By Erica C. Barnett

Mayor Bruce Harrell and King County Executive Dow Constantine will submit legislation soon to disband the King County Regional Homelessness Authority’s Implementation Board, PubliCola has learned. The Implementation Board is made up of people who represent different communities impacted by homelessness, including businesses, affordable housing providers, advocates, and people with direct experience of homelessness. Both councils have to approve the changes, which require amending the interlocal agreement that established the agency in 2019.

The board includes no elected officials or service providers with KCRHA contracts. A second board, the Governing Committee, is made up almost entirely of elected officials; under the proposed changes, the Governing Committee would take over the responsibilities of the Implementation Board.

Under the interlocal agreement, the implementation board is supposed to oversee the operations of the KCRHA and approve all budget and policy decisions (like the agency’s contentious Five-Year Plan), and make recommendations to the elected officials on the governing committee, which can ultimately approve, alter, or vote down those recommendations.

Critics, including many elected officials on the governing committee, have called this process unwieldy, and have pointed to the two-board structure as a primary reason the KCRHA has struggled to reduce homelessness in the region. Ceattle City Councilmember Rob Saka, for example, called the structure “clunky and confusing” earlier this year. “As I understand it, there’s three boards oversight with oversight authority over KCRHA, and in my mind, that’s two too many,” Saka said—including in his calculation a federally mandated Continuum of Care oversight committee, which is unrelated to the KCRHA’s governance structure.

But Alison Eisinger, director of the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness, says eliminating the implementation board will only ensure that the region’s homelessness agency is governed by a body that includes no one with direct expertise or experience with research, analysis, and on-the-ground work to address homelessness.

And, she added, making tweaks to the KCRHA’s governance structure doesn’t address the underlying issues that have made it challenging for the KCRHA to make a meaningful impact on homelessness—a lack of “deep, sustained, additional funding for housing, rent assistance, crisis response, and support. … The regional commitment to site, open, and operate quality housing, shelter and services that match people’s needs has to be made real by actions, not just words.”

Seattle and King County provide the vast majority of the KCRHA’s funding. As we’ve reported, the agency’s 2025 budget will require the closure of at least 300 shelter beds.

Eliminating the board will require significant amendments to the interlocal agreement, which would have to be approved by the King County Council and Seattle City Council. Constantine and Harrell’s offices did not respond to PubliCola’s requests for comment.