Seattle mayor claims 70% of city’s homeless come from outside Seattle

During a mayoral debate, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell stated that roughly 70% of the homeless population in Seattle did not originate from the region.

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell and mayoral candidate Katie Wilson debated each other last Thursday over various Seattle-based topics, with the general election just one month away. Wilson earned nearly 51% of the vote in the August primary, compared to Harrell’s 43%.

Harrell claimed that, despite Seattle not being where a majority of its homeless population comes from, the city still provides more than 60% of the region’s shelter beds and 85% of the region’s tiny homes.

Where did Harrell’s estimation come from?

Harrell cited data from the King County Regional Homeless Authority (KCRHA) that approximately 70% of the city’s homeless population isn’t originally from Seattle.

KCRHA obtained this data through its point-in-time (PIT) methods. PIT count is an estimate of people experiencing sheltered and unsheltered homelessness on a single night in King County. The main count of people living unsheltered is conducted by approximately 600 volunteers spread across the county between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., assisted by paid “guides” who have experienced homelessness in the past and whose knowledge can help locate homeless people off the beaten path.

A separate count is conducted of homeless individuals who are sheltered: in emergency shelters, sanctioned encampments, “tiny home” villages, transitional housing, and other forms of temporary shelter.

This data is widely understood to be an undercount.

“Because of the methodology, the PIT is widely understood to be an undercount, which can be harmful in skewing the narrative and limiting the budget and resources dedicated to solutions,” the KCRHA stated in 2022 when it paused the PIT count. “… Because it relies on what volunteers see during a few hours in the early morning, in a neighborhood that may be unfamiliar to them, recorded on a paper tally sheet, at a time when there could be heavy rain or cold, there are many ways for data to be missed.”

According to Publicola, KCRHA was only able to interview 240 unhoused people within Seattle, out of a total of 800 interviews conducted in King County for its 2024 PIT count. Slightly more than 26% of those surveyed said the Seattle metro area was the last place they had stable housing.

Seattle has more than 250 programs supporting people experiencing homelessness.

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