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Lewis County just reduced its homeless population by 15% — one of only two counties in Washington to show real progress. So why are unelected state agencies demanding a 50% increase in our homeless spending?
That’s not common sense. It’s backwards.
The 2024 Point-in-Time (PIT) count shows our homeless population dropped from 153 to 130. Yet, under the next biennium of the Consolidated Homeless Grant (CHG), our county’s contract is set to jump from $4.3 million to $6.5 million. That’s nearly $50,000 per homeless individual — the highest per-person rate in Washington State.
For comparison:
• King County spends about $9,000 per PIT individual
• Pierce County: $19,600
• Thurston County: $25,000
• Lewis County: nearly $50,000
It’s almost as if the state is pushing the problem south. Lewis and Cowlitz counties — both rural, working-class communities — are now saddled with the highest per-person homeless spending in the state, while more urbanized counties spend far less.
Our spending trajectory in Lewis County is unsustainable. In 2019, we were allocated just over $2 million but spent only a fraction — and our PIT count was at an all-time high (389). By 2024, we exceeded our allocation, spending more than $3 million, even though our homeless population was less than half of what it was in 2019.
We are spending more on fewer people, with diminishing returns. This is not a success story — it’s a warning sign.
This trend isn’t isolated to Lewis County. Across Washington, we’re seeing ballooning spending without corresponding results. There’s no fiscal discipline, no accountability and no connection between outcomes and investment.
And it’s happening at the worst possible time:
• The state just passed the largest tax increase in our history.
• Washington is staring down a $750 million budget deficit (even if the number is debated).
• And most shamefully, the Recovery Navigator Program — which actually works and gets people into treatment — is being cut 20%.
Meanwhile, the CHG system rewards spending growth without requiring performance or results. It offers no incentive to scale back when communities make progress. That’s not just inefficient — it’s unjust.
Most CHG funds in Lewis County go to service providers based in Centralia — my district — yet seniors and veterans are being left behind.
• Seniors who own homes are disqualified from rental assistance — even when they can’t afford their mortgage and are at risk of losing their home.
• Veterans were promised critical federal mental health funding — only to have it pulled because our congresswoman, who called it her top priority, filed the request with the wrong committee.
Once again, those who served and sacrificed the most are told to wait.
We’ve created a system that enables dependence instead of encouraging recovery. People struggling with addiction need treatment, not a taxpayer-funded lifestyle that prolongs the problem.
A Lewis County Transit driver recently told me: "We need to make more cuts to homeless benefits. I see so many people coming into town who are very capable of working, but the first place they go is DSHS and Social Security. The Red Line is packed with people headed to the Mission for breakfast. A lot of them travel between here and Olympia. We’re helping the citizens into the poor house!"
To make matters worse, the Department of Commerce has told us we’re not allowed to ask for less funding. A non-elected state agency with no ties to our community is telling us what we need — regardless of local results.
How is that acceptable? I plan to fight it.
Lewis County is one of the few counties actually reducing homelessness, yet we’re being punished with inflated funding expectations. If the state insists on spending more, let that extra funding go to King County, where the crisis is growing and per-person investment is much lower.
We don’t need it — and we won’t take it.
This isn’t compassion. It’s dysfunction. And Lewis County deserves better.
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Sean Swope is a Republican Lewis County commissioner who represents District 1, which includes Centralia and surrounding areas.
