(The Center Square) – The King County Regional Homelessness Authority, which receives substantial funding from the county and the city of Seattle, recently completed its biennial Point-in-Time Count, a federally mandated survey estimating the number of people experiencing homelessness in the area.
While results won’t be released for several months, it seems KCRHA leadership anticipates its 2026 count will show more homeless individuals.
William Towey, KCRHA associate deputy of strategy, recently told The Seattle Times the organization expects to see a continuing rise in the region’s homeless population due to a combination of rising, unmet needs and improved, more inclusive data-gathering methods.
This year’s survey, as well as the 2024 survey, utilized a respondent-driven sampling method – offering incentives for referrals – to better reach homeless individuals not in the shelter system.
“Prior to 2022, the PIT Count was done on a single night – sometimes referred to as a ‘one night count’ – with volunteers going out to look for people living unsheltered and counting them,” a late January KCRHA news release explained. “Although this method galvanized community engagement, it produced an undercount and wasn’t able to produce the level of detail needed to address the complexities of people’s experiences.”
KCRHA’s PIT surveys indicate an upward trend in homelessness, with the 2024 count showing more than 16,000 people experiencing homelessness, a 23% increase from 2022.
That’s despite KCRHA’s massive spending to combat homelessness.
The agency’s proposed 2026 budget is approximately $205 million, a slight decrease from the previous year. Seattle remains the primary funder, contributing $118.93 million.
The organization’s adopted budget for 2025 was nearly $207 million. That year, King County significantly increased its direct funding to KCRHA to $53 million, up from $42.3 million the previous year. Seattle contributed another $109.4 million.
The Center Square reached out to KCRHA for comment on the organization’s spending of tax dollars and the increasing number of homeless people, but did not receive a response.
Andrea Suarez is the founder and executive director of We Heart Seattle, a grassroots volunteer movement focused on cleaning up Seattle’s public spaces, while providing resources, housing and treatment options to the homeless.
In an interview earlier this month with The Center Square, she noted the drug abuse crisis that is inextricably intertwined with the homelessness crisis, suggesting little long-term progress on the issue.
“We’ve been out here now [for] over five years; we’ve put boots on the ground to the count of 50,000 hours – volunteer hours – out there cleaning up now more than 2 million pounds of trash, and hundreds of thousands of needles and used foil and other drug paraphernalia,” Suarez said. “We started out five years ago, carrying gallons of buckets of needles used to shoot heroin and methamphetamines. Today, we’re carrying buckets out full of foil, so nothing’s been done.
“Maybe there’s a cyclical, looks a little better here, looks a little better there, and then it goes back, ebbs and flows maybe based on who’s in town, if there’s a Seahawks’ championship or not. But we don’t feel like what we do is futile.”
Simply spending on services for the homeless is not a solution, according to Suarez, noting that enforcing laws must be part of addressing the problem.
“To put it bluntly, it will never get better until Seattle, or what I call Freeattle, creates barriers to entry,” she emailed The Center Square on Wednesday. “How? Follow the lead of London Breed, former Mayor of SF [San Francisco], who championed and passed Prop F. Prop F required a person to pass a drug test for illegal substances, and if not, enroll in addiction treatment to get city services. Supply creates demand, and well-intended progressive policies have removed the rock bottom for addicts, trapping people in the cycle of addiction. Seattle needs to make Crime Illegal Again.”
Mark Harmsworth is the director of the Small Business Center at the Washington Policy Center think tank.
He pointed out that KCRHA’s funding primarily supports emergency shelters, outreach and supportive services, rather than direct, permanent housing placement.
“As far as I can tell, they’re spending their money on stuff for homeless people, and all that is going to do is encourage more people to move to Washington to get free services,” Harmsworth said during a Thursday phone interview. “So I think that’s a little bit of what we’re seeing is an in-migration of homelessness.”
He referenced a 2024 Discovery Institute study that argued that Washington, particularly Seattle and Spokane, acts as a “magnet” for the homeless due to Housing First policies, permissive culture and generous services. The study found that nearly half of the people experiencing homelessness in Seattle and King County first became homeless outside the region, with 86.6% born elsewhere.
“If they can get here, then they get free services, and then they’re not spending a lot of that on actually helping them get back into housing or getting them back on their feet and off the street,” Harmsworth continued. “And I think that’s what it’s doing, reinforcing the behavior.”
He added, “I also think the housing authority spends money on stuff on the administrative side of things and doesn’t actually send that money down to the street to help folks get off the street, and that’s where it should be focusing.”
In late 2025, KCRHA announced a 22% staff reduction – 13 employees – to address a projected $4.7 million budget shortfall for fiscal year 2026. The shortfall is driven by the depletion of one-time federal pandemic funds, low administrative rates, and anticipated cuts in local and federal funding.
A 2025 Washington State Auditor report found that KCRHA experienced a negative cash balance of more than $35 million in 2024, incurring hundreds of thousands in overdraft and interest fees.
Carleen Johnson contributed to this report.
