Cities make progress on homelessness while regional effort flounders

Is homelessness getting better?

It depends on whom you ask. And that uncertainty underscores a major stress test for the beleaguered King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

When it comes to Seattle, Mayor Bruce Harrell can point to some positive statistics: In 2022, there were more than 1,000 tents in the city. That dropped to 523 earlier this year. Gunshots around encampments decreased 41% from 2022 to 2023; fires decreased 16%.

But listening to Seattle City Council members, you’d think the city was stuck in crisis.

“When we look at what’s happening on the street, we don’t see any improvement. We only see things getting worse,” said Councilmember Cathy Moore during a recent meeting of the Housing and Human Services Committee, which she chairs.

“We are not seeing in Seattle the measurable results. Folks are on the street,” echoed Councilmember Maritza Rivera.

Sodo Business Improvement Area executive director Erin Goodman said homelessness is much better than in 2020. Harrell is correct to say things have improved on his watch. But the council is also right to be unsatisfied.

“This council, they should be asking for us to do better. Everybody wants us to do better,” said Goodman. “There are reasons why the council would feel this way and it comes down to RHA and what that is.”

Indeed, five years after its inception, no one seems to have a good grasp on what the RHA should do and how it should do it.

Touted as a way to pool funds and focus on immediate housing needs across city boundaries, the RHA’s two largest local funders by far are Seattle and King County.

Smaller cities have been slow to join. So far, only five north county cities — Bothell, Kenmore, Lake Forest Park, Shoreline and Woodinville — have established an agreement with RHA to pool their investments for a coordinated homelessness response.

While Seattle officials say more jurisdictions ought to join to contribute funds and resources, money from the north King County cities makes up less than 1% of the RHA budget. Even if other cities eventually join, don’t expect them to make the financial picture substantially different.

What’s more, having an agreement with the RHA doesn’t automatically translate into a commitment to accept more housing for the formerly unsheltered. Kenmore signed on with the RHA. In January, its city council killed a deal that would have created 100 units of affordable housing.

On Tuesday, Redmond — which is not formally part of the RHA — opened 100 units of supportive housing for people exiting chronic homelessness. It also expressed an interest in taking on the project that Kenmore rejected.

The RHA is still without a leader since Marc Dones left in May 2023. A final slate of candidates was planned to be presented in March. That didn’t happen.

“We have to try again. We want to see if a second CEO can make progress,” said Seattle Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington. “Before we give up, we’ve got to try one more time.”

At the end of the year, Seattle could withdraw from its agreement with the RHA, and the experiment in regionalism would collapse.

No one wants the effort to fail. But when the RHA is part of the problem instead of the solution, it’s time to do some serious thinking about the day after.