(The Center Square) – Mayor Katie Wilson unveiled a new homelessness strategy on Wednesday, citing similar initiatives in Denver and Houston as evidence that she can deliver results for Seattle taxpayers.
Denver reduced unsheltered homelessness by 63.6% from 2023 to 2026, from 1,423 individuals down to 518. Unsheltered homelessness fell 23.3% in the Houston metro area, from 1,656 in 2020 to 1,270 this year. Just last February, Wilson said “well over 4,000” homeless people are unsheltered in Seattle.
“Make no mistake: That is the kind of striking progress that we are going to make here in the Emerald City,” Wilson said, alluding to the reductions in both cities from increased coordination with providers.
The mayor announced a plan with the Downtown Seattle Association, three city council members and local service providers to expand an ongoing pilot program in Pioneer Square called Streets to Housing.
The plan includes increasing coordination with service providers the city has contracted with for years as homelessness has increased in Seattle, which she blamed on poor coordination across the system.
Across King County, unsheltered homelessness grew 54% from 2022 to 2026, totaling 11,829 people.
The self-described socialist already fell short of plans to add 500 shelter beds by the World Cup in June and July, and now she has pushed her goal of adding 1,000 beds during her first year in office to 2027.
“I imagine that many of you who’ve covered this … are coming in with some amount of skepticism and cynicism,” DSA President Jon Scholes told reporters. “Whatever skepticism, cynicism you come in with, and whatever skepticism … your readers and viewers have around these issues, is fair and warranted.”
The Streets to Housing pilot involved DSA, the Downtown Emergency Service Center, REACH, Purpose Dignity Action and LEAD Seattle. Scholes said Wilson brought providers, government and businesses together to move people off the streets in Pioneer Square; now her administration wants to expand.
Wilson said of the 80 unsheltered individuals contacted during the pilot outreach, 70 entered shelter or housing. Of those people contacted, she said about 47% had been homeless for more than three years, 77% suffered from addiction or mental illness and 16% of them were senior citizens.
“What’s also new is that this [plan] brings us into alignment with the nationally recognized Community Solutions Framework, which has been used successfully in cities across the country,” Wilson explained, “… quite simply, we are doing what works for everyone else. This is a commitment to common sense.”
When asked what went wrong with her goal of 500 shelter beds by June and why the taxpayers should trust her this time, Wilson told The Center Square she sped up the process, but that it still takes time.
“So there’s just a lot of work that goes into standing up new shelters, and we are moving as fast as possible,” she responded. “We’re going to be opening almost 1,000 new units by the end of next year.”
Much of the expansion centers on a “By-Name List,” which identifies everyone unsheltered in a given area so providers can offer coordinated services rather than housing through a disconnected system.
Wilson proposed another $18 million last month for shelter services in 2027, bringing total ongoing homelessness spending up to $183 million. With $19 million in existing funds and reallocations, she’ll have $37 million after expanded investment to fund her 1,000-bed goal, if the city council approves.
Denver spent an estimated $178.1 million from 2023 to 2025 on its House1000 and All In Mile High plans, moving folks into hotels and tiny homes. Houston and Harris County announced $165 million in phased commitments in 2020 and 2022 for their own Community-Wide COVID-19 Housing Program.
Eric Zimmerman, the Washington Policy Center’s policy director for public safety solutions, told The Center Square that a key difference between Seattle and Houston and Denver is enforcement.
Both cities prohibit public camping, with felony drug possession laws in Texas and a felony track for repeat possession in Colorado. He called the mayor’s new homelessness strategy “another empty Seattle announcement” for parents with children, young or old, who are dying from drug addiction.
When asked whether the new plan would increase police citations or encampment removals, Wilson said the city would keep removing encampments at about the same pace as before she took office.
She did not directly address whether citations would increase after a reporter cited Denver as a city that relied on camping bans and related laws to clear encampments and move people into shelters.
“Without enforced separation from drug use and prohibition of the encampments where drug-dealing and drug deaths often occur, Seattle’s new strategy will cost lives, whether in a tent or in a LEAD apartment,” Zimmerman argued Wednesday. “I picture the parents worried for their slow-dying child.”