The promise with which the King County Regional Homelessness Authority was created looks one step closer to being fulfilled.
Four cities in North King County have become the first of the county’s suburbs to vote to fund the new homelessness agency — Bothell, Kenmore, Lake Forest Park and as of Monday evening, Shoreline. Woodinville will consider following suit in January.
This is a milestone for the Regional Homelessness Authority, one that after a series of initial delays and missteps shows that there’s belief that the concept behind the agency could work.
“It’s a sign of faith and trust,” Shoreline Mayor Keith Scully said of the Monday vote.
Created in 2019 by an Interlocal Agreement between Seattle and King County, the Regional Homelessness Authority was supposed to take the reins on homelessness from cities around the county that often had varying approaches to homelessness. The authority is supposed to create a unified strategy implemented with united funding.
But while the authority’s governing structure was set up with a quarter of its voting power given to King County cities outside of Seattle, the suburbs have been reluctant to hand over funding. That has frustrated Seattle officials, who have paid the majority of the authority’s budget.
“We need their resources too. We need their skin in the game. Because our skin is in the game,” said Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell in May.
Suburban leaders said it was reasonable to take a wait-and-see approach before giving money to a new organization working on such a hot-button issue.
The terms of the North King County cities’ contract with the authority reflect that some concerns still remain. The cities could back out in 2024 if they decide they don’t see value. And the amount of money the five cities would initially contribute is small.
They will pay a minimum of $1.20 per resident per year.
Most of the five cities spend more than $1.20 per capita on homelessness services already. For those cities, their contracts with service providers and the funding for them will simply transfer over to the authority for the first two years. Starting in 2025, the authority would have discretion over how to spend those funds.
But for Lake Forest Park, 2023 will mark the first time in recent history it allocates any of its budget for homelessness services.
“I think it’s time for us to step up in support of these services,” said Lake Forest Park City Councilmember Semra Riddle before the council unanimously voted to approve its agreement once it develops its subregional plan for North King County.
If Woodinville agrees to join its neighbors, the five cities combined would contribute $265,000 in 2023.
Seattle will be giving the authority $95 million in 2023 at about $129 per capita. King County, the state, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s contributions make up more than $100 million.
The Regional Homelessness Authority said in a statement that a comparison between Seattle and other cities doesn’t make sense “because homelessness looks different in different sub-regions, and no sub-region will ever have the same level of resources as Seattle.”
Shoreline Mayor Scully said he doesn’t think the amount his city is spending on homelessness is enough.
“I expect as programs either work or don’t work that we will get asked for further funding. And I’m fine with that,” Scully said.
Scully said his faith in the authority has grown as it has touted recent successes — bringing hundreds of people indoors from large, long-standing encampments and helping more than 1,200 people utilize federal housing vouchers to find permanent housing.
“It’s quite literally a vote of confidence,” said an emailed statement from the authority, denying a request for an interview.
Seattle City Councilmember and authority governing committee member Andrew Lewis called it a “watershed moment.”
Harrell applauded the leadership of the North King County cities.
“This is a critical step forward as we work to truly advance regional solutions to this regional crisis,” Harrell wrote in a statement, and encouraged other cities to continue responding to homelessness with urgency and “robust resources.”
“The more cities that join the work of [the Regional Homelessness Authority], the closer we are to solving this crisis,” wrote King County Executive Dow Constantine in a statement.
The authority’s director of subregional planning, Alexis Mercedes Rinck, told the Shoreline City Council in a meeting last month that once the agency releases its five-year plan on homelessness in the coming weeks, it would have a better idea of the true cost to end homelessness and update its recommended funding amount to cities.
Whatever the amount, homeless service providers in North King County say that the money will go further when it is consolidated under the Regional Homelessness Authority.
Take the Enhanced Shelter at the Oaks, a 60-bed, 24/7 homeless shelter in Shoreline. It is operated by nonprofit Lake City Partners Ending Homelessness, which receives funding from Bothell, Kenmore and Shoreline in addition to its contract with the Regional Homelessness Authority.
Executive Director William Towey said each city can have a different set of requirements for the same service, meaning the nonprofit might have to offer “five flavors of the same program instead of just one program,” which can result in unnecessary spending.
Plus, Towey said, elected officials can lack the requisite knowledge necessary to set the right terms for a program to effectively help homeless people.
“They, in effect, are allowing the regional homeless authority to be the expert, so that they don’t have to become experts,” Towey said.
It took months of massaging the terms of the agreement for the North King County cities to be ready to commit. Several provisions provide cities oversight over the authority while preventing them from being tied too tightly to it.
The cities want detailed documentation and reporting about how their money is being spent, ensuring that any money they provide to the authority be spent in North King County. Elected officials in other parts of King County have similarly expressed that they do not want to subsidize homelessness response efforts in Seattle.
The North King County cities also retain the ability to enter homelessness contracts outside of the authority if they want to pilot programs on their own. And they have the option to withdraw from the agreement by the end of 2024.
Other suburban officials are not yet ready to join the North King County cities.
“I’m excited by this milestone,” said Auburn Mayor Nancy Backus, who sits on the authority’s governing committee. However, she said it hasn’t convinced her that Auburn should be rushing to hand over its homelessness funding to the authority.
She said she doesn’t think the still-nascent Regional Homelessness Authority has the bandwidth or staff to take on the millions Auburn spends on homelessness.
“I want the authority to be successful and if it means Auburn has to wait for a while to join in, that’s OK for us,” Backus said.
Redmond Mayor Angela Birney, also a member of the authority’s governing committee, did not directly answer a question via email about whether the North King County cities’ action made it more likely for Redmond to join the authority. She has said she wants to ensure that the authority’s subregional plan suits Redmond’s needs for homelessness services.
“Solutions are not always ‘one-size-fits-all’ and should build upon what is already working well in our communities,” Birney wrote in an email.
The Regional Homelessness Authority wrote that it continues to have “productive conversations with cities in East and South King County to encourage similar agreements” to the one with North King County.