King County homelessness authority says it is shifting to data-driven role and warns of federal funding risk

Dr. Kelly Kinison, chief executive officer of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, told the Lake Forest Park City Council on May 8 that the agency is pivoting from direct service delivery toward a data- and policy-focused role while continuing to run the region’s emergency homelessness response system.

Kinison said KCRHA’s 2025 budget is about $206 million, with roughly one-third federal funding, “a little over half” from the City of Seattle and about a quarter from King County. She told the council the agency administers federal, county, municipal and philanthropic dollars and “we cannot levy taxes.”

The shift away from providing direct services, Kinison said, leaves KCRHA focused on three core functions: administering crisis-response funding, monitoring and evaluating program performance, and providing research and technical assistance to jurisdictions and providers. “We will always hold our values of equity and social justice,” she said. “But I think the working with folks to take the next step, to understand the data, to understand what’s working is much better in partnership than sort of in friction.”

Kinison described recent operational improvements: a new Salesforce-based grants and case-management system, a quarterly public data dashboard that had been offline, updated program and training guides for providers, and an enhanced inventory tool intended to show available shelter and housing resources in real time. She said those infrastructure changes are intended to improve transparency and timely payments to frontline providers.

Kinison also highlighted KCRHA’s coordination role during severe-weather activations: over the winter the agency activated tiers of response that produced 15,400 bed nights and more than 8,000 meals, and the agency staged daily subregional huddles and an updated severe-weather webpage to keep partners and the public informed.

On funding risks, Kinison told the council that a change to Department of Housing and Urban Development contract templates — including provisions tied to gender-identity-related restrictions and a proposed federal immigration-eligibility verification system — prompted legal review and pushback from continuums of care nationwide. She said King County obtained a temporary restraining order that will pause enforcement of some contract provisions while litigation proceeds and that KCRHA and providers are doing contingency planning in case federal reimbursements are delayed or withheld. “Not getting those funds would be really devastating for our community,” Kinison said.

Council members asked about KCRHA’s role with school districts, youth-focused initiatives and the agency’s staffing and budget trajectory as it transitions away from direct services. Kinison said KCRHA is in early conversations about youth efforts such as “Built for Zero” coordination models, and that the agency’s head count was “just under a hundred staff” as of her presentation. She described the agency’s administrative budget at about 7.9% and said KCRHA is working to tighten grant management and billing practices to reduce late payments to contractors.

Kinison said the authority intends to keep its values but be “a center of excellence” for data, research and best practices — offering jurisdictions technical analysis of policy options and connecting cities to proven programs. She asked cities to treat KCRHA as a partner for planning, data, and administrative support rather than as a direct-service provider.

The council did not take formal action on KCRHA’s presentation.

Why this matters: local jurisdictions rely on KCRHA for coordinating emergency shelter, severe-weather activations and regional data; potential federal funding disruptions could affect provider cash flow and shelter capacity in the months ahead.