Tag: The More We Love

homelessness, King County

What Did Burien Get From Its No-Bid Contract for Encampment Response? We May Never Know.
Image via City of Burien

By Erica C. Barnett

The Burien City Council—which acquired two new members, Linda Akey and Alex Andrade, at the beginning of this year—declined to add a discussion of The More We Love’s $49,000 contract to respond to encampments to its agenda during its meeting on Monday, leaving the public without important information about what the group did with the public’s money..

As we’ve reported, Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon signed a contract with The More We Love, founded and led by Kirkland mortgage broker and Union Gospel Mission (UGM) volunteer Kristine Moreland, to respond to and remove encampments in Burien.

The More We Love has claimed to be far more successful than any other group working in Burien at permanently housing people and getting them into treatment, but those claims have been met with skepticism by established homelessness organizations. Permanent housing is expensive and in short supply across King County, and there are nowhere near enough slots in licensed treatment centers for all the people seeking inpatient or outpatient rehab. Meanwhile, there is no year-round general shelter in Burien, so The More We Love reportedly transports people to UGM’s high-barrier, faith-based shelter in Seattle.

Without detailed information about where the money went, how many people The More We Loved helped, and how, Burien residents (and at least some city officials) simply don’t know what Moreland and her group did with public dollars.

A basic report, with data on specific performance metrics, could affirm that Moreland’s claims are true; or it could confirm that The More We Love has exaggerated its success. Such reports are standard practice for other homelessness outreach contracts. For example, REACH—a longstanding outreach group affiliated with Evergreen Treatment Services—provides detailed reports showing how many people at a specific encampment accessed a specific list of services over each reporting period, along with a breakdown of how they spent each public dollar they received.

Without that kind of detailed information, Burien residents (and at least some city officials) simply don’t know what Moreland and her group did with public dollars.

In response to a public disclosure request, PubliCola did receive two brief documents described as “30 day reports” on The More We Love’s contract. The narratives, which are attached to invoices for $24,500 each, do not include specific data such as itemized expenditures or results. Instead, they consist of bullet-pointed lists with items such as:

• Family meeting for Detox for a human in the encampment;

• Working with SCORE [the South King County jail] on resources.

• Work with local sheriffs to guide and strategize on how much pressure to put in what areas for successful moving.

• Helped de-escalate around the transit station and gas station where that group was creating friction between themselves and the business owner.

• Worked alongside OPS (Operation of Prosecution Survivors) [sic] and successfully address several needs involving vulnerable and sensitive females, connecting them to case management, and getting them in an environment where they are lifted up.

The Organization of Prostitution Survivors is a group that views sex work as “a form of gender-based violence.”

Despite Explicit State Guidance, Burien Keeps City Manager’s Performance Evaluation Secret

In related news, the city of Burien has categorically refused to provide PubliCola with City Manager Bailon’s performance evaluation, along with related emails and email attachments, claiming that they are exempt from disclosure under the state Public Records Act.

PubliCola requested the records after the private firm that conducted the evaluation, Nash Consulting, terminated its contract with the city, saying that their evaluation was “not met with the seriousness it deserved by several key stakeholders, and unfortunately, we have concerns that constructive action was not taken in response to the feedback presented in the evaluation report.”

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In response to PubliCola’s request, the city provided a brief two-page “summary” of the evaluation from former mayor Sofia Aragon that we had already published back in December. That document summarized the evaluation process and included six brief bullet points about the goals Bailon should work toward, such as “evaluate the capacity of the organization to meet urgent challenges.”

Although the Public Disclosure Act does exempt some personnel records, guidance from the state Attorney General’s office says that the performance evaluations of city managers, specifically, are subject to disclosure. Citing a case out of Spokane, the Attorney General’s Open Governance Resource Manual says “the performance evaluation of a city manager—the city’s chief executive officer, its leader, and a public figure—was not exempt because it was of legitimate concern to the public.”

Burien’s disclosure office got so overzealous with their redaction tool that they blacked out the Employee Identification Number for Discover Burien, The More We Love’s fiscal sponsor. EINs (30-0048516, in Discover Burien’s case) are unambiguously public and readily accessible; the city has not responded to a followup about why they blacked out this public information.

In addition to the performance evaluation, the city of Burien is refusing to provide an email from Bailon and documents about a “complaint of improper government action” that appears related to Bailon’s failure to inform all city council members about a deadline from King County to spend $1 million on shelter or lose the money. Instead, the city provided a set of mostly redacted emails, along with notes about attachments that are purportedly also exempt from the public records act.

Initially, Bailon said he didn’t see an email from Deputy County Executive Shannon Braddock because his inbox was swamped with emails about an unrelated sanctioned encampment at a Burien church, but he later admitted that he had opened and responded to Braddock’s email without informing the council, to whom he reports.

Burien’s public disclosure officer did not respond to our email objecting to their refusal to disclose Bailon’s performance review; we have asked the Attorney General’s Office to review the documents in light of their guidance that city manager performance evaluations are public records.

Incidentally, Burien’s disclosure office got so overzealous with their redaction tool that they blacked out the Employee Identification Number for Discover Burien, The More We Love’s fiscal sponsor, on both of the documents they provide. EINs (30-0048516, in Discover Burien’s case) are unambiguously public and readily accessible; the city has not responded to a followup about why they blacked out this public information.

homelessness

In Texts With Burien City Manager, Encampment Contractor Asked for Cash Up Front, Complained About Pay
Image via City of Burien

By Erica C. Barnett

Text and phone messages obtained through a public records request suggest that Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon actively involved himself in city contract negotiations to ensure that The More We Love, a group that conducts private encampment sweeps, received a contract to resolve encampments for the city. The group, run by Kirkland real-estate broker Kristine Moreland, became a subcontractor to the local business advocacy group Discover Burien after Moreland was apparently unable to secure the level of insurance the city requires for contractors.

Bailon has repeatedly distanced himself from the city’s actions on behalf of The More We Love, going so far as to note, in a memo to the Burien City Council in November, that the “City is not involved in the process to recruit or select a subcontractor.”

Even as he was claiming to be disconnected from the selection process, Bailon was in almost daily conversation with Moreland about the contract, exchanging at least 32 text messages with Moreland and talking to her on the phone at least eight times—for a total of nearly an hour—during the three-week period of October immediately before he signed the contract. At the end of the month, when it looked like the contract would collapse because Moreland’s group couldn’t get insurance, Bailon and city staff scrambled to switch the contract over to Discover Burien, with The More We Love as a subcontractor, sending a flurry of messages between the early morning and evening of November 1 to ensure that a new contract was drafted, executed, and signed that day.

“I am stuck on this to move forward with the contract. I just want to help the humans and move on,” The More We Love’s Kristine Moreland wrote. “I was unaware that Debra was taking 4K from her side. She didn’t disclose that to me when we said we were ready to sign. I am happy to meet her in the middle or see if you guys can bridge her need to get paid.”

The text messages between Moreland and Bailon consist mostly of back-and-forth discussion about the details of her contract, including when Moreland’s group will get paid. In one mid-October exchange, Moreland asked if she could invoice for future work immediately and get paid in 30 days, which she said would help her “float the insurance cost.”

After “checking with Finance,” Bailon responded: “We could accept an invoice right away, but couldn’t actually commence the process for payment. That is the initial response from Finance. We’re checking for more detail.” One minute later, Bailon added, “The bigger problem is that we have a process that pays for work performed instead of in-advance. Depending on the contract, [i]nvoices typically include a report of the work performed during the pay period.” This policy—perform the work, then get paid—is standard for human-services contracts in the city of Seattle, and ensures that contractors don’t take money and then fail to perform the work they were hired to do.

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After Discover Burien told Moreland they would serve as lead contractor for The More We Love’s encampment work, there was apparently another wrinkle: Debra George, Discover Burien’s director, wanted $4,000 to administer the contract, and Moreland objected.

“I am stuck on this to move forward with the contract. I just want to help the humans and move on,” Moreland wrote. “I was unaware that Debra was taking 4K from her side. She didn’t disclose that to me when we said we were ready to sign. I am happy to meet her in the middle or see if you guys can bridge her need to get paid. Can we work together and move on so we can get to work. I appreciate you.” Later, Bailon told Moreland he had “‘I increased the amount to $48 k, per our discussion” (in fact, the contract was for $49,000); the city manager can sign a contract of up to $49,000 without a public process.

In November, the King County District Court issued a judgment against Moreland in favor of Bank of America, which sued her for allegedly failing to pay $33,000 in credit-card debt.

As we’ve reported, Moreland was sanctioned in 2020 for violating consumer mortgage lending laws, and was allowed to keep her license in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars in fines that she has since failed to pay. Additionally, she has faced criminal and civil charges related to an alleged DUI and unpaid bills; in November, the King County District Court issued a judgment against Moreland in favor of Bank of America, which sued her for allegedly failing to pay $33,000 in credit-card debt.. She also distributed private personal and medical information about various homeless people in Burien to city council members, the Burien police chief, and the owner of a real-estate company.

The flurry of activity (and sole-source contract) on Moreland’s behalf is in marked contrast to Bailon’s response to another potential contractor that wanted to work with the city to shelter Burien’s homeless population, the Low Income Housing Institute. LIHI submitted a proposal for a tiny-house village that Bailon dismissed as unrealistic, telling Burien Mayor Sofia Aragon that LIHI was “skating on thin ice” with the city because they emailed an “unsolicited” proposal to city officials. “I am unsure as to why LIHI has commenced a full-court press on this issue of a village (tiny home, pallet) in Burien, but their efforts have included attending nearly all Council meetings over the past two months,” he commented in an email to a city of Seattle staffer.

Burien banned sleeping in public during nighttime and early-morning hours; the ban went into effect November 1.

homelessness

Burien Signs $49,000 Contract for Encampment Response, with Controversial Private Sweeps Provider Doing the Work
Image via City of Burien

Editor’s note: This post has been updated and expanded since this morning.

Editor’s note 2: This post has been updated on Friday, November 3 to include a link to the contract and more details about its terms.

By Erica C. Barnett

The city of Burien has signed a two-month, $49,000 contract with Discover Burien, a local business association, which—according to multiple sources—will hire a controversial nonprofit called The More We Love as a subcontractor to respond to and remove encampments in the city. The city would only officially confirm the contract with Discover Burien, but the city council has been publicly discussing the contract with The More We Love for months.

City manager Adolfo Bailon has the authority to sign contracts under $50,000 without seeking approval from the city council. The contract is signed by Bailon and Debra George, the director of Discover Burien.

The More We Love is a recently formed nonprofit founded and run by Kirkland mortgage broker Kristine Moreland, whose prior experience with homelessness involves volunteering with Union Gospel Mission, a religious nonprofit that runs a shelter in downtown Seattle, and offering paid encampment “sweeps” at a rate of $515 for each person removed.

The owner of Grocery Outlet property where a group of unsheltered people had relocated after an earlier sweep paid Moreland’s group to remove them from his property earlier this year. In emails to city officials obtained by PubliCola, Moreland has disparaged longstanding outreach and case management groups like REACH and implied that she had access to resources that mainstream homeless groups do not. However, there is little evidence for Moreland’s claims, and experienced outreach providers working in the city say the population of the encampment hasn’t significantly changed over the seven months since the city swept the group from its original location outside Burien City Hall.

The Burien spokesperson did not respond to questions about why the city is not contracting directly with The More We Love, as originally proposed. However, the issue of insurance has come up repeatedly in public meetings about the proposal, and The More We Love may not have the minimum $2 million commercial insurance policy required to contract with the city.

The contract focuses on the encampment’s latest location, at Ambaum Blvd. SW and SW 120th St, along with any “other Burien sites requiring services/support.” The three-page scope of work is vague and does not include any performance metrics or deliverables— routine components  of typical homeless service contracts. Instead, it says the subcontractor—that is, The More We Love—will perform a  “general intake of all camp residents,” “communicate with all partners performing work as necessary,” and “identify options for shelter” that are, at a minimum, “indoors.”

According to the contract, the subcontractor will also “serve as [the Burien Police Department’s] primary de-escalation effort” and be “the primary conveyer of ordinance-specific information to campers that affect the unhoused community.”

In September, the Burien City Council passed an ordinance banning unsheltered people from sleeping in the city overnight. After that vote, Councilmember Sarah Moore—who opposed the ban—asked for a public briefing before Bailon signed the potential contract, which at least some city council members still haven’t seen.  Although a four-member council majority has expressed support for paying Moreland’s group to remove encampments, a public hearing would have provided an opportunity for dissenting council members and the public to weigh in and ask questions about the contract.

George, the director of Discover Burien, is also the founder and operator of a local animal shelter called Burien CARES. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because the group rented a city-owned lot—at the bargain-basement price of $185 a month—where unsheltered people had moved after an encampment sweep in March and promptly forced them to leave. The city charged Burien CARES bargain-basement rent—just $185 a month—and the land is now a dog park.

Burien CARES founder and director Debra George, meanwhile, was recently sued by three of the animal shelter’s employees, who alleged that their job duties routinely required them to work more than 40 hours a week, without additional pay, and that one of the three employees was improperly classified as an overtime-exempt manager.

George was recently sued by three of Burien CARES’ employees, who alleged that they were routinely required to work more than 40 hours a week, without additional pay, in order to perform their duties, and that one of the three employees was improperly classified as an overtime-exempt manager.

The “animal control and shelter operations were chronically understaffed,” the lawsuit claims, “and the operation and maintenance of both required Plaintiffs to regularly work more than 40 hours per week, even though Defendant George indicated they would never be paid for overtime hours.”

In her response, George denied most of the allegations, and said the three employees would often show up late and leave early to keep from going over 40 hours a week, “because they were told repeatedly that overtime was not authorized.” The response also argues that George was not the workers’ employer or supervisor, but a fellow employee of Burien CARES; however, George founded and incorporated the organization, serves as its only registered agent, and is the group’s primary governor—a person with authority to make decisions on behalf of a business.

As we’ve reported, The More We Love’s Moreland was sanctioned in 2020 for violating consumer mortgage lending laws, and was allowed to keep her license in exchange for fines that she subsequently failed to pay. Additionally, she has faced criminal and civil charges related to an alleged DUI and unpaid credit card bills. Earlier this year, she distributed a detailed spreadsheet containing personal details and sensitive medical information about dozens of homeless individuals to political allies, police, and the real estate investor who paid her group to sweep the Grocery Outlet property.

City Council, homelessness, labor, Mayor Harrell

Seattle Workers Hold “Practice Pickets” Over Wages; New Wrinkles in Burien Encampment Plans
City workers rally for higher wages and better working conditions in September.

1. On Thursday, city of Seattle employees will participate in rolling “practice pickets” that will serve as a kind of dress rehearsal for a potential strike if Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office does not agree to cost of living and wage adjustments that represent real wage increases. The pickets, organized by the Coalition of City Unions, will take place at a city facility in the International District starting at 6, in the area around City Hall at 11:30, and in South Lake Union at 3:30.

Negotiations between Harrell’s office and unions representing thousands of city workers started off on a bad foot last spring, when Harrell proposed a 1 percent “cost of living adjustment” that was about 7 percent below the rate of inflation. (Any pay increase below the rate of inflation represents a real wage cut because it costs more to buy the same goods and services, such as groceries and rent.) Since then, union sources say, the mayor’s office has barely budged, even as Harrell has proposed significant new spending on new programs like Shotspotter and agreed to cost of living increases for nonprofit homeless service providers.

Last week, City Councilmember Kshama Sawant proposed an amendment to the 2024 budget that would increase the JumpStart payroll tax to raise $40 million to fund city worker wage increases. “I don’t believe that there’s any excuse for asking essential city workers to accept a wage cut, with or without this budget amendment,” Sawant said. “However, making these funds available will make it crystal clear that the city has the funds to offer a wage increase that, at the very least, is not a wage cut in real terms.”

Councilmembers Lisa Herbold and Teresa Mosqueda signed on to the amendment, although both made a point of saying that city employees provide core services that the city should prioritize with or without additional funding from JumpStart.

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2. UPDATE: On Thursday afternoon, a spokesperson for the city of Burien confirmed that the city has signed a contract with Discover Burien, a local business association, that will subcontract with a group run by a Kirkland mortgage broker to respond to and remove encampments in the city. This post has been updated accordingly.

The city of Burien has signed a two-month, $40,000 contract for encampment removal services with the local business association Discover Burien, which will subcontract The More We Love—a controversial nonprofit run by Kirkland mortgage broker and longtime Union Gospel Mission volunteer Kristine Moreland—to respond to and remove encampments. Discover Burien is headed up by Debra George, the operator of an animal shelter called Burien CARES.

The city did not respond to questions about why they are not contracting directly with The More We Love, as originally proposed. However, the issue of insurance has come up repeatedly in public meetings about the proposal, and The More We Love may not have the minimum $2 million commercial insurance policy required to contract with the city.

Burien CARES is the same animal shelter that rented a city-owned lot—at the bargain-basement price of $185 a month—where unsheltered people were living. The company promptly swept the encampment, and the area is now a dog park.

Last month, shortly after Burien passed a new law banning its unsheltered residents from sleeping in the city overnight, Councilmember Sarah Moore asked for a public briefing on the potential contract, which City Manager Adolfo Bailon has the authority to sign without any public process. Currently, there is no such briefing on the council’s calendar. Bailon has the authority to sign contracts under $50,000 without council approval.

Burien CARES founder and director Debra George, meanwhile, was recently sued by three of Burien CARES’ employees, who alleged that they were routinely required to work more than 40 hours a week, without pay, in order to perform their duties and that one of the three employees was improperly classified as an overtime-exempt manager.

As we’ve reported, Moreland was sanctioned in 2020 for violating consumer mortgage lending laws. Earlier this year, she distributed a detailed spreadsheet containing personal details and sensitive medical information about dozens of homeless individuals to political allies, police, and a businessman who paid The More We Love to remove an encampment on his property.

George, meanwhile, was recently sued by three of Burien CARES’ employees, who alleged that they routinely had to work more than 40 hours a week without additional pay in order to perform their duties, and that one of the three employees was improperly classified as an overtime-exempt manager.

In her response, George denied most of the allegations, and said the three employees would often show up late and leave early to keep from going over 40 hours a week, “because they were told repeatedly that overtime was not authorized.”

The response also argues that George was not the workers’ employer or supervisor, but a fellow employee of Burien CARES; however, George founded and incorporated the organization, serves as its only registered agent, and is the group’s primary governor—a person with authority to make decisions on behalf of a business.

3. Burien Councilmember Cydney Moore, who is running for reelection this year, is the director of the Burien Community Support Coalition, a nonprofit that announced plans yesterday to open a sanctioned encampment for three months at the Oasis Home Church in the Sunnydale neighborhood. According to an announcement from the group, residents of the encampment will have to comply with a strict code of conduct: No drugs or alcohol (including in the surrounding neighborhood), no visitors, and no “nuisance behavior” at the encampment or in the vicinity, such as “littering and loitering.”

“We take couples, we take pets, and we’re trying to collaborate with local providers who already work with the homeless population here,” Moore said. Religious institutions have special rights to host unsheltered people on their property under state law, which restricts local jurisdictions’ authority to ban encampments, “safe lots” for people living in their vehicles, and other sheltering activities churches conduct as part of their mission.

The code of conduct “is going to be a barrier for a lot of people,” including some in active addiction, Moore said, “but we had to meet conditions to even get this agreement with the church.” Worries about safety, noise, and intoxication around encampments “are valid concerns,” Moore added, and “even if we could take everyone with no [limitations], we don’t have the capacity to take everyone.”

According to KING 5, which spoke to City Manager Bailon about the proposal, Bailon said the church would need to seek a special temporary use permit to host unsheltered people on its property. The city has the ability (but is not required) to grant temporary use permits for up to 60 days per year for uses that don’t conform to local zoning; however, it’s unclear that the city has the authority to impose such a requirement on a church.

City Council, Drugs, Elections, homelessness

Burien Mayor Sees No Issue With Distribution of Homeless People’s Private Info, Council Member Blames Her Colleague for Fentanyl Deaths

1. During a debate focusing on homelessness sponsored Wednesday night, Burien Mayor Sofia Aragon, who is running for King County Council District 8, responded to PubliCola’s report that the director of a group called The More We Love that offers private encampment sweeps had shared personal and medical information about vulnerable homeless residents of the city with police, city officials, and a private business owner.

The real issue, Aragon said, was that someone in the city had “leaked” the information to me, not that the person who shared the information, The More We Love director Kristine Moreland, had done so without apparent concern for the privacy of the more than 80 people included in the detailed spreadsheet she created.

“I know that there was some information shared, and I don’t know how that got to the reporter, but I know that you know, things that we share within the city will often leak out,” Aragon said. “I don’t know how that occurred, we definitely would be we would be serious about the protection of health information because in [the nonprofit] industry, that is certainly something important.”

Aragon said it was understandable that Moreland sent her spreadsheet of personal information to the private business owner, Jeff Rakow of Snowball Investment, because he contracted with Moreland’s group to remove an encampment outside a Grocery Outlet property that he owns.

As I reported, I received the information through a routine public disclosure request; Moreland attached the spreadsheet to an email she sent to a city council member, two police officials, and a real estate investor who paid Moreland’s group to remove an encampment on his property. It’s unknown whether, or how widely, Moreland distributed her spreadsheet outside the city of Burien, since only public officials are subject to public disclosure requests.

When debate moderator Scott Greenstone from KNKX noted that I got the information through a records request, Aragon breezed past the clarification, saying it was understandable that Moreland sent her spreadsheet of personal information to the private business owner, Jeff Rakow of Snowball Investment, because he contracted with Moreland’s group to remove an encampment outside a Grocery Outlet property that he owns.

“And what he did, because he did see some success, is he shared that with the city, but that doesn’t excuse leaking out of private information from those who are homeless, and that’s something that needs to be addressed,” Aragon said.

As a side note: Unlike Moreland, I did not publish or distribute any of the private information contained in Moreland’s spreadsheet, because that would be an additional violation of the privacy of the people whose information she distributed.

For context, credible nonprofit homeless service providers do not, as a rule, share their clients’ private information outside their organizations without explicit informed consent, because to do so would violate people’s privacy, damage trust, and potentially break federal laws protecting people’s medical information.

2.In a TV ad for District 7 city council candidate Bob Kettle, Seattle City Council member Sara Nelson accused her colleague, District 7 incumbent Councilmember Andrew Lewis, of being responsible for the deaths of countless people from drug overdoses during the two and a half months when the city did not have a law empowering the city attorney to prosecute people who use drugs in public. Lewis cast the deciding vote against the bill in June, then voted with the majority of the council in favor ot a substantively similar bill in September.

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“Andrew Lewis’ decision to block my drug bill cost the lives of too many people from fentanyl overdose. I trust Bob Kettle to do the right thing,” Nelson said in the ad.

Nelson sponsored the initial version of the bill, which said nothing about treatment, diversion, or overdose prevention, and opposed many of the new provisions in the updated bill that support diversion and crisis intervention training. Lisa Herbold and Lewis sponsored the version that passed, which included language indicating that police should divert people to treatment or other diversion programs instead of jail. Public drug use and simple possession are already illegal across the state, thanks to a law passed in May that made both a gross misdemeanor.

“When you have nothing substantive to say, I guess the only thing to do is resort to Republican-style attack ads,” Lewis said. “I will continue my campaign of bringing people together to achieve real results for the people of District 7.”

homelessness, human services

Burien Prepares to Hire Controversial Nonprofit that Distributed Unsheltered People’s Personal Information to Police and Private Business Owner
Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon and City Attorney Garmon Newsom II

By Erica C. Barnett

The city of Burien is preparing to sign a contract with The More We Love, a group run by Kirkland mortgage broker Kristine Moreland with the help of Eastside sales executive Chris Wee, to help enforce its new ban on sleeping in public spaces. The group offers what it has described as private “sweeps” at a price of $515 for each unsheltered person removed from a site. “Discussions with The More We Love remain ongoing and a contract will be established once terms are reached by both parties,” Burien spokeswoman Emily Inlow-Hood said.

As we’ve reported, in 2020, the state Department of Financial Institutions found Moreland violated the state Consumer Lending Act by coordinating high-interest loans to unlicensed brokers, and levied tens of thousands of dollars in fines, most of which she has failed to pay. Last month, according to King County District Court records, Bank of America sued Moreland for failing to pay credit card bills totaling more than $33,000.

Meanwhile, court records indicate that a former Bellevue resident with the same name as Moreland’s business partner, Christopher C. Wee, pled guilty last month to two counts of misdemeanor assault stemming from a road-rage incident in which Wee shoved a 65-year-old man to the ground and broke his hip. In the plea deal, Wee agree to pay more than $33,000 in restitution and attend anger-management classes.

Wee did not respond to a phone call or an email sent to The More We Love seeking information about the road-rage incident. The information in court records, including a police report, is consistent with publicly available information about Wee’s age, most recent previous address, and physical description. Public records indicate that Wee currently lives in Kirkland. PubliCola was unable to find another Christopher C. Wee in Bellevue or Kirkland using public court, property, and licensing records, in publicly available residential databases, or on social media.

According to court documents, Wee repeatedly “brake-checked” a driver who had honked for him to go at a green light, followed him to a Bellevue Hilton parking lot, and attacked both the 65-year-old driver and his son, pushing or punching the son and shoving the father to the ground. In his victim statement, the older man said he had to undergo two hip surgeries after the attack and lost an estimated $42,500 in wages during the seven months he was unable to work, plus three months when he could only work part-time.

Moreland shared spreadsheets containing private medical and personal information about more than 80 of her unsheltered “clients” with a city council member, two police officials, and a real estate investor who paid Moreland’s group to remove an encampment on his property. This represents a stark departure from widely used best practices designed to protect the privacy of people who share information with homeless service providers.

These incidents, while they are not directly related to The More We Love’s activities in Burien, seem relevant as Burien decides whether to sign a contract with the group to provide outreach to vulnerable unsheltered people and remove the encampments where they are living.

In addition to these potential concerns, PubliCola has learned that Moreland shared a three-page spreadsheet containing private medical and personal information about more than 80 of her unsheltered “clients” with a city council member, two police officials, and a real estate investor who paid Moreland’s group to remove an encampment on his property. This represents a stark departure from widely used best practices designed to protect the privacy of people who share information with homeless service providers.

The spreadsheets, which PubliCola obtained through a records request, include people’s full names, birthdates, contact information, health insurance status, criminal histories, and information about their apparent physical and mental health conditions, such as pregnancy, addiction, and mental illness. They also include information about what services individuals have accessed, The More We Love’s assessment of their overall situation (typically: “Drugs”), and the specific places they plan to go after the encampment where they are living is removed.

Many of the notes include disparaging editorial comments about established local homelessness programs, such as Co-LEAD; the names and phone numbers of unsheltered people’s purported relatives; and comments like “READY TO GO [to detox].”

“DETOX Immediately. UPDATE 7/10 did not want detox today will keep trying. At moms house currently,” one note reads. “Reach/Lead havent provided any meaningful services that would change anything – Wants help in 2-3 months, close to Richard,” another says. REACH is an outreach provider and LEAD is a program that diverts people from the criminal legal system and has a limited quantity of hotel-based shelter for people throughout the King County region.

In two cases, Moreland (or another person filling out the spreadsheet) uses anti-trans language to describe transgender women, calling each woman a “male that identifies as female.”

According to the spreadsheet, the most common identified destination for these “intakes” is detox, a three-to-five-day program that does not include housing, shelter, or long-term treatment for addiction. Other destinations include Union Gospel Mission’s inpatient treatment, an explicitly Christian program that includes mandatory Bible study. Moreland is a longtime UGM volunteer.

The council has never discussed the details of the potential contract publicly, although it appears to have been the subject of a lengthy executive session that delayed the start of the council’s October 2 meeting by almost an hour.

Moreland shared the spreadsheet with Burien City Councilmember Stephanie Mora, Burien police chief Ted Boe, Burien police sergeant Henry McLauchlan, and Jeff Rakow of Snowball Investment, a real estate company that owns a Grocery Outlet property and paid The More We Love to remove an encampment nearby.

Homeless service nonprofits generally do not share people’s personal information with public officials, much less private property owners, without the informed consent of individual clients, and generally only do so under explicit information-sharing agreements that are meant to benefit their clients—for example, by letting police and prosecutors know they’re participating in a diversion program like LEAD, which works to reduce people’s involvement in the criminal justice system.

For example, LEAD and REACH, which have been working with encampment residents in Burien all year, authorize case managers “to share information on an as-needed basis with a specified group of partner organizations and entities,” according to Purpose Dignity Action co-director Lisa Daugaard, whose organization runs LEAD. “We have been able to reach agreements in which prosecutors and police aren’t blindsided or misled, and get good information illuminating the underlying causes behind challenging behaviors; and in turn, they agree to ensure that no one regrets sharing this kind of sensitive information,” Daugaard said.

It’s unclear if Moreland, who did not respond to a request for comment, received consent from any of the people on her lists to share their private information with officials or private individuals. A public records request did not turn up any communications about the spreadsheets beyond an email to the Burien officials and Rakow in which Moreland wrote, “As promised here is our updated spreadsheet including all intakes to date. Just in the last three days we have placed 7. Hoping two more go by end of the day. Thank you!”

It’s also unclear who else has received the spreadsheet or similar information from Moreland, since public disclosure requests only deal with public officials’ communications.

“Information-sharing between social workers and enforcement entities can happen constructively—but only with the clear permission of clients/participants, based on their trust in case managers and the hard-won reputation of the program on the street; and only in the context of very specific agreements about how that information can be used,” Daugaard. Without that framework, Daugaard continued, “very quickly, individuals feel burned that they shared sensitive information and it was in some way used to their detriment” and the system breaks down.

At least one Burien Police Department officer is currently under investigation for allegedly harassing or attacking people living unsheltered in the city. The Bellevue Police Department confirmed that they are conducting the investigation and denied our records request seeking more information because the investigation is still ongoing.

Burien spokeswoman Inlow-Hood said the the Burien Police Department, which is staffed by the King County Sheriff’s Office, “will enforce” the city’s new ban on “camping” outdoors between 7 pm and 6 am   A spokesman for King County Executive Dow Constantine was more equivocal, saying that no decision has been made about enforcement. It’s unclear whether, and to what extent, The More We Love might be involved or on site when the police department removes encampments.

At least one Burien Police Department officer is currently under investigation for allegedly harassing or attacking people living unsheltered in the city. The Bellevue Police Department confirmed that they are conducting the investigation and denied our records request seeking more information because the investigation is still ongoing.

The city council has asked for a briefing from staff on any potential contract with the More We Love, which just registered as a business in April, but city manager Adolfo Bailon can sign any contract under $50,000 without council approval and is reportedly preparing to do so.

“The City Council asked for an opportunity to discuss the contract and it will be brought to Council in a future meeting,” Inlow-Hood said.

The council has never discussed the details of the potential contract publicly, although it appears to have been the subject of a lengthy executive session that delayed the start of the council’s October 2 meeting by almost an hour.  City officials are legally prohibited from talking to any outside parties about executive sessions, and PubliCola did not speak to any council members about the subject of this executive session.

Under state law, cities can hold closed executive sessions to “review negotiations on the performance of publicly bid contracts when public knowledge regarding such consideration would cause a likelihood of increased costs.” We have asked Inlow-Hood to explain the justification for any executive sessions on The More We Love’s potential contract, since it is not up for bid.

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As PubliCola reported in August, Moreland failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars in fines she owes for violating the state Consumer Lending Act in 2020. According to the state, Moreland facilitated “short-term, high-cost loans” with an unlicensed lender for at least four home buyers, then immediately turned around and refinanced the loans through the company she worked for, pocketing the commission. According to Department of Financial Institutions records, Moreland has consistently failed to make payments on the loans, despite agreeing to multiple payment plans.

Moreland has repeatedly claimed that her group (previously called the MORELove Project and more explicitly affiliated with Union Gospel Mission) has been more successful than any established organization at housing and providing treatment for people living unsheltered in Burien. However,  case managers and individual volunteers who have worked with Burien’s homeless population for years dispute this, noting that the homeless population in Burien has not diminished and includes roughly the same group of people as it did when the city of Burien first removed several dozen people from an encampment next to City Hall and the downtown Burien library in March. There are no year-round nightly shelters in Burien.

Most of Moreland’s “housing” placements, local advocates and service providers Burien say, have consisted of short-term motel stays and rides to detox, including one man who had to take two buses back to Burien after the “housing” he was expecting turned out to be a detox center outside Olympia.

Homeless service contracts typically include, at minimum, a detailed budget, performance standards, reporting requirements, and compliance with a number of minimum standards including minimum insurance and non-discrimination policies. It’s unclear which of these items will be in any future contract between Moreland’s group and Burien.