How a regional homelessness board became so dysfunctional

In May, the King County Regional Homelessness Authority’s Continuum of Care board made the news for its dysfunction. But some current and former members say problems have been there for years. Since 2021, 11 of the board’s 19 members have left.

Building a good team is difficult. You need people to support each other, to work together. And, maybe most importantly, to know the group's mission and how to work together to achieve that goal.

For the King County Regional Homelessness Authority’s Continuum of Care Board, that’s supposed to mean convening people with who have experienced homelessness to help make decisions about one of King County’s biggest issues — the growing homeless population.

But things have not been going smoothly.

In May, the board met to consider new applicants. One of those applicants is a convicted sex offender.

"One of the sitting board members, Kristina Sawyckyj, raised concerns about that, and said that that applicant had touched her inappropriately as well," explains Seattle Times homelessness reporter Greg Kim. "And at that point, the board co-chair started shouting at Ms. Sawyckyj, saying that she had no right to out anyone in this space."

Kim, who has been covering the board's eruptions and setbacks, said some board members feel they’ve been left to flounder.

"What they've said is that they've received basically no training on how this board fits in with the rest of the Regional Homelessness Authority," he said.

Board members also told Kim they're unsure what they're meant to be doing, what their mandate is, or what they have the authority to change.

And while last month's meeting received more attention than normal, dysfunction and derailment is not unusual for the board.

"A lot of board members said that most meetings were derailed," Kim said, "that most meetings were taken over by rants or complaints that weren't necessarily on the agenda."

The Continuum of Care Board is one of three for which the King County Regional Homelessness Authority provides administrative support. The board doesn't run the organization, but it does oversee a federal funding process that brings in more than $50 million in homelessness funding to the Regional Homelessness Authority.

"So this is an important board," Kim said.

After the board's May meeting, the Homelessness Authority asked the board co-chair to resign.

The Homelessness Authority also clarified that they do provide some training for board members. But they have acknowledged that hasn't been enough.

"What the Regional Homelessness Authority was doing with this board wasn't working, and so they're making changes," Kim said.

Those changes include new staff that are meant to liaison with board members and the Authority, more trainings, and a more comprehensive onboarding process for new board members.

This board pre-dates the creation of the Homelessness Authority two years ago, but Kim said the board's composition has changed significantly in those two years.

"It's gone from being mostly elected officials and leaders of service provider organizations to now being mostly composed of homeless or formerly homeless people," he said.

Advocates say it's important to have people with lived experience on boards like these, because only they have experienced and used the homelessness system. They understand it and can point out its flaws.

"Basically everybody is in agreement that that is an important perspective," Kim said. "But many people also agree that there's still the perspectives of service providers, of elected officials, of other organizations, hospital systems, that are important to include on this table."

The Continuum of Care Board voted in new members last Friday, and Kim said they're going to be busy, jumping straight into a federal funding application for more than $50 million.

Kim said he plans to keep an eye on how that new board is doing — if the funding application runs smoothly, if meetings are functional, and, most importantly, if members feel like they're being informed about what's happening.