(The Center Square) – With hundreds of millions of tax dollars spent, the King County Regional Homelessness Authority is facing calls for accountability from city officials who look to the semi-governmental organization to get the area’s chronic homelessness crisis under control. A senior KCRHA policy director says their efforts are working.
KCRHA has served as the organization responsible for coordinating funding and services for unhoused people across all of King County since 2019.
The agency’s funding for nonprofit organizations increased from approximately $134.7 million in 2022 to $169 million in 2023, a 25% increase. The agency’s funding for 60 organizations in the 2024 budget is $167.8 million, according to documents obtained by The Center Square.
The majority of the agency’s funding stems from a partnership between both the City of Seattle and King County, with Seattle providing 42% ($104.67 million) towards the agency’s 2024 budget .
In February, Seattle informed the King County Regional Homelessness Authority that it was pulling $11.7 million in annual funding from the agency starting in 2024 and through 2025 in order to examine how its outreach funding aligns to the changing needs of the city and ensure effective use of city funding in meeting desired outcomes.