Officials say outreach efforts to move people into shelter in Seattle and King County were more successful in late 2022 but more than half of those reached were still declining help, even as the region experienced wild swings in weather from extreme heat to icy cold.
According to the city, 186 people were successfully enrolled at a shelter service between October and December, 22% more than the same period in 2021. The “enrollment rate” of 49.2% means more than half are still declining help — but officials say that number has also improved. Only 46.1% accepted shelter in the fourth quarter of 2021.
The data on outreach and shelter efforts will be part of a presentation from the city’s Human Services Department and in front of the Seattle City Council’s Public Assets & Homelessness Committee Wednesday afternoon and comes as the King County Regional Homelessness Authority is shaping a five-year plan (PDF).
The final quarter of last year also introduced new information about what is happening in the outreach process. Officials say workers are now surveying people for why they decline shelter. The answers include top replies “does not want shelter” and “wants a tiny home.”
According to Wednesday’s report, tracking outreach success remains hampered by challenges in collecting accurate data on the enrollment end of the process.
HSD says efforts under the new authority have expanded with 30 different provider partners performing outreach at 201 different encampment locations in 2022. The methods have also shifted. The city says its “Unified Care Team” efforts utilize a “new geographically based strategy” designed to focus on key areas for outreach.
The outreach efforts and improved focus on tracking comes as the King County Regional Homelessness Authority has grown into managing a more than $250 million annual budget since its formation before the pandemic in an effort to take on the ongoing homelessness crisis at a regional level.
A five-year plan calling for more than a $11 billion investment in the authority is currently being debated at Seattle City Hall and by the county.
Wednesday morning, the King County Council was also slated to hear from KCRHA officials with an update on the organization’s five-year action plan that calls for “thousands of new shelter beds, parking spots for people living in vehicles, and a drastic expansion of supportive housing, among other things.”
KCRHA’s plan has an estimated price tag of $8.4 billion in capital costs as well as another $1.7 to $3.4 billion in annual operating and maintenance costs, the county says.
The authority is currently funded by Seattle’s $109 million allocation, with King County, federal and state grants, and philanthropy rounding out the rest of the budget.
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If offer of shelter is declined, then the encampment should still be cleared. If it pops up again in another location it should be cleared again promptly. Shelter is a human right, but an urban camping lifestyle without being hassled by rules is not.
To be fair, that is a relatively modern viewpoint in terms of civilizations. Public commons remain quite prevalent around the world and we’re a common occurrence in major colonial cities during the founding of our country.
Agreed. If you get offered help and refuse it, you broke the social contract. We don’t need to keep our end of it.
Exactly! And I would emphasize the word “promptly” cleared when people refuse shelter. Too often, the approach is to just accept the refusal and allow the camp to fester over many months.
If they decline they should be charged with a crime for the litter damage they cause. Everyone is tired of their excuses. Now by shelter I mean a meaningul place to live not a spot on a floor overnight. But zero tolerance to the druggies and thieves. lock them up asap.
I really wish that the Public Assets and Homelessness committee would try to consider how every Seattle public asset could be utilized to help address the housing and homelessness crisis. It’s an odd meeting to watch sometimes…
KCRHA planning to build thousands of new shelter space when half continue to decline it! I know people that don’t want to go to shelters because they have had their belongings stolen or been attacked/harassed by others. Most people didn’t choose to end up in that situation, but we tell them that to get out of it they have to subject themselves to these “shelters” that have proven to have lower success rates than housing and wrap-around treatment programs.
The King County emergency mental health centers we will be voting on soon could be a key part of addressing some of the current gaps in the system.
Mental Illness needs to be addressed first and foremost, Mental illness leads to addiction, then homelessness. low barrier / harm reduction is the key to reaching the homeless who decline housing
This has honestly become the excuse to get out of responsibility. if someone is mentally ill and kills your mom with a hatchet or stabs your partner outside a game, would you still believe they deserve to walk scott free because of claiming mental illness?
I would hope they receive some form of treatment, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
I suggest reading some Robert Sapolsky and others who think we will one day think of deviant behavior the same way we think of epileptic seizures, not some sign of evil, but a biological reality…
It’s not that simple of a pathway, all three are interrelated and can play off one another. Someone could have their mental illness and addiction in check, then lose housing and fall back on old coping mechanisms. Similar, being unhoused also can lead to drug use as a cheap and readily available coping mechanism. Regardless of the order, it’s much harder to get someone housed when they are also dealing with unmanaged mental health and/or addiction issues. We need “yes and” solutions that address all of these pressing issues, including many that include all three in one location.
I think we also need to enhance mental health and drug addiction education and care for everyone. Both to break down stigmas, and to give friends and families the tools necessary to help assist and/or intervene before things reach crisis mode.
The cost of rent is the largest trigger of becoming homeless, not substance use disorders or mental health disorders. It’s not even close. The latter two tend to follow once a person becomes homeless. So two points here: (1) we have a false narrative that these people have it coming to them because of a defect, sometimes of their own choosing; and (2) the biggest root cause is economic (rent) and the only solution I’ve seen on the table for that is the tiny homes.
11 billion dollars to hopefully solve homelessness in one US city.
No wonder we are starting Wars in other parts of the World again… The US is completely broken inside.
It’s almost like we don’t like the effect of the root cause: Capitalism. (And Imperialism)
Please feel free to point out a socialist/marxist country who has managed better. The issues we have have more to due with the prevalence of cheap drugs with little to no consequences for anti social behavior than it does to any economic system.
Expand on this. How does imperialism cause mental illness, or cause someone to choose to take up meth (which causes permanent mental illness after long-term abuse)?
With remote working on the rise, Seattle has at most 2-3 years left to figure things out. Unfortunately, urban flight is too easy nowadays; and unless we start having some actual results to show, even the biggest fan of urban living will leave since the homelessness and the adjacent issues it generates (harassment, stealing, public health hazards and more) is just too much to put up with when the COL is already too high.
Hopefully Seattle, and other cities, learn not to rely on one sector or company too much in the future, and rather seek robust growth with sustained investment in basic needs and infrastructure.
Many of those same companies that drove up housing costs and displaced long-term residents and workers in the region, are now laying of by the tens of thousands, it’s illogical to invest so heavily as a city and region into that type of volatile business practice.