SEATTLE — The King County Regional Homelessness Authority added room for 353 people to sleep indoors during this month’s frigid stretch of weather. It wasn’t enough, the authority says.
Churches and nonprofits running cold-weather shelters squeezed in dozens of people over their capacity; some opened additional spaces with their own funding.
Still, it’s believed that four of the seven people who died of hypothermia from Jan. 11 to 17 were homeless, according to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office. That count could change in the days to come.
The authority says that adequate refuge for the thousands of people living outdoors will cost much more than Seattle, King County and North King County cities have provided.
The authority has a little more than $600,000 to spend on severe-weather aid for this year, according to Anne Martens, spokesperson for the Homelessness Authority.
“We know from previous years that we can probably expect extreme heat,” Martens said. “We can probably expect some wildfire smoke. We may have more cold snaps.”
The authority is still waiting for invoices to find out how much of their severe-weather budget is left.
The city of Seattle gave the authority $529,236 to cover all severe-weather activations for 2024, Martens said. The money can only be spent in Seattle.
Five North King County cities are providing slightly more than $100,000 for a severe-weather shelter serving North King County residents.
King County said it gave the authority $50,000 in 2022 to cover two years of severe weather.
“Is it enough? Of course not,” Martens said.
And Martens said authority officials can’t pull money from a different place in their multimillion — dollar budget because the vast majority of funding is earmarked for specific projects.
Tiffany Washington, deputy mayor of Seattle, said if the other 38 cities in King County contributed to this work and offered to help, it could make a big difference in saving lives.
“If every city across King County opened one facility, such as their City Hall, during severe weather events, our region could help more people and also take action toward a true regional commitment to addressing homelessness,” Washington said in a written statement Friday.
A spokesperson for Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office said it hasn’t decided if it will propose an increase to the severe-weather budget.
In addition to limited funding, there are even more cracks in King County’s homelessness severe-weather response.
The Regional Homelessness Authority is aiming to take over all severe-weather responses for the region within five years. So far, neither South King County nor the Eastside contribute money to the authority and haven’t signed over operations for their homeless services, so they remain in charge of activating their own severe-weather shelters.
The authority can’t tell cities to open extra shelter, Martens said. Instead, “our South King subregional planner gets on the phone and on email and reaches out to every single service provider in every single city and says, ‘We are activating. Are you going to activate?’ “ Martens said.
During January’s cold snap, six additional cities chose to open their own severe-weather spaces — some had beds, others did not — adding slightly more than 200 spaces.
Most were full or well above capacity.
Seattle’s Exhibition Hall hosted 267 people, its highest, on Jan. 14.
In South King County, which has a growing homeless population and limited shelter, most severe-weather shelters exceeded their advertised capacity. Burien’s shelter reported 96 guests Jan. 14, according the Regional Homelessness Authority. It had capacity for 50.
Federal Way’s severe-weather shelter said it could hold 14 people but fit 35 on one of the toughest days, Jan. 14. That same day, Renton’s emergency shelter took in 72, despite being listed as able to hold up to 40 people, according to data provided by the Homelessness Authority.
Sharon Lee, executive director with the Low Income Housing Institute, said the nonprofit offered to open a severe-weather shelter in North Seattle for around $9,000, but the authority officials told her they didn’t have the funding to pay for it.
She and her team decided to add 25 severe-weather beds to its shelter in Bitter Lake — paying for this out of pocket — and by Jan. 15, they had 20 people staying there.
“The [Homelessness Authority’s] priorities are misaligned and as a result more vulnerable people living outside will die from severe hypothermia,” Lee, who is consistently critical of the authority, said in an email Friday.
Jay Anderson, 63, died in his vehicle, his makeshift home, next to his dog, Frankie, outside the Ballard branch of the Seattle Public Library, according to reporting by KUOW.
A 37-year-old man froze to death on the edge of Freeway Park in downtown Seattle.
Another died yards away from a permanent supportive housing site in South Seattle that helps people exit homelessness.
A fourth hypothermia death of someone presumed to be homeless was reported Friday. It occurred Jan. 13 in SeaTac.
Kate Cole, spokesperson for Public Health — Seattle & King County, said more deaths could be identified, as medical examiner investigations and death reporting take time.
The authority activated Tier 3 — its highest — of severe-weather protocols from Jan. 10 to the morning of Jan. 18.
Before temperatures dipped into the teens, the authority said it would add 120 beds at the Seattle Center’s Exhibition Hall and 33 beds at an existing Salvation Army shelter in Seattle. It also opened 20 spaces at a new severe-weather shelter in Shoreline.
The authority directed an additional 180 shelter beds to open in Exhibition Hall, raising the total to 353. But it took days to get there.
More than 7,600 were estimated to be living outside in King County during the 2022 Point-in-Time Count.
Authority officials said even if they tried to open more spaces, nonprofits that run these spaces couldn’t staff them adequately.
But the Salvation Army, the sole organization contracted to operate severe-weather shelters in Seattle, disagrees with this assessment.
Sara Beksinski, spokesperson for the Salvation Army, said the organization was unaware of additional vacant buildings and didn’t decline requests to operate new sites.
“We accepted all offers that were provided,” Beksinski said.
Seattle’s severe-weather contract had been shared with the Compass Housing Alliance, but Compass President Michael Bailey said that staffing shortages and limited resources made it difficult for the group to commit to the work this year.
He said that the Homelessness Authority’s severe-weather response has improved over time. He suggested, however, that a winter-weather shelter running for several months with a set schedule, funding and staffing could help take the pressure off other service providers and first responders.
The city of Seattle and the Low Income Housing Institute seconded the idea, saying it might be time to rethink winter-weather shelter options across King County.
But other homelessness leaders, including Mary’s Place’s interim CEO, Dominique Alex, said we shouldn’t just care what happens when the weather turns to snow or freezing temperatures. We should be working to add more shelter and housing to our county year-round, regardless of the conditions outside.
“If we had solutions to keep families housed and provide enough shelter and outreach year-round, severe weather solutions wouldn’t be needed,” Alex said via email last week.
Alison Eisinger, executive director of the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness, agreed that people should take issue with thousands being forced to survive in subfreezing temperatures outdoors.
“However, you should be appalled 365 days a year and not just when the temperature dips,” she said.
