January's Housing News
Shelter/Temporary Housing
In January, availability of temporary living spaces for Seattle's homeless continued to be a priority, as several new shelters and housing alternatives opened. This rise however, still has not matched the need for Seattle's homeless patrons, as concern continues around unsanctioned encampments and the community impact of homeless facilities. Read more below:
Update: King County shelter and day center openings schedule
King County will open a new day center at 4th Avenue and Jefferson Street by the end of January. Enhanced 24/7 shelter will open in the West Wing of the King County Correctional Facility in March, along with modular dorms at a former Metro parking lot in SODO.
A 100-bed shelter at Harborview Hall operated by the Salvation Army opened on Dec. 21, and is already at more than 80 percent capacity.
Jefferson Day Center, to be opened in January, provides onsite case management, connections and referral to community services, housing navigation, employment services and other supports for people experiencing homelessness.
The first modular housing units arrived in Seattle from Texas on Jan. 12. The SODO Bridge Housing Project at 6th Avenue South and South Atlantic Street will be open in March.
The first floor of the King County Correctional Facility West Wing will open the first floor to serve 40 single adults in March
Modular homes for the homeless arrive in Seattle
The first of 20 modular homes that will be used as temporary housing in King County arrived in Seattle recently.
The modular units, which were hauled from Texas in January, are being cleaned up before 48 people move into them.
Next phase of Olympia’s homeless plan almost ready
Residents will start moving into 30 brand new homes in downtown’s “Plum Street Village” early next month, and they won’t be charged a cent.
Olympia’s Homeless Response Coordinator Colin DeForrest said the majority of the new residents will likely come from the city’s “mitigation site,” a nearby city-owned parking lot where people experiencing homelessness have been living in tents given out by the city in December.
Mary's Place raised $2.4 million for new emergency shelter for homeless families
The nonprofit Mary’s Place announced today it exceeded expectations and raised $2.4 million to open a new emergency shelter for homeless families.
Pierce County councilwoman wants to use empty jail beds to house homeless
Pam Roach sent out a mailer to residents in her district in December asking for their input.
“The people in the 2nd Council District are overwhelmingly in favor of opening up empty spaces to allow those that are out on the streets today a place to stay,” said Roach.
Ed Troyer, with the Pierce County Sheriff's Department, said it's not a good idea.
"You have to consider the mental health issues, the disease issues. What's going to keep the people from showing up that are homeless from fighting? There's just a whole lot of issues we see on the streets that, if you brought into a contained facility, would bring us lots of problems,” he said.
Cleaning up Seattle’s homelessness crisis in Northgate
“One of the reasons why we are cleaning up this site is because it’s a public health risk having waste and food out here, with rodents and whatnot,” Lemke said. “Businesses on the other side here have been contacting the media, reporting they have had public safety issues.”
The Navigation Team didn’t just orchestrate the removal of waste. Heavy equipment was brought in to take away large clumps of debris and clean up the top soil of the site.
For many neighbors in the Northgate area, homeless camp sweeps like this one is a wedge issue. Some would rather truck in bathrooms and trash cans to the camp instead of clearing them out. But others see that stance as enabling the crisis.
The viaduct covered homeless camps, but now those have to go
For a long time the structure, which is close to many services, has functioned as a makeshift shelter for people who are homeless. As the area turns into a construction zone, the people camping under it have to leave.
Lemke said 68 other people have been contacted under the viaduct since June of 2018. Of those contacted, 11 accepted referrals to shelter in that time period. It's unclear where everyone else has gone.
Seattle weighing future of Camp Second Chance as homeless site approaches end of its permit
Camp Second Chance, a city-sanctioned homeless encampment in southwest Seattle, is about to reach the end of its two-year time allotment, and the city is evaluating whether it will remain at the site or move.
Permanent Housing
This month, Affordable Housing continued to hold headlines with the news of Microsoft's $500 million lending program. This news amplified discussion surrounding the role of large corporations in affordable housing accessibility, and highlighted growing concern about housing affordability for the middle class. Read more below:
The $500M question: What do housing advocates think of Microsoft’s plan?
Microsoft’s recent launch of a $500 million program to help finance affordable housing in King County over the next three years was met with fanfare
We know the company is planning to provide $225 million in loans with low-interest rates to build workforce housing affordable by middle-class residents, such as teachers, first responders and nurses.
Microsoft also plans to provide $250 million more in loans at market-interest rates for low-income housing projects.
The last $25 million in the proposal will be spent as philanthropic grants responding to homelessness.
Microsoft cited Housing Trust Silicon Valley as a potential model for how the affordable housing effort will operate.
Housing Trust provides loans and grants to kickstart affordable housing construction, help nonprofit housing providers acquire and renovate existing apartment buildings, provide assistance for first-time homebuyers and pay rental deposits for people exiting homelessness.
Though Housing Trust’s approach to loans gives a sense of how Microsoft will operate its program, some key questions remain. For example: who will run it?
WA Legislature poised to go big on affordable housing
There will be legislation to increase funding for housing construction and to provide rental assistance to the state’s lowest-income residents, efforts to maximize denser housing development near transit, and attempts to create more rental and home-ownership opportunities for middle-income Washingtonians.
In Washington, 51 percent of renters are cost-burdened, meaning they pay more than a third of their incomes toward rent.
Last year, the Legislature increased the Housing Trust Fund, which is used to build subsidized housing, to $107 million, up from $72 million in 2017. This year, advocates are lobbying the Legislature to increase it to $200 million, slightly more than the fund’s historical, prerecession high.
Rep. June Robinson, D-Everett, has another idea for funding this construction on the local level. She is reintroducing a bill that would allow cities and towns to keep a percentage of the state sales tax they collect if they use that revenue to fund affordable housing construction.
Advocates are also lobbying House Democrats to take up Real Estate Excise Tax (REET) reform, an idea proposed as part of a tax reform package last session. REETs are a tax on the sale of property. Washington currently charges a flat REET of 1.82 percent on all property sales.
Michele Thomas, director of policy and advocacy at the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance, said the three reforms could result in a total of $600 million more for housing construction, enough to build 17,000 new affordable homes.
The first change would require "just cause" for evictions. Currently, Seattle is the only city in Washington that requires landlords to provide a just cause, such as failure to pay rent. Another policy Macri proposed would extend the time a tenant has to catch up on late rent from the current three days to 21. Finally, she wants to simplify the language on "comply or vacate" notices and give judges more room in their rulings besides evictions, such as creating payment plans or extending deadlines to pay back rent.
Legislators are also working to boost safety-net programs that can help extremely low-income residents stay housed. Last year, the Legislature expanded the definition of eligibility for the Housing and Essential Needs (HEN) program, a fund that helps people with disabilities pay rent and utilities.
Rep. Tana Senn, D-Mercer Island, and Sen. Joe Nguyen, D-Seattle, are also working on safety-net reforms. They’re sponsoring a bill that would make it easier to get on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the federal welfare program administered by the state.
Sen. Palumbo is introducing a bill to establish minimum density in neighborhoods around public transit. If passed, the law would require a minimum of 150-units of housing per acre within a half-mile of a transit hub.
Can corporate money and altruism fix affordable housing?
In the long run, advocates question if the private sector should have so much power over housing policy—and if these investments are more self-interested efforts to provide homes for their growing workforce than purely charitable efforts for the entire community.
Currently, federal government support for housing assistance is a third of what is was in the 1970’s, adjusted for inflation, as cited in the New York Times, and the 2017 tax bill diminished the value of the Low-Income Tax Credit, a key funding source for new affordable housing construction. Combine cuts in support with rising costs for construction and land, and it’s become harder and harder to build affordable units.
CEOs of Seattle area’s biggest companies: We need more housing for the middle class
Challenge Seattle, a group of 17 local CEOs led by former Gov. Christine Gregoire, released a report Wednesday that amounts to a call for action on more housing aimed at households making between $54,000 and $108,000 (or less for individuals).
Except for Microsoft, the companies thus far have not contributed their own financial resources to spur investment in new housing. Instead, they are advocating for things Gregoire concedes should prove challenging to implement, like zoning reform and changes to real-estate investment that could lower profits.
The group asks local governments to relax zoning laws to allow for more density, especially near transit.
The CEOs also ask governments to reduce impact fees that help fund projects to offset some of the issues development exacerbates, like traffic, to reduce construction costs.
It wants socially conscious banks and investors to make loans for middle-income housing with below-market interest rates; asks equity partners that invest in developments in exchange for a stake in the project to receive their profits in smaller chunks over a longer time frame; and wants lenders to provide short-term loans for land, the riskiest time for investors to give out loans because projects aren’t certain at that stage.