Seattle mayor to announce new homeless strategy

SEATTLE — Seattle Mayor Ed Murray plans to use the release this week of two reports by homelessness consultants as a springboard to announce a new, long-term strategy to address the problem.

The mayor and King County Executive Dow Constantine proclaimed states of emergency in November to address what they called a homelessness crisis.

They allocated several million dollars in emergency funding beyond the more than $70 million the city and county had already budgeted to help the homeless this year, with mixed results.

The Seattle Times reports that now that the year is drawing to a close and Murray is preparing a new budget, the mayor will seek to overhaul the city’s spending on homeless services and the system that delivers those services, which for years has been characterized by a slew of nonprofit organizations doing many different things.

During a City Council briefing Tuesday, Councilmember Sally Bagshaw said she had read the two reports and said they recommend the city provide more housing to people living without shelter.

One report will come from Barbara Poppe, a nationally known expert who ran the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness for President Obama until 2014. Poppe has an $80,000 contract to develop new spending priorities for the city.

The other report has been completed by Focus Strategies, a California-based firm with a principal, Katharine Gale, who spent time with Poppe at the Interagency Council.