(The Center Square) - As the homeless population continues to rise in the Seattle metro area, a lack of available housing and permissive drug use is making the problem even worse.
King County’s homeless population grew by 9% over the last two years, according to the latest Point-In-Time count data released by the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.
The KCRHA snapshot estimates the total number of people experiencing homelessness in the region, anchored by Seattle, is now 18,365, up from 16,868 in 2024.
The pace of growth, however, slowed from 2022 to 2024, a fact that KCHRA officials attributed to evidence of progress, even though they say much remains to be done.
"While homelessness continues to grow, this increase is substantially smaller than the 26 percent increase observed between 2022 and 2024," KCHRA said in a recent news release.
William Towey, associate deputy of strategy at the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, told the authority’s board Friday that the homeless are finding housing.
“A lot of people are coming in and successfully exiting, but the inflow continues to grow,” he said.
Towey attributed the continuing flow of the homeless to the lack of affordable housing in expensive King County and Seattle.
But Andreas Suarez, executive director of We Heart Seattle, a community organization focused on homelessness, said the real issue is that there are no requirements for drug treatment for the drug-addicted homeless, creating a revolving door policy that sees them in and out of shelters.
“Drugs are the real anchor keeping people on the streets: fentanyl, meth, and open use with zero consequences trap service-resistant individuals in addiction and chaos, blocking any meaningful path to treatment or self-sufficiency,” she said.
“Seattle and King County’s permissive policies have turned our city into a magnet, drawing people from surrounding areas that are finally enforcing basic rules against camping and dealing — we’re not solving homelessness, we’re subsidizing and importing it.”
Suarez said that the more than 18,000 homeless cited in the new survey is a record number for King County, and the fact that the increase slowed to 9% gives a false picture of the bigger problem.
The new data in the report show a continuing increase in the number of homeless people who have only makeshift shelter. It found that 64% of the county's homeless population lives unsheltered in places such as tents or vehicles.
The data was up 6% from 2024, but more than 30% percent since 2022, when the rate of those living on the streets exceeded 50%
Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, a member of the KCRHA board, said at the meeting that she was concerned about the high number of homeless people living without shelter.
“We were already a national outlier having over 50% of our population unsheltered, now when it's up to two-thirds, that’s pretty shocking,” she said.
The report found the number of people staying in shelters decreased slightly.
But according to the KCRHA, this decline is due to a reduction in available regional shelter beds between 2024 and 2026 rather than empty beds going unused.
Family shelter beds were particularly hard hit.
Family emergency shelter capacity fell significantly between 2024 and 2026, down by about 11.8% region-wide, pushing more families onto the streets, the report found.
The number of families living unsheltered has risen steadily, the report said, reaching 647 households in King County, representing 2,224 individuals.
Dominique Alex, the CEO of the Seattle-based family homelessness nonprofit Mary's Place, told the board meeting that some homeless shelters had temporarily closed because the buildings needed renovations.
“We get anywhere between 40 and 50 calls a day from families seeking shelter, and they are only able to bring in one or two of those families a week,” she said.
Suarez points out that the increase in Point-In-Time homeless increase could carry significant policy implications under the Trump administration.
She said the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is prioritizing grant allocations for communities that demonstrate a substantial reduction in homelessness.
King County and Seattle receive around $65 million to $67 million annually in federal funding through HUD.
HUD officials have expressed serious concerns about low-barrier strategies utilized by Seattle and King County and nationwide, which provide housing without requiring alcohol or mental health treatment.
