The County’s Homelessness Agency Gets Gutted and August Primary Endorsements Collide

Hey Seattle, Jane here. At the end of today's episode, I've got a sponsored interview with Washington Wild. Chris Chappell, Brewshed Alliance Director, is going to tell me about the 100-plus Washington breweries fighting to protect the clean water that makes great beer possible and some of the conservation beers that they've brewed along the way. It's brought to you by Washington Wild. This is CityCast, Seattle. I'm Jane C. Who, and here's what Seattle's talking about. The weather is supposed to heat up this week, and it seems like the August primary races are heating up, too, with new endorsements rolling in, but first. Big changes are ahead for the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. For the last few months, questions have swirled around the fate of the agency after an audit of its operations between 2021 and 2025 revealed that it had a negative cash position of $44 million and that $8 million couldn't be accounted for. Last Wednesday, County Executive Grimae-Zahalai and Mayor Katie Wilson announced that the city and county will jointly monitor the agency and develop a plan to shift city and county contracts back to the city and county. So the agency will be managing only federal and state funds. Here to discuss, we have Erica C. Barnett, co-founder and editor of Publicola. Hi, Erica. Hello, Jade. And we have Guy O'Run, independent journalist behind the newsletter Gossip Guy. Hi, Guy. Hi, glad to be here. I know both of you have been covering this. So I just want to ask, what were your initial reactions to Zahalai and Wilson's announcement? My initial reaction was that they're vastly underplaying the actual, you know, import and impact of this announcement. You know, essentially, I mean, they are doing the first and biggest step of dismantling the KCRHA. They really resisted that kind of language. But moving all the contracts back to the city and county is basically taking away everything that, you know, that the KCRHA was when it was formed. So after a press conference on Wednesday, Kelly Knessen, the CEO of KCRHA, was asked, do you consider this experiment of failure? And she said yes in its current form. So. I think this is a really big deal. I think it's step one of basically two steps of dismantling the KCRHA. They can't do a lot of the other stuff with the federal dollars in particular without further risking federal money for various technical reasons. The KCRHA has to administer those federal funds. Right. They're the ones who applied so they have to see it through, essentially.

Yes, they serve as a continuum of care for the region is what it's called. And they would have to designate a different continuum of care. I think that's going to happen in the long run. But right now, there's certain stuff that essentially has to stay there for the time being. Guy, what is your reaction to this? Yeah. I mean, in some ways, I wasn't too surprised that they kind of went to this path. It is kind of like a gutting. or the end of the KCRHA as we know it. Going back to maybe what was done before 2020 with All Home in terms of having a quasi-governmental agency manage the federal dollars, but then keeping the local dollars with the local jurisdictions, you know, especially Katie Wilson has never really been a fan of the KCRHA. Maybe that could be part of it too, is, you know, like both of them. want more control. They did make an argument that I found was interesting, which was they're saying, you know, if you have these dollars outsourced to a third agency, you kind of are taking away the political responsibility. So now with this move, anything that goes wrong, either at the counter or the city level, you can, you know, blame the executive, blame the mayor directly. And before it was like, KCRHA was almost set up to be this fall guy where you can scapegoat them for anything that goes wrong with homelessness in the region. I mean, this proposal kind of shrinks the KCRHA and its responsibilities. You could see it as like one step towards dismantling it, but they were kind of being clear that they hadn't made that decision yet. And they're kind of procrastinating on a final decision for the long-term future of the agency. Yeah, speaking of the long-term future here, what are the unanswered questions about how this is going to work? I mean, I think one unanswered question is about that $8 million we've mentioned. The KCRHA has said that the city and county owe them that money, but they still don't know for what. I mean, essentially they... you know, they charged this money. They paid it out to contracts that they have not yet identified, but they're saying the city of Seattle and the county have to pay them back. We'll see if that happens. I would not necessarily expect the city and county to agree. And then the other thing is, you know, what happens long term? I agree with the all-home analogy. I mean, I can definitely see the KCRJ persisting as that of just. federal funding arm of the homelessness, you know, system in our region. For some reason, they're keeping severe weather shelter for the time being. I don't think that that is a permanent state. I mean, I do think that they have more or less made their minds up. And to draw back for a second, the federal funds are already at risk because of the Trump administration, there's about $67 million that the region gets. And under Trump, HUD has put all these new requirements on it that the city of Seattle doesn't really meet right now. Right. So it's already at risk, but they're saying that this will make them more competitive if they don't shift stuff at the same time as they are other.

otherwise dismantling this agency. So I don't necessarily think that's true. I think we are not very competitive to begin with, but they're saying that, you know, this is sort of a way of not alerting the Trump administration to the fact that there's chaos in the homelessness system here because they did just defund LA's homelessness agency. because of similar problems that, you know, that the audit here that sparked all this dismantling and changes found. So we are trying to lay low here, in other words. And I don't really think it's going to work, but that is the effort that they're making, I think. Yeah, I think you're right to point out the LA example because KCRHA has a lot of the same issues and it is a big risk, something like 4,500 emergency and transitional housing and permanent supportive housing relies on that money. So far, like no elected official has been willing to say like what they would do if those grants don't get awarded to the county. And also that could doom KCRHA if they lose their main funding source, which would be the federal dollars. So it's possible that these officials are kind of punting the ball to try to stabilize the agency so it can appear competitive for the federal grants. But it's a big if for sure. Yeah. So this comes on the heels of the agency's third point in time count results, which we've already alluded to here. We talked about it a little bit on the pod last week. There's a 9% increase in homelessness in the county. How is all of this going to affect our homelessness response? I mean, it's not good. It's also a 21% increase in unsheltered homelessness. And, you know, I mean, I think that homeless agencies across the country are facing this right now. The federal government just is absolutely insisting that housing first models like the one that, you know, we use in Seattle and that I think has slowed down the rate of increase in homelessness. The Trump administration is very against that, and they want transitional housing. They want work-first models. They want to cut people with mental disabilities and other conditions that are not physical off of, you know, access to permanent supportive housing and toward, you know, quote-unquote self-sufficiency. So any increase in homelessness is obviously bad, but it's only going to be worsened by some of these policies that we may have to start investing in more here in the region. The folks that are kind of trying to put a more positive spin on the count have pointed out is that that count is not a count of static people. There are people moving through the system constantly. And the region houses about 10,000 people. The problem is that there's...

you know, there's more than that, that we're having more people flow into homelessness and back into homelessness than are, you know, able to be housed because we just don't have enough housing and we really don't have enough shelter. So, I mean, this is just kind of the perennial problem and it's exacerbated by the fact that, you know, our federal government doesn't believe in solutions at work. They believe in ideological solutions. Certainly the count showed that the situation is dire and worsening. It is interesting that both Zahalai and Wilson, they both have like emphasized shelter in a way, especially Wilson, in a way that's been kind of politically unpopular in recent years. There has been a little bit of a political orthodoxy that building shelter takes away money from housing and housing is the root cause. And it is true that housing affordability is the root cause, but there's still tens of thousands of people who don't have any shelter or any. support system. So that is why there's like the big goal from Wilson about like building 4,000 units of shelter. I think Zahalai. put out like 500 units of shelter and housing within 500 days. So both of them have made like these bold commitments and I think are trying to use the point in time count to kind of justify their priorities. At the end of the day, it is true that housing affordability is the number one driver. And so as long as housing remains and continues to be unaffordable, preventing people from being evicted and falling into homelessness is the biggest issue. It seems like both of those leaders are trying to take this multi-pronged approach. And I guess by taking back some of these contracts, there will be more to play with for the city and county rather than having the KCHRA doing it. But I mean, Erica, you mentioned that your theory here is that this is step one of two of dismantling this agency that has been. Very scrutinized over the last few months. And I know a lot of local officials have been calling for that as well. You all both have been following this enough. Do you think that that's actually what should be done here? Yes, I do think that's what should be done. I mean, ultimately, I, you know, from the beginning, was not really in favor of creating the KCRHA because of the way it was created. And Mayor Wilson alluded to this in her remarks of the press conference on Wednesday. You know, it does not have any taxing authority. It was supposed to, you know, create a new policy framework for homelessness in the region on its own outside of the influence of elected officials. And I was supposed to rebid the entire homelessness system by, you know, a couple years ago now. That never happened for a whole host of reasons. But, you know, it was set up to fail. I mean, it was set up to become what it became, which is an administrative pass-through for all these contracts that the city and county are funding. And the city and county priorities just change with every elected leader.

And so, I mean, it was always just kind of this body. Those priorities were dictated by these politicians, which is not what it was supposed to be. It was supposed to come up with the best policy to address homelessness in the region. So, I mean, I think given that it never really had any power, it was set up to fail from the beginning. And so I do think it is probably time to shut it down. But I think that's not because the concept or regional agency wasn't a good one. It's just that we never really had a regional policymaking agency. I'm not sure if long-term KCRHA would be a good thing to keep around. But, you know, I could see it being a rump sort of vehicle, again, to manage the federal dollars. It does make sense to, like, bring a lot of those contracts back to the city and county level. A lot of these questions about... restructuring bureaucracy, you know, have kind of been distractions in some ways. And I think that's actually like a point that people have started to make, you know, in their postmortems about KCRHA in terms of it was initially centrist politicians like Durkin and. Dow Constantine, who wanted this regional agency. In some ways, that kind of distracted from calls to tax business, big businesses, and just accrue more resources to throw out the problem to really start to make a dent in providing more shelter and housing. And that was actually a question I asked, both Wilson and Zahelai, and they both took the opportunity to kind of agree with my analysis there. But at the end of the day, everyone wants to see tax dollars being spent more efficiently. I don't think anyone's system or bureaucracy will guarantee tax dollars are spent well. But I think having the public, the media, really put pressure on electives to deliver is the best way we're going to get towards. like a more efficient homelessness system that can help more people. Well, let's take a break. And when we come back, let's talk about the upcoming primary and the new slate of endorsements we're seeing.

The August primary is coming up fast now that it's July, and a new set of endorsements rolled in last week. Mayor Katie Wilson officially endorsed Hannah Savio Howell, who is running for the 43rd Legislative District Senate seat that's been held by Jamie Peterson since 2013. Wilson also endorsed Ron Davis, who's running for a 46th Legislative District House seat, challenging Jerry Pellett, who's been in that seat since 2011. There's a lot to dig into here. Let's start with the mayor's endorsements because I'm curious what you all think about what they reflect about her approach to these primaries. And also I'm curious what kind of sway does Wilson's endorsement actually have these days? I know a KOW headline frame this as Wilson waiting into a dem-on-dem fight days after Zohran Mamdani's picks won in New York. Do Wilson's picks have the same sway here? I don't think she has the same sway, but that's mainly because her first hundred days has been a lot messier and less coherent than what Zohran Mamdani's done. You know, Wilson kind of used the comparison to win the election, but now it's kind of coming back for the next four years, kind of going to haunt her a little bit where anything she does, she'll be compared to Zohran Mamdani. Yeah, inviting that comparison is a little bit of a double-edged sword, I imagine. Yeah, especially when he is a very talented politician and a great communicator. And she is not very good at staying on message sometimes. She's trying to build her own kind of allies, I think, at the state level. She doesn't really have, like, her own political home that is like DSA, for example, that Donnie has. So if this gamble does succeed, like she might have a couple of legislators that are close allies of her. Mm-hmm. Eric, what do you think? Well, I think that the characterization of this is like, you know, dim on dim violence or whatever. It's very telling that that is the way people are reacting to Katie Wilson sort of exercising her power, like as if how dare this mayor make endorsements that are aligned with the values that she espouses. I mean, mayors do that all the time. And we've had centrist mayors in the past and they've endorsed more centrist candidates. Now, those do happen to be incumbents generally. But, you know, I mean, Bruce Harrell waited in very heavily in our local elections for city council and made endorsements and supported candidates. And it wasn't considered, you know, some sort of scandal. I mean, you know, what is being a mayor for if not to exercise some power? Now, I don't think that people are necessarily swayed by endorsements by elected officials one way or another. I just, you know, people list those endorsements on their websites and. It's a one-day story in a lot of ways ordinarily. But I think this is a story because, you know, she's endorsing people that are upstarts and that are taking on incumbents and the incumbents are sort of lashing out. And, you know, Jerry Palette said something about, you know, this is burning a bridge. And to me, I just think, you know, grow up. Like Ham Sabio Howell is. more aligned probably with Katie Wilson's values and the things that she says she supports than Jamie Peterson. And same thing with Ron Davis. I mean, Ron Davis is an urbanist. Jerry Pollitt is not an urbanist in the same, you know, in the same way. And so, you know, I just, I think this is more of a media hype story, you know, than a story about a mayor doing something like Utre or inappropriate.

because she has every right to endure. I mean, it would be weird in some ways if she endorsed people that were less aligned with her stated values. I'm not saying she wouldn't because she's done lots of stuff that is, I would say, unaligned with the values that she ran on. But, you know, I mean, come on. She has every right to endorse the more progressive candidates, and I don't think it's a big deal or should come as a surprise. So, Erica, you obviously have been covering the ins and outs of the mayor's office quite a bit. And you recently have been reporting on some turnover in personnel in the mayor's office. I mean, I know your beat is basically to do the wonky reporting of just what is happening in those offices. But is that type of turnover normal and healthy? Or in this case, does it represent something else? I mean, it's interesting. There's always turnover and I do always report on it. I think a lot of times it reflects like, you know, mayors coming in and especially inexperienced mayors like Jenny Durkin was and Katie Wilson, you know, without. prior experience in political office. So, you know, they make adjustments. And I think that's happening, especially like on the policy level in Katie Wilson's shop. But I do think that the communications office, in particular, having so much turnover, you know, it reflects a lot of chaos that's going on there. And I think it also reflects people sort of thinking, you know, she hired a lot of campaign staff. and people who are sort of true believers. And I think that a lot of her policy decisions that she has made or decisions she's considered have really been out of step with what some people who work for her think they signed up for, if that makes sense. So like she was talking about, for example, you know, rolling back some of the tenant protections and the just cause ordinance that we've had on the book since the 80s. And no one has done that. I mean, Bruce Harold didn't do that, even though he was under pressure to do so. And she came very close. And I think that, you know, that turned a lot of heads in her office. You know, there's just the kind of the usual clashes between various factions within the office that are going on when she fired her communications director. And, you know, and they, framed it, I think, as, you know, a voluntary departure or something like that. But she was asked to leave. You know, I think that caused a lot of friction in the office because, you know, that person was very beloved. There's a lot of tension going on behind the scenes. And some of it's normal. I think some of it is like a reality check on, you know, who Katie Wilson actually is and what her values actually are. I think it's interesting to see. Some of her gaffs as well, like with the Starbucks. Last fall, she was like all gung-ho about the boycott and supporting the workers. And then she was like, oh, yeah, I'll break the boycott sometimes just because it's fun or something. That blueberry muffin latte. And it just shows like a lack of discipline and seriousness in some ways. Again, like also with the tenant thing, it's like.

She was very close to bowing down to a paper tiger that is the housing development consortium. They don't actually have that much real power. But they were like the only ones really pushing for some of these tenant rollbacks. And it is good to see that she didn't kind of fall for that. But that could have happened. And she could have used all her political capital just to like push a very unpopular compromise. Some of her instincts, I would say, are not the best in terms of politics and communications. Yes. Well, let's take a break, and we come back. Let's talk about the other slate of endorsements that came out this week from The Stranger. Wilson wasn't the only one that released endorsements this week. On Thursday, the stranger also released their endorsements for the August primary. And on Wednesday morning, the publication confirmed that its editor-in-chief Hannah Murphy Winter was out. That combination of events led the union representing stranger staff to post a statement acknowledging speculation about their endorsements, writing that, quote, we are confident in the integrity of the slate of endorsements and that the union takes newsroom independence very seriously. This feels like a very classic Seattle situation here. I am curious if you all have seen those endorsements, and if so... Were there any that stuck out to you? Well, the biggest one was Jamie Peterson. In contrast to Mayor Katie Wilson to endorse Peterson's opponent, Hannah Sabio Howell, a stranger endorsed Peterson. They also declined to endorse Ron Davis in the Jerry Pellette race up in the 46 and endorsed Will Dreher. I hope I'm saying his name right. That kind of surprised me, too. I mean, I can. sort of imagine how that went down. But yeah, there are a couple of surprises. And then, of course, like, as they're endorsing J.D. Peterson, they endorse Shama Sawant against Adam Smith for Congress. You know, Sawant, of course, the former city council member and militant socialist who has posters all over town promising free health care and, you know, trans rights for everyone, all kinds of stuff that I don't know that she actually has a platform to provide, but. you know, doing her usual thing of jumping in front of every parade. That's me editorializing a little bit there. But anyway, they endorsed her a very leftist candidate as well as Jamie Peterson, a centrist incumbent, which is interesting. I mean, two obviously different bodies of government, but perhaps a little ideologically inconsistent there. Yeah, you know, I honestly don't think it's that out of character for The Stranger. It seems like every other year there's like a bit of controversy because, you know, they're almost like a heuristic where 90 to 95% of their endorsements align with, you know, the general leftist consensus. But then they always make a couple of decisions. Like, I remember I was annoyed when they didn't endorse Nikita Oliver in 2017. Like, like they... There's always a couple of times where they'll just make decisions that are unpopular. It does feel like it's a classic move from the stranger to say, look, we know that there's a more leftist candidate here. And it seems like the obvious pick for us to go with that person. But we're going with the more establishment person because we think they can enact more change. I feel like I've seen that in several races.

But in this particular case, I know that there has been chatter about this because Jamie Peterson was a seatmate with Brady Walkinshaw, who is now one of the owners of the stranger leading to the speculation, which is why this union then put out this note. I'm curious what you all make of the timing of all of this and I guess also the full slate of endorsements here. You know, I mean, look, I've been on the Stranger editorial board, you know, a long time ago, admittedly, 15 years ago. But, and I think their process has changed quite a bit since then, probably, but. I will say, I don't think that that is true. I don't think that Brady Watkinshaw put his, you know, his thumb on the scale. You know, I don't even know that he likes David Peterson. I mean, so we can speculate, you know, that he would support that endorsement. He is not on the editorial board. He's not the publisher of the paper. And to my understanding, he is sort of disengaged right now because they are in the process of... you know, buying other paper in Alaska and, you know, making a bunch of moves all over the place to expand their company. So. You know, I think there is some integrity of the process, but I do, you know, and I will say, too, from what I understand, a lot of it really does depend on what happens in the room when people come in and if they are annoying or if they don't have good answers to questions or if they, you know, I mean, for all kinds of reasons, when they sit down with that editorial board in the room and make the case for themselves, if they do a bad job, they will not get the endorsement just based on my... reporting and sort of understanding the process, I really do believe that's what happened in these cases. You know, I know there's a conspiracy theory out there. I just don't think it's true in this case. Yeah, I mean, I thought it was very encouraging to see what the noisy union put out in terms of reassuring that it is like the union staff and the editorial staff did make the decision on their own. But I did find it a little unfortunate, you know, that they had let go, the editor-in-chief. the same week that these endorsements are coming out. That is probably why there's more speculation in discourse this time than previous rounds. But again, it's like, I think as journalists, we want everyone to look at multiple sources. Don't just rely on one slate of endorsements. Do your research. Make sure to cross-reference and don't let any one person or group be your Bible in terms of how you vote. I do think, though, that there is a subset of the city that does treat any set of endorsements as kind of their...

their list to check off, essentially. So I know after the November 2025 election, the New York Times ran a piece about the power of the stranger's endorsements. And I mean, I feel like this has been a conversation we've had in town for a long time. Like back in 2015, Cascade PBS, back when it was crosscut, ran a piece trying to suss out whether the Seattle Times or the stranger's endorsements had more sway. How do we see the strangers' endorsements? playing out in this particular upcoming primary. I mean, one thing that comes to mind for me is potentially splitting the vote for the primary. So the New York Times pointed out what happened when Ann Davison became our city attorney. The stranger had endorsed Nicole, Thomas Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and kind of split the vote between her and Pete Holmes. And I'm curious if we might see something like that again. I mean, I could certainly see that up in the 46th. You know, Dreher is getting some other endorsements from elected officials. And Ron Davis, who ran for city council unsuccessfully, but came very close to winning over Muritz-Rivera. Probably will lose some votes because of that. I'm sure he's pissed. So, yeah, I mean, I think that people often will just grab that sheet sheet out of the stranger and vote straight ticket in, you know, the races they can vote in. So I do think that, you know, they're very influential. It's interesting because they'll endorse in city races, for example. They don't have a lot of sort of political news coverage right now and haven't for a while. So. I find it interesting that, you know, a paper that is not deeply, deeply invested in covering these stories of the state legislature and of city council, you know, very closely in the non-election times is so incredibly influential about elections. It makes me question a little bit how I'm heavily informed their endorsements are, but, I mean, they're definitely better than the Seattle Times where, you know, the editorial board, like... constantly gets stuff wrong, like, you know, misses basic facts, apparently doesn't read its own paper and makes very confident endorsements in all kinds of races. But I agree with Guy. I mean, if you have the ability to do so, inform yourself on these races and do your own research. Are publicola or gossip guy going to be releasing any endorsements? Not anytime soon. But I will say, like, if people are upset with the stranger having this sort of monopoly, they should create their own endorsement system. I think the urbanist has one. There's other publications that do as well. And we've done endorsements in the past. Right now, it is mostly just me. So it would be more like, here's what Erica thinks. And I don't know that how useful that is to anybody. So yeah, we're not going to do endorsements this year. We'll revisit in the future.

Well, we'll see how that all plays out in the primary in August. And I'm sure that between now and then, we will only see the race get hotter and hotter as we come down to the final days. That's all for today here at CityCast, Seattle. Guy Run, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. And Erica C. Barnett, thank you for being here. Thank you. Listeners, don't go anywhere. Coming up, we have a sponsored interview with Chris Chappell, Brewshed Alliance Director at Washington Wild, talking about how over 100 Washington Breweries are fighting to protect the clean water that makes great beer possible. Hey, Jane here with Chris Chappell, Bruchette Alliance Director at Washington Wild. Chris, welcome to CityCast, Seattle. Thanks. So tell us about Washington Wilde and the Bruchette Alliance. What is it? And how did over 100 breweries end up in a conservation coalition together? Washington Wild is a conservation organization working Protect Forest and Rivers in Washington State. We were founded as a group that would bring together different stakeholders to put together wilderness packages. So wilderness is the strongest level protection land can get the federal level. One of my predecessors came up with the idea of like, hey, Western Washington has all of these awesome craft breweries. Maybe they'd be interested as folks who depend on clean water for their businesses. get involved. And we found that breweries were very enthusiastic about getting involved in these kinds of conservation efforts. So over the years, we've kind of expanded from breweries to include pubs, maltsters out on the east side, hop growers down in Yakima, distributors, kind of anything that touches the crap beer industry we've got involved in our coalition. And it's become pretty popular and it's over 100 strong today. So I know the core idea is that great beer depends on clean water. How does that connection actually play out for breweries while they're thinking about land and water protection? You mentioned, you know, like hop growers are part of this too. Yeah, so kind of the idea is that, you know, a lot of the work that Washington Wilde does is protecting these upstream values, places where our waterways come from, you know, wilderness areas up in the mountains for downstream users. Breweries, hop growers, act as a downstream user. So by helping to protect those upstream values, their clean water source is protected. We are so, so lucky to have such amazing water here in Washington, especially Western Washington. So it means that breweries don't have much to... they need to do to treat it. Hmm. So I know some of these breweries are literally brewing beers around specific conservation fights, like Fair Isle for the Skagit, Stoop for the Snake River dams. Can you walk us through a few of those? So old school house brewing in the Mettau Valley recently brewed a beer called Roadless Warrior to highlight the importance of the roadless rule that keeps roads in our national forest system. unroated. So if you don't have roads, you don't have logging, you don't have mining. And a lot of the land around the Metau, it's this incredible...

I'm your host, Jane C. Who? One more thing before we go. On Thursday's podcast, a contributor claimed that Washington State was founded by George Washington, the founder of the town of Centralia. But the state itself was named after the first president by the same name and does not have a singular founder. Until next week, see as Seattle.