-I'm Maritza Rivera here
today with King County Councilmember Rod Dombroski.
Thank you all for being here today.
Just to let you know how this will go,
I'll be making a short statement
followed by Councilmember Dombroski,
and then we'll take questions for 10 minutes.
The King County Regional Regional Homelessness
Authority is responsible for important work.
We must do right
by the people who are on our streets
and in urgent need of shelter.
Every dollar that toward
that effort needs to be spent wisely.
And unfortunately, we all know that the King
County Regional Homelessness Authority has had problems,
real problems for years.
It left contractors unpaid, unpaid for months in 2023.
Leadership has come and gone and calls for the agency
to rework their accounting systems have gone unheeded.
This latest forensic evaluation
is just the last straw.
The evaluation
shows a pattern of mismanagement of funds
that can no longer be tolerated.
It is time to find a different way
to make this very important work happen.
Councilmember Dombrowski and I will be issuing
companion resolution resolutions
to officially call for the dissolution of KCRHA
and a plan for the future
that includes all of us, the city and the county
continuing to work together to find a better way.
Councilmember Dombrowski. -Thank you very much
Councilmember Rivera.
My name is Rod Dombrowski.
I chair the Budget and Fiscal Management
Committee at the King County Council.
You know,
they say that
the road to hell is paved with good intentions,
and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority
was set up six years ago with the best of intentions
to tackle our region's most pressing problem,
and that is thousands of unsheltered people
on the streets all over King County, night after night
with hundreds every year dying.
We wanted to do time
to bring a regional approach to this problem,
but the tool that was set up
has been given
more chances than it deserves at this point.
And it has failed again and again and again,
not only on the finances,
not only with respect
to the stewardship of public dollars,
but with respect to its core mission to shelter people.
Let's just go through just a little bit of history.
This was a proposal that came from philanthropy.
It was advanced by the former mayor of the city
and the former county executive.
They came over to our council
and the city council where we modified it.
I worked on that legislation at the time to make sure
that we changed it from the proposal
that would have had it as a standalone, separate entity
governed by folks with lived experience.
To that,
it would be impossible to dissolve
to a partnership between the city
and the county overseen by elected officials
that could be dissolved if it didn't work.
Sadly, with after hundreds of millions of dollars
put into it
and a series of audits in 2023
where the homelessness authority
responding to a state audit,
a county oversight audit and federal review,
said that they were going to get their house in order.
They have not done it.
We have advanced them tens of millions of dollars.
They have overspent their budget.
They cannot account for the dollars on a material basis.
And our problem and challenge with respect to unsheltered
people on the streets has not gotten better.
It has gotten worse.
There is no justification
to continue this organization.
We need to have an orderly transition
back to devolving the responsibilities
to our respective governments.
Seattle being the lead in City
King County, is the regional government
playing an important role throughout the region
and partnering with our 38 suburban cities.
As Councilmember Rivera said, I have asked our staff to
prepare legislation.
We call it a motion.
You have call it a resolution
and introduce it before our council
that under the INTERLOCAL agreement
starts a one year period or up to a year
to in an orderly way, dissolve this.
There have to be some work with respect to the finances
partnership to look at that between the city
and the county
because they're in the hole
and we're going to have to work together
to figure out how to get out of that.
But it's it's it's time to head in a new direction
and to acknowledge that this process has not worked.
It has added an unnecessary, ineffective
layer of government that has not been accountable
on our region's most pressing challenge.
And it's time to end it.
-And I'll just add, Councilmember Dombrowski,
that both the city and the county are committed
to working together to solve this problem.
That's what
led to the original creation of the King County
Regional Homelessness Authority.
So thank you for your words.
We'll take questions now.
Either of us. -What's the big idea in another year?
-That's a great...
That's a great question, Chris, and that will rely on
the mayor and the county exec along with
both of our council bodies
coming together and figuring out
what the next steps are to continue
to address our homelessness problem.
-Yeah, I would say that I think you're seeing a shift
from Mayor Wilson and policy
where she is
taking the reins
I think was support of her council
to open up a significant number.
Hundreds of new shelter beds.
King County Executive Zahilay, his very his second
his first executive order was on accountability.
The second on shelter and housing.
So already our governments are taking
the reins in this policy area and taking action.
And frankly, that's
evidence of a failed KCRHA.
And we have our health through housing program.
The city runs its staffing and we have great
trusted community partners
in this space that know what they're doing.
The Salvation Army, DESC.,
Lake City Partners Ending Homelessness.
We have folks out there that we can and do partner with.
This is a matter of administration
and how to effectively administer
the dollars that we have
with accountability and with some results.
-What is your message to taxpayers,
especially when they're
now seeing that their money has not been properly
tracked?
And who should be held accountable for this?
-You want to take that one first?
-I would say to taxpayers that that's why Councilmember
Dombrowski and I are calling for the dissolution of KCRHA
right now is because we are holding both
our cities and the county accountable to the taxpayers
and because we need to act swiftly.
This didn't work.
And to Councilmember Dombrovskis, point,
this started out with the best of intentions.
Both the county and the city had for years
been tackling the homelessness issue
and what to do about it separately.
And we had funding that we had allocated to it
and it just made sense
since to do this regional approach.
So we did enter it with the best of intentions.
Now that we see via the audit in ‘23 and ’24
and now
with this latest forensic evaluation between ‘23
and now, some things had been put in place to try to give
the KCRHA an opportunity to fix the issues.
But now we see those have not been fixed.
So this is why we want to take swift action now
to dissolve this entity and continue to work.
And as Councilmember Demovsky said, both the city and the
county are doing
homelessness work and helping folks
who are unhoused across both the city and the county.
So we want to make sure we are accountable
to those dollars that we're using
for that purpose and making sure
that they are going toward actually
helping folks on the ground. Rod.
-So you think you can still take a stance like that?
Can we drill down a little bit more
because you just rely on the work
that you're doing that
you will do in response to what do you say to taxpayers?
My question is,
what does the taxpayer who’re waking up this morning
cost of living is is higher, affordability
issues is what all of you are campaigning on...
and now that we've learned that the $13 million
of their money is being wasted.
Is the appropriate response.
I'm sorry, man. Who says I'm sorry?
-The response is this is not acceptable.
This is egregious,
and we need to do something about it.
And that's why we're calling for the dissolution
of this K...
KCRHA. We we agree with the taxpayers.
This is not OK. It's not
OK. So we found out about this report yesterday.
I did yesterday.
And that's why
I'm calling today for a dissolution of this entity.
And we need to do something different
because the mismanagement of funds is never okay.
-How specifically can city or county manage
the money better than the Regional Homelessness Authority did?
-That's a great question.
-Well, I think both of our governments
have, while not perfect, much better track records.
We are audited regularly by the state
auditor's office. At the county.
we have our own internal auditor.
We have our our own structures.
We know how to administer and manage
for the most part, contracts.
And in the housing space, we're pretty good at it.
Look, every now and then there's a stumble
or somebody does mess up.
But the challenge with the KCRHA
is you had devolved multiple
and removed accountability. And we had this Federated
Board of Electeds that met once a month,
and if you go and look at the minutes,
much of the recent meetings seemed to be more
about internal problems and executive sessions
and not about driving a solution toward homelessness
and helping folks that are on the street.
So the structure
of how you oversee federal or these dollars is important.
And this was too complicated.
You had two boards, the elected board,
you had the implementation board.
You saw fighting for years on those boards.
We have more transparency.
We have public hearings.
We have accountability,
direct, more direct connection to the taxpayers.
(reporters talking)
-I want to ask, do you all have any
expectation, are either of you looking toward
anything close to a criminal investigation?
-I've I've seen nothing yet
in the financial reviews that would indicate
there has been any criminal conduct.
I can't say that there hasn't been.
One of the things that was very concerning,
and I know
Councilmember Rivera and I talked about
this was the state of
the recordkeeping is apparently so bad
that they well, they didn't find fraud.
They couldn't assure us that there wasn't any fraud.
So, you know, I've got legislation
that I've been introducing with Councilmember Dunn
and Council Chair
Perry to set up an inspector general's office
at the county
to make sure that all of our contractors
and internal functions can be investigated
if necessary, that that'll be a strong office.
City has one of those already
largely focused on public safety.
But to answer your question directly,
we haven't seen any criminal
activity yet,
but I think there's probably more work to do.
-Let me ask you really quickly here.
So this was established in 2019.
You just said you've seen fighting over the years.
Why has it taken this long
after all these systemic failures
to come up here and say, let's pull the plug now?
-Well, there was that thing called the pandemic that
slowed their start. So it was formed.
It took them a while to stand up the operation.
And so, you know, you wanted to give it some time.
It took a little longer than was expected.
You stood it up.
They started their operations.
You were building something from scratch.
We did not, frankly, I think, have the right
initial leader.
And that was there were a lot of problems there.
And then, you know, the first warning shots came,
I think, from our providers in the community
who said we're not being paid on time.
We're out here
delivering services on the street
and this organization can't get us paid.
There's months and months of delay.
Some audits were done right.
The state audit, the county audit for
which they raised some flags, they had a response.
They said, here's what we're doing.
We're going to take care of this.
That was 2023.
It's now this this audit is through July of 2025.
It says they haven't taken care of these things.
Cats get nine lives this organization has had
ten one more than it should have.
It's time for it to go.
-KCRHA’s issues notwithstanding, unwinding
it would be very complicated and time consuming.
Are you confident that the prop at that process
will will end in a result that will better serve people
living outside like you said,
it's the complicated process of unwinding that's going to
lead to a better result?
Are you confident that?
-I don't think there's any way
to predict that with certainty.
Right.
But there is one thing that certain,
and that is that this organization has failed,
failed to manage money responsibly
and failed on the mission
to reduce unsheltered homelessness.
Remember, they started their first five year plan
with a $12 billion proposal.
It was so out outside the realm of any reality
that it really we wondered what was going on over there.
Now, recently they reset that, they've refocused.
What I think most electeds here want
is a focus on unsheltered individuals
living on the streets to get them inside
and not a bunch of bigger picture social issues
that they this organization
tried to take on in the beginning. I think that
when you have more direct lines of authority
from the county executive, the mayor
and the two councils,
we can drive a better a better result
than what we're seeing here.
Without a hundred staff layered in
to administer 200 contracts and 150 $200 million.
-Over the last six years been a waste of time?
-No, I don't think it's been a waste.
Look, they did do they have done some some good.
We we we have delivered shelter.
We are housing people.
We have saved lives.
That work has gone on.
It just has not gone
as effectively and efficiently
and with the right levels
of accountability as we should have.
And it's not a close call.
-From the city and the county perspective,
seeing everything that's kind of gone down.
How likely
or hesitant will you be after KCRHA is dissolved?
Should it head that way?
Are you guys likely to allocate funds for homelessness?
-We'll continue to allocate funds for homelessness.
The question is whether we do it
in-house at the city and the county
or we continue this regional approach,
I think a regional approach.
And I think
Councilmember Dombrowski and I agree
a regional
approach is warranted
and we should continue to work together.
I mean, to me this just shows there was an effort.
We tried this particular effort
in this particular way.
We this is why I'm always calling for audits.
And I think audits are so important.
They are report cards. How well are we doing?
If we're not doing well, then we need to shift gears
into something else.
And that's what you're seeing here
and that's what we're calling for.
We've got to change the approach
because we can't keep throwing good money after bad
because we do need to do homelessness work.
We do need to house folks on the street.
We have a lot of needs in this city
and there isn't a person in the city
that doesn't want to help folks
that are living unsheltered in the street.
It is just simply not compassionate.
And we need to make sure that the money we allocate for
that is actually going to house folks and help folks.
-What part of that...
You two are here right now
with lots of other counselors, both in the city
and the county,
with different perspectives on priorities.
How do you ensure that if the city
and the county separate this, this leads to the solution
that the city and county are going
in different directions or overlapping services
and spending that would not create another
KCRHA with
just a different name in a year's time?
-I'll say prior to King County regional homelessness
Authority,
both the city and the county were doing
their own work with their you know, in our case,
it was the mayor and our city
council at the county was the executive and the council.
So we have been doing this work prior to KCRHA.
So now it's a matter of do we take it in-house?
And that's what I mean again,
or do we continue to do a regional approach
because that's what was different
about what was supposed to be different about KCRHA.
It was us pooling our resources together
and doing this regional approach.
So the question now is
how do we do the regional approach
without this particular entity
so that the dollars
are going to the efforts that are joint legislative
bodies are interested in doing.
-How do you ensure that the city
can work together on that?
-Well, I would
I would say from the county's perspective, again, we were
the modern version of the
King County was stood up in 1968
with our current charter as the regional government
to work across city boundaries.
And so we have structures, we have strategies,
structures, practices and a history of doing that.
Just by way of example, we have something called
the Regional Policy Committee,
Regional Policy Committee
consists of King County Councilmembers,
Seattle City Councilmembers
and Councilmembers from the suburban cities
It meets every month.
It works on policies of a regional nature.
The Seattle or Seattle in the county
jointly operate our public health department.
That's by choice.
We don't have to do that, but we work together.
And I think that
we've got regional governance structures in place.
The response to homelessness will still be regional.
It just won't be through a kind of an unconnected,
separate entity
with unworkable governing strategies and structures
and a repeated track record of failing
to watch out for the public dollars.
-And I'll say simply, I do want to address that.
You'll see.
I mean, we have the city and the county.
We're here together.
We have a great relationship.
I have a great relationship
with the King County Councilmembers
that represent the district that I represent.
Across the board, you're seeing
a lot of collaboration between the county
and the city councils and the mayor
and the exec for that matter.
So I am actually
I think that you're going to see us to continue
to work together toward finding the right solution.
I'm I don't have reservations about that.
-I think they used to ask
how the dissolution would technically work.
You need to persuade your colleagues
on the board of governors
to to a majority of them to vote to dissolve
or in your resolutions accomplish it?
-Yeah, as I understand
the terms of the Interlocal agreement,
if our motions are adopted by our respective City
and County Council's, that will start the process.
So the the, the work is with our colleagues, right.
-I think to actually kick off a real dissolution process...
-It's not, it's not rhetorical.
It's a legal document envisioned in the agreement
that established it as a way to unwind it.
-Have you been in touch with the executive
Zahilay, have you been in touch with Mayor Wilson?
-Do you want to go first on that?
-I've reached out to the mayor's office, so
we've start I've started that conversation
and they know we're doing this press conference.
So I don't.
-Have you heard back from the mayor's office?
-I talked to them this morning,
but I'll say that.
-And I've been in touch with Executive Zahilay’s office.
He issued a statement yesterday,
I think, along with the Mayor Wilson, with some interim
first steps about what needs to be done.
So this is the beginning of the process.
And I think
there's a great interest in making sure
if there is a decision,
the folks agree with us to unwind it,
that it's done in an orderly way
and a transparent way.
-That's right.
-Thank you so much, everybody.
We're going to have to end here.
-Thank you very much for coming.
-Thank you so much.