By RayJaun Stelly, The Seattle Medium
Last week, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell announced a proposal for a $970 million housing levy to address Seattle’s growing need for affordable housing. According to Harrell, the levy will fund critical investments toward 3,000 new units of affordable housing, workforce stabilization, and other resources to address the housing and homelessness crises at hand.
Speaking in front of 800 affordable housing developers, operators, funders, and community partners from across King County at the Housing Development Consortium’s 35th Annual Celebration, Harrell said that proposal would provide $707 million over seven years to help create and preserve affordable rental housing with permanent supportive housing for seniors, people exiting homelessness, working families with children, people with disabilities, and other low-income households.
“The Housing Levy is a proven solution for delivering thousands of affordable housing options,” said Mayor Harrell. “Rooted in our one Seattle values that everyone should have a safe place to call home, this plan invests to meet the scale of the housing crisis, doing more than ever to prevent homelessness.”
In addition to the funding of affordable housing, $122 million would go towards operation, maintenance, and services to ensure safe, sustainable operations in permanent supportive housing and create a new wage stabilization fund for workers in Permanent Supportive buildings. $51 million toward homeownership to create new permanently affordable for-sale homes, provides down-payment assistance for low-income homebuyers and stabilizes low-income homeowners through emergency home repair grants and foreclosure prevention assistance.
The levy would also allocate $30 million to provide short-term rent assistance and housing stability services to help low-income households avoid eviction or homelessness. Lastly, $60 million goes to program administration to ensure continuous and effective administration of all housing levy-funded programs by covering costs associated with project selection and contracting, development, underwriting, construction monitoring, project performance and compliance, fiscal management, and program policies and reporting.
“The housing levy addresses the crisis of homelessness from multiple angles,” said Harrell. “Everyone deserves housing and a tent outdoors, without proper sanitation, heat, and running water is not a safe place for anyone to call home. Frankly, we know the best way to address homelessness is to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place. That’s why our proposal increases this resource 250%, an investment of $30 million to keep people in their homes and off the streets.”
While openly supporting the development of 3,000 units of new affordable housing throughout the city, Harrell’s levy proposal also includes first-of-its-kind investments to stabilize wages for workers who provide critical services to the lowest-income residents with supportive service needs. In addition, the proposal would do more than any prior levy to support operations and necessary maintenance to keep City-funded affordable housing running safely and sustainably in the long term.
The housing levy is a seven-year property tax that was last approved by voters in 2016, aside from helping build affordable housing, it’ll keep low-income families in their homes and provide emergency assistance to move those experiencing homelessness into housing.
As of today, it’s estimated over 16,000 people are living in homes funded by the levy, the current levy has an expiration date of at the end of the year, which is why Mayor Harrell’s proposal would renew and significantly expand. The proposal which includes 3,000 units of rental and for-sale homes will also be available to seniors and families with children as well, also will continue their rental assistance programs, a way to prevent homelessness and housing insecurity, and other housing levy priorities that have made a difference for families throughout the city.
“That’s a bold investment that reflects our city’s combined urgency and understanding of the challenge in front of us, more than tripling the size of the levy because that’s what the need is,” says Harrell. “Everyone in this room knows that housing is about more than bricks and steel, it’s about people, as one of my favorite R&B artists Luther Vandross sang, ‘a house is not a home.'”
In February, Council President Debora Juarez established the Select Committee on the 2023 Housing Levy that will review ongoing and future housing needs, and consider Harrell’s proposal which included the size and scope of the levy, and make a final decision on whether this levy proposal will be sent on the ballot for consideration by Seattle voters. Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda will serve as chair and Councilmember Lisa Herbold will serve as vice-chair of this committee, the meeting dates and times can be found at seattle.gov/council/committees/select-committee-on-the-2023-housing-levy.
“As Chair of the Council’s Select Committee on the Housing Levy, I’m committed to working in partnership with the Council, the Mayor’s Office, and the broad coalition of labor, business, housing, and community organizations behind this Levy to put forth a robust package that builds on the success of our previous affordable housing investments and reflects the critical housing needs of our city in this moment,” said Mosqueda.
Harrell is optimistic that voters will have a chance to approve the measure on the November ballot.
“I am confident we can deliver this monumental generational investment, and then put those dollars into practice to drive change and create affordability,” says Harrell. “$970 million dollars, over 3000 homes, countless Seattle families who can love and enjoy this city like we all do. Advancing this levy proposal to Council is one critical step – it’ll take everyone in this room to make sure we get it through this process and referred to the November ballot.”
