Welcome to The Newsfeed.

I'm Venice Buhain, in for Paris Jackson.

The King County Regional Homelessness Authority is about to go through what local leaders are calling a reset.

Today, we're diving into some of the challenges in the last year and the audit that finally led to this decision.

Ever since it officially started operations in 2021.

The KCRHA faced scrutiny and skepticism.

Among its tasks, it also managed service provider contracts previously held by Seattle and King County.

Journalist Guy Oron has covered the agency and homelessness issues for Real Change News and The Stranger.

ORON: The lack of transparency and just the lack of organization, which has allowed it to be hard to track how much money is actually being spent.

In part you could say it's like growing pains of such a young organization BUHAIN: Forensic evaluation of the organization released in April revealed it couldn't account for $13 million and had overspent by $45 million.

King County Executive Girmay Zahilay and Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced a few months after the audit that the city and the county were taking back management of service contracts about $160 million worth.

ZAHILAY: I believe it is both taking accountability and responsibility for what is the most important issue in our region, and that is addressing the crisis of homelessness.

And at the same time, it is improving the way we do things, making sure that King County Regional Homelessness Authority has a narrowed scope.

BUHAIN: Among those duties will include local leadership on a $67 million grant application to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

That currently funds the housing for about 4,500 people in the region.

ZAHILAY: You can consider the step that we are taking right now as a bridge between where we are and where we want to go, which is a truly regional approach.

BUHAIN: It's a similar sentiment that different leaders were saying in 2019, but which has so far remained elusive.

Next time, as we continue our series on KCRHA, we'll talk about how this relates to the larger national picture.

I'm Venice Buhain.

Thanks for watching The Newsfeed.