King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) CEO Dr. Kelly Kinnison submitted her resignation today after only two years on the job. The announcement comes as the beleaguered agency is in the process of being partially dismantled.
In a press release, the KCRHA governing board said Kinnison’s departure reflects the organization’s changes in “mission, purpose, and service scope.” Her resignation will be effective November 16.
While Kinnison was not officially pushed out, her resignation is the latest in the ongoing fallout over the KCRHA’s damning forensic evaluation in April that found the agency had lost track of $13 million due to poor internal accounting practices.
In response to the audit, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson and King County Executive Girmay Zahilay decided in July to take back administration of about $160 million in homelessness service provider contracts, slashing the KCRHA’s budget by more than two thirds.
That remnant was left in charge of coordinating the region’s $67 million grant application to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). It also keeps several regional functions, such as holding the biennial Point-in-Time census of homelessness in the county.
The downscaling has already resulted in 10 layoffs, one voluntary departure and the elimination of six unfilled positions from the agency, PubliCola reported in August.
In a prepared statement, Zahilay and Wilson shared polite thank you’s to Kinnison.
But Wilson’s quote showed her damning criticisms of the agency’s past fiscal practices.
“I have a responsibility to the people of Seattle to ensure that financial challenges at KCRHA are addressed and stabilized,” Wilson said.
The two leaders didn’t share further details on what’s to come for the KCRHA, other than they “will make a recommendation soon on interim leadership.”
Kinnison’s resignation only further clouds the uncertain future of the KCRHA. The Trump administration has rewritten HUD’s granting criteria to disfavor service providers that follow the “Housing First” model, which the Seattle region pioneered and has heavily invested in.
HUD has already cut off funding to Los Angeles County’s homelessness authority, in part due to financial accounting issues. If the KCRHA receives a similar rejection, it could doom the agency and endanger 4,500 units of transitional and permanent supportive housing.
Wilson and Zahilay have so far refused to share their contingency plans in case the KCRHA does not receive its full funding request from HUD.
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