Homelessness authority ends downtown Seattle initiative; layoffs to come

The King County Regional Homelessness Authority has reversed course on its most ambitious plan since inception, putting nearly 40 people at risk of losing their jobs and upsetting city, county and business leaders.

The agency announced Tuesday morning that Partnership for Zero — a plan to eliminate visible homelessness in downtown Seattle — will end before completing its goal of reducing the number of people living outside in downtown Seattle to fewer than 30. In February 2022, when the pilot project was first announced, about 1,000 people were estimated to be living in the downtown core.

This swift change comes as the program’s initial funding expires and interim CEO Helen Howell reexamines the authority’s function and goals and moves it away from providing direct services to Seattle’s homeless population. Thirty-eight people are facing layoffs — about one-third of the authority’s total workforce — including 31 systems advocates who do outreach, case management and other social service help for people living outdoors in downtown and the Chinatown International District. Their jobs will be terminated Oct. 6.

Every systems advocate has experienced homelessness or housing instability, said authority spokesperson Anne Martens.

“This is a tough situation, and we know that it may be especially difficult for staff who have lived experience of homelessness,” Howell said. “It’s important to me to extend our deepest gratitude to the Partnership for Zero team, and make sure staff are supported through this transition.”

This decision has upset both city and county leaders as well as local groups, for the toll it will have on staff but also because the authority didn’t come close to delivering on its promise.

To date, Partnership for Zero helped 231 people get housed. Martens said they will keep their housing.

“While this was a pilot, ultimately, it is a disappointing end result — for the Authority, their workers, philanthropists, and, most importantly, people living on the street unhoused downtown,” Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell and King County Executive Dow Constantine said in a joint statement Tuesday.

The authority is already facing scrutiny, leading to the authority’s Governing Committee, which Harrell and Constantine are on, to call for a comprehensive review of the authority’s governance structure, oversight and accountability systems.

“We need an effective regional approach to make sustainable, permanent progress addressing homelessness,” Harrell and Constantine said Tuesday. “We believe for that approach to be successful, KCRHA must be a working part of the solution.”

The Downtown Seattle Association also expressed disappointment.

“Partnership for Zero was the right approach that was executed in all the wrong ways,” said Jon Scholes, president and CEO of the association. “The effort lacked sound management, oversight and focus.”

From the start, the program faced serious funding challenges.

Initially, then-CEO Marc Dones asked the Seattle City Council for funding to get the project off the ground. When that request was denied, the authority found private funders through We Are In, an organization that connects private philanthropy to public groups working to address homelessness. Additionally, the program used public money to help people get connected to housing.

To start, Partnership for Zero received a promise of about $10 million in private donations. Authority officials said they received around half that so far.

“The reality is that KCRHA did not want to continue the program as currently set up,” said Erik Houser, managing director of external affairs for We Are In. “I know the philanthropic community remains committed to figuring out what the next iteration of downtown outreach looks like.”

For nonprofit homeless outreach workers still working in downtown Seattle, Partnership for Zero’s quick collapse could make their jobs even harder, said Alison Eisinger, executive director of the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness, by fostering distrust among people working with the systems advocates.

“Public and private funders need to hear this message loudly and clearly: The system needs stability, continuity and sustained investment. It does not need additional disruption,” Eisinger said.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development also created a “command center” to help Partnership for Zero, where housing services could be centralized and priority decisions made. As part of the program’s wind down, the command center closed, but Martens said the model could be used for future emergencies.

The initiative had a slow start, as logistical and other issues bogged down progress. One year in, less than 10% of people living on the streets in downtown and the Chinatown International District had moved into long-term housing, though the project was picking up steam.

Then, a crisis struck and progress downtown was put on hold. More than 200 people faced eviction as a hotel shelter program run by the Washington State Lived Experience Coalition ran out of funding, so the authority diverted the systems advocates to help.

Partnership for Zero systems advocates helped 53 people move from the hotels into permanent housing and 122 people into shelter or other temporary locations like a hospital or treatment center. Additionally, 110 people either returned to living on the streets, in their vehicle or with a loved one.

The project never cultivated other funding sources, as intended.

Martens said that Partnership for Zero architects envisioned a significant amount of Medicaid funding, but that never came to pass.

Utilizing Medicaid funding has been floated as a key way the authority could supplement its budget as officials work to increase the number of suburban cities that pay into the authority. Partnership for Zero was pitched as the guinea pig so nonprofit contractors and administrators could test how well the reimbursement system works.

Some of the prep work and training was completed to start Medicaid billing, Martens said, but at the time the authority decided to end Partnership for Zero, they had yet to bill Medicaid for any of the work.

Partnership for Zero was also supposed to be an avenue for a government agency to directly provide homelessness services, rather than contracting with nonprofits. The authority’s decision to do so was controversial.

When the program started, several nonprofits took notice of the wages that systems advocates earned — higher than many front-line nonprofit staff who do the same work. For example, one current advocate, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of losing employment, cited a starting salary of $82,500. As a result, many established homeless organizations lost staff to the new initiative.

Officials have increasingly considered the low wages that most homelessness services workers earn to be a crisis in the industry.

“That shared experience was an essential part of building trust with people currently experiencing homelessness,” Martens said.

The authority is currently developing 11 new positions that will be posted internally this week, Martens said, and current staff is encouraged to apply.