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The City of Renton has been a regional leader in affordable housing for decades, and I’ve covered the topic many times (here is the latest entry). KCRHA is a county-wide organization that is intended to oversee the County’s homelessness response.
The King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) gave a presentation to Renton City Council last week, after a turbulent month that saw their CEO resign and a call by King County Council Member Reagan Dunn that their organization be disbanded. This was a few months after they published a draft 5-year plan with a staggering price tag of $25 billion over five years for temporary housing, with still more tens-of-billions of dollars needed for permanent housing. While they later walked this plan back, confidence in the organization was widely shaken.
Their 30-pages of written materials are available here, and video of their 42-minute presentation to Renton Council can be viewed here.
The organization was chartered in 2019, and homelessness is certainly an emergency in our region, so their operating details ideally would have been well established by now. But their presentation to Renton City Council does not have a single dollar sign in it anywhere, and it was not apparent from the presentation how much money has been spent and on what exactly. (This is different from a typical annual report presentation from a housing provider like Vision House, which is typically very upfront about both their results and how their money is used.) If you look through the KCRHA website you can find documents that show that the King County Regional Homelessness Authority budget for 2023 is about $253 Million dollars. Note that the presenters themselves seemed informed and forthcoming, and I don’t want to hold the messengers responsible for the shortcomings of the organization.
As an engineer, they lost me a little at Slide 2, which they said was their guiding charter statement that they use to open meetings and workgroups, and to ground them in their approach. I struggled with the fact that this guiding statement is likely not true.
I don’t think we can solve the vexing puzzle of homelessness just by centering the voices of the formerly homeless anymore than we can solve cancer by listening to cancer survivors. If that was all it took, we would have done it a long time ago. I wish it were this simple.
KCRHA has been getting up and running for almost 5 years
Their plans for the next two years (called Year 1 and Year 2) include developing a real-time bed availability tool, and partnering with King County Behavioral Health to improve communication. These steps seem like they should have been completed years ago, as part of the hundreds of millions of dollars invested to date.
This tragic chart shows 238 King County homeless residents dying in 2022 from accidents, a large percentage of which are overdose deaths (King County had 589 overdose deaths in 2022). The opioid abuse crisis needs immediate intervention to turn this trend around.
KCRHA simplistically implies that bringing people inside will, by itself, prevent the deaths shown in the chart above. But someone overdosing in a private apartment is no safer than someone overdosing on the street.
I’ll let readers go through the rest of the materials themselves, and draw their own conclusions.
The presentation ends with a question and answer session that is illuminating in itself.
I thought the most direct and important question came from Renton Council Member Ruth Perez, who discussed the amount of money spent-to-date, and asked what success is going to look like, and when will we get a status showing that whatever we are doing is actually working. The presenters essentially said they are optimistic, that metrics are part of their 5-year plan, and they are excited to come back and talk about it– one could interpret that as we’ll tell you in five years.
Isn’t this the same agency that was giving its employees unlimited vacation?
And is responsible for taking Seattle’s homeless and putting them in Renton AND DENYING RENTON’S HOMELESS?
Yes, this agency gives unlimited vacation as a benefit. It can be seen as the first item listed under benefits in this current job listing on their website: https://kcrha.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/JD-Specialist-Program-CE.pdf
Sounds like they are more the problem than the solution.
Randy, didn’t you say that they’re using about 25% of Renton’s hotel rooms now?
Yes, in this entry here https://www.randycorman.com/?p=14799
Their board got off to a bad start with Renton in 2020 by asking us to ignore the foreseeable “arson” under their watch that contributed to the ruin of our Red Lion Hotel and Convention Center. Here is a letter imploring us to let them continue managing Renton hotel space without limitation, in which they acknowledge “Concerns about public safety, brought frighteningly to life by the recent incident of arson at the hotel by a new resident, are real and must be addressed” Then they proceeded to do nothing of substance to address the incidents of arson (there have been several more fires), flooding, drug use and other irreparable damage. They are now using other hotels in Renton. https://law.seattleu.edu/media/school-of-law/documents/news-center/archives/2020/kcrha-ib-letter-to-city-of-renton.pdf
I like how they basically admit that they’re bringing the suffering caused by Seattle into Renton, and we’re just supposed to take it.
What was their reasoning for the presentation to Renton? Are they trying to get more money out of the City of Renton for their careless spending spree?
Yes, they have been trying to get more funding directly from Renton. Renton taxpayers do already fund them through our King County taxes, our State taxes, and even our federal taxes, so it’s not as if Renton taxpayers are not participating. But they are looking for a larger direct contribution from Renton as well. Here is a story about how suburbs in the North Sound have started contributing. https://komonews.com/news/local/woodinville-to-vote-on-funding-regional-effort-to-address-homelessness-king-county-authority-tents-money-seattle-homeless
Looks like they are still getting usage of the RRFA. Drove by the “former” hotel turned into homeless home, now empty and RRFA had responded to a Fire Alarm at that location. Around 10 PM on Monday.
AFA1 S GRADY WAY, RENTON Renton E311, E314, L311 +1 more 21:54
This critical issue had been both sensationalized and swept under the rug for too many years. Thank you for raising the concern and informing the readers here. Questions that would be helpful to answer:
1. What was Renton’s decision in the funding request?
2. Was there financial statements provided to demonstrate the need?
3. What is the likelihood of the King County Council disbanding the organization?
4. What has the organization a accomplished to date?
This has become such a fraught and controversial issue, it would be so wrong to have spent time and money to achieve nothing intended.
Mismanaged, over budget, and screws over Renton?
I wonder who sits on the board?
Carmen’s buddy
We call the Red Lion disaster area “Prince’s Royal Ruins.” I’ve heard there’s one starting in Kenneydale next to the freeway.
Ed Price didn’t vote for on the council, Ryan and Kim did however. Are you referring to Ed’s role on the King County RHA board?
As AC said, Councilmember Prince voted affirmatively along with me and the Council majority to try to protect the occupants of the former Red Lion hotel from ongoing fire danger, save the Hotel/Convention center from its current ruinous fate, and improve safety and sanitation of future shelters by passing a new ordinance regarding the operation of shelters in Renton. It was a 5-2 vote, with Councilmembers Van and McIrvin voting against the ordinance. It’s noteworthy that in this week’s Renton Reporter Council Member Rivera has stated that she too would have voted against the ordinance had she been on council at that time.
And because it was an emergency ordinance, Carmen’s extra NO vote added to Kim and Ryan’s would have ruined Renton. Look at what’s happened to Burien for what happens when you let King County in the tent.
This is especially important because Carmen Rivera has wrapped Ed Prince and Ryan McIrvin around her finger with that “defund the police 2.0” letter.
Our Renton City Council is one vote away from becoming Seattle. The only thing holding them back is that some are now behaving due to the upcoming election.
Let be like Burien!
https://twitter.com/btownblog/status/1672300831755079680/photo/1
Randy, reading your post and the comments have made me realize that some of our current Renton council members, namely Ryan, Ed, and Kim, seem to be missing the community’s pulse.
We need representatives who prioritize Renton and make informed decisions for our benefit. Some of the current council’s seeming acceptance of a flawed homelessness solution by the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, a program that lacks clarity and efficacy in its spending, is alarming. The absence of concrete planning and results hints at a lack of accountability, and our community bears the consequences.
If we want a Renton that offers robust support for workers, a nurturing environment for families, and a thriving landscape for small businesses, we must vote for change.
The upcoming election is an opportunity to elect leaders who truly understand and respect Renton’s unique needs and are committed to meeting them. Let’s use our votes wisely.
Greg