The King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) is refusing calls for it to be dismantled after an audit found missing money and overspending by millions from the middle of 2021 through July 2025.
“Cats get nine lives. This organization has had 10, one more than it should have. It’s time for it to go.” Rob Dembowski, the King County Council Member, said Thursday in announcing he will file a binding resolution with the King County Council to start a one-year process to disband the organization.
Some of the key findings were $8 Million owed by the company, but the auditing firm, Clark Nuber, could not find records of who the money was owed to.
An additional $1.26 million is owed in interest; $6.4 million was spent by KCRHA, but the organization was not approved to spend it. It also reports a $40 million deficit, noting most of it would come in payments from the City or County, but points to the inconsistent accounting practices. Even after the county or city payment, the agency still faced a $4.26 Million administrative deficit.
Dembowski held a press conference with Seattle City Council Member Maritza Rivera, who will be filing a similar resolution in the Seattle City Council.
“We needed to see if it was going to work,” Rivera said, “Now that we see via this most recent forensic evaluation that it is not working well. It’s time to call it and we need to do something different.”
While the report did not find specific or widespread fraud, it noted, “there was a higher risk for fraud, waste, and abuse.”
“The state of the record keeping is apparently so bad that while they didn’t find fraud, they couldn’t assure us that there wasn’t any fraud,” Dembowski said.
KCRHA describes the $8 million as a “gap” and says it has addressed issues that led to those funds. It blamed the financial management issues on the “rapid” development of the Authority, mostly during the COVID pandemic.
“Since that time, governance has been restructured, and we have made meaningful improvements. We are accountable for addressing what remains, and that is exactly why CEO [Kelly] Kinnison requested the audit and what we are focused on now.” KCRHA posted.
The City of Seattle paid $600,000 for the audit. The organization admits that it has spent more than it had been approved or budgeted to spend, and that issues remained midway through 2025, and that its internal financial controls meant to keep guardrails on spending were inadequate.
However, the KCRHA defends itself against the calls to be dissolved.
“The focus should be on strengthening the regional system, not abandoning it. KCRHA coordinates services for tens of thousands of people across the region, braiding federal, state, and local funding. The audit identifies areas that need improvement, and we are actively addressing them. Disrupting the system would not solve those issues — improving it will.”
The KCRHA board will meet at 3pm Friday, April 24, where the audit will be presented,, and board members will react to it.
©2026 Cox Media Group
