The Right Time is Right Now: Seattle's Homelessness Budget is Being Decided
...260 days to go...
Giving our money and our time are the most obvious ways to help the homeless. But for many of us, if done at the right time, local political involvement is a way to make a bigger impact in less time.
The good news? The right time is right now. Both Seattle and King County will be finalizing their 2026 budgets by mid-November, and of course, city and state elections are only two weeks away, on November 4th.
Local government spends at least ~$500M on preventing and solving homelessness in Seattle. There’s more than a few assumptions here, but the basic idea is:
King County Regional Homelessness Authority (2025): ~$125M. The KCRHA aligns services for homeless people across King County. The Authority’s 2025 budget is $207M. Given Seattle has 56% of King County’s homeless population, it’s reasonable to believe this spend is disproportionately allocated to our city as well.
Seattle Human Services Department (2025): $~150-250M. The total HSD budget is $385M for 2025. $139M is directly allocated to the homelessness response, but there’s also $26M for public health, $26M for food & nutrition, and another $130M that includes things like family support programs, so depending on how you define “solving homelessness” it could be anywhere from $150-250M.
Seattle Office of Housing (2025): $170M. This money is for investments in affordable housing in the form of low-interest loans. So it’s not spending per se, but definitely supports new housing units.
With about 500K voters in Seattle, that works out to about $1,000 of spending per voter, just by local government1.
That’s a lot of coin being spent on our behalf. And, given many citizens are understandably busy and not that politically involved, a small number of voices (at least relative to the number of voters) can make a big difference. For instance, when Seattle Public Schools announced a plan to close 20 elementary schools in 2024, a modest but determined group of students and parents changed their minds: about 300 protested outside SPS headquarters, and 116 people joined the waitlist for the comment period at one SPS school board meeting.
So now I’m speaking directly to readers based in Seattle or King County (though I suspect those in different locations have similar opportunities if they want to do their own research). I’m currently aware of two opportunities to influence local politics to help the homeless that I think are well worth your time:
Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI) Letter Writing Campaign: LIHI develops, owns, and operates over 3,800 affordable housing units in the broader Seattle area. They are currently calling on the City of Seattle to add $10 million to the budget for tenant-based rental assistance. If adopted, this change would almost double rent-based assistance in the Human Services Department budget to $21.4M, from $11.4M. According to Seattle Housing Authority (another low-income housing provider) in 2024, 23% of tenants were behind on rent, a threefold increase over four years. If that percentage is still accurate, that’s about 3,900 Seattle Housing Authority tenants and 1,000 LIHI tenants, not to mention tenants of other affordable housing providers. Write a letter supporting their ask here.
King County Coalition on Homelessness Letter Writing Campaign: The coalition, which advocates for housing justice in King County, is advocating for Seattle and King County governments to backfill funds for supportive housing and rapid re-housing that the Federal Government has historically provided, but which the Trump administration is planning to withhold or reallocate in 2026. As the coalition points out, if these funds are withheld it will result in the loss of housing assistance for 170K people nationally. The coalition estimates approximately $67M in funds will be withheld from King County: while the campaign is not necessarily asking for a dollar-for-dollar backfill of that $67M, it is demanding a plan to ensure thousands of our neighbors who will be affected will stay housed. Write a letter supporting their ask here.
One thing I’ve learned writing this blog is that it is much more expensive (and vastly less humane) to provide people with a pathway out of homelessness than it is to help them avoid becoming homeless in the first place. Both of these campaigns speak to opportunities for just such an intervention.
Thus, if you live in King County, I’d ask you to take just a few minutes right now and write a thoughtful email to your elected representatives on either or both of the above campaigns. I’ve already written mine. The number of letters the organizations are hoping to send is quite small (100 for LIHI and 800 for the Coalition), so your involvement really should make a big difference.
As of right now, LIHI needs only 74 more signatures to meet its goals and the Coalition needs only 173 more. Let’s make a big push and move the needle on those numbers!
In a few weeks, budgets will be locked for 2026. If we don’t collectively act right now, we won’t have another opportunity like this for 12 months. And by that time, for many of our unstably housed and formerly homeless neighbors, it may already be too late. They may be back on the street.
The Federal and State Government spend a whole lot on Seattle’s homeless problem as well (~$100-150M on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, $100-150M on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, $100-150M on Housing Choice Vouchers, $15-20M on Women, Infant and Child Nutrition, and perhaps $1-2B on Medicaid). However, I don’t currently have any great ideas, or at least any great EASY ideas, on how to influence this spending, so I’m not going to focus on it here
This is very good work you are doing very proud