Washington youth homelessness organizations face upheaval - Anlık Haber

Interconnected efforts to address youth homelessness in Washington over the past decade experienced major upheaval in recent months as high-profile initiatives closed suddenly or saw significant leadership change.

Kim Justice, who had led the state’s Office of Homeless Youth since its establishment in 2015, <a href=”https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/WADOC/bulletins/3b33f42″>announced</a> in early September that she would depart in mid-October, leaving operations under interim direction going into the new year. The state Department of Commerce, which oversees the office, expected to hire a new director in February.

Meanwhile, A Way Home Washington, a privately backed advocacy organization leading a variety of youth housing efforts across the state, shocked staff and community partners in early October with the news it would shutter operations by year’s end.

In internal transition notes, obtained via public records request, Justice remarked that her departure, combined with the exit of another long-serving staff member and the end of A Way Home Washington, had created “a tidal wave of change for the team.”

A Way Home Washington <a href=”https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25497033-awhwa-media-statement-10-6-24/”>attributed</a> its sudden closure to a loss of significant private funding. The announcement drew outrage from supporters and staff, who questioned how philanthropic funding could seemingly evaporate.

Separately, several state-funded service initiatives and pilot programs have seen mixed success as well as missteps since state lawmakers <a href=”https://www.cascadepbs.org/investigations/2023/08/was-5m-youth-homelessness-effort-ramping-it-working”>dedicated $5.4 million</a> in public money in 2022 to curb youth homelessness.

Cascade PBS reporting found that court-based support programs could <a href=”https://www.cascadepbs.org/investigations/2023/11/researchers-team-court-staff-help-wa-homeless-youth”>help identify at-risk youth before they lost stable housing</a>. But a statewide “no-wrong-door” hotline for connecting youth with housing services and other resources ran into <a href=”https://www.cascadepbs.org/investigations/2023/10/washingtons-new-youth-homelessness-lifeline-service-lags”>mounting delays and problematic spending practices</a>. The Lifeline WA program shut down abruptly in late 2023 after officials found it had <a href=”https://www.cascadepbs.org/investigations/2024/04/wa-homeless-youth-program-closes-after-contractor-misspent-330k”>“misspent” more than $330,000</a>. The program transitioned to a new contractor in 2024.

A Way Home Washington also faced scrutiny in 2023 after Cascade PBS found its online data dashboards <a href=”https://www.cascadepbs.org/investigations/2023/07/wa-homelessness-group-exposed-sensitive-data-kids-young-adults”>inadvertently published the private housing and health data</a> of hundreds of young clients. The Department of Commerce investigated the matter, but ultimately determined the organization did not need to notify young people of the breach.

Bryan, 15 (left), plays chess with Riley, 13, at The Youth Connection in Shelton in 2023. (David Ryder for Cascade PBS)

Ending youth homelessness

A Way Home Washington had a lofty goal: <a href=”https://web.archive.org/web/20160818141341/http://www.awayhomewa.org/about”>end youth homelessness</a> in Washington. Big-name donors such as the Raikes Foundation and the Campion Foundation pledged early support. First Lady Trudi Inslee co-chaired the project when it launched in 2015.

As it grew, millions of dollars began flowing from state coffers to communities where A Way Home Washington operated. Its flagship program, the privately funded Anchor Community Initiative, eventually reached 10 counties. In those counties, it coordinated among community organizations to identify youth and young adults facing homelessness and connect them with help. A Way Home Washington aimed in particular to address the fact that LGBTQ+ youth and youth of color endure homelessness at far higher rates than their white, cis, straight peers.

A Way Home Washington promised communities coaching and training. It also offered assistance with data, including developing a list of young people experiencing homelessness — the very information it inadvertently exposed online.

From 2023 to 2025, the Office of Homeless Youth distributed $8 million in state funding directly to organizations in anchor communities to provide services like housing, shelter and outreach.

Meanwhile, A Way Home Washington also helped run the Homelessness Prevention and Diversion Fund, another effort to prevent youth homelessness. In 2023, it received $590,000 in state funding to jointly operate the Youth Diversion Infrastructure Project, <a href=”https://www.cascadepbs.org/investigations/2023/08/was-5m-youth-homelessness-effort-ramping-it-working”>which sought to</a> identify youth and young adults who had exited state systems, like foster care or juvenile detention, then help them find and keep housing while covering some of the costs.

The success of these efforts remains unclear. Last year, state data <a href=”https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/was-one-of-a-kind-youth-homelessness-response-shows-big-results/”>showed</a> a 40% decline in youth and young adult homelessness across Washington between 2016 and 2023. But the Anchor Community Initiative itself never achieved its goal of “functional zero” — in which young people’s experiences of homelessness are rare, brief and one-time — within its communities. In Spokane, the organization <a href=”https://community.solutions/case-studies/a-way-home-washingtons-anchor-community-of-spokane-achieves-20-reduction-in-youth-and-young-adult-homelessness/”>announced</a> in 2022 that youth homelessness had fallen 20%, only to see those figures soon <a href=”https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/four-wa-communities-tried-to-end-youth-homelessness-one-is-seeing-success/”>rise</a> by 50%.

A 2024 <a href=”https://deptofcommerce.app.box.com/s/osrph3j6fye2azel3thsf70qwcim0esh/file/1695090723990″>report</a> from the state concluded that some 15,000 youth or young adults — people ages of 12 through 24 — remain homeless on any given night.

Outreach literature on topics including substance use, pregnancy and mental health is available at The Youth Connection in this 2023 file photo. (David Ryder for Cascade PBS)

“I am ENRAGED”

A Way Home Washington’s advisory board alerted staff to its pending closure in a statement on Oct. 2. The board wrote that its members had worked with the organization’s fiscal sponsor, Third Sector New England, to shore up its financial sustainability.

“Despite our best efforts to find solutions,” they wrote, “the decision was made to sunset in the coming months.”

AWHWA did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.

In a single joint media <a href=”https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25497033-awhwa-media-statement-10-6-24/”>statement</a>, A Way Home Washington, Third Sector New England, and private funders like the Ballmer Group and the Raikes Foundation promised “a smooth transition.”

“We are deeply committed to minimizing disruptions,” they wrote, “and will collaborate closely with our partners to protect the well-being of the youth and communities we serve.”

(Disclosure: The Ballmer Group provides grant funding for Cascade PBS investigative work. Cascade PBS maintains complete <a href=”https://www.cascadepbs.org/about”>editorial control</a> over its coverage.)

Behind the scenes, service partners scrambled. Internal emails obtained through public records requests revealed outrage, confusion and deep frustration with a lack of communication and transparency from Third Sector New England and A Way Home Washington.

In early October, one employee sent an extensive list of comments and questions to the board and TSNE leaders, demanding answers as to why so many had recently been hired only to now lose their jobs.

“I am ENRAGED that there is so little care shown to staff who were specifically selected due to their expertise and experience with homelessness,” the employee added. “I have NEVER seen an org like this shut down with such little respect, care, or ethical consideration for how it’s done.”

Kat Lohman, executive director of social impact for the Skagit Valley Family YMCA, one of A Way Home Washington’s community partners, expressed frustration in an email to leaders at other organizations.

“[We] are getting a runaround here between the conflicting messaging from TSNE and the AWHWA Advisory Board members,” she wrote. “It feels a bit like the Advisory Board and TSNE have each, at different times, pointed towards each other for the answer to this question; and once again, young people and communities are ultimately left in the lurch.”

Other internal emails showed that A Way Home Washington staff were laid off sooner than the organization initially indicated. At first, A Way Home Washington suggested “a few folks” would be let go in mid-October, with the rest losing their jobs at the end of the year, according to an OHY staffer’s email.

Geoff Lamont, general counsel for TSNE, told Cascade PBS via email that 14 staff were laid off on Oct. 18, with the remaining six on Nov. 15, the date A Way Home Washington officially sunset.

He also wrote that Third Sector New England strived to “provide as much notice and support as possible” and was “committed to handling these situations with care, respect, and thoughtful planning.”

As for TSNE’s communications with local organizations, he said the organization and A Way Home Washington’s advisory board had been “committed to providing accurate and timely information to community partners throughout this process.”

As organizations waited for clarity, OHY, community partners and remaining funders deliberated where to move the programs A Way Home Washington once oversaw — and how to pay for everything.

Responsibility for the Anchor Community Initiative fell largely to the state Office of Homeless Youth, despite a warning from executive director Kim Justice in her outgoing notes that “any shift of programs to OHY would require an investment of resources to create necessary staffing capacity.” She recommended that whoever took over the Anchor Community Initiative refocus on two to three communities rather than 10.

“OHY is not in a position to recreate [the Anchor Community Initiative] exactly,” Commerce spokesperson Penny Thomas told Cascade PBS via email. Nevertheless, OHY would work with communities “to establish a vision for how we continue this work for youth and young adults in Washington state.”

The two state-funded youth housing initiatives once overseen by A Way Home Washington were transferred to a nonprofit called Building Changes.

Sheila Babb Anderson, president of housing and homelessness for the Campion Advocacy Fund, told Cascade PBS that former private funders of A Way Home Washington, including the Schultz Family Foundation, the Raikes Foundation and the Campion Foundation had continued to devote private dollars to programs once run by A Way Home Washington.

In jointly written responses to questions from Cascade PBS, Lohman and other community partners pointed out that even without A Way Home Washington, efforts to end youth homelessness in Washington would continue.

“The movement to prevent and end youth homelessness and achieve functional zero is bigger than one organization,” they wrote.

The Youth Connection director and co-founder Susan Kirchoff (center) and staff member Stephanie Johnson (right) assist Sierah, 23 (left), with rental housing support during a 2023 case management meeting. (David Ryder for Cascade PBS)

An unclear future

As communities scrambled to figure out what the end of A Way Home Washington meant for them, Kim Justice’s last day heading the Office of Homeless Youth was Oct. 18. She has since taken a position at the University of Washington as the public policy director for Partners for Our Children, according <a href=”https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kim-justice-8061264_earlier-this-month-i-announced-that-i-will-activity-7246280565354573825-nrzP”>to her LinkedIn profile</a>.

In addition to searching for her replacement, the Office of Homeless Youth is developing a five-person quality assurance team, which, Justice wrote in her transition notes, would “alleviate significant capacity challenges with the oversight of contracts.”

After the suspension of Lifeline WA over contractor SDM Consulting’s <a href=”https://www.cascadepbs.org/investigations/2024/04/wa-homeless-youth-program-closes-after-contractor-misspent-330k”>“misspent” funding</a>, Commerce has required SDMC to repay $215,240 of the $331,281, in installments. Thomas did not respond to a question from Cascade PBS about why the state had reduced the amount, but said that SDMC had, since April 2024, made timely payments totalling $67,000.

In March, OHY inked a new contract for the Lifeline pilot, this time with the YMCA of Greater Seattle. According to Thomas, from June 21, when the YMCA served its first client, through September, Lifeline helped 43 young people, largely in King and Pierce counties, with rental assistance, move-in costs, transportation, utilities or other needs.

The Department of Commerce declined Cascade PBS’s request for an interview with Justice before her departure, as well as a request for an interview with Mike Fong, the former director of the department. Justice did not reply to a separate request for an interview sent to her personal email after her departure.

iLeana Areiza, a deputy director at OHY, is serving as interim executive director during the <a href=”https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/washington/jobs/4677978/executive-director-office-of-homeless-youth-prevention-and-protection-programs”>search</a> for a permanent one.

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