about that.
And again, part of the reason why we are figuring this out
now is that we have some time to figure that out.
It seems like the transition from city and county taking
over is going to happen early in 2027.
If the city council and county council vote to dissolve
the organization before then, would the KCRHA be ready to
do that dissolving, or would there be additional time?
Can you ask that one more time, Connor?
Currently, you guys are taking over the
contracts in January 2027.
If the county and city councils vote to dissolve KCRHA earlier,
would the city and county be ready to take over those
responsibilities sooner?
I don't believe there's any chance that the city council
will vote to dissolve the KCRHA.
I don't believe that's going to happen either.
The short answer, though, is that we believe we will
be ready to take those contracts in January,
and I don't believe any of our colleagues would jeopardize
our ability to manage those contracts prematurely.
We have time for one more question.
I have a question about the continuing care funding.
It seems, setting aside KCRHA's issues, it seems highly unlikely
that the city is competitive and the county are competitive
right now given all the changes in the contract rules.
So how optimistic are either of you that we're going to get,
you know, some significant portion of that 67 million?
- We are committed to submitting the strongest
possible application.
And, you know, I think it's no secret that Seattle,
King County, you know, we have a target on our backs
because of our values.
So we are obviously also preparing for a situation
where we lose some or all of that funding and I
think we are jointly very committed to making sure that
the people who are currently served by continuum of
care funds through permits for housing through rapid
rehousing through other kinds of shelter that they
do not become homeless so we are absolutely committed
to that outcome and we are going to do our darndest
to get that federal money because we need it yeah
I echo everything the mayor said I think the
truth is that none of us in this room know what
the federal government is going to do it's kind of
like reading tea leaves but we are taking all of the
actions that we believe put us in the strongest
position when we look at what happened in Los Angeles
the way the mayor and I interpret that is that in
action by local authorities and perceptions of
mismanagement and fraud were the driving reasons
why that agency was defunded by the federal government
and we want to make sure that those perceptions
are minimized here that we We are showing that we are
strengthening this agency to focus on its core responsibility
of managing well those federal resources and taking all
other actions to put us in the strongest possible position
to receive those funds.