Without the right leader, King County’s homelessness crisis will not subside

The King County Regional Homelessness Authority has been quiet lately.

That could be because the organization tasked with pooling funding and implementing a coordinated strategy to reduce the number of people living unsheltered across the region has been without a leader since May, when former Chief Executive Marc Dones resigned.

Back in July, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the formation of a committee to lead the search for a new permanent CEO. According to Harrell’s news release at the time, final candidates were expected to be interviewed in December, with a decision on a new CEO by early 2024.

That timeline didn’t happen. While Harrell and others on the search committee should be conscious of missing deadlines, it is important that they find the right person for this job.

The authority clearly made missteps since its inception in 2019. It had trouble getting its administrative functions in order, and service providers went unpaid. Its signature project to house every person living unsheltered in downtown Seattle — which was intended to be duplicated in communities across the region — failed.

The effort included setting up a Command Center, hiring outreach workers, focusing on a defined geographic location, working with private landlords to find housing and creating a by-name list of those living on the streets.

In the end, about 1,000 people were on the by-name list. The RHA reported that 231 people were housed, at a cost of $5.5 million to philanthropic donors and $2.2 million to taxpayers.

According to the RHA, the search firm hired to find a new CEO will have a job description nailed down by the end of the month. It will advertise the position in early January. The firm expects to have a slate of candidates to present to the search committee in March 2024.

It may be too much to hope that local political powers could land someone like John Stanford, the Seattle Public Schools superintendent recruited here in 1995. The retired U.S. Army major general had no education experience but captured the city’s imagination with audacious proposals such as tougher academic standards, a communitywide “reading offensive,” and empowerment of principals. He died of leukemia in 1998 as student test scores continued to edge up for the third year in a row.

Three months from a job posting to vetted candidates is an aggressive timeline. The RHA may need to bring in additional temporary help if interim CEO Helen Howell leaves before a permanent replacement is found. It would benefit the region to have a transitory leader who understood the county’s Byzantine politics and strong personalities, setting the stage for future success.

Whoever succeeds Dones, that person must ensure the RHA nails the basics, gets more bang for the buck and gathers community goodwill to focus on downtown Seattle.

Without those building blocks, meaningful progress on homelessness will be impossible.