Every day, the King County Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS) helps residents find stable housing, access behavioral health care, strengthen their financial security, and connect with essential services.
The updated 2025 DCHS Data Dashboard brings the scale and impact of that work into focus. In 2025, DCHS-managed programs and activities reached over half a million people across King County—demonstrating both the scale of the department’s work and its impact on the health and stability of communities.
Some services are delivered directly by King County DCHS employees, while many are provided through partnerships with community-based organizations. DCHS oversees over 2,000 contracts managed by over 500 organizations, reflecting the scale and complexity of these partnerships. Together, DCHS and its partners manage some of King County’s most essential housing, behavioral health, childcare, employment, and community-support programs.
“This dashboard makes visible both the scale of DCHS’s work and the difference it makes in people’s lives,” said Dr. Susan McLaughlin, director of the King County Department of Community and Human Services. “These results reflect the dedication of our employees and community partners, who turn public investments into housing, behavioral health care, childcare, and other essential supports. We are proud of this progress—and committed to using data transparently to learn, improve, and remain accountable to King County residents.”
Measurable Results for Residents
The dashboard highlights outcomes across DCHS programs and investments:
- More affordable housing: King County added 603 affordable homes to its portfolio in 2025, bringing the total to 16,059 homes available for people and families on fixed and lower incomes.
- Greater housing stability: Across selected housing programs supported by DCHS divisions, 87% of participants maintained their housing or transitioned to permanent supportive housing.
- Access to behavioral health care: DCHS administered publicly funded behavioral health services for 44,354 King County residents eligible for Medicaid.
- Reduced crisis-service use: Participants in relevant MIDD Behavioral Health Sales Tax-funded programs experienced a 63% reduction in crisis-service use.
- Fewer emergency department visits: Participants in Health Through Housing and MIDD-funded programs experienced a 30% decrease in emergency department visits.
DCHS is also improving connections to outpatient care following involuntary hospitalization—a critical point in a person’s recovery. Among behavioral health clients included in the DCHS measure, the percentage receiving follow-up care within 30 days of discharge increased from 65% in 2023 to 87% in 2025, a 22-percentage-point improvement.
Behind these results is the sustained work of DCHS staff and providers. Together, they coordinate across systems, share information, and remove barriers so people can connect with care when they need it.
Using Data to Strengthen Services
Data in Action stories that accompany the dashboard also highlight how DCHS works with providers and community members to make data useful. Work new this year includes:
- For organizations serving adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, DCHS developed accessible quarterly reports, planning templates, and workshops to help providers identify trends and turn findings into program improvements.
- Through the Best Starts for Kids Child Care Worker Wage Boost Pilot, DCHS distributes quarterly payments to child care workers and studies how this salary increases benefits workers, families, and child care facilities. Child care workers help shape the evaluation by informing research questions, surveys, focus groups, and the outcomes being measured.
- To strengthen care transitions after involuntary hospitalization, DCHS equipped providers with daily hospitalization reports, coordinated referral tools, and shared standards to help connect clients to timely outpatient mental health services. By tracking follow‑up rates and offering financial incentives, DCHS increased 30‑day outpatient engagement from 65% in 2023 to 87% in 2025.
These efforts recognize that effective public programs require more than collecting data. They require listening to the people delivering and receiving services, understanding what the findings mean, and using those insights to improve.
A Transparent View of DCHS’s Work
DCHS’s work spans many different programs, providers, funding sources, and data systems. The dashboard gives residents a clearer view of who participates in services, where participants live, how services are delivered, and what County investments are accomplishing.
It also documents the limitations of the data. Not every program collects the same information, and some brief or specialized activities report only aggregate participation. By explaining these differences, DCHS is providing a more transparent and credible picture of its work.
The dashboard offers a data-driven account of work that is complex, far-reaching, and not always visible. Most importantly, it shows how DCHS, its staff, and community partners translate public investments into housing, care, stability, and opportunity for people across King County.