‘People have died’: Councilmember Dembowski blasts King County homelessness agency for leaving $260M unspent

The King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) left about $260 million in available funding unspent while running up a deficit of nearly $17 million, according to a review released earlier this month. King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski said that failure cost people their lives.

“Homelessness has doubled during the six years,” Dembowski said on “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “People have died. These funds, had they been deployed on the streets to acquire housing, to acquire shelter, to acquire services, they wouldn’t have died. That is not a stretch.”

Dembowski chairs the county’s Budget and Fiscal Management Committee and has called the review’s findings an operational disaster. KIRO host Gee Scott told him he doubts that closing the agency would fix the problem. Dembowski said Gee’s skepticism is justified, but giving up isn’t an option.

“It’s tough to be inspirational in this space right now,” Dembowski said. “But I think we have to be, because people’s lives depend on it.”

How the money went unspent

The county executive and Seattle’s mayor brought in a financial firm, Turning Point, to sort out the agency’s finances. Dembowski said the firm had to build six years of financial records from scratch, starting with individual checks and invoices, because the agency didn’t have them.

The review found that KCRHA was eligible for just over $1 billion in federal, state, county, and city grants over six years. It left about 25% of that money unspent. But the agency built its overhead around the full billion and never cut back. That’s how it ended up with a $16.7 million deficit, including about $2.5 million in interest on money it borrowed from the county.

Dembowski called the overspending one scandal, but he sees the unspent money as the bigger one.

“The finding that they left a quarter billion dollars unspent in six years is just damning, absolute mismanagement, gross negligence, almost unfathomable,” he said.

KIRO host Ursula Reutin said she was “starting to feel like rage.” She added that part of her was relieved an agency that couldn’t manage its money didn’t spend the extra quarter-billion dollars.

“But meanwhile, we’ve got so much suffering,” she said.

Dembowski said the county’s share of the unspent money can be redirected, but federal and probably state money can’t be recovered.

“You can’t get those days back where it wasn’t put on the street,” he said.

‘There’s been signs for a long time’

Gee asked whether there were warning signs before the review.

Dembowski pointed to repeated leadership turnover and the agency’s early failure to pay service providers on time. He said some nonprofits had to put their operating costs on credit cards to stay open.

He said the review’s lead consultant described an agency full of “true believers” in ending homelessness that never built enough financial controls.

“So yeah, there’s been signs for a long time, and it’s taken too long to get to the bottom of it,” Dembowski said.

He blamed the agency’s structure. KCRHA’s board includes elected officials from the county, Seattle and suburban cities, who serve there on top of their main jobs and meet about once a month.

“There weren’t regular eyes on the ball on a major function,” Dembowski said. “That’s how this KCRHA was set up, and it’s one of the fundamental flaws.”

‘We just don’t have the resources’

Ursula asked whether any shelters or programs were turned away for lack of money.

Dembowski gave an example from his district. The county wanted to turn an unused former police precinct building in Kenmore into a shelter for older women, a growing share of the homeless population.

When he asked KCRHA for funding, the agency said it didn’t have the money. He ended up finding the money at the county instead.

“When I see this, a quarter billion dollars was there, and they said we don’t have the money to help you,” Dembowski said. “That says it all to me.”

Gee: Will the same habits follow the money?

Gee is concerned that the agency’s problems won’t go away even if it closes.

“I’m skeptical that even if you guys got rid of this organization, the same character, same habits, same lack of accountability will still remain,” Gee said. “It’ll just go over to somewhere else.”

Dembowski pointed to Gee’s hat, which reads “The highest human act is to inspire,” before admitting that’s hard to do on this issue right now.

He said King County Executive Girmay Zahilay has made accountability a priority. Zahilay’s first executive order focused on it, and he hired a chief accountability and performance officer from Amazon.

Dembowski also pointed to the county’s election system as proof government can work. The county has expanded from 10 ballot drop boxes to 101 over 10 years.

“This is arguably a harder problem. I mean, we’re dealing with the human condition,” he said. “But there are models that say the government can work.”

‘A matter of when’

Ursula asked why KCRHA still exists when Dembowski has repeatedly called for it to close.

Dembowski said some colleagues and the executive worried that voting to close the agency would hurt a pending $60 million federal grant application. Because of timing, KCRHA was the only agency able to submit it. That application has now been submitted, and a decision is expected in January.

“It’s no longer a matter of if, Ursula; it’s a matter of when,” he said.

He expects a vote and a new agency to be named in the first quarter of next year.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.