Select Committee on Federal Administration & Policy Changes 7/18/2025

Good morning.

The Select Committee on Federal Administration and Policy Changes Committee meeting will come to order.

a.m.

July 18th, 2025. I'm Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rink, chair of the committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll and let the record reflect that Councilmembers Hollingsworth, Rivera, and Saka are excused.

Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Nelson.

Present.

Councilmember Strauss.

Present.

Councilmember Solomon.

Here.

Chair Rink.

Present.

Chair, there are four members present.

I believe Councilmember Kettle needs to be moved.

Yeah.

I did promote him.

Let's see.

Council Member Kettle.

I see Council Member Kettle has joined online.

Council Member Kettle, you're muted, but I can see your thumbs up.

All right, Chair, there are five members present.

Thank you.

We will now move forward to approval of today's agenda.

I move to adopt today's agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

It is moved and seconded to adopt today's agenda.

If there is, there we go.

Hearing no objection, pardon me.

There's a little bit of an issue there.

Hearing none, the agenda is adopted.

There's an issue here.

Understood.

It is moved and seconded to adopt the agenda.

If there's no objection, agenda item one will be removed from the agenda.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is amended to remove item one.

And if there is no objection, the agenda as amended will be adopted.

Hearing none, the agenda as amended is adopted.

Welcome everyone to July's meeting for the Select Committee on Federal Administration and Policy Changes.

To our presenters, thank you so much for joining today's meeting for these critical discussions.

We appreciate your time, attention, and expertise during these incredibly challenging times.

And on today's agenda, we will hear two items.

The first will be an update from the City Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and they will be providing an overview of how the Big Betrayal Bill will impact Seattle and Washington State, followed by a panel of human services providers to provide an update on what they have been experiencing over the past several months of the Trump regime.

And before we move into public comment and presentations, I wanted to highlight that in addition to the Big Betrayal Bill, a couple of other elements have come to our office's attention that we wanted to supplement today.

with some information about, namely that the Big Betrayal Bill will kick 330,000 Washingtonians off of their healthcare coverage, and our hospital system now stands to lose over $6.6 billion over the next decade from Apple Health cuts.

And here in Seattle alone, some of those deepest cuts look like over $56 million from Harborview Medical Center, the only level three trauma center in the region, not just the state.

and over 45 million from the University of Washington Medical Center, nearly 30 million from Swedish Medical Center, and nearly 12 million from Virginia Mason Medical Center.

And altogether, other hospitals in King & Snohomish counties, that is around 660 million annually, and it's devastating for patients and providers alike.

It will force closures of hospitals and clinics, services will be scaled back, and insurance premiums will rise as early as Q4 2025. This is the most regressive tax bill in half a century of federal policy.

The effects will be devastating and felt by the majority of Americans.

Also the ultra-wealthy can get another colossal tax break.

So we must demand better nationally and act locally.

And with that, we will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda or within purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up for today?

Currently we have zero in-person speakers signed up and there's one remote speaker.

Our remote speaker will have two minutes and we will move to them now.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 60 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they were registered.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left on their time.

Speakers mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

The public comment period is now open and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

The first speaker on the list is David Haynes.

All right, thank you, David Haynes.

How much money, wait, the big betrayal, Seattle knows a lot about big betrayals when it comes to proper policy that has imploded society and caused the budget crisis.

How much money do these homeless industrial complex coalition lobbyists make representing the very racist, woke, deviant, perverted misinterpretations of proper policy, always misjudging skin color that has exacerbated the homeless crisis and caused unnecessary suffering for the innocent.

while Bertie's signaling how much they care for certain skin colors of criminal repeat offenders who get to gouge the hell out of Medicaid, padding the cost on big pharma alternative drool drugs for junkies who are allowed to voluntarily roam around deciding how much effort they're going to put into their Medicaid offering of fighting their addiction in a half-hearted manner.

Why is the Homeless Housing and Human Services Committee being canceled this whole month while we have an ongoing homeless crisis of unnecessary suffering exacerbated by City Hall executive priorities and policies that persecute innocent white homeless while running interference for BIPOC evil repeat offenders who ruin the pursuit of happiness.

Why is this committee being used as a campaign platform during election season, virtue signaling that all of the failures of progressive policies is to blame Trump and MAGA for everything, distracting from the fact Democrats are the party of societal implosion, wicked corrosion, abusing Medicaid with unqualified, politically connected nonprofits that have these extremely rich executives who spend all their time hiring lived experience so they don't have to interact with the people they're supposed to be expert at solving the problem of, but they maintain their inter-government political donation trading and election support for a watered-down integrity of the oversight.

I know for a fact that Medicaid is being gouged by the corruption of the progressive Democrats of Seattle.

You all need to be investigated because you're persecuting innocent people.

We will now move on to our first item of business.

Or pardon me if there's no objection, there we go.

Okay, we're gonna move on to our first item of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

One big beautiful bill act analysis, briefing and discussion.

And with that, I'm going to invite Annie from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations to come up to the table and once you're settled in, if you can take a moment to introduce yourself by speaking your name into the microphone for the record.

Thank you.

Alright, good morning council members and thank you Chair Ring for inviting me here today.

As mentioned, I'll be presenting on H.R.

1, which is formally titled the One Big Beautiful Act.

This is, you know, a pretty consequential spending bill.

It's structured as a budget reconciliation package, so it's allowed for a simple majority passage and avoiding those filibuster requirements.

This was passed just recently and signed into law by President Trump on July 4th.

It incorporates 10 different Senate committees into a unified legislative package, spans almost 900 pages, so this is really deemed one of the most consequential pieces of legislation in our modern history.

OIR along with our departments has spent some time analyzing local impacts.

As mentioned, just given how large it is, there'll be a lot more to come as departments really dive into the impacts of this bill in years to come.

So of course, I'm happy to follow up on more items that are not mentioned today.

So at a high level, it imposes pretty significant and deep cuts to health and human services while shifting responsibilities to state and local governments.

We've deemed eight pretty large buckets of impacts to the city of Seattle and our constituents.

I'm only gonna spend time today on four of them, health and human services, immigration and border security, housing and community development, along with nutrition.

and of course we'll follow up with some more analysis following this presentation.

All right, so starting with Health and Human Services, this is probably the most significant to note, massive, massive cuts to Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Phasing out will come in the next few years, primarily starting in 2027. looking at changes in work requirements, specifics around non-citizens not being able to enroll in benefits and increased cost sharing to states.

Along with this, pretty significant to note to us in our community is the prohibitive federal funding to entities as deemed in the bill taxed primarily non-profits against family planning services and abortion services.

So specifically calls out Planned Parenthood, And so we'll just see a general drop in availability for services, you know, even around things outside of abortion like STI testing, birth control, and other entities that are pretty crucial to our residents.

On the Medicaid front, a lot of this funding does flow through the state, so that's important to note, but I did just wanna point out that there will be trickle-down effects and a lot of this will be impacting our constituents directly.

and could impact things like behavioral health or potentially aging services that flow through the county.

Already in conversations with the state on this, Governor Ferguson has announced some plans to backfill the funding for Planned Parenthood.

So we'll of course be continuing those conversations as we head into budget season.

And also just wanted to point out some of the smaller effects that our departments will see.

For example, the Seattle Library could have a pretty significant increase in staff time allocated to helping residents fill out forms and claims specifically around Medicaid and SNAP as well.

On the immigration and border security side, I'm sure a lot of people have seen headlines around this.

Pretty significant to note the increase in fees for people applying for asylum, temporary protected status, TPS, and even certain employment authorizations.

a significant, significant increase in funding for DHS, DOJ, and ICE, and so we'll see an increase in funding for detention centers, legal fees, and especially the border enforcement as well.

it will be decent amount of money allocated for security costs.

Importantly to know is funding for FIFA World Cup.

So overall that 625 million will be allocated across all of the host cities.

So Seattle is looking at around, I believe 31 million for that.

And that is specific to safety and security costs and would flow through DHS.

it's likely that money will flow through our local organizing committee, but I know that the mayor's office and our FIFA teams are working on how we receive that money.

And of course, you know, just to state the obvious, this will have a really chilling effect on our residents.

I think, you know, already hearing from your teams, you know, in your offices that, you know, people are just scared.

There could be, you know, a decrease in people wanting to go to work or feeling comfortable sending their kids to school.

And so, you know, that trickle down effect just in scarcity across the community, of course, is important to know.

Looking at the housing side, you know, primarily two significant buckets here.

So an expansion of the low-income housing credit along with a focus on opportunity zones, more requirements on the opportunity zones and a specific, you know, focus on rural areas.

Seattle does have, you know, a few developments in Rainier Beach.

I don't think there'll be too significant impacts on Opportunity Zones, just given the requirements, but that was pretty significant to note along with the expansion of LIHTC and could be potential interest to expand affordable housing as a result of LIHTC.

I did wanna highlight one positive here.

There was the preservation of municipal bond tax exemption status.

This is really important to our departments as a financing tool for massive projects around transportation, water.

City Light did extensive outreach on this and so really grateful to have their advocacy as this definitely was not something that was I'm for sure gonna get through.

Alright, another pretty significant bucket here is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program cuts.

It's around $186 billion.

This could mean that Washington State will have to shoulder, you know, $90 million in costs and, you know, a pretty significant shift to states there.

you know specifically a reduction in benefits a family of four could potentially see $975 go to 848 and that's you know pretty significant for families across Washington and in the city along with that you know expanded work requirements of reduction in SNAP-Ed, not a reduction in elimination of SNAP-Ed.

That's really key to a lot of the work that OSE and HSD does.

Just through the decrease in individuals eligible could mean that the schools as a whole could become less eligible for those meals.

And along with this, Education-wise, that program has 16 different entities across King County that provide resources on education around food and health.

So just generally want to note that this will cause a strain on the system.

If people are not receiving food vouchers and then along with health insurance could see issues across utilities and across the board.

So just want to point that out as we're thinking about the years to come and the strain on our constituents.

And we'll of course be in conversation with our partners at the county and state to really understand the effects of this.

And of course, as noted, our departments are still working through what this really means as it's pretty significant.

So more to come on that front.

but I will pause here and I'm happy to answer questions and as noted, follow up as necessary.

Thank you for that presentation, Annie.

Colleagues, what questions do you have at this time?

Council Member Strauss.

Chair, I don't have any questions at this time.

It's a pleasure to get to work with you, Annie.

Just to say that this is bad.

The City of Seattle is working to do our best to mitigate and build against these harms that are being done.

I mean, just listening to KUOW this morning with funding for public broadcasting being cut last night, this is again a situation where we as the city are gonna do as much as we can to bolster the municipal services that we have available to everyday Seattleites.

No more questions, no more statements, other than this is bad and we're gonna do our best to mitigate this harm.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss, and thank you for daylighting that piece around public radio.

I saw that news as well.

Councilmember Kettle?

I'll...

move to Council President Nelson and we'll come back to Councilmember Kettle once they're moved to panelists.

Council President Nelson.

These disastrous cuts will especially hurt our homeless, our people who are living on our streets and also impact the delivery of our services I'm imagining and I'm wondering if there has been any conversation with public health.

I am particularly concerned about the inextricably linked problems of public safety, chronic homelessness and addiction within the broader context of our fentanyl epidemic and what kinds of treatment we are dependent on that sort of funding that will no longer get through the Medicaid system.

for that question.

We are in the initial phases of those conversations.

I have not personally talked to public health yet.

I think everyone at this phase, just given we're about a week and a half out, are still sort of understanding and analyzing the impacts directly.

I think those conversations are coming very, very soon.

I know that my colleagues here in OIR have already reached out to start having those conversations.

And yes, public health is really integral to specifically this bill, especially around behavioral health and homelessness.

We're definitely thinking through the impacts, especially around Medicaid on that front.

and I'm happy to include you in those conversations as we move forward.

Thank you very much.

It's within these disastrous cuts that I put forward that resolution to prioritize substance use disorder treatment in both our public safety funding plan and also in our homelessness services because failing to act is not just financially irresponsible, it's a moral failure.

Yes, thank you for your work there, Councilmember.

Thank you, council president and council member Kettle.

Thank you, chair.

And first I'd like to apologize.

I've been bouncing between trying to get my laptop fixed and my phone and then back to my laptop.

So I apologize for that, but I made it.

I was, I didn't quite hear the council president, but I think she was speaking to what I was going to be speaking to because we've been bringing this up and in terms of public safety, but the really the, the interface between public safety and public health and how we need to take action, identify how can we protect as much as possible in terms of Medicaid coverage because the Medicaid piece is going to be vital in terms of what we're trying to do and those intersections of the public safety, public health and homelessness that we often talk about.

And so thank you for that.

And as part of my systems piece, I was noticing I missed parts of the security related to the World Cup, but I'll follow up on that part with my team.

And that will be definitely something that we'll be looking at generally, but also with public safety.

So thank you.

Thank you, council member.

Yeah, really excited about those FIFA dollars.

Should be around 31.5 million.

And I know that our FIFA partners at the city or here at the city are in conversations with the LOC about how to receive those funds.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Council President Nelson, is that a new hand?

Yes.

Please.

So, in the Governance Accountability and Economic Development Committee last week, there was a discussion of this piece of legislation that would fund treatment more expansively.

And one thing that was said by Lisa Dugard of the PDA was that we need to make sure that we can effectively and very rapidly get people verified for inability to work in order to maintain the Medicaid benefits and so why don't we just get a whole bunch of people that can actually help people fill out paperwork So, you know, I mean, so that seems like a really good idea.

Yeah, thank you for that.

Yeah, I would love to continue thinking about that in creative ways.

I know people are thinking through, you know, how we could think through it in a volunteer capacity as well.

So would love to have those conversations.

Yep, thanks.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, any additional questions before I go into mine?

I'll give folks another moment to think.

This is certainly a lot of information to digest, and again, I want to thank Annie for your thorough analysis.

I think we're all trying to digest exactly what these cuts and changes mean for our neighbors.

I'm wondering about, for some of these changes, if there's any direct interaction with the Area Agency for Aging, which is located within HSG.

I know, colleagues, the Area Agency for Aging is something that is overseen by City of Seattle, but it's technically federal resources, and so are there any of these changes that impact that body of work?

Yes, I've been in early conversations with HSD on this front.

I think that they're gonna need a little more time to really go through the Medicaid impacts.

We have already talked about specifically the impact on elders, changes around Medicare as well, and so Yes, not fully prepared to answer that right now, but happy to work with HSD on that front as we really understand how that will impact us.

But yeah, it will flow through the county on that front.

Great, thank you.

I know colleagues, we haven't talked too much about the impacts to seniors and elders in our community and some of these changes and what they'll mean, but would like to continue that conversation.

And also, I mean, do we have a sense of, when we're talking to our disability justice partners, you know, these additional work requirements that are being put in place?

I understand there's exceptions for specific health conditions and disability, but do we have a thorough understanding of what that is going to look like and if there's any concerns on that front for what this means for our disabled community?

Yes.

Thank you.

Not extensively, yes, we're starting to look at those.

I know there's an exemption for tribal communities and obviously a focus on non-citizens, but happy to follow up on the ins and outs of those changes in eligibility.

Thank you, and my last, it's not quite a question, but more a point to make, if just going to slide six related to immigration and border security, it is my working understanding from some information made available through the ACLU, and I'm hoping that you can confirm this and see if this is consistent with your understanding.

Within this bill, $29 billion is being allocated for just new agents alone between ICE and Department of Homeland Security.

For Department of Homeland Security, that translates to at least 10,000 new agents.

It's unclear at this point how many new agents that translates to ICE, but could you confirm that?

That's my understanding.

I have seen that 10,000 number that they're aiming to hire that many ICE agents, specifically to send into urban areas as well.

And I believe that number sounds about accurate, but I can confirm that.

Certainly would like confirmation on that information.

As you stated, well, this has instilled a lot of fear in our community just with the current staffing levels of ICE agents.

It's hard to imagine what thousands more of ICE agents could mean for our city.

So thank you for confirming that information.

Colleagues, any additional questions at this time for Annie?

No.

Fabulous.

Well, thank you so much for bringing this to us.

Thank you, Chair Rankin.

Nice to see you all, council members.

Wonderful.

Thank you, colleagues.

And with that, we will be moving on to our second item of business.

I'll wait for the clerk to come back.

Wonderful.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record?

Panel on human services, human and social service providers, briefing and discussion.

Thank you so much for being here today.

Once you're settled in and ready, if you can take a moment to introduce yourselves for the record.

Got it, okay I'm just batting a thousand when it comes to buttons this week.

Good morning, everyone.

Council Chair Rink, Council President Nelson, Council Member Salomon, Council Member Strauss, and Council Member Kittle, and your yogurt.

Thank you for having us.

My name is Marissa Perez.

I use she or her pronouns.

I am the Executive Director for the Seattle Human Services Coalition.

Hi there, everyone.

Thanks so much for having me.

Amaranthia Torres here with the Coalition in Ending Gender-Based Violence.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Joe Gruber.

I use he-him pronouns.

I'm executive director of the University District Food Bank in Northeast Seattle.

Thank you three for being here.

I know you have a presentation for us today, so we will start with Executive Director Perez.

All right, good morning everyone.

You wanna go to the next slide?

As I said, I am the Executive Director for the Seattle Human Services Coalition.

Alright, we are a coalition of seven different member coalitions representing over 250 service agencies, nonprofits and programs in every Seattle district.

These range from food banks to meal programs to DV service providers and community health centers.

We came together in 1987 to provide a unified voice for human services.

We truly believe in collaboration across sectors.

Over the last nine months, we have been working diligently with our member agencies, gathering data and stories about the looming prospect of federal funding cuts and what they will mean for our human services network.

We've gathered data regarding the amount agencies are preparing to lose, the effects of that loss, and the overall reduction in services across various sectors.

The bottom line is, however, that we don't know.

The deliberate efforts by the Trump administration to obfuscate, confuse, and discourage his ideological opponents mean that we have very little concrete information on which to act.

The chaos is deliberate, and despite it, our agencies are showing up every day and feeding, housing, and serving our neighbors with no guarantee of funding the next day.

Today, alongside my teammates and colleagues, I hope to outline what we are facing as a sector.

All right, while recent legislation did not affect discretionary funding in HHS and HUD, the Health and Human Services and Housing and Urban Development, we anticipate that the cuts that were reflected to other safety net programs in the Big Beautiful Bill will also happen in the coming appropriations bills over the next months.

The President's proposed 2026 budget that he presented in February slashes $33 billion from Health and Human Services and proposed a 43% cut to housing and urban development, including nearly $27 billion from housing and rental assistance programs.

These cuts will undermine vital human service programs and lead to more homelessness, food insecurity and pressure on local providers.

As you can see up there, the chart on the right hand side of the slide talks about the percentage of all individuals who are receiving benefits by each type.

So extrapolate from that how many of our residents here in Seattle are going to lose access to those that government assistance, they will then take that need to our human service agencies who will also be facing funding cuts.

So it's going to just be bad across the board as we've all said.

Next slide.

All right, looking at some of our funding loss survey information, these were three organizations that answered that survey.

While the appropriations bills move through the House and Senate and are not yet final, House Republicans this week boasted of slashing the HUD workforce by 26%.

Those are folks that our agencies rely on to get their grants administered and their programs funded.

these three different organizations.

The first one is a multi-service organization located in Seattle.

9% of their $10 million budget is in direct, non-direct federal funding.

Losing that would mean cutting their nutrition education programs and loss of their SNAP funded education and they are already preparing for those losses.

I'm sorry, Chair, have we lost form?

Council President is still logged in and is returning to be virtual but is still logged in via phone.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you for clarifying.

KSARC, our Sexual Assault Service Center located in King County, 43% of their direct and non-direct federal funding of their budget is in direct and non-direct federal funding.

This is particularly scary because the Office of Violence Against Women, a key federal partner for our gender-based violence service providers, is anticipating losing over a quarter of its budget.

That means that they would be unable to serve over 2,000 survivors annually.

Lastly is a senior center located in South Seattle.

85% of their funding is in braided government funds, which means that it is pass-through dollars through state and city and county providers and contracts.

It's very hard to prepare for loss of this type of funding because of the braided nature of some of these funds, but losing that funding would mean reducing their social services staff and reducing hot meals for food security seniors.

Next slide.

These are some quotes that I pulled directly from our survey.

Funding restrictions are already showing up in contracts, in required reporting, in funded activities that are allowable, in responses to grant applications.

Some of these restrictions range from restrictions on DEI language to forcing cooperation with immigration enforcement and even restrictions on reproductive care as a requirement for getting those grants.

One development director found that competition for private funders who are not restricting DEI language increased by 300% in the first six months of this year.

So this is not just affecting the government grants, it's also affecting private grants and private funding.

I would like to spend some time focusing on our community health centers.

The data from the next slides was gathered in coordination with the Community Health Council of King County, as well as a report put together by Senator Maria Cantwell's office.

This slide is an overview of just how many patients each of our community health centers serves each year, and what percent of the revenue they rely on that comes from Medicaid.

As you can see, there's a range of numbers in neighborhoods and districts ranging from 31% for King County Public Health to 77% of the revenue for HealthPoint, which has 20 different King County locations.

a few key points to emphasize on this slide.

One thing that I did not know was that 18% of the city of Seattle's population relies on community health centers for primary and preventative care.

And as we saw previously, if 77% of their income and their revenue and their ability to stay open relies on Medicaid, losing that coverage, if one third of current enrollees lose that coverage, that will be devastating to our community health centers.

Community health centers are required to see everyone regardless of the ability to pay.

This model is highly cost effective because it is upstream interventions that prevent costly hospital care down the line by keeping people healthy.

Losing Medicaid coverage will not decrease the number of patients seeking help.

It will instead put extreme financial pressure on this critical safety net, resulting in worse outcomes, more medical debt and increased medical costs across the board.

While the changes are not scheduled to take place until 2026, we are already seeing changes being made to individual plans that are impacting access to care.

The community as a whole will be impacted by federal cuts regardless of what funding stream they affect.

Cuts at the city, county, state and even private funding sources will impact the overall capacity and resilience of the human service system.

We desperately need the city council, the mayor and his team and our county and state partners to prioritize funding for human services and protect our community from the worst effects of these cuts.

Thank you for that presentation.

Colleagues, I'll allow for questions in between our presentations just given the meat of what is being presented to us.

So do you have any questions at this time for Executive Director Perez?

Council member Strauss.

I think you're gonna find a similar theme with me all day today, which is, Marissa, it's good to see you.

I know that we get the opportunity to work together pretty closely on a number of issues.

I don't have any questions for the record and on the dais today, but just again, similar as last time, probably the similar conversation that we're gonna have in the next two presentations.

This is bad.

It's our job here in the City of Seattle to blunt these cuts and blunt these negative impacts to the best of our ability, and that's our job as your city representatives and keeping this municipality running in the face of all of this devastation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

This presentation just confirms what we were saying before and what probably most of us have seen on the streets interacting with the different elements of the system.

I think it's quite clear that we can use the word crisis now that the bill's been passed and signed.

As someone who's been through many crises, I think the key is preparation.

and we do need a task force Tiger Team effort on this to ensure that we're best prepare to respond.

And then the first piece is, again, ensuring the greatest amount of Medicaid coverage that we can get.

There's different pieces to that.

This is gonna take some in-depth analysis, but then marshaling all the different aspects of this together to ensure that, in a simple way, T's are crossed and I's are dotted.

And I think if we just continue to talk about this, I mean, without any actual start but in place, task force with the various pieces of this ecosystem, if you will.

I think it's going to be quite needed and there's really no need to delay on this.

between the non-profits, you know, the city and the county, which has the public health responsibility.

I just sat on a board of health meeting yesterday and I'll be meeting with King Council, Council Member Barone later this afternoon.

I'll restate this with him, is that we do need to be, you know, lockstep with the county on this public health challenge that we're going to be facing and in cooperation with the state as well.

I'm sure the next presentations are going to be very similar and I just I just want to be blunt on this as someone who's been in different types of crises before this is clearly one particularly you know as we work all the challenges that we see throughout our city and so I just wanted to make this point this is something that we can you know the Human Services Chair coming in myself as Public Safety you and your role working with the executive council president and basically the entire team on the council working with the executive and the non-profits and any volunteer groups everything everybody you know we keep throwing away these around these terms like all hands on deck there's like a catchphrase this is truly a all hands on deck moment so I just wanted to follow up on my earlier comments thank you thank you councilmember Kittle

I think it's important to note that it's important to note that it's important to note that it's important to note that it's important to note that it's important to note that it's important to note that it's important to note that it's important to note that it's important to note that it's important to note that it's important to note that it's important to note as a result of our community from the impact of these cuts, especially Medicaid cuts, and in particular the work requirements by effectively, quickly signing people up and filing the verification of inability to work.

I'm just making that point known again.

So in the coalition, you probably know this probably became an apparent need quickly.

So are there any organizations that are providing any kind of volunteer or paid help on that front to other organizations to reach clientele or patients.

Thank you for that question, Council President Nelson.

At this time, I am not aware of which agencies have, I know that they have dedicated staff that do that.

I don't know if there has been an increase in requests or what outreach they are doing to access those people that are maybe not signed up.

I can definitely follow up with the Community Health Council and get you that information.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Council Member Salomon.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I just wanted to say that while I do have a lot of thoughts and comments, not so many questions, I will hold those until after all the presentations are made.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

With that colleagues, I'm mindful that we are scarce on quorum today and so in the interest of not wanting to lose quorum, I'm gonna call a brief five minute recess to allow for members to take a bio break if needed.

So if there is no objection, I'm gonna call for a recess and we will reconvene, let's say 1035, perfect.

We're on recess, thank you.

Hey, hey, hey

Avoid using all capitals' I can't believe it.

I can't believe it.

you

Wonderful.

The Select Committee on Federal Administration and Policy Changes meeting will come back to order.

It is 10.35 a.m.

I am Alexis Mercedes Rink, Chair of the Committee, and will the Committee Clerk please call the roll and let the record reflect that Council Member Hollingsworth, Rivera, and Saka are excused.

Council Member Kettle.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Councilmember Strauss.

Present.

Councilmember Solomon.

Here.

Chair Rink.

Present.

Chair, there are five members present.

Wonderful.

And we will move back into our second item of business for the day.

Will the committee clerk please read item three into the record?

Panel on human and social services providers briefing and discussion.

Wonderful, thank you so much and thank you colleagues for allowing for that brief recess.

And with that we'll move next to a presentation from Co-Executive Director Torres from the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence.

Thank you so much.

Good morning, everyone.

Again, my name is Amaranthia.

I use she, her pronouns, and I'm the co-executive director of the Coalition Indian Gender-Based Violence.

First, thank you to Chair Rink for inviting me to be on this panel, and to all the council members for prioritizing this important conversation.

Today, I'm gonna share some context of the gender-based violence movement, then share how local programs in Seattle are being impacted by the federal administration, and then I'll highlight critical ways to move forward together.

Our coalition is the collective voice for over 35 member programs, all working to an end to gender-based violence, such as domestic violence, rape, sexual assault, and commercial sexual exploitation.

Anytime anyone does not conform to what's expected of their gender, they run the risk of being targets of violence.

If a friend or loved one is being controlled by their partner or being harassed at school or online or is forced to have sex when they don't want to, they may need the support provided by a local gender-based violence program.

Our mission is one that recognizes three things.

One, that rigid gender roles and gender inequity is at the root of most forms of violence.

Two, that an antidote to abuse of power is equitable relationships and shared power.

And three, that it will take all of us working together to truly end gender based violence in our communities.

Last year was the 30th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA, bipartisan legislation passed in 1994 that created a unified national response with dedicated resources and funding for survivor services.

Now, I was just 13 years old in rural Tennessee in 1994, but I was in my 30s and working at a domestic violence and sexual assault organization supporting queer and trans survivors when the 2013 inclusive VAWA passed in Congress.

This critical legislation included specific protections for immigrant survivors, increased access to justice for Native American and Indigenous women, and added gender identity and sexual orientation as protected classes for the first time.

The opposition said, we'll pass VAWA, but only if you take all those groups out.

And our movement said, absolutely not.

And we succeeded in passing the inclusive VAWA, which is still the law of the land today.

This is more than just statutory requirements.

It is central to our missions and our values.

Values that say some survivors have worse outcomes and higher likelihood of abuse because of systems of oppression such as racism and sexism.

Values that assert all survivors deserve safety and dignity as they heal from the impacts of abuse.

I decided to share this history with you today because I think it illustrates some of the core values of our movement and it shows a stark contrast to where we are now at the federal level.

We are witnessing monumental abuses of power at the highest levels of government and the core values and integrity of our collective work to end gender-based violence is under threat.

The recent executive order, quote, defending women from gender ideology extremism is essentially describing patriarchal values and encouraging discrimination.

It establishes a binary of two distinct sexes, male and female, attempts to erase the concept of gender, and vilifies gender identity all in the name of defending womanhood.

Over the last six months, notices of funding opportunities through VAWA were suddenly removed and then reposted with an entirely new set of requirements requiring applicants to certify that grant funds will not be used for out of scope activities such as promoting gender ideology, promoting illegal DEI diversity equity inclusion programs, violating federal immigration law and activities that frame domestic violence or sexual assault as systemic social justice issues.

There's a lot to say about that, even just that last bullet point, really all of them.

I don't have a ton of time to go into that, though I welcome further conversation on this issue.

But I did wanna note, as Marissa shared earlier, finally, the most recent federal budget request for fiscal year 26 proposes 128 million reduction to the Office on Violence Against Women.

So, what does this all mean for our local gender-based violence programs here in Seattle?

On the slide here you'll see these are all of the member programs that are part of our coalition and they do incredible profound work every day supporting survivors here in our communities.

A majority of programs, including the coalition, rely on federal funding, whether through VAWA, through VOCA, which is the Victims of Crime Act, or other pass-through funds to meet the needs of survivors in our community.

And even with that, we fall short.

Here in King County, in the last four years, there have been more domestic violence-related deaths than in the previous 10 years combined, with 135 fatalities from 2020 to 2024 alone.

Statewide, Washington has a higher prevalence of both domestic violence and sexual assault, though our funding, sorry, excuse me, higher prevalence than the national average, but we continue to see our federal funding get cut.

Most notably, since 2018, VOCA, which supports victims of crime of all types, not just domestic violence and sexual assault, but VOCA has been cut by over 75% in Washington.

These harmful restrictions on funding combined with the executive orders are forcing programs to make impossible choices, deny lifesaving services to immigrant and LGBTQ survivors, or get cut off from funding.

Many programs have just self-selected out of funding they would normally be eligible for due to this impasse.

Additionally, some programs are navigating the precarious position of being out of compliance with VAWA and Congress if they apply, since those laws are still standing.

If they opt out of applying for OVW grants, they lose out on critical funding for services that survivors rely on, yet if they make the required certifications, they will expose their organizations to legal and financial risk.

In fact, there's a group of 17 state domestic violence and sexual assault coalitions across the country that have filed a lawsuit about this very issue that we are waiting to hear how that goes.

All of this will of course impact the sustainability of our local programs and the availability of services to victims and survivors.

So how do we move forward from here?

I don't pretend to have all the answers to that, but every survivor of gender-based violence faces unique risks and safety concerns as they resist abuse, and so too are we as a movement and as individual organizations facing unique risks and safety concerns right now.

I believe the gender-based violence movement should play a vital role in this moment.

We know that a primary harm of abuse is an attempt to take away agency and self-determination.

We all need to remember our own agency right now in this moment, that we always have choices and that what we do matters.

Abuse says nothing you do matters, you're small.

but we know it matters when we assert and embrace an expansive and liberatory view of gender.

We know it matters when we say all survivors, regardless of immigration status, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation deserve safety and dignity.

We know it matters when we move through the world standing firm in our values.

And as a coalition, this is what we endeavor to do on behalf of our membership.

This is also what we need from our local governments.

Strong and autonomous local government can help insulate our communities and our values from the encroachment of abuses of power at the federal level.

Strong, stable and fair revenue can help insulate us too.

It's really wonderful to hear all the comments from council members today in support of this same ethic and the same role that our local governments can play.

It's gonna take all of us in ever-widening coalitions and I look forward to continuing the work together.

And I deeply appreciate the time to talk with you today about this issue with you this morning.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for that presentation.

Colleagues, any questions on this presentation?

Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

I'll change my tune this time around just to say thank you for all your work.

You're making an impact on so many people's lives and generationally at that.

And please, we'll do our best to support you in this work and just thank you for everything you're doing.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Appreciate it.

Councilmember Kettle.

yes thank you chair if you could that last slide back up I just wanted to note the incredible array of groups that are listed there many of which I've met with either in my office or out in the field and I appreciate the work and I appreciate the the you know different pieces that they do based on their mission sets and coming together.

It's really important.

So I have not been to all of them, but for those that I have been, thank you for your work and thank you for hosting me and then showing the work that you've done.

It's really helpful.

Thank you very much for the presentation.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Alright, I'll give folks another moment to think while I ask just a couple of questions on today's presentation.

One, just honing in on one point that you raised, Washington has a higher prevalence than the national average on domestic violence.

Did I hear that correctly and could you expand on that?

Yes, as some of the work, that is correct, you did hear that correctly, and some of the work that our statewide coalition was doing to protect the Victims of Crime Act funding, that was something that emerged from their advocacy efforts, was some of the higher rate of prevalence statewide, and thus the need for additional funds for victims of crime and for gender-based violence broadly, and why it's so stark that we have seen such significant cuts through the VOCA funds being reduced.

but I'm happy to follow up with more specifics through our state coalition if that would be helpful.

Yeah I'm curious on just like the number like what is like the numbers attached to those do you happen to know those?

I do not happen to have those off hand but I'm happy to follow up and make sure you have them.

Yeah that would be great to know and I think I just have two other points to to raise one just being a broad commentary just I know our Having worked in the homelessness response system and the clear intersection of work around ending gender-based violence and folks who are actively fleeing in a number of cases needing to seek homelessness response services, I've come to understand of course then the concern that as we cut social services, this further empowers abusers or those who are causing harm, making it harder for folks to be able to leave a dangerous situation.

How have you, as working in this body of work, how have you come to understand that dynamic?

And do we have any data that signifies how economic downturn can then lead to subsequent situations of gender-based violence or so on.

What kind of data do we have on that?

Or is there any correlation that you could share?

Absolutely.

Such a great question.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

Yes, there is actually a ton of data that shows that homelessness is really the, that gender-based violence is a leading cause of homelessness among children and families.

and women that are fleeing abuse.

And we know that anything that is in the foundation, in conditions that survivors are navigating, systemic oppression, economic injustice, poverty, we know that so many of those things are are power imbalances that are reflected in our society, that those power imbalances are the exact things that folks who are abusive or are causing harm, that they can use and leverage that power imbalance to continue to further harm people.

And so any kind of Any kind of lack of access to resources when survivors are struggling to pay bills or struggling to meet their basic needs, that just makes it all the more easier to exploit them or to have power over them.

There is some really helpful data I think on a lot of these areas around the ability for financial empowerment and the need for stable financial resources and the economic issues that you're pointing to through much of the Housing First data that really speaks to that intersection of homelessness and housing and survivors of gender-based violence.

And that's a really meaningful data and research that actually happened right here in Washington State and has really led the way on much of the national response to prioritizing Housing First for survivors of domestic violence.

So I would point you to some of that data and can additionally follow up more specifically about that.

Thank you for that.

And my last question is just for any survivor who may be listening or anyone who is seeking support or help or knows someone who is seeking support and help, what advice would you give them?

Is there a number they should call or what kind of message would you want to send to them right now?

Yeah, well thanks for that council member.

I think that I would absolutely point them to all the member programs here that support our community and support survivors.

There is a DV regional hopeline, DV hopeline that exists 24-7, multi-modal, multi-lingual chat phone.

that is housed by New Beginnings and there are so many culturally specific supports and programs for folks.

We've got programs that are supporting our queer and trans survivors.

So I would really encourage folks to reach out to all of these programs that are available, that understand abuses of power and can help point people to the right resources and get them connected.

and at the end of the day, support their own efforts and their own self-determination for what they know they need and for safety that they may be trying to access.

Thank you for that.

Thank you.

Colleagues, if there are no additional questions on this presentation, I'm gonna move us along the agenda.

Thank you again.

Co-Executive Director Torres.

and now we're going to turn it to our final presentation for today and hear from Director Gruber from the University District Food Bank.

Thank you, Chair Rink.

Council members, thank you for the opportunity to be in conversation with you all this morning.

Once again, my name is Joe Gruber.

I'm Executive Director of the University District Food Bank and has served in that capacity for more than 20 years.

So when we begin our conversation today about the impacts of the policy at the federal level, I want to provide a little bit of context to help set sort of the stage for what we're expecting to come.

The University District Food Bank is one of a network of over 30 food banks across the city.

Our work is focused on reducing and eliminating barriers to food access and connecting our customers to community resources that promote stability in their lives.

We do that through a variety of programs that are very similar to other pantries across this network.

We have three neighborhood pantries.

We provide a home delivery service.

We offer a weekend backpack program for students in public school.

We operate a rooftop farm where we're growing produce for our own distribution.

We have an apple a day cafe where we're providing hot meals to community members.

And then we also offer a community connector service where we're helping to connect individuals in the food bank to other community resources.

Like many of our peers, we're serving at record levels across all our pantries and in our home delivery.

In fact, we've closed our waiting list for home delivery because we can't reliably predict when we'll have enough capacity to actually meet the customers that are on that waiting list.

For some context, since 2023, we've seen an 80% increase in the number of households that we've served and 130% increase in the individuals that we've served.

in 2023 and 2024, those significant increases were primarily driven by new households kind of seeking assistance through our pantry.

This year, we're busier, we're 10% busier than we were last year, but really what we're seeing instead is an increasing number of current households visiting us more frequently.

so we think about the depth of their need increasing.

For us, an average month of service is somewhere between 10,000 and 11,000 households across our pantries and home delivery, plus 2,000 plus meals in our cafe, and 3,000 weekend bags of food through our school partners.

Once again, those are at record levels well beyond what we experienced during the pandemic.

Unfortunately, our food supply is not keeping up with sort of this increase in demand.

50% of our food that we distribute is donated.

Our primary sources of those donations are Food Lifeline and through our community partnerships with local businesses like grocery stores.

And then 50% is actually purchased.

We spent $1.6 million buying food last year just to meet some of the needs of our community.

Our donated food supply is flat at best as we look at things.

You know, when we think about the introduction of AI into the grocery store chains, as well as sort of the rising wholesale food prices that we've experienced since the pandemic, margins in the grocery business are difficult, and so we're seeing a flat or declining supply through those grocery store partnerships.

As a result, our purchased food has become more important.

I mentioned an increase in food supply costs.

We've seen about a 30% increase in our food costs since the pandemic, just through inflation, in addition to just needing to purchase more to kind of fill the shelves.

Eggs are an example is a great example of this, where we've actually gone from it being a regular purchase item to just a sometime item, as we've seen significant spikes, increases.

Over the winter, we saw the prices more than quadruple.

They've come down some, but they still remain less of an always food and more of just a sometimes food for us and for our shoppers.

With respect to our shoppers, our customers, here's a couple of data points that I think we get through our surveys that are important to consider.

20 to 25% of our customers on a regular basis are unhoused, but 50% of our customers report concern about their housing stability.

So folks, even in housing today, still are significantly concerned about remaining in their housing going forward.

80% of our customer families report a household income of $30,000 or less per year.

And our average family size is two and a half to three persons.

As a data point, the UW self-sufficiency standard for one person in Seattle is $52,000 a year.

So our families...

and that's for a person of one.

So our families are significantly cost burdened.

17% of our households are three or more generations, right?

And so for me, we've seen that statistic more than double in the last 10 years, right?

This is both families having older adults move in with them, but also older parents having their kids move back in order to make things work.

10% of our customers show that they're retired, 10% report disability income, and 50% are working at least part-time, although two-thirds of those recognize that their hours are unstable.

And so I think this is a significant concern as we look at some of the increasing work requirements that we're seeing in the administration.

45 to 50% of our customers receive SNAP.

We know that of the folks that are potentially eligible for SNAP, we have about a 70% success rate in getting them to participate.

So we know that there's still a gap, but this gap is gonna be made more difficult by the actions of the administration.

And 80% of our customers get at least half of their food from a food bank.

And so as we think about the food supply and then the other forms of support that families have in our community, that is a significantly scary piece of information.

as we then think about the policy changes that we've already seen in 2025. You've heard from some of our peers previously about the impacts of SNAP cuts, or sorry, of TFAP cuts that have been sort of going through the emergency food system.

This is federal commodity food.

Food Lifeline estimates that in King County, these TFAP cuts will be about 63 truckloads of food.

to King County in federal fiscal year 25. That's about $4.2 million of lost food coming into the county that would be distributed through partner food banks.

Our food bank, if we look at that and try to estimate as best as we can, that's about a $250,000 to $300,000 loss of commodity product.

And I have to say that that product are oftentimes eggs, meat, dairy, and produce.

So these are the high demand items that customers are interested in when they come to visit a pantry, and that's food that we're just not going to be receiving through the program.

So then as we think about the policy impact of the administration's one big, beautiful bill, One thing that I would want to point out is if you have not had a chance to read a guest essay by Tracy Kidder in the New York Times earlier this week, I would urge you to read it.

It's entitled, A New Era of Hunger Has Begun, and I think Mr. Kidder humanizes this issue within the context of our current federal policy.

but really when we think about sort of the impact of this bill, there's two numbers related to SNAP that stand out to me that I wanna call out.

The first is that $1 of SNAP benefit brings up to $1.80 of economic activity to a community.

And the second is that for every one meal provided by food banks, SNAP provides nine.

Hunger is a symptom of economic insecurity and insufficiency, so families trying to survive in Seattle on $30,000 a year are left with a Sisyphean task.

As the safety net is willfully destroyed by the administration, our families, our neighbors will suffer.

Rent, utilities, healthcare, childcare, medicine, food will need to be balanced or realistically traded off.

I think about every day the conversations we have with our customers, thinking about how you balance the need to repair your automobile so that you can hold on to a part-time job against the need to pay for medicine or buying new clothes for your kids.

With SNAP, there are three windows of time for us to consider, sort of immediately, October 1st, 2026, and October 1st, 2027. Right now, we're really still waiting on some USDA guidance to understand exactly how everything will play out, but once that's released, really think a series of unfortunate events will be set into motion.

Immediately, we're thinking about the impact of work requirements and time limits and increased restrictions on participation in SNAP.

Annie called out earlier the reduction in SNAP benefits coming in October.

that is one piece.

But when we think about the work requirements, the raising of the age through age 64, so many of our customers already report difficulty in both finding jobs, but also keeping steady number of hours each and every week.

And so if you're not receiving stable work hours, it's difficult to sometimes meet the work requirements.

And so that's just an extra burden that is being placed on participants in SNAP.

Similarly, exemptions for vets and homeless and former foster youth are being eliminated as far as participation in SNAP and so those are important changes that will again increase the administrative burden for participants but also increase the administrative risk for states.

and then finally thinking about the thrifty food plan, which is the basis for benefits going forward.

Really, the administration is looking to freeze how that basket of goods is considered that will continue to keep benefits low.

So more administrative rules make for harder reporting, which lower the enrollment numbers for SNAP and also importantly increase the likelihood of state reporting errors.

because come October 1st, 2026, the administrative cost share for SNAP is gonna increase from 50-50 shared between the state and federal government to 75-25.

The state will bear now 75% of the administrative cost for SNAP starting in October 2026. If a state can't afford that increased cost share, their opportunity is to step away from the program entirely.

in October 2027, the benefit cost shift will happen at SNAP, whereby states with increased error rates above 6% will pay 5 to 15% of the SNAP costs, right?

And SNAP errors and SNAP error rates aren't the waste, fraud, and abuse that the administrative administration portrays it as, right?

It's really about making rules more complex in ways that allow a state to overpay or underpay a participant or not make the adjustments in a timely way.

And when we look at Washington State, our error rate as of last year was 6.06%, so just above that 6% threshold.

if we were to then look at what that cost would be for 5%, it's $130 million of additional cost that our state would be burdened just because of this 0.06% extra error rate from the more than 535,000 participating households on SNAP.

Washington State also has a program called Food Assistance Program for individuals who don't quite qualify for SNAP, but the state thinks are important to get this food benefit.

Its ability to sustain that program will be called into question as Washington State is asked to bear more and more of the administrative costs and potentially some of the program costs for SNAP.

So returning to my numbers from a moment ago, $1 of SNAP can lead up to $1.8 of local economic activity.

Washington State and the City of Seattle have done amazing jobs in promoting the SNAP Match Program, right?

Creating opportunities for individuals to really increase the purchasing power of their SNAP dollars at farmers' markets and in grocery stores to improve how much fruits and vegetables they are actually able to get.

More than three quarters of a million dollars was spent with SNAP and SNAP match at our Seattle farmers markets last year.

snap purchases represent six to eight percent of the income for producers in these markets.

And we know that those producers are primarily more immigrants and people of color just because they're the actors in our food system.

So when we think about some of the downstream impacts of these snap cuts, less fruits and vegetables for our customers for sure, but less market activity for our farmers markets and a bigger food system impact for those growing our food locally.

with respect to the nine SNAP meals for every one food bank meal, it's really hard to predict how deeply those cuts will actually impact our neighbors and the network of food banks in our city.

But here's one best analogy that I can offer you.

During COVID, we increased and expanded SNAP benefits, right?

We had enhanced SNAP.

And in March, 2023, those SNAP benefits, those expanded benefits ended.

that was a loss of about $90 a month per person on average.

In March 2023, the month those enhanced benefits expired, our food bank, the U District Food Bank, experienced a 1,500 household increase in visits just that month, right?

We went from about 7,500 to about 9,000 households visiting us that month.

And since that time, we've served at essentially record levels.

Amy highlighted that SNAP benefit reductions are coming in October, and so we don't know exactly what that immediate impact will be on this network of food banks, but a significant loss of SNAP benefits certainly translates through our past experience to a significant increase in food bank visits.

Then as we layer in increased restrictions and work requirements, we'll see a further erosion of participation in SNAP and a further increase in food bank participation.

But beyond direct cuts, we also think that with these complications in SNAP, we'll also lead and see fewer participants in other important community resources and community supports.

SNAP is often a tool by which we can qualify our customers through our Community Connector into other services.

So thinking about those school meals, thinking about discounted transportation, lifeline wireless services or utility discounts.

Enrollment and maintenance of enrollment becomes significantly harder, both for customers but also for the network of service providers that the city helps to support.

So as we think about sort of the lessons that we've learned from the pandemic, right?

We saw a decrease in poverty and a decrease in childhood hunger through the pandemic.

How?

It was through an increase and sustain of benefits.

More money for food, more money for childcare, increased housing supports, right?

So we've seen how we can reduce poverty in our community.

We've seen how we can reduce childhood hunger both of which don't look like this bill, right?

And so from the scorched earth of this bill we have an opportunity to think about new answers for our community rather than just trying to figure out how we restore what is being lost.

Thank you.

Thank you for that thorough presentation, Executive Director Gruber.

I mean, it's astonishing.

And I know I have a couple of questions, but I want to open it up first to my colleagues.

Council President Nelson, did I see you had a hand raised?

Yeah, thank you very much.

Going back to your presentation, I think I heard you say 80% of your customers use food banks.

I didn't understand that.

Shouldn't it be 100%?

Can you help me understand better what you said?

Sure, so I'm referring to the SNAP participation rates, is that what your question was, Council President?

Yeah.

Right, so I think we would look at, you know, participation in SNAP can be complicated for a variety of reasons, and so we think through surveys it's about 50% of our total food bank customers are participating, but then when we think about those who are potentially eligible, it is about 70%.

So yes, there should be more individuals participating, but for a variety of reasons, folks choose opt out or go through kind of the process, try to apply and be considered, and then may or may not be able to sustain that.

So we have community connectors who are helping do enrollments.

So for us, that is a regular body of work.

Each month we're signing folks up.

But I will also say that there is a stigma attached to participating in food stamps that sometimes is difficult.

particularly for folks who might be concerned about also how their participation in that program may or may not put them at greater risk for other services.

And so I think we deal a lot with sort of concern for both Am I even eligible for this?

But also, if I'm eligible for this and participate, will it have a downstream impact on myself or my family that we may or may not want to consider?

And so I think that it's not as easy as, sure, this is a program that we should get you signed up for and somebody wants to say yes.

Okay, that's the piece I was missing.

Thank you for that clarification.

I didn't realize you were saying 80% of SNAP participants use a food bank.

so I think that's what I was missing.

Thanks.

Thank you for that clarification question, Council President.

Colleagues, additional questions?

Council Member Strauss?

Thank you.

I mean, your presentation also demonstrated that food banks don't just provide food.

I know that in the Ballard Food Bank, there's mental, dental, physical health.

There's the free cafe to just have a lunch, have a meal.

Opens at 10 a.m., I believe, every day.

And the clients there are not necessarily...

There are so many things that they need.

Food is one way to get folks in the door.

and then have access to so many other services.

I kind of call it like the triage center of what do you need and how do we help you?

And so the name Food Bank is a bit of a misnomer these days.

Again, just thank you for your work.

We're going to do our best to protect you.

and we certainly appreciate the city's longstanding support for both the core food bank work that we do, but also the variety of other resources that we're able to bring onsite because for sure it's about being able to build relationships and also lower barriers to participation.

So thanks for that kind of longstanding partnership.

Thank you.

Council Member Salomon.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I have to say that the information that you presented us today depresses me and it angers me.

And I could go on a rant for a long time and I'm on the verge of tears, so I'm just gonna keep this very brief.

When I first got to this body, when I was being interviewed for this role, and I remember the question from Council Member Brink, with the potential of looming cuts, what are we gonna do?

And I said, okay, if they're gonna cut us off, we'll find our own money.

I still believe we need to find our own money to protect our people from this cruelty, because I don't see how any of this expletive is making America great.

I see it as making America hungry, making America sick, making America poor, making America unhoused.

I'm sorry.

I told you I wasn't going to go on a rant.

Anyway.

There's only so many buckets that we've got that we can access.

And again, I say we need to find our own money.

And this is where I'm thinking, state, we need to step up.

We need an income tax as opposed to the regressive tax structure that we currently have that puts the burden on property owners, which then puts the burden on renters, and then puts the burden on people who buy stuff who are adversely affected because, you know, my kid, who's a part-time barista at Starbucks, is paying a higher proportion of their income when they're buying, you know, a pound of chicken at Safeway.

Or excuse me, no, that's not the no-food tax.

Anyway, you get the point, right?

My kid who makes like $26,000 a year is adversely affected as opposed to somebody like me who's making quite a bit more than that.

This is why I say we need to come up with our own money.

And on the state level, we need to Oh, there's so much language I want to use that I can't because this is being recorded and will be on Seattle Channel.

We need to step up.

We need to accept the reality that we can't count on the feds.

Not only are they cutting funding, stripping funding, they're stripping funding that was already allocated.

We have our own budget deficits, not only in this city, but around our state.

something's gotta be done and we can't just keep talking about it we can't just keep kicking the can we need to take action because we're not just talking programs we're talking people we're talking individual lives and like I said I go on I will stop there thank you

Well said, Councilmember Salomon.

And I agree on so many fronts, but you already knew that.

It's really appreciated.

I have a couple points that I want to raise to this, and I first want to start with a question just as a refresher.

Can you remind us what makes a household eligible for SNAP?

What is that standard?

but I will profess to not being a SNAP enrollment expert, right?

So I think, but really when we're looking at it is an intersection between household size, the age of the participants, as well as their income, right?

And so I think that is the big marker is to what the, income of the household is relative to the number of individuals, and so that is a scale that just changes.

There are some, well, there were some more exemptions provided to folks, but we have chosen through this bill to kind of remove some of those exemptions.

We've also made classes of individuals no longer eligible.

We used to provide it available to refugees, asylees, and victims of human trafficking.

Those categories of participants have also been removed from that.

Appreciate that.

And silly me, I have a computer in front of me.

So just, colleagues, to put this in your mind, to give an example, your household's gross monthly income must generally be at or below 130% of the federal poverty line.

So for a family of three, this is approximately $2,800 per month for fiscal year 2025. So I just wanted to bring up one example for what we're talking about when we're talking about SNAP eligibility, how much monthly gross income that is, and it's not a lot, especially in this town.

And moving us along from that, I know with the changes with the new expanded work requirements, I want to daylight something and any member of the panel encourage you to chime in on this point too.

Understanding that there are new work requirements but there's some exemptions due to caregiving or medical conditions, I just...

I imagine to some that might give a sense of ease for medical conditions.

However, we're also talking about making healthcare in that same time much more inaccessible, and it'll become increasingly difficult for residents and folks to be able to get a diagnosis that may be able to keep them qualified for these programs.

And so I wanted to offer that as clarification and a concern that for these expanded work requirements, even with these exemptions, If you have a medical condition, it's only as good as you can get an actual diagnosis to be able to support that with paperwork.

Any reaction to that?

Yes, I think one thing, if there's anything that is a takeaway from this panel and something that aligns with what you just discussed is that the human services system is holistic.

It is not about food banks, meal programs, homelessness, services, gender-based violence, health centers in their silos, in their buckets.

We cannot fund one area at the expense of others.

We cannot prioritize.

and that's something as we move into city budget season that, it has been mentioned, where are the priorities?

The priority is all of it, because if you do not fund food banks or meal programs, we will end up with increased healthcare costs.

If you do not fund healthcare, we will end up with people who cannot work and then lose their homes, and now we have homelessness as an issue.

If you end up with folks on the streets, now we have substance use, exposure to more health, poorer outcomes, it is all intricately linked.

There is no way to prioritize one sector over another, and that is something that has been increasingly clear, is that if we lose one agency, it does not matter what sector, if we lose one agency in the city, the entire system will increase the strain on that system, and we will lose community members.

They will end up lost, and that is is not something we can put a dollar amount on.

That is not something that we can quantify.

So I encourage the approach to this work to be seen as something holistic.

HSD must be kept whole, increases to funding must happen across the board in order to ensure we don't end up losing precious community members.

I almost just want to end it on that very powerful note.

This work is deeply interconnected.

And I deeply appreciate the work you three do and all of the member organizations and partnering organizations that could not be here today, the work that they're doing every day, understanding that the workload is increasing, but when we talk about increasing workload, we're talking about more of our neighbors in need.

And oh, I see a hand from Council President Nelson.

I'm sorry to cut you off mid-sentence there.

It helps me to understand the magnitude or the numbers behind some of the problems that were stated here today.

And I'm wondering if there's an estimate on percentage or numbers, percentage of Seattle residents that have access to Medicaid benefits that will no longer have them because of the new requirements.

Does anybody have a ballpark on that?

That's my first question.

My second question is, what are the changes to the SNAP program?

Is it an income eligibility change?

And then finally, Amaranthia, you mentioned a couple times the Housing First study or data or research or something.

Could you please give me a reference because I'd like to look at that.

Okay, yes, absolutely.

I'll take a go at that first while Marissa looks for some information for your other questions.

Thank you, Council President.

Yes, DV Housing First is a research project that Washington State led as part of our Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

and many local programs really all across the state right here in Seattle participated in that research study and it essentially found that, what we all may know anecdotally, but it essentially found that the more we can increase housing stability and pair financial supports and resources with high-quality advocacy, survivor-driven advocacy, that that relational connection is the secret sauce, makes the difference for survivors' safety, for their efficacy, for their ability to stay housed safely and stably.

And so that research is very strong, very local, and many programs participated in that.

I think it had some funding from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at the time, and it has since been promoted and used for other states in the country.

It was seen as a role model protocol and a model approach for gender-based violence and survivors but also for housing as a core need to really focus on housing first and then looking at all the other needs and issues that folks may have.

some great data about that and you can find that at mostly Wiskative's, it's a big project of Wiskative, the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Thank you.

So I look up Washington State Coalition Against Violence and you said the name of the research group or study in the in the beginning, but I didn't catch it again.

Oh, sure.

I mean, we just kind of call it domestic violence housing first model.

And I can also just send an email with some of the details and links that would make it a lot easier.

But that's the main thing.

And it had funding.

It was a multi-year research project and there's quite a lot to it.

But the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded some of the work in that area here locally.

Thank you.

Council President Nelson, on your first question, so I will confess to not being an expert on community health centers.

They are one of our member coalitions and I was asked to highlight some of what they are facing today.

A lot of the data that I received and gave today is actually from a report that I will send you.

It was done by Senator Maria Cantwell's office in March 2025, looking at specifically the Medicaid cuts and how they will threaten Seattle's healthcare.

and one of the key figures that you are looking for is that Medicaid funded 22% of inpatient care and 18% of outpatient care at hospitals in Western Washington.

in 2023. Western Washington hospitals saw 623,549 Medicaid patients in 2023. So that's approximately 20% of all care in Western Washington hospitals is directly tied to Medicaid.

And if that percent, you know, they're expecting to see at least a third of current enrollees to lose coverage.

So a third of 20%, that's a pretty high number of that 650,000.

and again I will send you this report which goes into granular detail about the Medicaid effects on not just our community health centers but the hospital system as a whole.

Thank you.

and then with respect to the SNAP question, I can send to the committee information more specifically about the different cuts within SNAP, but I think when we look at the changes, they're multifaceted.

One is around adding additional burden to the states with really the intent to drive those states from actually supporting SNAP within them.

So there is the admin cost share that will happen in 2026, and then the actual benefits cost shifting happening in 2027 based off of error rates.

And so that is at the state level where costs will increase and then more immediately within the actual SNAP program itself.

We'll see an increase in the work requirements, meaning you have to be through age 64 and participating in work over 20 hours a week if you're an able-bodied adult without dependent.

Some of the exemptions to this were eliminated for vets, homeless, and former foster youth.

Some of the categories of participation in SNAP were also eliminated.

So refugees, asylees, and victims of human traffic are no longer, they are being excluded from being eligible for SNAP.

And then the benefits are being frozen through the Thrifty Food Plan.

And so for that, it is both reducing who is eligible to participate in SNAP, making their participation harder to continue, and then finally reducing the amount of funding for folks through the SNAP program when they do participate.

But as I said, I can forward information about these changes.

That was really helpful.

Thank you.

Thank you for those questions, Council President.

Really appreciate that.

And colleagues, if there's no additional questions, I know we're coming up on time.

I think I heard a few adjectives said throughout this meeting, whether it be Council Member Strauss saying this is really bad a few times, to also this is overwhelming, or a desire to say some expletives, which I certainly share.

Council member Solomon, I think all of those feelings are valid with what we're facing.

And if it feels that way to us, I can only imagine right now the many members of our community that are having to navigate these systems and changes and are having their lives thrown into jeopardy.

And so I certainly I certainly want to ensure that we are working not just on the local level to try and address these challenges, but as was also stated by Councilmember Salomon, partnering with our state delegation because it's not just happening here in Seattle.

It's happening across the state and even as representatives of Seattle.

I want to ensure that folks across the state are getting the care and support that they need.

And so it's going to take all of us.

I appreciated what Councilmember Kettle said earlier about working also with our partners on the county level, particularly on the matter related to public health.

It's going to be critical that we're working with them when we're talking about our neighbors getting the health care that they need through these health centers.

So we're going to need to work across a lot of levels of government to be able to resolve these challenges.

But I want to thank and people for engaging in this conversation today and state.

We're gonna do our part here on the city level while partnering with county and state to ensure that we're taking care of our neighbors.

And I wanna thank you all again for coming today to share this critical information.

And colleagues, we have reached the end of today's agenda.

Is there any additional business to come before the committee?

All right, everyone take a deep breath, eat something delicious, drink some water, get a good night of sleep.

Hearing no further business to come before the committee, we are adjourned.

It is 1129 AM.

Thank you, everyone.