Housing site deaths beside county deaths and housing beds, 2021-2025

What this dataset measures

Built for fact checks of deaths in King County's subsidized and supportive housing. This is the most complete count the county publishes: all manners of death, but only countywide and only for deaths the Medical Examiner investigates. 2021 is the earliest year the dashboard offers for this breakdown.

Geography

King County, Washington

Unit of observation

Count of deaths investigated by the Medical Examiner, by year and manner of death, countywide

Update cadence

Updated by FactHub when the Medical Examiner revises its dashboard; the dashboard itself was last updated October 29, 2026

Curator

FactHub Research Team

Curated data tables

Housing site deaths beside county deaths and housing beds, 2021-2025

One row per year with the comparison series used to judge the housing site trend.

Unit of observation: Year

housing-deaths-context-by-year.csv text/csv · 481 bytes

All 5 rows 10 columns Download the file

All 5 rows

year	housing_site_deaths_all_causes deaths	housing_site_overdose_deaths deaths	county_overdose_deaths deaths	me_deaths_investigated_countywide deaths	me_covid_surveillance_deaths deaths	me_deaths_excluding_covid_surveillance deaths	hud_psh_beds beds	hud_other_permanent_beds beds	hud_permanent_beds_total beds
2021	309	114	714	4026	620	3406	6266	1594	7860
2022	389	177	1014	3955	322	3633	6785	2848	9633
2023	487	281	1340	3891	0	3891	7251	4057	11308
2024	433	235	1047	3493	0	3493	7768	1505	9273
2025	379	192	914	3384	0	3384	8034	1757	9791

10 field definitions

Field	Type	Meaning	Units	Value type
year	integer	Calendar year.	—	observed
housing_site_deaths_all_causes	integer	Deaths at housing service sites, all manners.	deaths	observed
housing_site_overdose_deaths	integer	Overdose deaths among people whose presumed living situation was a housing service site.	deaths	observed
county_overdose_deaths	integer	All overdose deaths the Medical Examiner investigated in King County.	deaths	observed
me_deaths_investigated_countywide	integer	All deaths the Medical Examiner investigated, every living situation.	deaths	observed
me_covid_surveillance_deaths	integer	Deaths investigated as part of COVID-19 surveillance, per the Notes tab; 0 for years the notes list none.	deaths	observed
me_deaths_excluding_covid_surveillance	integer	All investigated deaths minus COVID-19 surveillance deaths.	deaths	derived
hud_psh_beds	integer	Permanent supportive housing beds, Seattle/King County (WA-500).	beds	observed
hud_other_permanent_beds	integer	Other permanent housing beds, Seattle/King County (WA-500).	beds	observed
hud_permanent_beds_total	integer	Permanent supportive plus other permanent housing beds.	beds	derived

Sources

1. King County Medical Examiner's Office, KCMEO Annual Report dashboard: Characteristics of Deaths Investigated by KCMEO (last updated October 29, 2026) 2025 deaths at housing service sites by manner of death (Decedent Characteristics tab, PresumedLivingSituation = Housing service site)

   Retrieved November 7, 2026. Public government data. Counts are public government statistics; FactHub redistributes the counts it read.

   Reliability: Government. The county Medical Examiner's own public dashboard of the deaths it investigates; its notes say the deaths are not representative of all county deaths and that it does not take all natural deaths.

2. Public Health - Seattle & King County, Methods Report: Documentation and Analysis of Fatal Overdose Data Definition of the housing service site category

   Retrieved November 7, 2026. Public government document. Linked; FactHub repeats only the definition it read.

   Reliability: Government. The county health department's description of how its death data assign a presumed living situation; it defines housing service site as permanent supportive housing, income-restricted units and recovery housing.

3. King County Medical Examiner's Office, KCMEO Annual Report dashboard: Overview and Notes tabs (last updated October 29, 2026) All deaths the Medical Examiner investigated countywide by year, and COVID-19 surveillance counts

   Retrieved November 11, 2026. Public government data. Counts are public government statistics; FactHub redistributes the counts it read.

   Reliability: Government. The Medical Examiner's own dashboard. The Overview tab gives all deaths it investigated by year; the Notes tab gives how many of those were COVID-19 surveillance cases and says it does not take all natural deaths.

4. Public Health - Seattle & King County, King County fatal overdose dashboard Overdose deaths by year, countywide and at housing service sites

   Retrieved November 6, 2026. Public government data. Counts are public government statistics; FactHub redistributes the counts it read.

   Reliability: Government. The county's dashboard of overdose deaths investigated by the Medical Examiner, by presumed living situation. The county funds much of the housing in the housing service site category.

5. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2007-2025 Housing Inventory Count by CoC Permanent supportive housing and other permanent housing beds for Seattle/King County (WA-500)

   Retrieved October 10, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Public domain.

   Reliability: Government. A one-night inventory of beds reported each year by the local homelessness system to HUD; it counts beds, not occupants, and excludes most income-restricted and recovery housing.

License: FactHub's selection, cleaning and combined tables are licensed under CC BY 4.0. Source data keeps the terms listed above (terms).

Limitations and reproducibility

Reproducible from public sources: Read by hand from the Medical Examiner's public Tableau dashboard: Decedent Characteristics tab, PresumedLivingSituation filter set to Housing service site, year selector set to each year from 2021 to 2026 (2025 read November 7, 2026; other years November 11, 2026). The dashboard shows each manner of death split by sex; we added the sexes. Each year's manners sum to the dashboard's total for that year. All-case totals by year come from the Overview tab, COVID-19 surveillance counts from the Notes tab, overdose counts from the county's fatal overdose dashboard (as read for dataset king-county-overdose-deaths-by-place, version 1), and beds from HUD's Housing Inventory Count. Dashboards can be revised; later readings may differ.

• Covers only deaths the Medical Examiner investigated, about 1 in 5 deaths in King County. It does not take all natural deaths, so deaths from illness are undercounted.
• Housing service site mixes permanent supportive housing with income-restricted apartments and recovery housing; supportive housing alone can't be separated here.
• A countywide total: the dashboard gives no count by building, provider or city.
• No count of residents is published, so no death rate can be computed.
• Presumed living situation is the Medical Examiner's classification from its investigation, not a match against housing records.
• The dashboard offers 2021 as its earliest year for this breakdown, so there is no all-cause count for 2019 or 2020.
• 2026 covers only January 1 to October 29 and includes 13 deaths whose manner was still pending; it is not comparable with full years.
• The Medical Examiner also investigated deaths for COVID-19 surveillance in 2020 to 2022 (620 in 2021, 322 in 2022), which inflates its countywide totals for those years.
• HUD beds are a one-night count of beds, not residents, and leave out most income-restricted and recovery housing, so deaths per bed is a rough comparison of growth, not a death rate.
• Housing sites' share of deaths among housed people rose from 2021 to 2025; the dashboard can't show whether some of that came from better identification of subsidized addresses rather than more deaths (see analysis private-residence-recoding-check).