Homelessness Authority Makes Potentially Controversial Hire, Harrell’s $5,000-a-Week Consultant Speaks Out

1. After laying off 13 people and holding 15 vacant positions open as part of a cost-cutting effort last month, King County Regional Homelessness Authority director Kelly Kinnison added five new positions, including three new executives— erasing some of the savings the KCRHA achieved by axing its deputy director, chief financial officer, associate strategy director, general counsel, and research and data director, among others.

As PubliCola reported last month, the layoffs included every person who filed complaints against Kinnison earlier this year, claiming she displayed racial bias after she attempted to create new positions for two white men, allegedly passing over potential Black internal candidates for those roles. At the time, Kinnison backed off on the hires while the authority conducted an investigation. The investigation ended when the KCRHA board voted to place “a letter reminding [Kinnison] of the organization’s policy on retaliation” in her file and hire an executive coach, who ended up advising Kinnison on which jobs to cut.

This week, Kinnison hired one of the men whose proposed employment by KCRHA led to the investigation in the first place. William Towey, the director of Lake City Partners, will start next week as associate director of strategy—the same title Xochitl Maykovich, one of the staffers who complained about Kinnison, held before she quit in August. Lake City Partners provides shelter and services in North Seattle.

We’ve reached out to KCRHA about Towey’s new role at the agency, as well as whether Kinnison plans to hire the other man she considered earlier this year, who currently runs a nonprofit focused on youth and young adult homelessness.

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2. Abdul Yusuf, the founder of the Eastside for Hire taxi company and an ardent supporter of Mayor Bruce Harrell, didn’t respond when we reached out to ask him what kind of “outreach and engagement” he did for the campaign, which paid him $5,000 a week for undefined services (for comparison, that’s what Harrell’s chief consultant, Christian Sinderman, made from the campaign every month).

Yusuf has been downright voluble on Facebook, however, posting after the election that he, along with Seattle Office of Refugee Affairs director Hamdi Mohamed and Breakfast Group founder Nate Miles, had been able “to organize nearly 500 volunteers in support of Mayor Bruce Harrell’s campaign,” including “over 280 taxi drivers, more than 100 African daycare owners, 28 gas station owners, and many other small-business and community leaders.”

Seattle’s East African community, like most, was divided over the mayor’s race and some who supported Wilson over Harrell reported feeling pressure to support Harrell or refrain from supporting Wilson publicly. In his post, Yusuf accuses “some ome within our broader community” of trying “to play both sides — showing public support while quietly working for the opposition. That kind of double-dealing hurts more than open disagreement, but it also teaches us that true partnership is proven by consistency, not convenience.

In addition to her job at the city, Mohamed is a Seattle Port Commissioner. Miles’ organization, the Breakfast Group, is a mentorship program for young Black men; he jumped up during the We Heart Seattle/Discovery Institute-sponsored “Great Debate” earlier this year to deliver an impromptu pro-Harrell speech while Harrell answered friendly questions from the moderator, who was also a supporter.