Dozens of staff from the King County Regional Homelessness Authority who were hired partly because of their experience with homelessness are now facing the prospect again after being laid off. Some who had to choose between a housing voucher and the job now have neither.
A year and a half ago, the Regional Homelessness Authority began Partnership for Zero, an effort to end homelessness in downtown Seattle and Chinatown International District. Instead of contracting with nonprofit organizations to provide services as it normally does, the authority hired more than 30 direct service providers to meet with people on the street and navigate them through the housing process.
Nearly all of those new employees were either experiencing homelessness or had experienced it in the past. In its September announcement that Partnership for Zero would be ending, the Regional Homelessness Authority referred to it as a “pilot” program. However, in job postings and offer letters to systems advocates, the authority did not refer to it as such or mention the job could be temporary.
“It was never ever even in the conversation about a pilot program or temporary,” said Lisa Byoune, 42, a former systems advocate.
Some, like Byoune, had to choose between getting a housing voucher, which would subsidize a large portion of their rent, or the job. Others made life changes based on a wage much higher than the industry average. They are now worried what will happen.
Adam Rice, 47, quit his job as a homelessness worker in Los Angeles and moved up to Seattle in December and has a lease he’s on the hook for until March.
Savannah Jacobsen, 48, who was homeless until 2019, let her federal Section 8 housing voucher expire a week before the layoffs because her pay as a systems advocate would not have allowed her to keep it. The authority is assisting her to try to get it back.
“I literally just gave up my housing voucher because you guys told me we were getting to keep going,” Jacobsen said.
Authority interim CEO Helen Howell declined an interview about the layoffs, but admitted the agency had made mistakes communicating to employees about the program.
King County Regional Homelessness Authority “leadership should have been more clear from the beginning about the trajectory of the pilot, and more conservative about predictions for the future,” Howell wrote in a statement. “As an agency, we have to recognize that winding down this program does cause harm to the systems advocates team, and we have to take responsibility for that.”
The authority has rehired 15 of the 38 employees affected by the layoffs into temporary positions to wind down the Partnership for Zero program or other positions, and said it is working to help former employees get new jobs and reconnect them to their housing vouchers or other assistance programs they were a part of before working at the authority.
“The dissolution of this program is beyond disappointing,” wrote Karen Estevenin, executive director of PROTEC17, the union for authority employees. “This unfortunate decision underscores the importance of fully funding and supporting direct service public programs that do not rely on continually fluctuating donors and donations.”
Byoune, who has been in and out of homelessness throughout her life, was hired as a systems advocate for the Partnership for Zero project in May.
Just before that, while Byoune was between jobs and about to lose her housing, she was approved for temporary rental assistance in the form of a rapid-rehousing voucher.
When the Regional Homelessness Authority offered her a job, they told her she couldn’t accept both the voucher and the job because the agency administers rapid rehousing vouchers and it would be a conflict of interest.
Byoune said she was faced with the most difficult decision she has ever made.
“I really felt my housing was more important, but I had to provide,” Byoune said. “I did what I thought I was supposed to do as a single mom — take the job and figure it out as I go.”
Making $80,000 a year, she was able to pay for a two-bedroom apartment for her and her 15-year-old daughter in West Seattle. But in less than five months after she started, the authority shut down the Partnership for Zero program.
The project was slow to show results. After more than a year and moving about 230 people inside out of more than 900 identified in the area, the authority announced the project would shut down at the end of September. Authority officials said funding — mostly supplied by philanthropic foundations — had run out and that the authority wanted to concentrate on its administrative functions rather than being a direct service provider.
Philanthropic donors who funded the program indicated that they were not asked for the rest of their promised money.
The authority gave Byoune three weeks’ notice and no severance pay. The authority is providing four months of health coverage to the staff who were laid off.
Originally faced with a decision between a housing voucher and a job, Byoune was left without either and $2,200 per month in rent.
Byoune said she would not have taken the job had the Regional Homelessness Authority communicated there was a possibility that the program could be terminated within months of her starting.
Byoune is behind on her rent. She has applied for unemployment and told her bank and utilities companies she won’t be able to make full payments on time. She has been told she is no longer eligible for the rapid rehousing voucher because she is housed and has a lease that runs through March. But she fears with bills piling up, she’ll be homeless again.