State Budget Cuts Could Halt Successful Encampment Resolution Program
The Democrats' proposal falls $40 million short of what the program needs to keep going.
By Erica C. Barnett
A program started under former governor Jay Inslee to resolve encampments on state-owned rights of way could shut down this year, advocates and King County elected officials warned on Tuesday, unless state Democrats restore funding to continue the program in this year's budget. The program, unlike the daily sweeps that have become part of the urban landscape in Seattle, involves extensive outreach and, for most participants, ends in housing.
Currently, both the House and Senate versions of the budget reduce funding for the right-of-way program, as it's known, from $75 million a year to $45 million a year. That funding, advocates said Tuesday, would only be enough money for the program to continue housing people from past encampments, not to provide ongoing outreach and shelter for new encampments in the future. To keep the program at current levels—accounting for inflation, capital costs, and payments to WSDOT for costs associated with physical cleanups—the state would need to restore $40 million to the budget.
Speaking at the Arrowhead Gardens senior housing complex in Highland Park, near the former site of an infamous encampment that was resolved through the program, King County Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda said, "We do not see results in getting people inside by sweeping people out of sight and from one location to another. We do not create trust with our housing service providers by making it harder for them to find people when there's actually a unit available."
In King County, the right-of-way program is run by Purpose Dignity Action, which created a program called CoLEAD to provide temporary lodging during the pandemic. Unlike previous efforts to shut down encampments through brute-force sweeps, the PDA's program resolves encampments by providing sustained outreach, intensive case management, and hotel-based shelter to former encampment residents.
The strategy is more expensive than the sweep-and-repeat approach, but unlike sweeps, it has a strong track record of keeping people housed. According to the PDA, the program has resolved 23 encampments and moved 479 people into housing in King County since 2022, with more than two-thirds of those individuals still housed.
"Without restored funding for those programs, the front door will close. In other words, we will not have an encampment resolution program that cannot resolve new encampments," Seattle City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck said on Tuesday. "No new encampments will be resolved if this goes forward. But we know there's a way that we can fix this, and leaders from the local and state level have a moral imperative to ensure that there is a path forward for this work to continue."
Diane Radischat, president of the resident community at Arrowhead Gardens, worried out loud about what would happen if money for the right-of-way program dried up. Already, she said, people are beginning to set up tents and RVs in the area.
The people who have set up encampments on Myers Way are "not the cooperative ones," Radischat said, "but they still need help. They still need services, and we cannot give up on them ever. So we can't afford for the state to take any money away from this program in any fashion at all. If the money disappears, what you think will happen? People will just suddenly be all fine, and we don't have to worry about them anymore?"
After the meeting, Mosqueda told PubliCola that along with restoring the cuts to the right-of-way program, state legislators also need to pass (and Governor Bob Ferguson needs to sign) the $12 billion progressive revenue package that state Democrats have proposed this session. "It’s not a zero- sum game," Mosqueda said. "We cannot take funding from another bucket to invest in this evidence based program—it needs to be additive so that we are also investing in upstream safety net programs with new revenue from the state."
Earlier on Tuesday, Mosqueda said the King County Regional Homelessness Authority needed the ability to raise revenues on its own, rather than serving exclusively as a pass-through agency for funding from outside sources.
Last year, King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci proposed spending $1.8 million of the county's budget to supplement the right-of-way program, calling it a "bright spot" at KCRHA, but the council voted it down 7-2, with only Balducci and Jorge Barón voting yes. Then-budget chair Girmay Zahilay urged a "no" vote at the time, citing the need for fiscal discipline amid a growing county budget deficit. Both councilmembers spoke Tuesday in favor of the state budget request.