United Way of King County was briefly in the spotlight in July when word broke that the Meals on Wheels program, which brings food to homebound seniors, was in crisis resulting from a loss of funding from the philanthropic organization.
The organization made that move almost a year ago when it created its five-year strategic plan for 2020. Its new priorities would be homeless and low-income people, specifically reducing the unsheltered population from its then all-time-high of 3,772 individuals by half and reducing the number of people living in poverty (roughly 250,000) by 50,000.
Those were ambitious goals at the time, and the situation continues to compound with a roughly 20 percent increase in the number of unsheltered homeless people seen in the last census of homeless people taken in January of 2016.
The 50 percent reduction goes even further than the target by All Home King County, a coalition of local government and nonprofit actors that helps coordinate work to end homelessness in the area.
All Home, of which United Way is a member, has aimed for a 10 percent annual decline in the number of unsheltered homeless over almost the same period.
United Way set the bar high to create a sense of urgency around the problem, said Lauren McGowan, director of financial stability with the organization.
“We know that ending homelessness is both doable and that it’s the right thing to do,” McGowan said.
The new goals came off the heels of a joint effort by Seattle and county leaders to end homelessness in 10 years. That plan ended in 2014 with an increase in homelessness and a sense among nonprofits and government actors that strategies, which focused resources on emergency shelter, needed an update.
United Way controls between $35 million and $50 million for its projects, a number that fluctuates year to year, according to Jared Erlandson, spokesperson for the organization. That’s roughly what the city of Seattle alone budgets for homelessness prevention and intervention, in addition to millions brought forward by King County.
Officials estimate that $160 million is spent on homelessness and housing each year.
Rather than spread those funds thinly within the community, the nonprofit’s new strategy was meant to invest more deeply to impact a smaller range of issues, he said.
The shift provoked pushback, such as when a Meals on Wheels spokesperson questioned the decision to focus on an obvious, visible problem such as homelessness rather than the invisible concern of malnutrition among homebound adults.
United Way knows that it’s operating within a system, McGowan said, and part of the strategic plan was figuring out what role it would play.
“None of this is about one agency, and none of this is about one funder,” McGowan said. “It really is about us all coming together and having good policies, good programs implemented well and ultimately lifting people out of the circumstances that they’re in.”
United Way of King County’s strategy involves programs such as Streets to Home, an individualized service that gives outreach workers flexible money to spend on homeless people. That could mean a down payment on an apartment, a ticket to reunite with family out of area or paying an unexpected medical bill.
Those kinds of interventions can prevent a person from becoming homeless, reducing costs to the system down the line even as they access other services to right the ship. The dollar amounts don’t have to be high: According to a 2013 study by the Federal Reserve Board, 47 percent of Americans did not have access to enough cash to pay a surprise bill of $400.
Its nongovernmental status gives United Way of King County more flexibility with its money than King County or the City of Seattle, McGowan said.
Only time will tell if the 2017 One Night Count, the volunteer effort to count unsheltered and sheltered homeless people, shows that the programs have had the desired effect or if United Way’s goal of poverty and homelessness reduction will seem further from the realm of possibility. The existence of the goal itself helps propel that work forward, said Mark Putnam, executive director of All Home.
“Setting targets is incredibly important,” Putnam said. “If you don’t have them, you keep doing the work, but you don’t have the urgency.”