The City of Seattle and King County have been awarded $18,419,068 in federal McKinney Homeless Assistance funds for housing programs and support services for homeless people.

The award was announced Feb. 21 by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and King County Executive Ron Sims, following the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announcement of $1.4 billion awarded nationwide.

“This award represents part of an impressive community-wide effort to end homelessness,” said Nickels, who sits on the Committee to End Homelessness Governing Board. “These federal funds provide crucial support to local programs that are working hard to help place homeless people in stable and permanent housing.”

“Safe, affordable housing and access to services are the keys to ending homelessness for individuals and families across King County, and this award will help us to provide those vital supports,” said Sims, co-chair of the Committee to End Homelessness Governing Board. “Continued federal funding is critical to our efforts to implement the Ten-Year Plan and create healthier and more stable lives for thousands of people in need across our county.”

As in years past, community-based organizations worked with the City of Seattle and King County to submit the joint application for the McKinney funding. The $18.4 million award continues existing funding that allows county and local governments and their many partners to provide essential housing and supportive services for homeless people.

The McKinney funding will leverage an additional $37.8 million from other federal, state and local sources, including United Way and private foundations, and help to support the ongoing work of the Committee to End Homelessness in King County.

“The power of our community collaboration toward ending homelessness is reflected in the success of our joint application and the grant funds announced today,” said Bill Block, director of the Committee to End Homelessness in King County. “We are grateful to HUD for the continued support of our grant funded programs and for nearly $1 million in new funding to create additional units of supportive housing for homeless individuals.”

The majority of the award, $13.8 million, will sustain the operations of 62 existing housing and supportive service programs that help people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

This award will fund 789 units of transitional housing, 648 units of permanent housing for homeless people with disabilities, and two Safe Haven facilities that will offer supportive housing for severely mentally ill adults who have been homeless.

The award also provides funding for the Safe Harbors Homeless Management Information System.

Safe Harbors collects data on the services provided to homeless people at about 300 sites throughout King County. This data will be aggregated to help local governments and nonprofit service providers identify trends in homelessness and better support those programs that are most effective in bringing an end to homelessness.

New funding in the amount of $920,838 will go to the Archdiocesan Housing Authority’s Westlake II Housing project, which will make possible an additional 27 housing units of permanent housing with services for chronically homeless persons with disabilities.

For more information on the programs and projects to be funded by McKinney and local matching funds in 2007, please contact either Eileen Denham, City of Seattle McKinney Programs Coordinator, at (206) 684-0915 or Kate Speltz, King County Homeless Housing Planner, at (206) 205-6469.