Seattle mayor to announce new homeless strategy

SEATTLE (AP) _ Seattle Mayor Ed Murray plans to use the release this week of two reports by homelessness consultants as a springboard to announce a new, long-term strategy to address the problem.

The mayor and King County Executive Dow Constantine proclaimed states of emergency last November to address what they called a growing homelessness crisis.

They allocated several million dollars in emergency funding beyond the more than $70 million that the city and county had already budgeted to help the homeless this year, with mixed results.

The Seattle Times reports http://bit.ly/2cEexBC ) now that the year is drawing to a close and Murray is preparing to propose a new budget, the mayor will seek to overhaul the city's spending on homeless services and the system that delivers those services, which for years has been characterized by a slew of nonprofit organizations doing many different things.