By Erica C. Barnett

On Monday, the Seattle City Council got its first, partial look at Mayor Katie Wilson’s proposal to build 500 new shelter units by the end of May, and 1,000 before 2027. The mayor’s office is waiting until later this month to announce the sites they’ve identified for the first few new tiny house villages, so the briefing was mostly an opportunity for the council to ask questions about the proposal—including how much new money it will require, how the mayor’s office plans to get buy-in from neighborhood residents, and why the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA), which manages the region’s shelter contracts, has been effectively cut out of the proposal.

The biggest news to come out of the briefing was the total estimated price tag for the first 500 units. According to city Budget Director Aly Pennucci, the mayor’s office has identified about $17.5 million to pay for the first 500 units. That number includes$4.8 million Wilson’s team previously identified from an underutilized Community Development Block Grant revolving loan  ($3.3 million) and unused funds from a downtown development fee program dating back to the 1980s ($1.5 million), plus shelter funding from the city’s 2026 budget that hasn’t been spent yet. The average annual operating cost for each new shelter unit, according to Pennucci, will be around $28,000 for each new shelterbed.

That number is be lower than the cost of tiny house villages that feature the range of services, including case management, meals, and 24/7 on-site staff, that Wilson said would be among distinguishing features of the new shelters. For instance, the city allocated $5.9 million to the Low Income Housing Institute to add about 100 new tiny houses last year.

According to the mayor’s office, the $28,000 figure assumes that some shelters will cost less than the ones serving “high-acuity” clients, while some will cost more. In addition, some that are located on publicly owned land may end up paying essentially no rent, if the city can work out a deal with the owners.

At the same time, the legislation would allow the city to lease land at market rate, opening up more potential sites at a higher cost.

“We know that without services, these shelters are not successful, [and] because the people who cause the most disorder and have the highest impact on our community are people who have high needs and high acuity, we know we need 24/7 staffing,” Wilson’s chief of staff Kate Kreuzer said. “We want case management. We want integrated behavioral health support, so that when people come inside, they have the services they need, and then that is getting them on a pathway to housing.”

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In addition to a bill that would allocate the $4.8 million, Wilson’s office sent legislation to the council that would allow the city’s Human Service Department to select shelter providers directly and allow the department of Finance and Administrative Services to lease the property for new shelters itself. If it’s approved, this streamlined procedure would sidestep the KCRHA and bypass the usual 9- to-12-month process for siting shelters, which includes a competitive bidding process and requires providers to negotiate their own leases, permitting, and site preparation.

Nicole Vallestero-Soper, Wilson’s director of policy and innovation, said the first shelters could open as soon as next month. Wilson’s land use bills will likely go through Councilmember Eddie Lin’s land use committee, and the financing will probably go through Dan Strauss’ budget committee.

Councilmember Bob Kettle, seeming to conflate “housing first” with tiny house villages, said he supported the idea of “housing first” if it was a “photo finish with wraparound services” that would not include the kind of “actions that really allow [unsheltered people] to not be ready” to come inside. (Wilson’s plan is more “shelter-first” than “housing first,” in that it consists mostly of new shelter, not rapid rehousing for chronically homeless individuals).

“I really think that the services piece is key, and then setting [people] up for success is the encouragement piece, as opposed to making it easier to stay outside, for example, because there’s a lot of service-resistant folks,” Kettle said. Service providers generally reject the notion that unsheltered people are “service-resistant” or that people live outdoors because it’s “easy,” arguing that there are valid reasons people avoid shelter and services that have failed before, such as shelters that prohibit pets and programs that kick people out for failing to maintain sobriety.

As we reported earlier this month, Wilson’s office did not preview the shelter proposal for the council or secure support in advance, which has been the practice with previous administrations. According to Lin’s office, he has outstanding questions about how the Wilson administration plans to rapidly scale up shelter, how the mayor’s office will measure success, and what role the city will play in engaging with the people living near new shelter sites.