SEATTLE — King County and Seattle officials kicked off Wednesday the launching of the newly formed Housing Command Center (HCC), a new approach to help end homelessness in downtown Seattle and throughout King County.
The King County Regional Homelessness Authority's (KCRHA) HCC is an emergency management system run by representatives from various groups and is a part of the Partnership for Zero initiative, which was announced earlier this year.
The HCC, with assistance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), will focus on permanently housing people. HCC will have authority over resources and be able to facilitate coordinated emergency response, which is modeled after the federal government's response to natural disasters, according to KCRHA.
KCRHA said HCC is focused on three things: identifying available housing units, identifying eligible households, and matching households to units with support from outreach workers, also known as system advocates.
KCRHA CEO Marc Dones said the HCC has already identified 300 units of available housing and to date has engaged with over 650 people. Dones said HCC will continue to work until it has close to 1,000 units available.
"We have done that by you know, again, deploying our system advocate team, they have done incredible work, really incredible work, they have worked swing shifts into the night, early morning, to ensure that we are connecting with every single person who is unsheltered in our downtown core, in [the Chinatown-International District] CID areas," said Dones. "Homelessness is a housing problem, right? And so connecting with people and building relationships is the infrastructure to help get folks inside."
Dones said HCC is beginning with housing unsheltered people living in downtown Seattle and the CID, focusing on five major encampments. Outreach specialists will engage with people who are unsheltered, getting their input on housing preferences to match them with available apartments.
"We believe that choice has been one of the missing needs from the system," Dones said. "A deeply paternalistic system, a system that says this has to work for you, and what we have built into how we talk to people is, what do you want? Where do you want to live?"
HCC is jointly led by KCRHA, the Washington State Lived Experience Coalition (WSLEC), the City of Seattle, King County, and We Are In with support from HUD.
The WSLEC is a collective of people who are or have been unsheltered, and Dones said their input was invaluable to understanding what would and would not work for King County. Maria Arns, a member of the WSLEC, says she was working as a nurse when she had an accident at work that led to a series of losses.
"I didn't just lose my career, I lost my home, my ability to care for my family, my son even had to drop out of college, so we let other people know- all of our stories are different but we've been there," Arns said. "There's no judgment."
Leaders underscored the use of a "housing first" model, which aims to get people off the streets and into safe housing as soon as possible, then focuses on their other needs. Dones said input by Arns and other WSLEC members emphasized the importance of eliminating barriers like unnecessary documentation and empowering neighbors in finding them placement.
"People look at you as less than; we need to let people know, you aren't- you're everything you're supposed to be," Arns said. "This is a bump in the road- a huge bump- but we lock arms and we walk with you. We'll walk with you, but we're not gonna push you, we're not gonna drag you. Because you have to be ready, and you have to know your truth."