(The Center Square) – Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell is calling on neighboring cities in King County to help shelter the homeless population, expressing a willingness to provide funding from Seattle toward shelters and services in other jurisdictions offer suitable municipal land to host these facilities.
“Put simply, if another city is willing to host needed shelter, we will pay for it,” Harrell said in his 2026 budget proposal video last week.
Harrell’s $8.9 billion 2026 budget proposal includes $225 million in funding to respond to homelessness. However, the mayor noted that recent data from the King County Regional Homelessness Authority revealed that about 70% of Seattle’s homeless population became homeless outside of the city.
The Center Square previously reported on findings from a supplemental survey revealing that 490 out of 821 respondents (59.7%) reported that they were last stably housed in King County.
“And even with Seattle providing over 60% of the region’s shelter beds and 85% of the region’s tiny homes, we cannot do this alone,” Harrell stressed.
The mayor called on KCRHA to identify available land across King County cities with less constraints for future shelter projects. Cities in King County have largely reacted cautiously or noncommittally to Harrell’s call for identifying land for shelters.
Seattle contributes more than $100 million to KCRHA and is by far its largest municipal funder. King County’s other 38 cities provide only a fraction of this amount combined, leading to ongoing debate about equitable funding for the regional effort against homelessness.
The Discovery Institute has been a strong opponent to the Housing First approach utilized by Seattle and King County. Housing First prioritizes providing stable housing to people experiencing homelessness as a solution. Many housing providers do not require individuals to meet preconditions like sobriety or treatment engagement.
Instead, the organization advocates for a treatment first approach that prioritizes getting homeless people sober before finding permanent housing.
Discovery Institute President Steve Buri said Harrell’s suggested approach would spread the underlying problem of homelessness around the region without addressing addiction and untreated mental illness.
“It’s time to redirect funding away from permanent supportive housing and towards treatment and recovery services while simultaneously enacting a zero-tolerance approach to public encampments and drug consumption,” Buri emailed The Center Square. “Failure to change course risks the future of this city for a generation.”
Despite flagged land constraints, Harrell’s proposed budget includes $8 million to open and operate three new shelters with more than 150 beds next year in Seattle, doubling down on the Housing First approach that KCRHA estimates would cost $450 million to $1.1 billion per year over the next 10 years.
Seattle currently funds nearly 2,900 shelter beds within the city.
Seattle and King County’s homelessness crisis has been declared an emergency for nearly 10 years now, since former Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and King County Executive Dow Constantine declared it as such in November 2015. This year’s federally-mandated point-in-time count found a total of 16,868 homeless people in King County. That is the highest number of tallied people experiencing homelessness in county history.
The Seattle City Council is in the midst of deliberations on the proposed budget with continued presentations over the next two months. Public hearings on the 2026 budget are scheduled for Oct. 7 and Nov. 6. The city council currently plans on holding a final vote on the 2026 budget on Nov. 21.
