(The Center Square) – The King County Regional Homelessness Authority is winding down its pilot program that focused resources on getting homeless people in the downtown Seattle area into shelters.
Partnership for Zero, a public-private collaboration with the aim of ending unsheltered homelessness in downtown Seattle, was started in 2022. Its goal was to achieve what’s known as “functional zero” – that is, enough services, housing and shelter beds for everyone in need.
The program resolved six long-standing encampments and housed 230 homeless individuals.
Partnership for Zero was initially committed $10 million from the county’s philanthropic communities, with approximately $5.1 million budgeted for the program in 2023 and $6 million in 2024 as part of KCRHA’s budget. Staffing costs alone were set at $3.5 million in 2023 and $5.4 million in 2024.
Partnership for Zero was primarily funded by Seattle and King County, as well as the Lived Experience Coalition and a the aforementioned philanthropic community.
The agency also planned to use Medicaid reimbursements through the Foundational Community Supports program. The agency estimated up to 85% of Partnership for Zero costs would be reimbursed by Medicaid.
Foundational Community Supports is a fee-for-service program that pays $112 for every recorded encounter between a service provider and a client, up to a maximum of six encounters per month.
The agency said that the shut down of the Partnership for Zero program will result in layoffs soon.
The Center Square reached out to Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell for comment and received a joint statement from Harrell and King County Executive Dow Constantine. The two said they were “grateful” that more than 200 homeless people received housing, and are set to meet with program leaders and financial supporters of the effort to better understand lessons learned from the Partnership for Zero program.
“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,” Harrell and Constantine said. “We need an effective regional approach to make sustainable, permanent progress addressing homelessness.”
King County Regional Homelessness Authority Senior Director of External Affairs Anne Martens directed The Center Square to an article by PubliCola regarding the end of the pilot program. Martens told PubliCola that the agency learned that it is challenging in having an administrative agency run direct services rather than contracting nonprofit partners to do the work, which is the standard approach in King County.
The agency also found challenges in focusing work in Seattle’s downtown area.
“One of the challenges is when people are spread out and mobile across downtown, it’s much more difficult than focusing on one defined encampment that’s in a place,” Martens said to PubliCola.
KCRHA’s 2022 year-in-review report found that there were more than 830 people living unsheltered in the downtown area. The 230 people who accepted temporary shelter make up nearly 28% of the area’s estimated homeless population.
