‘It’s time to see a different pathway’: Seattle council president wants to rethink city’s investment in King County homeless agency

After a King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) investigation found that between $8 million and $13 million in funding went unaccounted for, Seattle City Council President Joy Hollingsworth echoed Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson’s concerns about the agency’s fiscal management.

Hollingsworth told “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio that Seattle funds between 50 and 60% of KCRHA’s overall budget and has contributed more than $500 million since the agency’s inception. She said if she were presented with the audit without knowing which agency it was, she would redirect the money back into the city. She also called for more transparency and greater oversight of the agency.

“If you had put this audit in front of me, didn’t say who it was, and said, ‘Hey, should we still be doing 60 to 50 to 60% investment in this?’ I’d say, ‘No. Absolutely not.’ I would like us to reinvest that money into our own human services department,” she said. “We can have more oversight. We can have better accountability, better transparency, and better outcomes. So I would like Seattle to start moving in that direction.”

Seattle Council president calls for bringing KCRHA in-house

When asked if the solution is to completely dismantle KCRHA, Hollingsworth said it’s more complicated than that.

“You can’t just cut off the lights, because then you have folks that might lose services,” she said. “There are providers that are doing that, but I do believe it’s time for us to see a different pathway, and that is bringing it in-house in Seattle.”

Hollingsworth described the KCRHA breakdown as a system failure, saying the government has been good at funding and generating ideas but poor at tracking outcomes.

“We’re a wealthy city, we have progressive taxes, but we never talk about what the outcomes are for certain things,” she said. “What are the things that we’re getting to? It’s the ‘We need more money,’ and that’s a problem that I have. And so I think it’s a system failure on the outcome piece.”

Audits aren’t enough, Seattle Council president says

When it comes to accountability, Hollingsworth said the city has no shortage of audits. What’s been missing, she said, is the political will among elected officials to change how they vote.

“We are always talking about audits. We get that information, now you have to have the political will to say, ‘You know what, I can’t continue to go on and vote this way,'” she said. “And honestly, I can’t. There are too many people suffering. There are too many different things that we’ve seen on the street. We have to have better outcomes.”

Hollingsworth said after seeing the audit, she doesn’t see a future for KCRHA as it currently stands.

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.