1. On an appearance on KUOW’s “The Record” Thursday, Mayor Jenny Durkan doubled down on her assertion that it’s up to the school district, not the city, to shelter and house people living in an encampment next to Broadview Thompson K-8 school in north Seattle. The encampment is on district-owned land on the south shore of Bitter Lake, directly adjacent to property owned by the city.
As we’ve reported, the school district has asked the city not to sweep the encampment without providing outreach and access to shelter to the dozens of people living there. Durkan has responded that the since the school district has made it clear they don’t want the city to remove the camp, it’s up to the district to “stand up their own process” for providing outreach and shelter to the people living there, using their “billion-dollar budget” to do so.
Responding to a question posed by PubliCola’s Erica C. Barnett on KUOW, Durkan said the school district would “have to address [the encampment] the same way we do—you have to do outreach and really try to find places for people to go. You can’t just push them onto the city property [next door] and expect the city to deal with it.” Other than a rough line in the grass, there is no clear demarcation at the site between school district and city property.
Durkan disputed the idea that the school district doesn’t have the funds to stand up its own human services system. For example, she said, if the school district “want[s] to contract with an entity like JustCARE, they do have the reserves, plus money in their transportation budget that they didn’t use this year.”
The school district actually has an ongoing shortfall in its transportation budget, and can never have a surplus in that funding source because the state reimburses school districts for transportation costs after the fact.
JustCARE is a program that provides hotel rooms and intensive case management to people living in encampments in Pioneer Square and other areas. In a memo to the school board and other district officials in April, then-deputy mayor Casey Sixkiller estimated that the district could shelter 30 people through JustCARE for one year for around $1.5 million, or “set up a new tiny home village and provide services to 30 individuals, not including site selection and completing the SEPA process which adds both time and additional costs,” for $1.1 million.
“Our billion-dollar budget is intended for the education of children. We don’t have funding in excess to divert to rehousing adults living in Seattle.” — Seattle school board director Liza Rankin
“The school district so far has declined to act” to provide shelter, housing, and services to residents,” Durkan said on KUOW. “We’re hoping the school district makes a different decision, but they as a board have to decide what their priorities are.”
2. At a school board meeting on Wednesday, board director Liza Rankin, who represents the district where the encampment is located, responded directly to Durkan’s previous comments suggesting the district should set up a system parallel to the city’s to fund shelter, outreach, and encampment removals. “Our billion-dollar budget is intended for the education of children,” Rankin said. “It runs 104 schools, it employs about 8,000 staff, it serves 54,000 students, and it is still not enough to cover counseling, nursing, full-time librarians and more at each and every school.”
“So we don’t have funding in excess to divert to rehousing adults living in Seattle,” Rankin continued. “That being said, we continue to be open and wiling to partner with any and everyone who wants to support the district in the compassionate rehousing of people in our community who deserve much better.”
3. The King County Regional Homelessness Authority is in conversations with former interim Seattle Human Services Department director Jason Johnson about consulting on “sub-regional planning” in South King County, PubliCola has learned. Specifically, Johnson would work to map out the existing resources in South King County for the homelessness authority.
KCRHA spokeswoman Anne Martens said the agency is “still talking through potential scope,” adding, “we don’t actually have a contract in place, so there’s nothing official” yet. Johnson was Durkan’s pick to lead HSD, but he failed to win confirmation from the city council and served in an interim capacity throughout his two years in the position, which ended in December 2020.
It sounds like they are trying to hire a consultant that can get some things done. We might have had better homeless outcomes if Jason Johnson had been allowed to be the Head of HSD as Mayor Durkan proposed. I recall it was Kshama Sawant who lead the charge against Jason Johnson. In a rush to be uber woke other council members jumped on the bandwagon. Competence left HSD and hasn’t returned since. Maybe we can get some competence in the regional authority if Jason is “allowed” to return.
The problem of unhoused persons living on school district property was caused solely by City of Seattle policies (and rulings of Progressive judges). I can provide as much detail and proof about that as anyone may need. Therefore, it should be the responsibility of the City to solve the problem at the City’s cost. There are at least a half-dozen other supposed causes that Progressives like to blame. Pick your favorite fake cause and I will tell you exactly why you are wrong. Steve Willie.
What… no takers? No surprises there. Your Progressive opinions don’t stand up to actual facts and you know it. Steve Willie.
What failed City policies caused homelessness? Is it really helpful or sustainable for the district to allow campers next to their school, sheltering them from sweeps (which the City would do but the School Board has demanded they don’t)?