After enduring a painful startup phase of the Regional Homelessness Authority (“RHA”), the nonprofits that build housing are worried about the effects of shutting down the agency.
Members of both the King County Council and the Seattle City Council have filed resolutions to shutter the RHA. While Councilmember Rod Dembowski believes he has the votes to pass it through the King County Council, its fate in the Seattle City Council is less clear.
Nonprofit leaders fear that the solution could prove to be as bad as the current RHA problems. Derrick Belgarde, executive director of Chief Seattle Club, remembers the pain of the RHA startup, “It was brutal, and we just can’t, we can’t go through that again.”
As Lisa Daugaard, co-executive director at the nonprofit Purpose Dignity Action agrees, “We need a path from here that’s not as ill-considered as the formation of KCRHA was.”
With no real clarity of what would replace the RHA, the path forward is uncertain. As Alison Eisinger, executive director of the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness explained, “Saying ‘shut it down’ is simplistic . . . This is not a game, nor is it a situation to be used to score political points.”
