Last month, King County published its Point-in-Time Count numbers; once every two years, volunteers fan out across King County to count the people sleeping in doorways, cars, camps, the street, and other places. While the count for 2026 shows homelessness increased roughly 9% since 2024, that’s not the whole story. What the headlines don’t mention is the increase between 2022 and 2024 was 16%! With that in mind, 9% is nearly half the rate of growth! This shows that there are things that are working, but the numbers can only tell so much. Here are a few reasons why this crisis continues to persist despite great efforts to help:
A home is the first step, mental healthcare is the next: More than a quarter of people experiencing homelessness in King County live with a serious mental illness. Among people sleeping outside, it’s closer to one third. Many programs are solely focused on providing housing for people but fall short in providing other supports. For someone with untreated schizophrenia or severe bipolar disorder, handing them a key to an apartment only lays the foundation for recovery; without ongoing mental health support, housing can still be hard to maintain. This is not from lack of will or want, but because the extra support they needed wasn’t available to them. TR provides both permanent supportive housing and behavioral health services for each person we serve, ensuring they get the specific level of support they need to be successful.
The system is maxed out: The number of available shelter beds in King County are shrinking, federal funding is shifting with new strings attached, and there just aren’t enough psychiatric beds to go around. People in crisis end up bouncing between the ER, jail, a shelter bed, and back to the street, with nowhere permanent to land. This is where TR steps in to give folks a permanent place to live and the access they need to treatment. However, our program space is limited, and we can only take in so many people.
There aren’t enough people to do the work: Rebuilding trust with someone in crisis takes time and real skill, something that case managers and other workers in this field have had years of education and practice doing. But burnout runs high in the healthcare field, especially in behavioral healthcare. Small organizations cannot compete with large hospitals for pay, benefits, etc. and therefore struggle to maintain the staff they need to be successful. TR has kept staff wages competitive, and we are proud to have a dedicated team of caring and skilled staff members in our programs, but not all services providers have this privilege.
There is still hope: There are still many outreach workers and case managers who keep showing up and building real trust with people. As more families, workers, people with lived experience, and others keep telling their stories, the more policymakers are listening and hearing directly about what actually works and what doesn’t. Housing paired with intensive mental health care works, and when it’s funded to last, there is real hope. The people doing this work, some who’ve lived through homelessness themselves, know recovery is possible. It’s just slower than people want, but we need to take the time and care to do it right.
It comes down to simple math: too few beds, too few staff, and not enough housing against a crisis that keeps outpacing the system. Closing that gap takes real long-term investment, and the steady, one-on-one support systems that places like TR offers.
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