Fewer shelter beds to get city funding; advocates troubled

The city of Seattle Thursday took the first step toward a 10-year plan to end homelessness by shifting money from emergency shelters and awarding it to agencies that provide longer-term housing.

The shift was incremental: 70 percent of the 2006 funds still would go to shelters. But city Human Services director Patricia McInturff said she hoped to see that portion shrink to 10 or 15 percent in the next decade, with the bulk going to transitional housing.

McInturff said she had hoped for a more rapid change, but even the plan for a gradual shift has set off alarm among advocates for the homeless.

The city will lose about 100 emergency-shelter beds this winter — a bad idea when as many as 4,000 people are homeless each night in King County, said Bill Kirlin-Hackett, coordinator of the Interfaith Task Force on Homelessness.

He said he understood the reasons for a long-term shift. But his group, comprising about 100 churches, is lobbying City Council members to slow it down and ensure the city won't leave homeless people out in the cold.

"Seattle sort of jumped the gun, to put it in a kind way," he said.

The city on Wednesday sent letters to 42 programs telling them if their bids were accepted for a piece of the $6.2 million in city homeless funding. It was the first bidding process in seven years, and the first since the Committee to End Homelessness in King County wrote a 10-year plan that reintroduces the bidding process.

The number of shelter and transitional-housing beds in the new budget is estimated to be about 1,560, depending on negotiations with selected providers.

Greater emphasis on longer-term shelters is more humane and efficient than forcing the homeless to bounce among shelters, McInturff said. The new budget will quadruple — to 800 — the number of people moved from shelters into long-term housing.

"The mayor is committed that no one is going to die on the streets of the city," said McInturff. "But we want to do more than, 'This is good enough.' "

But the budget also results in a loss of emergency-shelter beds. SHARE/WHEEL, which has provided more "bed nights" than any other shelter provider this year, was not among the 31 programs that got city money, and said it may soon be forced to close its shelters.

The group, a cooperative of self-run shelters, rejected the city's demand that it feed information about its clients into a new database, citing privacy reasons.

SHARE/WHEEL has provided its 295 beds as such a low cost to the city that even with a $350,000 addition to the homeless-services budget, Mayor Greg Nickels and the City Council still will see a net loss in beds, something Nickels promised advocates he would not let happen.

The Seattle/King County Coalition for the Homeless "has a great concern that the mayor is not holding to the promise he made to not decrease shelter beds," said spokeswoman Nicole Macri.

McInturff said the loss of those beds will be offset by more efficient tracking of vacancies.

Kirlin-Hackett, a Lutheran minister, said the city's emphasis on long-term shelters means that more basic needs — such as the desire for a safe place to sleep — is being disregarded.

McInturff's staffers "have got this checklist of outcomes, and they're trying to do the right thing, but they're not entirely listening yet to the homeless folks," he said.

Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jmartin@seattletimes.com