King County Executive Girmay Zahilay and Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced at a Wednesday press conference a three-step plan to “stabilize, right size, and reset” the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) after a damning forensic audit found the agency was running a $45 million deficit and had lost track of $13 million in funds. The audit was bad enough that a few politicians called to scrap the agency. Wilson and Zahilay have stopped short of that, but the KCRHA as it has functioned since 2021 is no more.
By January, Seattle’s Human Services Department will retake control of more than 100 service provider contracts totaling $118 million, while King County’s Department of Community and Human Services will take over roughly $40 million in contracts.
The KCRHA will continue to manage the region’s 2026 application for $67 million in funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the biennial Point-In-Time survey of homelessness, the Coordinated Entry and Homelessness Management Information systems, and some other regional functions. Last week, the Point-In-Time count found a record 18,400 people were experiencing homelessness in the county on any given night. Nearly two thirds were unsheltered.
“When I reflect on the reasons for those challenges, one that sticks out to me is that this agency was given incredible responsibility without sufficient capacity or authority to really effectively create and drive an overall strategy for addressing the homelessness crisis in our region,” said Wilson.
Both Wilson and Zahilay say they want to expand shelter capacity in the city and county. Wilson is currently falling behind on her ambitious plan for 4,000 units by the end of her term. Zahilay set a relatively more achievable goal of 500 new units of affordable housing and shelter in his first 500 days in office. It’s unclear how he’s doing on that goal thus far.
At a separate press huddle, KCRHA CEO Kelly Kinnison took responsibility for some of the failings of the organization while also deflecting some of the blame, saying the agency had been in “desperate disrepair” when she took over 18 months ago. She welcomed Zahilay and Wilson’s plan but also argued it would be harmful to outright dissolve the agency.
“Taxpayers have invested millions of dollars in an incredible data system … we now have a data hub, mapping capabilities, the regional services database—day-to-day stuff that our partners have been asking for for years—is live right now,” Kinnison said.
To “stabilize” the agency, the city and county have signed a nearly $1 million contract with the consulting firm Turning Point to assist the agency in its federal grant application, which is due on August 26. The firm will also improve KCRHA’s accounting systems, establish independent financial monitoring, and ensure timely invoicing and payments. And “right sizing” is a nice way to say the KCRHA will see its budget slashed by more than half. According to King County Chief Operating Officer Hyeok Kim, 20 to 25 KCRHA staff members will likely lose their jobs.
To manage the contracts taken from KCRHA, Executive Zahilay said he planned to hire 10 to 12 new county staff. Wilson did not say how many new employees the city will hire. Wilson and Zahilay said they will finalize the transition plan by August 1 and submit legislation to the Seattle City and King County councils for approval. Neither Wilson nor Zahilay shared long-term plans for KCHRA’s future, the third “reset” phase of their plan. They’d lean on service providers, labor unions, businesses, and other stakeholders to help make that final decision, which Kim said will drag on into next year.
Even if Wilson and Zahilay intend to keep KCRHA alive in some form, the feds could doom the agency. In June, the HUD cut off funding for Los Angeles’ regional homelessness authority over its own accounting failures. If the Trump administration chooses to reject the KCRHA’s grant application, it would defund about 4,500 existing units of permanent supportive and emergency housing across the county.
In news statements, Seattle and King County council members broadly welcomed Zahilay and Wilson’s reforms. While most did not comment on the long-term future of the agency, Seattle City Councilmember Maritza Rivera and King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski said the changes were a “major step” toward an eventual dissolution of the KCRHA.
In response to questions from The Stranger, both Wilson and Zahilay acknowledged that the focus on restructuring the bureaucracy of homelessness services had overshadowed basic questions about how many more resources are needed to adequately meet the scale of the crisis. However, they argued that the city and county still had a responsibility to spend tax dollars efficiently.
“We need to be doing a lot better with the resources that we have, but also to meet this moment at the scale that it requires, absolutely requires much more resources [and] much more effective systems,” Zahilay said.
