Drafter
Clerk 01/27/2015
Title
AN ORDINANCE making an emergency appropriation of $59,000 from the general fund to the community services operating fund, and $111,000 from the general fund to the facilities management internal services fund to provide additional funds for operating the King County Men's Homeless Winter Shelter; and amending the 2015-2016 Budget Ordinance, Ordinance 17941, Sections 42, 43, 86 and 121, as amended, and declaring an emergency.
Body
BE IT ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF KING COUNTY:
SECTION 1. Findings:
A. Homelessness is recognized as a significant problem in King County and elsewhere in the nation. Every day large numbers of individuals and families in our community go unsheltered. At this time our community simply does not have the capacity to meet the need.
B. King County finds it unacceptable that people are dying on the streets of our communities because there are insufficient safe locations for habitation by homeless persons.
C. On January 24, 2014, more than three thousand one hundred twenty-three individuals were living outside and another six thousand one hundred seventy-one individuals were in shelters or transitional housing in King County, according to the One Night Count conducted by the Seattle/King County Coalition for the Homeless.
D. Formed in 2005, the Committee to End Homelessness is dedicated to making homelessness rare, brief and one-time in King County. The Committee to End Homelessness - King County 2013 Annual Report states that thirty-six thousand people have moved from homelessness to permanent housing since 2005.
E. The Committee to End Homelessness adopted a final plan and recommendations in 2005 titled King County Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness. The plan found that emergency shelters are not ideal but found that there is a need for emergency shelter until more permanent housing is available across King County.
F. King County has recognized a particular need for emergency she...
Click here for full text