Homelessness is not normal, it is not inevitable, and it cannot be accepted. King County is determined to make homelessness rare, brief and one-time. With a focus on accountability and performance measures, we are doing what works to help people receive the treatment they need, and find a place to call their own. It’s about addressing root causes, from the skyrocketing costs of housing to addiction and mental health challenges.

• King County’s first modular housing project opens in Sodo, to serve Native American and Alaska Native people
• Bringing the region together to fight homelessness: Seattle and King County unveil new authority to unify response systems and services
• New King County enhanced shelter opens at West Wing
• King County Homelessness Emergency Response
• Homeless Housing Program

Best Starts for Kids is a six-year levy that will generate nearly $400 million for initiatives that promote healthier, more resilient children, youth and communities. It is the most comprehensive approach to early childhood development in the nation, starting with prenatal support, sustaining the gain through teenage years, and investing in healthy, safe communities that reinforce progress.

• Read more about Best Starts for Kids
• See how we're implementing Best Starts for Kids

Transportation is the region’s largest contributor to climate pollution. Metro Transit helps takes cars off the road, and now we’re making the bus fleet even greener. Executive Constantine set a goal of completing transitioning to zero-emission battery buses by 2040. Metro currently operates about 1,400 buses – a fleet with a mixture of diesel, diesel-electric hybrids, electric trolley and battery-electric buses. Metro was the first transit agency to adopt diesel-electric hybrid buses. In January 2017, Metro announced its commitment to purchase 120 battery-electric buses by 2020. That announcement also challenging the industry to produce vehicles to replace the 60-foot articulated buses in Metro’s fleet.

• Authors of a comprehensive study on electric buses recognize Executive Constantine as a national leader in the transition to a 100-percent electric fleet
• King County Executive announces purchases of battery buses, challenges industry to build next-generation transit
• Zero Emission Fleet report
• Battery bus video

As King County prepares to invest more than $9 billion over the next decade to protect water quality and habitat for people, salmon, and orcas, Executive Constantine wants to ensure that each action produces the best results as quickly as possible.

That’s the centerpiece of Clean Water Healthy Habitat, an initiative he launched in 2019 to better align our efforts across all departments and with our partners throughout Central Puget Sound to achieve clearly defined goals at a watershed level.  

Our staff scientists are working with regional experts to determine if there are more effective, faster ways to achieve better fish habitat, healthier forests, cleaner stormwater runoff, resilient marine shorelines, and more within a single generation rather than 100 years it will take at the current pace.

• Clean Water Healthy Habitat
• 3 Million Trees
• Op-ed: We have the know-how and no time to waste to save Puget Sound
• Reducing stormwater pollution, the growing threat to water quality in King County
• Reducing flood risks, improving salmon habitat, sustaining orca: Work begins on a major Cedar River restoration project
• VIDEO: Using science to protect water quality for people, salmon and orcas

To develop new and better ways to serve unincorporated King County, Executive Constantine created a new Department of Local Services to improve services in rural areas, as well as urban unincorporated communities. The new department provides an additional point of accountability for residents, ensuring unincorporated communities receive the attention and County services they need.

• Department of Local Services
• Executive Constantine: We stand for the rule of law against ICE
• Mayor Durkan and Executive Constantine announce expanded Seattle-King County Immigrant Legal Defense Network grantees
• True North and Values: Making King County a welcoming community where every person can thrive

King County is a national leader in reducing juvenile detention but our work is far from over. We will continue to implement innovations in alternative justice while making our communities safer. King County is also committed to programs that keep more youth from touching the criminal justice system in the first place. In everything we do, we work with community partners to help youth find stable footing, and go on happy and successful lives.

Regional Gun Violence Intervention