Welcome to The Newsfeed.

For the first time in 16 years, King County has a new executive at the helm.

Executive Girmay Zahilay is leading one of the largest local governments in the country.

Right now, King County faces a multitude of crises, from homelessness to major internal financial issues in some departments.

We sat down with him to talk about his vision for the office.

Executive Zahilay, you sit here today as the youngest person to hold your position.

You came to Seattle as a child refugee.

How has your lived experience framed your vision for King County?

It frames everything.

I've experienced King County at its best and at its worst.

We grew up in low income public housing in South Seattle.

We experienced all kinds of issues, but because of effective local governments, public resources, I was able to go from living in public housing to now serving as our state's leader of our state's largest local government.

You've now been in office for five months.

What would you say have been some of your biggest challenges so far?

The issues are so great and so diverse, and we have a federal government that's attacking so many of our communities and taking away so many of our resources.

We have a housing crisis that is contributing to families not being able to make ends meet.

Too many people living out on the streets, too many communities being displaced farther and farther south.

And so the biggest challenge is just getting to everything with the limited resources and the limited time that we have.

But I believe that we will keep making progress.

All this week, we're bringing you more from our interview with Executive Zahilay.

Coming up, we'll dive into the complexities of the homelessness crisis in the county.

I'm Paris Jackson.

Thank you for watching The Newsfeed.