Category: human services

City Council, Guest Contributor, human services

Amid Federal Cuts and State Austerity, The City Must Step Up and Pass a Budget that Puts People First

By Alexis Mercedes Rinck

In response to an openly antagonistic federal government more interested in interior decorating than keeping food on the kitchen tables of over 40 million Americans, and an austerity-minded state government, local governments are being asked up to step up more than ever to keep our communities fed, healthy, and thriving.

In the past 11 months, we have seen the Trump Regime 2.0 fundamentally rock the foundations of our country by taking a wrecking ball to nearly every federal agency. This has sabotaged federal funding streams for research and critical programs, and decimated the federal workforce. At the same time, the administration has issued a flood of hostile executive orders and administrative changes to grant applications designed to disqualify organizations and jurisdictions, like Seattle, that serve immigrants and the queer community.

This year’s state legislative session did not come to the rescue as we hoped. While House and Senate Democrats put forward legislation to enact progressive revenue with powerful coalitions rallying in support, the legislature ultimately failed to pass many of these options. This translated to austerity for many programs Seattle residents depend on, including the Encampment Resolution Program—a highly successful program focused on removing encampments on state right-of-way and getting people into housing .

These cuts are destabilizing to organizations that serve actual people. The public may not know or care if a clinic or a food bank is funded from federal, state, or local dollars—but they will feel the pain when it disappears.

Local government cannot backfill all the losses in state and federal funding. Our charge must be to prioritize the safety and wellbeing of the people living under our care. Within the 2026 city budget, I have proposed a number of amendments to do just that.

The first would provide $1.4 million to stabilize and backfill federal and state cuts to homeless youth service providers. Earlier this year, organizations providing services to LGBTQ+ and immigrant youth were unable to receive federal Runaway and Homeless Youth (RHY) funds, and more changes and cuts at both the state and federal level are anticipated  in 2026.

The number one predictor of adult homelessness is experiencing homelessness as a young person. Without intervention we could leave hundreds of young people in an even more precarious position.

Our next amendment would add $1 million to gender-based violence survivor services. Due to Trump Regime executive orders and calculated administrative changes, local domestic and sexual violence programs from organizations such as Refugee Women’s Alliance, NW Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP), and API Chaya, are facing an impossible choice: Either deny lifesaving services to queer and immigrant survivors, or risk losing federal funding In addition to the threatened federal funding, state Victims of Crime funding has been cut annually since 2018, even as providers face rising costs.

During the 2025 city budget cycle, funding for tenant services were cut by $1 million, or about 40 percent. I have introduced an amendment that would restore this funding.

Tenant services is a broad category that includes legal counsel for low-income renters facing eviction, legal clinics for individualized support to prevent eviction in the first place, as well as guidance and counseling on how to deal with common issues facing renters, including conflict mediation and payment negotiations. In 2024, King County landlords filed more than 7,000 unlawful detainer cases (evictions)—the highest number in state history.

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In a majority renter city that is grappling with an affordability crisis, we need to invest in measures that keep people housed and provide tools to protect their rights. Restoring $1 million to our tenant services programs will enable organizations such as the Tenant Law Center, Housing Justice Project, Solid Ground, and Be:Seattle to continue their work.

None of this critical human services work would be possible without the frontline workforce. The devaluation of care work has created a doom loop for the people who work in the human services field. Seattle remains one of the most expensive cities in the country, and too many human services workers are paid at wages that, in some case, qualify them for the programs they work in.

In 2023, a city-funded study found that nonprofit human-services workers make 37 percent less than private-sector workers with comparable jobs, a disparity that makes it hard to hire and keep qualified staff. Those who left nonprofit human services jobs saw an average pay boost of 14 percent, the study .

The mayor’s budget proposes a three percent wage equity increase for nonprofit service providers, but we need to move the needle further. A livable wage is fundamental to a thriving workforce, and the City Council has long recognized that basic fact when securing pay City employees. The most recent  contracts included a cumulative 10 percent pay increase over two years, while members of the Seattle Police Officers Guild received a retroactive pay increase last year of roughly 24 percent over three years.

Human services workers at the nonprofits that provide Seattle’s safety net also deserve fair pay. That’s why I’m sponsoring  an amendment to provide a 5 percent wage equity increase for human service providers. The full five percent increase fulfills promises the city  , and is critical to sustaining and uplifting the human services system our community depends on.

Over the next three weeks, the council will be considering these amendments along with many others that represent priorities in our city. We need a balanced budget that puts people first. Contact your councilmembers and make your voice heard.

Alexis Mercedes Rinck is a Seattle City Councilmember representing all Seattle residents in citywide Position 8.

human services, King County

When Washington DC Looks Away, King County Must Make Sure Our Neighbors Can Eat

By Girmay Zahilay

In the coming days, thousands of families across King County could open their refrigerators and find more empty space than food. That is what happens when SNAP benefits are cut off through federal inaction. Washington, D.C., is gridlocked and has chosen not to protect the most basic human need. (On Friday, a federal judge ordered the Trump Administration to release SNAP funds, but it’s too early to know if that order will be followed.)

I know what it feels like to depend on SNAP. My family relied on food stamps when I was a child growing up in South Seattle. Our government has many responsibilities, but none is more basic than ensuring people can eat. When that foundation crumbles, everything else follows. Hunger forces families into impossible choices and too often pushes them toward homelessness. This reality drove me to begin my post-college career doing anti-hunger work through the Congressional Hunger Center.

King County can’t wait for permission to keep people fed. We must step up.

Here is what that action looks like.
First, we must create an emergency food assistance surge. King County has a network of more than 100 neighborhood food pantries and community meal programs that can immediately be infused with funds to buy and distribute groceries, baby formula, bulk staples, and culturally specific foods without delay. The county already partners with local growers and hunger relief organizations and can rapidly expand these grants during an emergency.

Second, I am working with King County Council Budget Chair Rod Dembowski to include additional food security funding in the county’s budget. This will supplement Governor Bob Ferguson’s recent support for food banks while federal SNAP funding remains at risk.

Third, we can launch a rapid grocery voucher program to deliver one-time emergency funds to families in need. We can help households stretch every dollar by issuing short-term grocery vouchers through trusted partners and by expanding fruit and vegetable incentives that add value when people use Basic Food benefits. State law already supports these programs, and King County can invest local dollars and public health capacity to scale them quickly.

Fourth, we must protect people from falling into homelessness. When food runs short, rent and utilities are next. The county can channel emergency assistance through our Department of Community and Human Services to keep families housed and the lights on. That includes short-term rental support, utility assistance, and bridge funding for those one bill away from losing their home. The county already administers prevention funds through established providers and can scale up that network during a federal funding lapse.

Fifth, we can use our public health authority to coordinate a countywide response to this crisis. The Board of Health can set policy and align hospitals, clinics, school districts, and community groups to screen for food insecurity, make direct referrals, and ensure transportation gets food where it is needed most.

Finally, the county can cut red tape and go where the need is greatest. We should deploy mobile food distribution in partnership with King County Metro and community groups, bring pop-up benefits navigation into schools and clinics, and place culturally competent navigators in the communities most affected. The county can also expand outreach to help eligible families enroll in or stay connected to Basic Food and other emergency programs. Washington’s Basic Food program is our state’s SNAP. We will help every eligible neighbor access it, and we will fill the gaps when D.C. fails.

King County has broad authority to protect the health and welfare of its residents. Hunger does not pause while politicians argue. The federal government has declined to use contingency funds to bridge SNAP during the government shutdown. Courts are still weighing whether the administration can legally suspend benefits, but families cannot eat legal arguments. Our job is to protect people first and keep them whole until federal support resumes.

We will pay for these emergency measures by prioritizing the basics in the county budget: Food, housing stability, and crisis response. We will coordinate with state partners who are already moving funding to food banks, and we will track outcomes in the open so the public can see dollars turning into meals, stable households, and fewer shelter intakes.

We should also be honest about the limitations of local action. King County cannot replace the scale and reach of the federal safety net. SNAP is a national program, federally funded for a reason. Local governments cannot print money or permanently substitute for programs of that magnitude. If the federal government and the President continue to strip away these resources, the consequences will be severe and long-lasting. I am deeply grateful to members of Washington’s federal delegation who are fighting to protect SNAP and other essential safety-net programs. Their leadership and advocacy remind us that even in times of gridlock, there are voices in Congress still standing up for working families.

My commitment is to step up, triage urgent needs, and bridge people through this crisis, but not to pretend local government alone can make families whole. We will do everything in our power, and we will keep pressing Washington, D.C., to restore and strengthen the benefits that millions depend on.

This is what leadership looks like when the federal government refuses to act. We take responsibility for what we can control. We refuse to let children go hungry on our watch. And we do it in partnership with the community because trust and collaboration move faster than bureaucracy.

I have lived the difference that a bag of groceries and a stable home can make. If I have the honor of serving as King County Executive, my first directive will be simple: bring urgency, feed people, and keep people housed. Treat hunger and homelessness as emergencies that demand immediate action, not as talking points for the next news cycle. That is how we keep our community strong, healthy, and ready to build a future where no one is left behind.

Girmay Zahilay is a member of the Metropolitan King County Council.

City Council, Elections, human services, Taxes

Business Tax Plan Moves Forward, Larded With New Exemptions and Spending Categories

By Erica C. Barnett

The Seattle City Council moved a heavily amended proposal to raise business and occupation taxes on larger companies one step closer to the ballot on Wednesday, approving the measure in the budget committee while leaving open the possibility that it could be amended further next week, when it goes to a full council vote.

The proposal would exempt all gross business revenue up to $2 million from local B&O tax, raising taxes on the highest-grossing businesses to offset the small-business tax relief and pay for programs that might otherwise be cut due to a projected $241 million budget deficit.

The potential ballot measure, proposed by City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck and Mayor Bruce Harrell late last month, was originally supposed to raise about $90 million a year to fund programs that support food access, gender-based violence services, small business supports, emergency shelter, homelessness prevention, workers’ rights and protections, and housing stability.

Rinck has been calling the proposal the “Seattle Shield” bill, because it’s meant to shield Seattle from the worst impacts of federal cuts to critical, life-saving services.

Thanks to amendments piled on Wednesday afternoon by Rinck’s colleagues Maritza Rivera, Joy Hollingsworth, and Rob Saka (plus a potential future amendment from Dan Strauss), the proposal is on track to bring in about $11 million a year less than originally estimated. The council’s amendments also broadened the measure so it can fund programs far outside its original scope.

Introducing two amendments that will exempt Seattle Children’s Hospital and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Care from the tax, at an estimated annual revenue reduction (or cost) of more than $9 million, Rivera argued that funding for cancer treatment and pediatric care represented “the very problem this bill is claiming to address—that is, impacts to our residents, including our kids, based on federal cuts and policy changes attacking those who need these critical services.”

Rivera added that when Rinck and Harrell first proposed the tax, “it was not clear that that nonprofits pay B&O tax.” In Washington State and in Seattle, most nonprofits are taxed exactly the same as for-profits, except that some of their fundraising activities are tax exempt. “These are nonprofits, these are not businesses,” Rivera said of the two hospitals she singled out for exemptions.

Strauss plans to propose an additional tax exemption for stevedoring—companies that load and unload cargo from ships—on the grounds that maritime trade is critical to Seattle. That exemption, which Strauss said he’d introduce on Monday, would reduce the proceeds from the new tax by another $1.5 million a year. In all, the new exemptions could reduce annual revenues from the tax by almost $11 million, or around 12 percent.

The city doesn’t have precise revenue estimates because businesses—including hospitals structured as nonprofits—don’t have to report their revenues publicly.

After voting for the two exemptions, Rivera and Nelson blanched at the idea of increasing the size of the tax to make up for lost revenue, saying they hadn’t had a chance to thoroughly study the impact of such a rate increase. “It’s unfortunate that this was sort of—that this landed in our laps at the sort of the last minute,” Nelson said. “It just feels rushed to me. … It’s unfortunate that this didn’t come to us earlier in the year.”

Rinck countered that the only reason she brought up the idea of increasing the tax rate was the last-minute amendments from Rivera and Strauss; had they not introduced new tax exemptions in the last week, she wouldn’t have proposed increasing the tax to offset the losses their exemptions would cause.

“If we had known about any tax credits coming sooner than on Monday, I think we would have worked quickly to try and understand what an adjusted rate would look like,” Rinck said.

In addition to the exemptions, the council also adopted several amendments expanding how the new tax, if it passes, can be used. The changes will allow this council, and future councils, to spend the so-called Seattle Shield dollars not just on human services and homelessness programs but on “transportation projects” of all kinds, arts and culture programs, anything related to public health, business workforce development, storefront repairs, and substance use treatment, among other new spending categories.

Rinck, and others who opposed expanding the proposal so far beyond its original purpose, noted that the city already has dedicated funds that pay for arts (the admissions tax), workforce development (the Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise levy), and transportation (the recently renewed transportation levy, which is the biggest in the city’s history). Saka justified including transportation on the potential spending list because Trump has threatened to pull transportation funds from cities, like Seattle, that have low marriage and birth rates.

The impact of adding so many new spending categories to the legislation is unknown. Public commenters, including advocates for people at risk of going hungry in Seattle, expressed concern about spreading the “peanut butter” of limited funding too thin by using the tax proceeds as a slush fund for individual council members’ priorities.

The committee also approved an amendment from Councilmember Bob Kettle, who was absent, that will require the mayor’s office to come up with high-level balanced budget proposals for two years beyond the scope of the biennial budget. Last year, Harrell proposed a budget that was balanced through 2026 but fell out of balance in 2027, with a total projected deficit of $158 million between 2027 and 2028. Another Kettle amendment passed that would remove a sunset date of 2033 (with the possibility of a four-year extension) and lower the tax rate beginning that year.

The full council will take up the proposal next Monday, just before the August 5 primary election that marks the deadline to get it the measure on the November ballot. On Monday morning, the city’s Office of Economic and Revenue Forecasts will present its latest revenue projections, which will reveal whether this year’s budget deficit is smaller or larger than the $241 million shortfall projected in April.

City Council, housing, human services, Mayor Harrell, Police

Harrell’s Budget Plan Uses Affordable-Housing Tax to Fund Police, Jails, Sweeps—and Downtown Beautification

By Erica C. Barnett

Mayor Bruce Harrell announced a 2025-2026 budget proposal on Tuesday that avoids major cuts (and adds funding for Harrell’s priorities, like police and homeless encampment removals) by repurposing a majority of the JumpStart payroll expense tax to fill what would have otherwise been at least a $260 million budget deficit.

The budget will cut 159 positions, including 76 that are currently filled. However, thanks largely to hundreds of millions of “extra” funding from the JumpStart tax, it also preserves funding for the Equitable Development Initiative, saves a men’s shelter in the Central District that would otherwise have closed, and preserves existing hours at libraries, community centers, and senior centers.

Under current law, JumpStart funds, which come from an employer tax on the wages of highly-compensated workers, are supposed to be allocated to four broad spending categories: Affordable housing, small businesses, equitable development, and the Green New Deal. Last year, the council increased the tax slightly to create a separate bucket of about $20 million for student mental health programs—of which Harrell’s budget preserves about $15 million.

The council passed JumpStart tax in 2020 over the vociferous objections of business groups like the Seattle Metro Chamber, which sued to stop it, and the Downtown Seattle Association; a separate spending plan established how JumpStart revenues could be spent. The city has repeatedly used some JumpStart revenues to backfill the general fund, which pays for most city services. But the mayor’s proposal represents a wholesale raid on this funding source—one that goes far beyond anything the previous council or mayor ever publicly contemplated.

Under Harrell’s plan, $287 million in JumpStart revenues will go into the general fund next year (and $233 million in 2026), and another $43 million will go into a reserve fund in case revenues come in lower than expected in the future. In 2025, just $233 million would be available for designated JumpStart priorities.

During a media briefing on Tuesday, City Budget Office director Dan Eder didn’t provide a specific justification for pouring more than half of JumpStart revenues into the general fund, except that the tax have been producing more money than anticipated. In other words, we have a deficit over here, the money is over there, so why not use that money to fix this unrelated problem? And—while we’re at it—why not change the law to allow us to do that every year?

Harrell’s budget makes this pretty explicit, noting that “The City can avoid making additional reductions to critical municipal services for those who live, work, and visit Seattle by making the ‘extra’ payroll tax revenues available to the General Fund.”

Of course, there are opportunity costs to not spending a windfall on the things it’s supposed to be spent on—housing, for instance, is not getting any cheaper to build, and doubling the amount the city can invest in housing now would benefit the city and its taxpayers in the long term.

And there’s something a bit unsavory about leaders who opposed the JumpStart tax—including the Chamber, which issued a rapturous press release praising Harrell for his JumpStart-dependent budget—celebrating its conversion into a slush fund that the city can use for any purpose.

But that’s where we are. The council, and Harrell, have vowed to address structural budget issues without raising taxes, so the tax many of them opposed will now provide a nearly-blank check to fund everything from World Cup festivities to the expansion of the mayor’s encampment removal team. Here are a few items that jumped out on my initial perusal of the budget.

Money for Police, Encampment Sweeps

The mayor’s budget would fund nearly 1,900 positions in SPD, including many that will remain unfilled, and increase the department’s overall budget from $393 million this year to $454 million in 2025. The fire department and Community Assisted Response and Engagement Team will also see increases—allowing the team’s unarmed responders to expand to a wider geographic area—and the overall “public safety” bucket will now amount to just about half percent of the general-fund, or discretionary, budget.

Most of that spending increase ($46 million) will pay for raises the police union bargained earlier this year. About $2.5 million will pay to staff the Real-Time Crime Center and CCTV cameras I covered on Tuesday. SPD will spend another $10 million on emphasis patrols in the areas “where crime is concentrated,” which generally overlap with both the CCTV surveillance zones and the new drug and sex work exclusion areas, where police will have the power to arrest anyone under a “stay out” order.

The Unified Care Team (UCT), which removes encampments and informs their displaced residents about available shelter beds, will get 11 new employees from various departments, expanding the team to 32 members and allowing it to remove encampments and respond to calls seven days a week. The mayor’s budget highlights this new spending under “Race and Social Justice Initiatives.” In his budget speech on Tuesday, Harrell said the UCT “has made a significant difference for the people of Seattle, housed and unhoused,” and claimed that his administration has “decreased tent encampments by 72 percent since I took office, and increased shelter referrals incredibly.”

Data indicates that homelessness in Seattle has not declined, and a referral to shelter does not mean a person arrives at shelter, stays there for any length of time, or receives housing or other services that would enable them to exit homelessness.

Repurposing JumpStart

JumpStart, as I mentioned, will now be used for all sorts of things that have nothing to do with its original purpose.

Historically, changing the spending plan for an earmarked tax has been quite controversial—in 2017, for instance, the council ended an attempt by then-mayor Jenny Durkan to siphon away funds from the sweetened beverage tax by legislating a spending plan with a veto-proof majority. Now, an anti-tax council has indicated their eagerness to change the underlying law and turn JumpStart into an all-purpose money spigot.

In addition to spending JumpStart revenues on “critical General Fund obligations (like police, parks, fire, transportation, etc.)”, the budget will use the tax to fund mayoral priorities like the Downtown Activation Plan, planning for the 2026 World Cup, staffing for Sound Transit 3 planning, EV charging infrastructure, and upgrades to downtown parks.

Few of these “JumpStart” projects fit into the original categories of affordable housing, Green New Deal jobs, and equitable development. All of these original categories will still get funding—the Equitable Development Initiative, for example, will actually grow slightly—but Harrell’s budget also directs millions of dollars of dedicated JumpStart funding to his pet projects downtown, including:

• A two-year, $3.7 million “revitalization of Westlake Plaza which could include removal of out-of-commission fountain, stage renovation, an electrical systems upgrade, and repairs to paving and trip hazards”;

• $1 million for Seattle Restored, the downtown storefront revitalization fund;

• $186,000 for “center city park activations”

• $2.6 million in spending for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, including $265,000 for a coordinator to oversee World Cup activities in the downtown area, $365,000 for a two-person team that will “respond to anticipated increased demand in the biennium, including for events related to the 2026 World Cup,” and another $2 million “in reserve” to plan for the six-game, three-week event.

• $350,000 to upgrade the downtown monorail station;

• $1.5 million to fund graffiti removal, business outreach, a “safe walk service,” and cleaning in downtown Seattle;

• $ 1 million to “support public space activations, public space improvements, and a centralized [Downtown Activation Plan] communications strategy; and

• $250,000 for a consultant to advise on the “major public investments” that are planned for SoDo, which include a new civic center, housing, and a relocated jail on land largely owned by developer Greg Smith.

First Comes Arrest, then Comes Incarceration

In addition to $10 million for overtime for cops to patrol “emphasis” areas; in addition to establishing remote, 24/7 surveillance of neighborhoods across the city; in addition to increasing the police (and fire) budget dramatically, the city also plans to spend millions of dollars on new jail beds to put people arrested for misdemeanors, including newly created misdemeanors like public drug use and prostitution loitering.

The budget includes almost $3 million for the city to rent 20 jail beds at the SCORE jail in Kent, plus an additional $2 million (rising to $2.7 million in 2026) for additional misdemeanor beds at the downtown Seattle jail. The city recently announced an agreement with King County to open up more jail beds for people who commit low-level misdemeanors throughout the city.

Incidentally, the proposed county budget, introduced by King County Executive Dow Constantine on Monday, includes $1.725 million to finish installing “jump barriers” and replacing bunks to make it harder for inmates to commit suicide. In the last 18 months, at least seven people have died in custody at SCORE.

The city’s municipal court has told the city that it will need extra funding for additional judges and staff to handle first appearance cases for the inmates held at SCORE and the downtown jail, plus the expected flood of misdemeanor sex work, drug use, and SOAP/SODA violation cases. But Harrell’s budget includes no new funding for the court.

The budget also includes an $18 million increase to the city’s judgments and claims fund, which pays for legal claims and lawsuits against the city. For several years, the city has consistently lost more lawsuits and legal claims than budget planners anticipated.

So What About All Those New Services the City Promised?

As the mayor, council, and city attorney have doubled down on arrests and incarceration as the city’s primary response to low-level crime and “disorder,” they’ve consistently reassured the public that these measures are just the “stick” portion of a well-thought-out plan that will also include many “carrots”—investments in new services for the people targeted by police and judicial crackdowns.

These services were supposed to include new drug treatment programs; new shelter for people living outdoors; new funding for mental health services; and assistance for people in the sex trade who could soon be arrested for “prostitution loitering.”

Not only does the budget not deliver on these promised services (save for a vaguely described $2 million investment in services for victims of human trafficking, which does nothing for non-trafficked sex workers), it cuts many of the services people rely on to stay afloat. While funding for police continues to skyrocket, many small but important programs are being cut due to a purported lack of funds.

A small sample:

• The Seattle Channel, whose “City Inside/Out” program is the one place where the mayor and council routinely sit down for long-form interviews about local issues, will be decimated, losing not only the “City Inside/Out” program (along with producer Susan Han and host Brian Callanan), but local arts stalwart Nancy Guppy, whose “Art Zone” program Harrell’s budget will eliminate.

The channel, which has produced original reporting for decades, will be reduced to filming local meetings, a huge loss not only to local programming on civic affairs but to public transparency.

• The Department of Neighborhoods’ Food Equity Fund will fund three to five fewer programs to address food inequity each year.

• The Farm to Child program, which provides fresh produce to  in-home family childcare providers, will be eliminated.

• Parks maintenance outside downtown, along with activation programs in non-downtown parks, will be cut.

• The Parks CommUNITY fund, a new program that funds community-led parks projects in underserved neighborhoods, will be cut from $2.5 million to $1.5 million.

• Programming at Carkeek and Discovery Parks will be eliminated, along with seven staff positions, and could be replaced by unspecified “public-private partnerships.”

• Funding for legal assistance for low-income people, including legal counsel for homeless youth and children and representation for people challenging adverse decisions on public assistance, will be eliminated, along with free tax preparation help provided by the United Way, a call center to help older adults and their caregivers access services to help them stay in their homes, and the Culturally Nourishing Food program for seniors.

In general, the city council has been extremely supportive of Harrell’s agenda; their changes will likely be at the margins, rather than wholesale strategic shifts or major reappropriations. The council’s budget committee will kick off the fall budget process with a meeting at City Hall at 9:30 Wednesday morning.

Addiction, City Council, Drugs, housing, human services

Auditor: City Needs to Implement Smarter Strategies to Reduce Overdoses and Drug-Related Crime

By Erica C. Barnett

The City Auditor’s Office released a report on Tuesday calling for an “place-based problem-solving approach” to addressing overdoses and drug-related crime, basing its recommendations on local and national research as well as a case study focused on two blocks of Third Avenue between Blanchard and Virginia Streets, where there were 11 fatal overdoses, ten of them in or outside of the three permanent supportive housing buildings in the area.

This section of Third, according to the audit report, had the fourth-highest concentration of overdoses and “crime incidents” in the city; the top ten spots on this list are all in or around downtown, encompassing much of Third Avenue along with hot spots just outside downtown, including 12th and Jackson in the International District, around Harborview hospital on First Hill, and in the area around Pike and Broadway on Capitol Hill.

A “place-based” approach to overdoses and street crimes, according to the report, would include making the areas where drug use and illegal street vendors concentrate more appealing to people using the streets for other purposes— essentially dispersing drug activity and improving overall street safety by activating the sidewalks. For instance, the report identifies opening up sight lines in areas that are currently blocked by construction scaffolding and low-growing shrubs, opening up storefronts that are currently vacant to increase “natural guardianship,” and making other changes that are specific to conditions at specific locations, such as eliminating back-in angled parking on Blanchard Street.

City Council Public Safety Committee chair Bob Kettle put out a statement in response to the audit, saying it showed the need for “additional meaningful action that includes a coordinated effort to address permissive factors at the intersection of public safety and public health.” However, few of the recommendations explicitly involve police or a crackdown on the “permissive environment” Kettle often cites as a reason for crime. (The report does recommend that that Seattle police start investigating fatal overdoses, and says King County transit police should “increase patrol checks of bus stops and shelters” and enforce the Metro code of conduct.)

Instead, the audit points to the community-based project Rainier Beach: A Beautiful Safe Place for Youth, which used a framework developed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) to identify non-arrest interventions to address youth crime and victimization in Rainier Beach. Although the project wasn’t connected to an immediate reduction in crime, a followup report found that it “significantly improved community members’ perceptions of serious crime and the police in the short and medium term” and suggested that “even communities with entrenched crime problems can leverage this capacity to reduce crime in the longer term.”

The report also emphasized the need for “evidence-based” approaches to drug use, including medications like naltrexone and methadone that help people reduce or eliminate their opiate use, “wraparound human services,” recovery housing, and harm reduction for people who continue using drugs.

Although Councilmember Sara Nelson, in a letter responding to the audit, wrote that the rise in fatal overdoses “reveal[s] the limitations of relying on our current harm reduction approach to address a drug that is so cheap, ubiquitous, and deadly,” the report actually endorses harm reduction strategies like needle exchanges and naloxone distribution, and calls harm reduction “an essential component of overdose prevention framework.”

The report does note that housing is not a panacea for preventing overdoses, which happen indoors as well as on the street. In 2023, 279 people in subsidized, permanent supportive, or abstinence-based recovery housing died from overdoses in Seattle. “Although housing is essential for addressing homelessness, new research suggests that housing alone does not sufficiently address overdose risk,” the report notes

Nelson, a proponent of abstinence-only treatment, said this finding shows that the city should consider “modifying our current low-barrier, housing first model for city-funded affordable housing projects.”

However, the research the auditor’s report cites did not call for erecting barriers to housing or adopting a “treatment first” model that requires people to get sober before they “qualify” for housing and stay sober if they want to keep it—quite the opposite.

In fact, the author of the forthcoming study has written that existing research suggests the need for both low-barrier housing and “co-location of safe consumption sites, on-site provision of harm-reduction supplies, and expansion of peer workers” at permanent supportive housing sites. The study itself aims to confirm that it’s possible to implement “gold-standard” strategies like harm reduction in permanent supportive housing, not test whether these strategies are worth pursuing.

The study involves implementing three evidence-based strategies—overdose response, harm reduction, and support for substance use disorder treatment—in 20 existing permanent supportive housing buildings in New York.

Courts, homelessness, human services, King County

Burien Forfeits $1 Million for Shelter, Will Contract With Controversial Group for Outreach and Hotel Rooms

By Erica C. Barnett

King County has withdrawn its offer to provide $1 million to the city of Burien for emergency housing after the city spent a year considering and rejecting locations for a tiny house village. Most recently, the Burien City Council considered legislation that would prohibit tiny houses on a lot, owned by Seattle City Light, that they had tentatively approved as a shelter site.

The bill, which the council postponed, would have limited the size of lots where shelter is permitted to a size much smaller than the City Light lot; an amendment, proposed by Councilmember Stephanie Mora, would have also explicitly prohibited tiny houses by requiring that any shelter structure have permanent foundations.

In a letter to Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon, Deputy King County Executive Shannon Braddock wrote, “we are withdrawing King County’s offer of $1 million and 35 pallet shelters effective immediately,” in part because the county’s formal offer has been on the table for over one year and Burien has yet confirm a site and make use of the funds. In addition, the Burien City Council appears to be actively working to put in place restrictions that exclude pallet shelters on the site selected by the Burien Council.”

On top of the $1 million, the county offered Burien the chance to apply for $5 million to fund the operations of the tiny house village, but Burien “chose not to apply,” Braddock noted. Council members who opposed the funding frequently complained that it didn’t come with any operations funding beyond the initial million dollars. Burien’s annual general fund budget is around $36 million.

Braddock told PubliCola in a statement that the county “will now direct the $1 million and pallet shelters to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) to use on outreach and emergency housing for individuals in South King County, including addressing the District Court site in Burien” by providing portable toilets and handwashing stations.

Bailon has complained to the county about an encampment outside the courthouse and “shared [his] outreach team will not be able to service that area,” according to Braddock’s letter. In his response to Braddock, Bailon said he hadn’t asked for the toilets or handwashing stations, but said the city “is pleased to learn that steps are being taken to address the public health issue created by King County”—that is, the presence of homeless people at the courthouse.

In a related development, Burien is preparing to sign a contract for homeless encampment outreach with The More We Love, a private encampment removal company started by Kristine Moreland, a Kirkland real-estate broker who has volunteered with Union Gospel Mission. As PubliCola has reported, Moreland sent a spreadsheet containing private information about unsheltered people to city officials and a private business person.

 

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The More We Love will reportedly use a small private system called Diversion Management Information Services, rather than the Homeless Management Information System used by most homeless service providers, to keep track of its clients’ data, including health and service information.

“Throughout the review process it was determined TMWL’s work proposed fit our funding goals, will be accessible to Burien’s unhoused community, and will be implemented in a timely manner,” Manuel Hernandez, a spokesman for the city of Burien, said.

Moreland’s group will receive funds originally allocated to other groups. First, they’ll receive the remaining funds that were previously allocated to REACH, a countywide outreach organization whose contract Bailon unilaterally terminated earlier this year; the city issued a request for proposals for $380,000 in outreach funding earlier this year. Second, they’ll get funding that was originally earmarked for a day center at Highline Methodist Church in Burien, which also hosts a severe weather shelter in the winter. Continue reading “Burien Forfeits $1 Million for Shelter, Will Contract With Controversial Group for Outreach and Hotel Rooms” →