December 16, 2019
Transmitted electronically
The Honorable M. Lorena González
Seattle City Council
600 4th Avenue, 2nd Floor
Seattle, WA 98104
Dear Councilmember González:
During the past year, the City and County have collaborated on the creation of a Regional
Homelessness Authority that will transform the manner in which homelessness
is addressed across the County. This new Authority will be one of a kind – it will be the first to
include representation of people with lived experience at a governing and implementation level,
the first to place customers at the center of the Authority’s mission, and the first to center the
mission around the disproportional impacts to communities of color, youth, and persons with
disabilities. We are proud of what has come from our mutual commitment to designing the
Authority for customer-centered service for the most vulnerable individuals in our community.
We also recognize that, because the Interlocal Agreement (ILA) was developed with
input from all stakeholders, it required compromise.
While we were strongly supportive of the initial proposal introduced in August, we also believe
the proposal was made stronger by allowing input from other cities. Homelessness is a regional
crisis impacting every city, and Seattle and King County cannot go at it alone.
We appreciate that three members of the Seattle City Council have had input on the proposal as
part of the Client Working Group, and most importantly, two of your
colleagues proposed changes at the recent Regional Policy Committee, which sought to
address concerns raised by you and other City Councilmembers. Two
amendments prevailed. This now means that the City of Seattle has additional representation
by a member of King County Council and three members of the City of Seattle, as well as
potentially two individuals with Lived Experience and the County Executive, who could be from
Seattle.
We understand that you and many members of City Council have concerns regarding the voting
structure of the Governing Board. We all agree that the recommendations of the Implementation
Board should serve as the professional and data-driven approach to delivery of our
region’s homelessness services, with the Governing Board having some oversight. This oversight
and accountability are important, but it should be rare and require a supermajority of votes to
amend plans, policies, goals and the budget. Moreover, we also agree that all the work of the
Authority, including the support of suburban cities as they develop their Sub-regional Plans,

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 must be aligned with evidence-based practices and all of the values in the ILA’s Guiding
Principles.
Currently, the ILA requires that two-thirds of the members present at a meeting must support
major amendments to the budget, as well as plans, policies and goals, for those amendments to
prevail. Thus, if all members are present it would require a vote of eight members of the
Governing Board. We understand that if members of the Governing Committee are not present,
including up to seven members from Seattle, then it would require a lesser amount of only six
votes. We agree that clarity is better. One of the first tasks of the Governing Committee will be
the adoption of Bylaws for the Authority. We are committed to propose, support, and advocate
for clarifying changes, through the Bylaws, to require a minimum of eight votes - a 2/3 majority
of all members of the governing committee - to approve such amendments.
Because the ILA’s Guiding Principles commit to “data-driven decisions” and “adopt[ing] an
evidence-based, housing first orientation” for the Authority, we can commit to incorporating this
language in the Bylaws and in the Master Agreement between each of the County and City and
the Authority to ensure that funds expended by the Authority will only support interventions that
are evidence-based, demonstrate broadly recognized best practices and are aligned with the
Guiding Principles of the ILA. We also commit to language in the Bylaws that will clarify the
requirement that initial and all subsequent Five-Year Plans and sub-regional plans only include
evidence-based approaches, reflect broadly recognized best practices and align with the Guiding
Principles of the ILA.
We appreciate your support in moving this work to the important next phase of implementation.
Sincerely,

Jenny A. Durkan
Mayor of Seattle

Dow Constantine
King County Executive

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