The King County Regional Homelessness Authority says its annual survey shows that there are more people living homeless here than last year.
The authority has released its 2024 Point-in-Time Count, the second year it has relied on “respondent-driven sampling” methods to extrapolate the number of people living unsheltered in the county by focusing on those utilizing local shelter resources.
According to the 2024 count, the authority estimates nearly 10,000 people are living without shelter in King County compared with around 6,600 counted in shelter systems. In total, the authority says the population of those experiencing homelessness either sheltered or unsheltered has climbed 23% from when it began using the methodology.
King County last reported a total population of about 2.3 million people.
The federally required homelessness count used to take place with a massive volunteer effort with people canvassing shelters and campers in a census-like procedure. Under those methods, King County identified nearly 12,000 people experiencing homelessness with an increase in the number of people living in cars and RVs in one of the last survey-style counts.
Under the new survey methods, researchers interview a sample of people living homeless about their access to shelter and about people they know living homeless. They then compare that data to hard numbers of recorded people in shelters to estimate a total population for the county. In 2024, the ratio of living unsheltered to living sheltered for homeless individuals was 3 to 2.
The KCRHA acknowledges the count’s limitations. Officials also point to the Washington Department of Commerce’s estimate “derived from information in dozens of administrative databases ranging from unemployment insurance to Medicaid” that around 54,000 people experience homelessness in King County over the course of a year.
The authority says a lack of affordable housing is driving numbers higher even as it works to reduce the totals, citing a state report it says shows “the lack of affordable housing options has reached critical levels.”
Officials say nearly half of the new homes required in the coming decades “must be affordable to households earning less than 50% of area median family income,” to meet predicted demand.
The situation, KCRHA says, is even more dire for people of color. “Homelessness continues to disproportionality affect communities of color in King County. Based on the PIT analyses, 19% of people experiencing homelessness in King County identify as Black/African American, but according to the 2020 U.S. Census only 6% of King County’s population identifies as Black/African American,” the agency says. “Similarly, 7% of people experiencing homelessness identify as American Indian, Alaskan Native, or Indigenous, but that group makes up only 1% of King County’s population.”
Some efforts to address the lack of affordable options can be found on Capitol Hill as strategies have included the county purchase of existing apartment buildings including this $11.6 million acquisition just off Broadway for new low-income housing.
Funding the KCRHA’s efforts to grow shelter and homelessness resources has also been a challenge. The authority requires a more than $250 million budget with funding from the City of Seattle, King County, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the State of Washington Department of Commerce, and private foundations.
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So we’re spending more and the problem isn’t improving…got it.
Seems to me the KCRHA has yet to show any usefulness.
We need to get them off the streets, and ensure that rich suburbs like belleuve and redmond do their equal share. These numbers can’t be kept up by Seattle alone
Our unsheltered population skyrocketed in the last 4 years. Meanwhile, our D3 councilmember is posting pics on her Instagram about wastewater treatment and local basketball players. The rest of us will be dodging fentanyl zombies and trying not to get stabbed in the light rail station.
CM Hollingsworth is not on the housing committe, but she IS the chair the committee that oversees public utilities. seems to me that story checks out. doing her job doesn’t mean that she isn’t also invovled in homelessness issues.
I think they are just shocked that the representative from D3 posted about something actually related to the city and the district. The previous representative could hardly be bothered to show any interest in such trivial matters when there was a movement to build.
Can we get a better accurate report showing what lead them down that path? I wouldn’t be surprised if 30-50% said addiction to drugs lead them down that path. If that’s the case, then let’s rethink “housing first” and who it should truly be for then add a “rehab first before housing” to force people into rehab instead of housing them then allowing them to die. CBC did a report on how Housing First is failing for Ottawa. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QMJHp7KqTg
Certainly addiction is related to the numbers. Rehab for housing would be a better method and has a better chance at success. Once you commit to rehab and enter a program with counseling the city will assist with housing costs and as long as you stay in the program and don’t use you get the benefit. It could then be tied in with help finding work etc.
What you’re describing sounds in many ways like housing first… It’s really hard to maintain rehab without a home, and that’s what a lot of the current programs do, requiring people experiencing addiction to have to seek out care/medication in addition to housing. It’s easy to see why this has continued to have low levels of success. Housing first says that it’s easier to treat someone experiencing addiction and homelessness by eliminating the latter issue with housing and treating the former with in-house wraparound services. The problem is that all requires money and treating people experiencing homelessness and addiction like our neighbors and not vermin.
In many ways it does except there is no requirement for treatment. It is offered and not required.
I like how you ask for data and then just throw out a wild claim 🙄 The 2017-2020 PIT surveys, while imperfect, shows that drug/alcohol abuse is a significant factor, but closer to 10-30% identified it. It’s much more likely that loss of a job or some other form of inability to pay for housing was the primary identified cause. Also, your video doesn’t say housing first is failing, but housing first without services is failing. Should we require folks experiencing homelessness because of crippling medical debt from existing health conditions be sent to some special facility for that care before they are allowed housing? Or is it just that we should house and provide necessary services to our neighbors, and not stipulate that certain health conditions restrict you from access you housing…
I wish we would do a new study. With the introduction of fentanyl in pill form and that being the preferred opioid of choice by addicts after 2020, the data from that new study is already outdated. I’m familiar with the at PIT survey and it’s already outdated. Housing first should be an option for people who’ve already successfully gone through re-hab or those not addicted to meth/opioids/alcohol. Honestly the order should be the following:
For addicts who haven’t received treatment, put them in a treatment program and connect them to their relatives. If things don’t work out between them, then we can offer them housing. But what makes recovery successful is getting people away from the environment that supported their addiction.
It sounds like the report mentioned in the article will include an update from the most recent PIT survey once they have crunched the numbers.
Your logic seems flawed to me, if getting people experiencing addiction out of their environment is necessary to treat them, that means housing is crucial. The current status quo is that addiction treatment is often completely separate from any sort of housing services and folks then need to find housing (if they can) and still continue to seek out that addiction care while likely remaining in their existing environment. We should have a robust system that offers different types of housing for different needs, more of a “yes and” approach. We should have rehab communities like the Tulalip reservation has done, we should have sober housing for those that want/need it, we should have much more affordable housing throughout the city that is suitable for families, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to do these things.
Rehab is a part of housing first, I don’t understand how that’s so hard for people to understand. Everyone says rehab before housing first, picturing an inpatient rehab facility that is providing housing, as if that is the active alternative when it very much not within Seattle or most of the US.
I also want to add the reason for treatment is that a UW study has discovered that co-addiction of meth and fentanyl hinders treatment. In other words, it takes much longer for those with a co-addiction of both drugs to fully recover. Putting them in WELL-SUPPORTED housing requiring them to go through addiction treatment might be the best option. However, in order to make this successful, we need to build the support network first by recruiting and hiring the ever-growing necessary social workers and specialists.
https://newsroom.uw.edu/news-releases/co-addiction-meth-and-opioids-hinders-treatment
I often have trouble with the phrase “affordable housing“. The word “affordable“ implies that money is being paid. There is a cost on the part of the person being housed.
But the homeless being discussed in this article and in this report, would largely not be able to “afford” anything at all for housing, therefore the phrase should be something like “free housing” or just “shelter”.
I just think it’s useful to distinguish between low income people who want to try to afford housing, and destitute people who have no money and very little prospect of getting it.
There are many working homeless that want apartments but cannot afford what is available or are on wait-lists for more discounted places. It’s easy to paint with a broad brush, but homelessness comes in many forms, and what you’re describing is one of many…
Affordable housing is very much a problem in and around Seattle. Rental vacancy rates have increased since 2019, leaving tens of thousands of apartments unfilled because developers have bet on having higher income tenants. People are continuing to be squeezed out of housing in the city because the rate of affordable housing development is not keeping up with the need.
Not the issue. Affordable housing is about prevention, and is 100% needed in that role. Only the rich will get to turn their noses up at this concept.