With the help of a $1 million FEMA grant, the Lived Experience Coalition, a group advocating for policy solutions to homelessness, rolled out a program last winter that worked directly with unhoused people. The program moved them into four hotel shelters across King County and Tacoma.

But shortly after its launch, the program ran into financial trouble: The Lived Experience Coalition overspent by nearly $1 million, according to an independent audit funded by local philanthropic organizations, and ultimately collapsed, leaving residents of those hotels in limbo.

The audit, for which a draft report was released last week, found that the Lived Experience Coalition should never have received federal money in the first place, and found that mistrust and poor communication between the organization and its partners led to its demise.

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