Seattle City Council President Joy Hollingsworth is calling for standardised Good Neighbor Agreements at every homeless shelter in Seattle, arguing that the current patchwork of vague and inconsistently enforced agreements has left residents near shelter facilities without meaningful recourse when problems arise.
The push comes as city leaders weigh the future of homeless services following a damaging audit of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority last week, and as Mayor Katie Wilson moves forward with a plan to open 1,000 new shelter units across the city by the end of the year. Hollingsworth wants enforceable Good Neighbor Agreements built into that expansion from the start. “I think we should have a uniform Good Neighbor Agreement across the city. If you are walking past a shelter, you should know who to call if a problem arises,” Hollingsworth said. “We have to make sure we do this right as a city so people start trusting us when we’re talking about placing more of these shelters in their neighborhoods.”
Good Neighbor Agreements, or GNAs, are intended to outline the responsibilities shelter facilities have toward surrounding communities. In practice, a KCRHA Ombud review found that the agreements are frequently vague, inconsistently implemented, and in some cases entirely absent despite contractual requirements. The review found that Bailey-Boushay House, an overnight shelter in the Madison Valley neighbourhood of Hollingsworth’s district, operated without a GNA from 2023 to 2025 despite being obligated to maintain one. The review also found that facility staff did not attend community meetings to address safety concerns and that the facility lacked a designated point of contact for neighbourhood groups.
Residents near Bailey-Boushay House described a situation that has eroded their confidence in the city’s ability to manage shelter facilities responsibly. A neighbour identified only as Yim told reporters that clients of the shelter use drugs openly near the facility. In one recent incident, a person connected to the shelter was reported to police for allegedly threatening staff with a BB gun near children boarding a school bus. In another case reported to Seattle police in March, a person near the facility allegedly told children in the neighbourhood that he intended to take them from their parents. “They’re unsupervised, they’re having mental health issues, doing drugs openly and then going into the parks,” Yim said. “We’re really feeling unsafe in our own neighbourhood.” Yim said she has little confidence that Good Neighbor Agreements in their current form can address the problem. “They’re not legally binding. I feel like we’ve been left alone to deal with this on our own,” she said.
The KCRHA review identified systemic failures that go beyond any single facility. “Without stronger guidance and intergovernmental coordination to align expectations, KCRHA cannot ensure that GNAs are consistently developed, implemented and enforced in ways that meet community expectations and support providers,” the review stated. It further noted that providers often lack the technical assistance and financial resources to meet the expectations GNAs set out, and that KCRHA’s oversight has effectively been limited to confirming the existence of an agreement rather than assessing its quality or impact.
Some city and county officials have called for KCRHA to be dissolved entirely in the wake of the audit, which found the agency could not account for $13 million. Hollingsworth said she is waiting for the agency’s formal response to the audit before deciding whether to support ending the city’s involvement, but was clear that enforceable agreements are essential regardless of what happens to KCRHA. “We continue to pour a significant amount of money into this, and we have to execute those contracts properly,” she said. “No one wants to pull back from this work. We just want to have a better impact and a better plan. This is our moment to execute properly and take corrective action on what has been going on for years.”
Other council members have proposed complementary measures including public safety plans and community oversight committees near new shelter sites as part of the broader expansion.
