King County raises sales taxes without voter approval. But where are the results on homelessness?

King County residents will soon pay another sales tax increase to combat homelessness, but they won’t get a chance to vote on it. On October 6, the King County Council approved a new countywide sales tax by a 6-3 vote, adding an estimated $10 million annually for services intended to help homeless children and families.

After years of growing budgets, repeated promises, and worsening homelessness, residents have every reason to question whether another tax increase will finally deliver the results local leaders have failed to achieve, especially because the revenue generated from this new tax has no defined spending plan associated with it – the County Executive can essentially spend it however he wants.

The new tax takes effect January 1, 2027, adding to an already substantial tax burden across King County, where combined sales tax rates currently reach as high as 10.55%. While the increase may seem small, it’s another cost imposed on families already paying some of the highest sales taxes in the country.

What makes this decision particularly troubling is how it happened. Earlier this year, state lawmakers passed House Bill 2442, which gave local governments new authority to impose a 0.01% sales tax for services benefiting children and families, including shelter and rental assistance. Crucially, the law allowed local councils to enact the tax without asking voters for approval.

King County officials took advantage of that authority, bypassing a public vote entirely. However, provisions within HB 2442 allow cities within King County to reclaim their share of the revenue, which Bellevue has already done, for example. This could create major budgetary holes if King County is too aggressive in spending the new revenue.

KOMO News reports that 967 homeless youth are competing for just 187 available shelter beds. Those numbers underscore a real humanitarian problem. Yet they also raise a difficult question: After so many years of increased spending, why is the region still struggling to provide even basic shelter to those who need it?

Consider the trajectory of Seattle’s homelessness spending. According to the city’s own budget documents, Seattle spent approximately $71.3 million addressing homelessness in 2017. Its adopted homelessness budget for 2026 is $228.7 million. That’s more than triple the annual amount, even before accounting for the separate resources King County dedicates to housing and homelessness programs.

Sources: City of Seattle’s 2019 adopted budget and 2026 adopted budget. The comparison uses 2017 actual spending and the 2026 budget, not two years of audited expenditures.

Despite that extraordinary financial commitment, the crisis has continued to grow. As Change Washington recently reported, the latest Point-in-Time Count estimates 18,365 people were experiencing homelessness in King County, up 9 percent from 2024.

Meanwhile, other major cities are reporting declines. San Francisco saw a 22% reduction in unsheltered homelessness between 2024 and 2026 while pursuing a different approach that emphasizes connecting people to treatment, expanding drug-free housing options, and enforcing laws against public drug use and illegal camping.

The problem isn’t simply a lack of funding. It’s an ongoing inability to demonstrate that government is using its existing resources effectively.

In a 2024 interview with Change Washington, then-King County Executive Dow Constantine was asked to provide an accounting of how much the county had spent on homelessness since declaring an emergency in 2015. He acknowledged that spending was spread across numerous departments, programs, and funding streams, making it difficult to provide even a single definitive annual figure.

That admission should have triggered a fundamental reassessment of the region’s approach. How can officials evaluate whether spending is effective if they cannot clearly account for how much is being spent?

The concerns are hardly theoretical. As Change Washington previously reported, a 2026 financial examination of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) identified millions of dollars in financial discrepancies and unauthorized spending. These problems have raised serious questions about oversight at the very agency created to coordinate the region’s homelessness response.

Yet the response from elected officials continues to follow a familiar pattern: identify an urgent need, authorize additional spending, and promise improvements down the road. Meanwhile, taxpayers are left searching for measurable evidence that the overall strategy is working.

Rising homelessness, inadequate shelter capacity, and persistent financial management problems are signs that the overall approach needs serious reconsideration.

Before approving additional taxes, the King County Executive and City Council should be able to provide a complete accounting of existing spending, clear performance measures for programs receiving public money, and a credible explanation of how new funding will produce better outcomes than previous investments.

Instead, the council approved another tax increase without putting the question before voters, while specific spending decisions remain to be worked out through the county budget process.

The new tax is scheduled to expire after three years. That gives officials a limited window to demonstrate meaningful progress, but residents should not have to wait until 2029 for answers.

King County’s residents deserve a government that takes homelessness seriously, uses public resources responsibly, and respects their right to participate in decisions about taxation. Continuing to spend more without rethinking a strategy that has failed to reverse the crisis is not a sustainable solution.

The region doesn’t just need more funding for homelessness. It needs a fundamentally better approach, with real accountability, measurable results, and a willingness to change what isn’t working.