King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn
was able to get the support he needed to use $100,000 in supplemental
budget funding to purchase bus tickets meant to reunify people
experiencing homelessness with their families.
Dunn celebrated his funding victory for
his “one-way bus ticket program” on his campaign website on
Wednesday.
“For months now, I have been fighting
against Seattle’s failed homelessness policies with my own common
sense solutions — like my controversial one-way bus ticket program
to reunify the homeless with their families outside the state,” a
portion of a campaign email reads.
The King County councilmember had been
seeking $1 million to use toward buying bus tickets for people
experiencing homelessness, closer to what San Diego spends on its
Homeward Bound program. Dunn’s amendment dedicates $100,000 in
funding included for Family Reunification Services through the
Housing, Homelessness and Community Development department toward
“ground transportation options and other services that promote
family reunification.” Funding will also cover assessing and
reporting on whether the program is successful.
Dunn’s own proposed Homeward Bound
program, which will be worked out with the King County Executive’s
office, is still being developed to take all family reunification
services offered by the county and put them under one program.
King County Councilmember Claudia
Balducci said she supported the amendment so long as it worked as
intended, providing people experiencing homelessness with a way to
reunify with family members and connect to housing.
“It was important to me that the
program be voluntary, that it be about providing services to
stabilize, and that we care in terms of this reporting back that we
see that it’s working,” she said, “that this isn’t just
moving people around, that it’s helping people to move on in a
healthy way.”
King County Council chair Rod Dembowski
opposed the amendment, saying he felt the funds could be put to
better use in addressing needed homelessness services.
Lauren McGowan, senior director for
Ending Homelessness and Poverty at United Way of King County, issued
a statement for the nonprofit on Nov. 20 that encouraged the King
County Council to reconsider. She said the $100,000 would be better
spent through an existing regional diversion system.
“One of the biggest needs in our
community is to have more funding for diversion, which is a housing
solution program that gets people quickly off the street and into
housing,” Gowan told Queen Anne News.
United Way of King County spends about
$2 million a year helping people with housing debt, rental assistance
and move-in costs, Gowan said, and about $35,000 is spent providing
people with transportation to reunite with family and friends.
As Dunn argued on Nov. 20, the county
spends about $37,000, across five programs, for family reunification,
and the budget will now be nearly triple that number.
King County’s 2019 Count Us In survey
of people experiencing homelessness found 9 percent of respondents
wanted family reunification support, or 1,000 of the county’s
11,000 people living unhoused. Seventy-five percent identified rental
assistance and more affordable housing was the support they needed to
obtain permanent housing.
That same survey found that 84 percent
of respondents were living in King County at the time they lost their
housing.
Gowan said a worst-case scenario is
that funding earmarked for bus tickets goes unused when it could have
been invested into a central diversion fund available to multiple
agencies across the region.
“We think that’s the best strategy
for this investment and would still allow some of those dollars to go
to what the councilman thinks is a good strategy and help people get
connected as quickly as possible with the housing that’s
appropriate for them,” Gowan said.