Housing, Arts and Civil Rights Committee 6/29/2026

All right, good morning.

The June 29th special meeting of the Housing Arts and Civil Rights Committee will come to order.

It is 9.33 a.m.

I'm Dionne Foster, chair of the Housing Arts and Civil Rights Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council President Hollingsworth?

Present.

Council Member Rink?

Present.

Vice Chair Lin?

Present.

Chair Foster?

Present.

Chair, there are four members present.

Thank you.

And note that Councilmember Juarez has been excused.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Well, first I'll start off by saying thank you so much to the public and our panelists for joining in today's special meeting.

on unwanted solicitation of homeowners in our city.

Over the last several months, my office has heard repeatedly from constituents all around the city who have experienced repeated and oftentimes harassing solicitations to buy their homes.

through letters, other mailings, phone calls, texts, and door-to-door solicitation.

As we all know, homeownership is an important tool for families to build generational wealth and to create deep and lasting bonds in community.

But over the last several decades, we've seen ongoing displacement of Black, Latino, Indigenous, and Asian American residents in our city.

There are a number of factors that have fueled this trend, but unwanted solicitation and offers to buy homes that target homeowners who are often on fixed incomes, including seniors and disabled persons, is certainly one factor and one that we are looking forward to discussing and addressing through this legislation.

As the city continues to grow, we want to make sure that people who want to stay in their homes are able to do so.

And that means lots of things, but one of them is to make sure that we are protecting people and their privacy all around the city.

So today's meeting is an opportunity to both hear directly from community leaders and residents who are affected by unwanted real estate solicitations and to introduce legislation to the committee that would help to disrupt excessive solicitation.

ensuring that legacy homeowners can live in peace in their homes.

So thank you to the community members who have taken time to share stories and we look forward to hearing from folks a little bit later on at the table.

With that, we will now open up the hybrid public comment period.

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

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

There are currently 17 speakers signed up.

Okay, fantastic.

And are those all in person?

There are 11 in person and seven remote.

Okay, great.

So each speaker will have two minutes.

We will start with our in-person speakers first.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?

The public comment period is up to 60 minutes.

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

We will first begin with in-person speakers and then move to remote speakers.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not and 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 our first speaker on the list.

It will be Ron Horning followed by Larry Dean.

You can come up to the mics up here.

Good morning.

I'm on a senior tax structure through the county, which gives you a lower tax rate.

And for the first few years I was on, it was kind of messed up, so they were putting the original value in the box there on like a parcel viewer.

So it was saying the original value, original value.

Well, then they finally got it straightened out to the new taxable value.

So on the taxable side, for normal people, it shows the full amount.

But then people on this program, it shows the new tax.

So I started getting all these people wanting to buy my home at the taxable amount, not the assessed value.

So I think this, if you could add the seniors that are on that program and for the county, if they could give you a list or something to add those into this legislation, that's what I came to talk about.

So thank you.

Thank you.

All right, our next speaker is Larry Dean followed by Bernetta Ward.

Yeah, use this one and speak right into the mic.

Okay.

Good morning.

How's everybody doing?

Good morning.

This is the first time I ever did anything like this.

I hope I don't go to jail.

I'm on the senior tax.

It's fantastic.

I didn't really know anything about it.

But the reason why I'm up here is because I get a lot of those calls.

And they asked me, are you Larry Dean?

I said, yes.

Are you the homeowner?

I said, yes.

and they said, we're interested in selling you, buying your house.

And I said, is your house for sale?

I asked them, are you selling your house?

My house is not for sale.

And then they said, we can give you this.

I said, you got $10 million?

I ain't no fool.

I don't know.

I mean, in my area, I live in Majora, there's only three black families in the neighborhood.

And my parents, that was my parents' home.

And, you know, I was like, I was the minority.

I was looking around, I said, where you people come from?

You know, I've been here for the longest and all of a sudden things want to change.

and then they'll send me letters.

They sent a letter saying, you don't need to live there.

My daughter lives there.

And I told my father, I said, what kind of mess is this?

So I don't want to be on no list.

What I'm saying is I want to be on a no call list.

And I just think it's ignorant.

But I don't want to get in no other specifics.

And that's all I want to say.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And our next speaker is Bernetta, followed by Sharon.

Good morning.

My name is Burnetta Ward.

I'm a member of the Black Legacy Homeowners Group, as well as Case 21. And I'm here to advocate for support to enforce the avoidance of folks calling to solicitate your home.

I've been a Seattle homeowner for over 45 years.

I lived in the Central Area for 35 years.

and my husband and I experienced this quite a bit when we were in the central area.

We sold our home there and bought a smaller home in Rainier Beach and we've been there nine years and now we're getting phone calls asking us if we're interested in selling our home.

We are not.

We're both using cell phones.

We're on the do not call list and these people continually call.

Sometimes we'll get three to five calls a day and we also get emails and I want support for the rules to be enforced so that these solicitations stop.

It's not fair and it's not requested.

If we want to sell our home, we know what to do.

So that's the piece I'd like to put up and hope that you all can do something to support us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Sharon followed by Fritz.

Good morning.

I'm Sharon Silvers Outlaw, and I'm here representing the Black Home Legacy, and I have been a homeowner for over 40 years.

Sharon, I'm going to stop you.

We're going to restart your time.

I want you to speak right into the mic or just adjust it up a little bit, too, if you need to.

Hello?

Is that better?

Thank you.

Okay.

Do I need to start?

Oh, you're starting my time over.

Great.

Okay.

All right.

I'm Sharon Sobers Outlaw, and I'm a resident of the Central Area, and I'm here representing the Black Homeowner's Legacy.

And I've been a homeowner for over 40 years.

And I have to tell you, when I originally bought my home, it was totally African-American families and all mixture of families.

Now I am the only one on my block.

The only person.

And all kinds of things are happening.

But the do not call list.

And I'm a social worker.

I want to say that first.

I'm a social worker.

And in my studies, and there's been research showed how your mental health is affected by these phone calls coming.

to your home, how it affects you.

Dentrification has created a problem that creates tension, blood pressure, diabetes, all the things that people of color really suffer from in terms of their medical stuff.

Getting back to the niche of things, I have received so many calls.

I get so upset when people call me.

I tell them, how much money are you gonna give me?

And they tell me that I'm being mean asking for it.

And then I hang up the phone.

I get really stressed out.

I get letters.

I had somebody say, I'm not gonna give you two cents.

I'm gonna give you two nickels.

I mean, it's just aggravating on and on and on.

The calls, the text messages.

I mean, I'm blocking calls constantly for people you know aggravating me about it I just get upset but one of the things I did find out being that I am the only African-American on my block my other neighbors are getting them as well so it's all people that are being affected by this and it needs to be addressed and I really hope that you guys can do something about it to make sure that the developers and the real estate people are the ones that contain this list and put us on the do not call thank you thank you

Our next speaker is Fritz, followed by Angie.

Good morning.

My name is Fritz Wallet.

I am a retired attorney.

I worked in the city attorney's office in this building and predecessor building for 18 years.

I've been a homeowner in Seattle since 1988. and yes I have received many solicitations not too many in person but some on the phone and letters are constant people sending checks and doing all sorts of things for umpteen hundreds of thousands of dollars and I can certainly understand given that how people feel about that kind of money coming in and how tempting that can be especially when somebody follows it up with an in-person visit and tells you that you don't have to worry about a realtor, don't pay the 6% just to accept this offer, which may be several hundred thousand dollars below market value, and you'll get your money and you can move on.

It's scary stuff.

I am lucky enough to be fairly well educated and somewhat sophisticated.

This doesn't bother me too much, but I certainly have met people who felt they had been treated badly, and some who have even sold their property.

I know we have similar ordinances in Philadelphia and New York City.

I spent some time looking at those ordinances and some of the comments.

And I found a very apropos statement from the City of Philadelphia referring to predatory buyers, brokers, and developers.

And I just wanted to read it as just a sentence.

and they concluded that these aggressive tactics can cause homeowners to sell their property at prices that are significantly less than market value.

And I know that's happening here.

The amount of building we have here, the amount of houses that are being torn down and being replaced by much larger houses, you know that's going on here.

So I really appreciate the legislation and thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Angie, followed by Angela.

Good morning, council members.

Thank you.

My name is Angie Michael.

I'm a real estate agent in the greater Seattle area.

And I wanna start by saying, I actually believe in the spirit of this ordinance and wholly understand where this is coming from.

My 98 year old grandfather, who I'm still lucky enough to have with me, believes that a million dollars is a lot of money.

I know what he sits on is actually worth a lot more than that.

And without the protection of a licensed real estate agent to explain the distinction between wholesaling and licensed practitioner, I don't think that he would be afforded the protection that he deserves.

Wholesalers, which I believe this ordinance is actually intended to go after, are the unlicensed real estate practitioners in our community.

They're not subject to disciplinary actions outside of court, right?

So licensed real estate agents have to abide by the Department of Licensing guidelines, Washington State administrative codes, as well as a professional code of conduct.

There are levels of disciplinary action that can be taken against licensed practitioners versus wholesalers who are not.

Wholesalers are incentivized to get the absolute lowest property price so that they can resale the terms of that contract.

they make their money in the margins, whereas licensed agents are incentivized by getting the property owner the highest possible amount.

I'm asking that you consider exempting licensed agents from this as we are one of the safeguards for the community and I want to start by saying or end by saying that I know that there are nefarious practitioners in our industry and again, I wholly support the ordinance in trying to weed out those practitioners.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Angela followed by Yusuf.

Hi, my name is Angela Moore.

I'm a licensed agent here in Seattle for the last 23 years.

I also specialize in loss mitigation.

I wanted to share a concern that I have, being in the loss mitigation and being a relator, as I know that we get the phone calls, I've gotten phone calls myself from everybody, I get them daily.

but my concern is those who get the phone calls that don't understand what's on the other side.

No one's explaining to them really what their house value was really worth.

My concern is that they don't have checks and balances from a real estate agent that's going to help them.

So for instance, I had a client some years ago was right there in, I think it was the city at the time.

She knew little about zoning.

She had actually a wholesaler that was trying to buy her house for a little over $400,000.

She called me through a friend, asked me to come take a look at it, and lo and behold, the house was worth almost double than what they were asking her for.

They pointed out everything wrong with the house, just the house needed some roofing, needed some other work that needed to be done.

but I'm glad that she reached out because she would have sold her house for $400,000 less than what she would have because this wholesaler was trying to pull out a chunk and then resell it to somebody else.

So we were able to still get this homeowner top dollar for their property.

And again, my concern is if if this is something that is passed along to real estate agents, these homeowners will not have the protections.

And I have countless, countless stories working on loss mitigation that support this very same story and other stories that has happened.

So I just wanted to share that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Yusuf followed by Randy.

Yes, hi.

Good morning.

Hi.

My name is Yousef Nadir, and I'm a licensed agent also in the local Seattle, greater Western Washington area.

Thanks.

And I want to speak about the ordinance for the solicitation here that everyone's here for.

But a part of that, my intention is to speak to educating and promoting or advocating to the consumer the pros and cons of the reason why these things may happen.

And a part of us as licensed agents, we do have a lot of fiduciary compliance standards that we meet along with our trade group, our realtor associations.

And a part of this, again, as some of my colleagues have mentioned, the intention to protect the consumer and to avoid some of these nonstop harassment calls or feeling like pressure You do want those that are licensed in the industry to be able to explain and educate and show the pros and cons and benefits.

I know one of the other guests here spoke about, hey, when they're ready to do that situation, they will be able to reach out.

And we want to be able to be that arm or that olive branch to be that advocate as far as a licensed agent.

And again, there is separation between agents and wholesalers or non-licensed folks and those that are doing that that give you guys this extra anxiety or some of this pressure to not do these things.

And our goal is to always provide maximum, not just maximum proceeds, but also to meet any of the consumers' goals and what their needs are.

So again, I think the intention with this, we do align with that, but also that we're asking for exemptions from licensed agents that are in the industry to be able to advocate and promote to the consumer.

Alongside with that, we have numerous stories where I've had folks in the industry, or I'm sorry, in our community reach out where they feel like they're being taken advantage of and with guidance and help from someone like myself can help them to prevent their properties from being taken from them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Randy, followed by Harnett.

Chair Foster, members of the committee, my name is Randy Banneker and I'm here on behalf of the Seattle King County Association of Realtors.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to comment.

We care deeply about stopping predatory home buying practices and we'd like to work with you to ensure that vulnerable homeowners are protected.

Our members, as you've heard, are licensed by the state of Washington and supervised by designated brokers who hold their license.

State law requires brokers to act honestly, with full disclosure, and always in the best interests of their clients.

That framework already draws a clear line between legitimate real estate communication and predatory conduct.

The proposed ordinance defines solicitation so broadly that it captures routine non-coercive communication, including general advertising, market updates, and inquiries made on behalf of legitimate buyers.

That risks chilling lawful communication and reducing homeowners' access to information.

When homeowners have less information, transparency and competition decline and their options narrow.

Our members' business model depends on reputation.

They rely on repeat clients and referrals built over years.

Those relationships don't happen when someone is deceiving or pressuring homeowners.

Legitimate brokers are not the problem.

Last year we were pleased to support the predatory home buying ordinance you passed because it targeted harm and offered clear disclosures before a purchase was signed, meaningful cancellation window for sellers, and strong enforcement and private right of action.

That ordinance focuses on predatory behavior.

We believe sharpening the proposed ordinance you're discussing today will protect homeowners from predatory conduct without restricting legitimate informational communication that helps homeowners understand their options will make for a more effective piece of legislation.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Harnett, followed by Anita.

Good morning, and thank you for allowing me to be here and to speak.

I am born into Seattle.

I still own my birth home, and I had another home built in the South End.

I always have gotten calls, texts, emails, looking.

Five years ago, when my mother passed, I had to do some transactions and place some homes into my siblings' names.

Within three business days, I was getting calls, even more.

Just now we want to know.

what you want to do with the house.

My mom hadn't even been taken care of properly, and they want to know what we're going to do with these houses.

So I went through that and still getting them.

I got a text just last month addressed to my mother.

And I informed the person, my mother's been deceased now for five years.

He just went on to say, well, okay, do you own the home and what we want to do with it?

I responded, where is your empathy, your sympathy?

So I'm not interested.

So I'm tired of it.

I really wish that we could just kind of make it go away.

We know where to go if we were interested in selling our homes.

And yes, we would turn to a licensed real estate agent or whatever we deemed necessary to do.

But to be inundated with the calls coming in, Unsolicited is not good practice anywhere.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Anita, and then we'll move to remote comment.

Good morning, esteemed council members.

Anita Adams here representing a couple of different community organizations, Black Homeowners Policy Council, as well as Black Legacy Homeowners, where I share membership in both organizations.

Obviously, we have concerns over the harm that's caused due to these solicitations.

It's a very difficult thing to get a letter in the mail that says, we want to live our dreams in your house and so you should just leave.

Those are very important.

It's very important that we as a community protect against the harms that we're experiencing, and so that's why we're here today representing our community to support this legislation.

as well as continue to work with you around new ways to...

I hear some of the agents talking about other protections.

We want to make sure that we're included in the conversation as you continue to put forth legislation like this.

We appreciate the fact that you have even started the conversation and have been working with us to improve it.

Please call on us.

We do support passing this legislation.

Please call on us to refine and continue to make it the best legislation that it can be.

Thank you.

All right.

Our first remote speaker will be Jeffrey Cook.

Please press star six when you hear the prompt that you've been unmuted.

And then our next remote speaker will be Ruby.

good morning can you hear me yes we can hear you okay great thank you this is Jeffrey Cook and I'm calling in to ask to thank you for this time to speak I would support this legislation I'm not always in favor of more regulation for the city to manage so I don't know how this would work but my husband I own our house we work in the nonprofit arts sector and receive multiple, multiple calls regularly to buy our home on Beacon Hill on all of our numbers, including the landline number, which is what I use when I'm working at home, so I always answer my landline and I get these calls sometimes starting as early as 6 a.m.

We've also had multiple calls coming in for properties in Florida that we don't own, and I don't know how our name got associated with these, but for a couple of months we were getting five or six calls a week for homes we didn't even own in Florida.

So it really is just annoying to have people call.

It is insulting.

If I wanted to sell my home, I know real estate agents, we all do, and I would go through a licensed real estate agent.

So as much as I don't really want more regulation for the city, this just has got to stop.

It's too frustrating to have these calls coming in all the time, and it is insulting.

The other issue I want to bring up, which I also think is predatory practice, has to do with the taxation of our land value.

What happens when a neighborhood gets rezoned and upzoned to multiple stories is that the taxes shoot through the roof.

And we're not zoned on current use now, we're zoned on future best use.

So if you just live in a house and suddenly you could put some kind of a big apartment building there, your taxes are going to go up and this is a kind of new colonialism where people come with money and say, look, we can take over your land now, we can pay more.

And that's what's happened to some of our neighborhoods, like in the Central District, where people got pushed out because they couldn't afford taxes.

So if we're going to be rezoning neighborhoods, we need to put in an allowance for people who are already living there to be taxed at their current use, not future use.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Ruby, followed by Lakima.

Hello, my name is Ruby Hollins.

This bill will give us peace of mind.

However, the predators aren't going away and will become trickier and sneakier behind the scenes.

I find it interesting that Council Member Foster is helping protect us while at the same time trying to get a candidate for King County Tax Assessor elected who will do the bidding of the real estate oligarch to tax Seattle homeowners out of our homes once Foster and the City Council upzone us.

So be wary, homeowners.

This bill, yes, Foster's nefarious plan to steal our lots, no.

It sets off my PTSD from the last administration using upzoning to steal lots from the working class and building million-dollar townhomes on them for Harold's billionaire pedophile friends.

This letter doesn't include real estate oligarchs, investors, or corporate landlords who are the real thieves.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Colleen, followed by Erin.

Oh, excuse me.

I missed Lakima.

So our next speaker is Lakima Bell.

Hello.

Hello.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Hello, my name is Lakeima Bell and the council agenda item I'm addressing today is the unwanted homeowner solicitation.

My husband and I own our home in the Skyway neighborhood.

Our home was my husband's long-lost uncle and aunt's home for 30 years where they raised 13 children.

My husband and I at the time of purchasing our home didn't have any knowledge that the home that we were purchasing was a home that was previously owned in the family.

I gave some background context to bring heartlines to our headlines.

My husband and I are contacted nearly daily to sell our home.

We receive text messages, letters, postcards, and phone calls.

People have came to our homes on Sunday, calls on Sunday.

Every time I block a caller, I get contacted by someone else from a new line.

I fully support the do not call list for homeowners.

It is stressful and oftentimes infuriating to constantly be bombarded by solicitors pressuring us to sell our home.

This home is where our children were raised and little to our knowing when we purchased our home where my husband's cousins were raised and we intend to have this home be where our children's children are raised.

We do not have any interest in selling our property and would like to have peace in knowing that we will not have to endure pressure on a daily basis to sell our family's home.

I thank you for your time.

Our next speaker will be Colleen followed by Erin.

Good morning, City Council.

This is Colleen McAleer from Lawhurst Community Council.

We support the legislation to protect homeowners from unwanted solicitation of their residences.

All across the city, so many homeowners have scraped to buy a house where they can age in place, build equity for themselves and their families.

Over time, often folks on fixed income struggle to maintain their homes and those houses become targeted for solicitation, but their home is still their home and their neighborhood is their support network as they age in place.

Being continually solicited to sell your property is harassing with unwanted calls and visits.

The elderly, the recently single, the handicapped veterans can be overwhelmed and worn down and finally might take the cash which seems like a good deal and leave.

When that happens, these homeowners are displaced and all of this cash net of fees does not really go very far and they would have gotten more if they sold it on an open real estate market.

These vulnerable homeowners often must leave the neighborhood and find a cheaper place to live.

and that's hard for them at that particular age and might be the same thing that happened in the Central District where folks just all left and we lost a whole culture.

This legislation offers a real buffer to protect these hardworking homeowners to live without harassment and their families who may cohabitate with them and maybe inherit that property as well.

We support this legislation.

Thank you for your work.

Our next speaker is Erin followed by Tasha.

Good morning, Chair Foster and members of the Seattle City Council.

I'm Aaron Teluk, Legislative Aid with FMS Global Strategies, speaking on behalf of 110 businesses and community organizations and the Seattle homeowners who don't have time to be here.

I spent this weekend talking to homeowners across the city in the Seattle Central District, Beacon Hill and Rainer Beach, just to name some.

People with full-time jobs, people raising families, and they're all saying the same thing.

They're being targeted.

Constant calls, mails, door knocks, offering to buy their homes.

They're exhausted.

These are complaints from people with leisure time.

These are working people trying to keep what they've built.

And they're being systematically targeted by buyers who know exactly how to exploit someone who doesn't have the bandwidth to fight back.

This ordinance is simple.

If you opt in, to the do not solicit list, contacting you becomes illegal.

It draws a line.

I'm asking you to pass this legislation and fully fund it so the Office of Civil Rights can actually enforce it.

The people I represent don't have time to organize.

They're at work, they're with families, but they deserve peace in their own homes.

Pass this, fund this, and make it real.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Tasha, followed by Lois.

Good morning, Chair Foster and council members.

My name is Tasha May with FMS Global Strategies, and I also own my own small nonprofit, which shares people and shows the vulnerable how to advocate and navigate for themselves.

I'm speaking in support of the homeowner privacy and protection legislation.

As an advocate, I've seen how people become vulnerable when they're overwhelmed, when someone is struggling with finances, caring for aging parents, grieving the loss of a spouse, or simply trying to keep up with everyday life.

Relentless phone calls, texts, mailers, and knocks on the door aren't just an annoyance.

They create opportunities for pressure and exploitation.

A person's home is often their largest asset, especially in the black community, and for many families, the source of generational wealth and legacy.

Not everyone can be bought.

Homeowners should have the right to decide whether they want to receive unsolicited offers to sell.

This ordinance does not stop anyone from buying or selling their home.

It simply says that when a homeowner says no, that decision must be respected.

Privacy is not anti-business.

Choice is not anti-commerce.

This legislation strikes a reasonable balance by protecting homeowners while preserving a fair marketplace.

I encourage you to pass this ordinance and fully fund its enforcement so these protections are more than words on paper.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Lois followed by Angela.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Lois Martin and I am a third generation central district resident homeowner and director of P&D Day Center for Children.

As you can probably hear in the background, it's a private early learning center my mother founded in 1963. I keep a file.

I have kept it since 2015. Letters, postcards, emails, text messages, and phone calls from investors, speculators, brokers, and agents who want my home and want our center.

They have reached me on my cell and my home phone, both unpublished Some are after our playground, one of the few left in this neighborhood serving children for over six years.

They do not care about that.

They just do land.

On realtor exemptions, brokers and agents are not a solution to this problem.

They are a source of it.

They claim to represent a client.

Their client is never named.

That urgency is never real.

If we want to fail, we know how to reach out.

If we need education, we have community organizations like the Black Homeowners Policy Council, and others that hold workshops on exactly these topics.

We do not need unsolicited strangers deciding when it is time.

For those of us who live through weed and seed, which promise investment while systematically pushing legacy residents out, it feels very familiar.

The faces change, the tactics change, the goal does not.

Please vote yes and hear what previous callers said.

We need to counsel to stop further up-zoning of districts two and three and end property tax assessments, or if we keep counting on that based on highest and best use.

As ordinance is a step, we are watching to see if you will take the rest.

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker will be Angela, followed by Shanae.

Hello, can you hear me?

We can hear ya.

Alright, so thank you council members for the opportunity to speak today.

My name is Dr. Angela Griffin and I'm the CEO of Burt Bar Place.

For more than 60 years, Burt Bar Place has served Seattle's black community and other historically marginalized communities.

Almost every day we have the opportunity to work with our community and many occasions we're working with legacy homeowners and their families as they navigate rising housing costs, increasing property taxes, estate planning, and the difficult decisions that come with remaining in the neighborhoods that they helped build.

The constant stream of unsolicited predatory calls, texts, mailers, and door-to-door offers to purchase their homes is more than an annoyance.

For many long-time homeowners, particularly elders and the families who have already extended the trauma of displacement or watched their neighborhoods rapidly change around them, these repeated solicitations create stress, fear, and pressure.

extend the message that their homes are more valuable as investments, as places where families can build generational wealth and community.

Legacy homeowners deserve the opportunity to age in place, preserve their family legacy, and pass their homes on to future generations without being relentlessly targeted by speculative investors.

I urge you to support this legislation as a meaningful step toward protecting Seattle's legacy homeowners and preserving the community's history and culture that they've spent generations building.

Thank you.

And our final speaker will be Shanae Cobb.

Hello, my name is Shanae Cobb.

I would like to say thank you to the council for hearing us out.

I am in support of the Do Not Solicit the Homeowners Bill.

it feels like a serious invasion of privacy.

How do they even get our information to know so much about us?

And where does it end?

What power do we have, if any, to quell some of this invasion of privacy that is unsolicited?

This is just another form of predatory way to continue this transfer of wealth from the working class in the Seattle area.

and we would like to have more information on at least how can we invest in the growth of Seattle instead of people just coming here to take the wealth and transfer the wealth away from people that actually live and have resided here for so long.

What can we do to actually own this upgrade ourselves instead of just them having this predatory avenue for us?

It's sad to see what the communities have become and this is just another avenue for them to continue to take from us.

That's what it feels like.

In the future, I hope we can do more to have more rights to privacy, more rights to investing in our own communities, because right now we don't have that.

And if we don't even have the right to tell them, hey, no, stop calling us, then what do we have at all?

I just want to say thank you for giving us a chance to speak on us today and I appreciate your time.

Thank you.

And I saw that Paula, you had joined virtually but also not seeing you anymore.

So it looks like we don't have you on, but we welcome any written comment that you want to submit that way.

There are no more speakers.

All right.

Thank you so much, clerk.

I appreciate that.

And thank you to all of our public commenters.

We are going to now move on to our first item of business.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Agenda item one, homeowner privacy and protection legislation for briefing and discussion.

Fantastic.

And I want to welcome Jen Labreck from Council Central staff to the table.

Jen has been doing a fantastic job helping us develop this legislation.

Before she begins today, I just want to go back and say, actually, it was appropriate that we ended on that commenter around privacy because I think so much of what we are talking about today stems from the right for people to have privacy in their homes and to have the longevity that we heard so many of our commenters speak to.

I especially want to express my appreciation to our commenters who gave public comment for the first time today.

I really appreciate that.

It's really special.

So thank you for coming down to City Hall to share your experience and your testimony with us.

I also want to share my office created a survey for residents to share how they are impacted by unwanted solicitation.

And we have heard from respondents in all seven council districts across the city.

And many people have reported more than 20 times receiving solicitation over the course of the last two years.

I wanna read just a little bit of what we heard.

One resident in North Seattle shared, it feels like I'm being hunted and it feels like I'm being encouraged to give up my financial anchor.

In a way it feels like I'm being encouraged to go away somewhere and we don't care where.

I would like their behavior to stop.

Several other folks responded and shared that they felt like they were quote being hunted or quote being circled by vultures.

Our office will continue to collect responses to the survey until the end of the week.

so if there are those who are watching who have not responded or had a chance to complete that yet, I invite you to.

With that, it looks like Jen is set up at the table and so I will hand it over to her to do an overview of the ordinance and to walk us through its impacts.

Jen?

Thank you.

Good morning.

My name is Jennifer LeBrecq.

I'm a City Council Central Staff Analyst, and I'm here today to walk you through the Do Not Solicit Ordinance.

This ordinance would establish a new unfair housing practice prohibiting unwanted solicitation of residential properties and simultaneously it would also establish a do not solicit list, which homeowners could opt to add themselves to.

And once added, it would protect a homeowner from unwanted residential property solicitations.

The ordinance, including administration of the do not solicit list, would be administered by the Office of Civil Rights.

Next slide.

As we just heard in public comment, residents across the city report receiving frequent and unwanted solicitations to sell their homes.

These practices may result in homeowners selling their homes, especially at below market value.

Such practices can target communities of color, contribute to economic disparities, displacement, and erosion of generational wealth, while also reinforcing historical patterns of racial segregation.

With the adoption of the city's comprehensive plan, we may see an increase in unsolicited and potentially predatory outreach as there are more zones that are currently zoned single-family that will experience up zones.

Next slide.

There are several other jurisdictions across the country that already have implemented similar policies that prohibit unwanted solicitation of residential properties, including the establishment of a do not solicit list.

New York has established targeted areas, I should say New York State, has established targeted areas in which solicitation is prohibited for five-year terms that are renewable.

New York currently has one designated area with over 400 people on their do not solicit list.

The city of Philadelphia has taken a different approach by establishing a permanent citywide policy, so not targeted to specific zones, but citywide.

There are 4,000 entries with Philadelphia zip codes on its citywide do not solicit list.

Neither New York nor Philadelphia has any data at this time on the impact of implementing these policies.

So now I'm going to walk everyone through some of the specific provisions of this ordinance.

The legislation would establish a new unfair housing practice that would prohibit any person, including but not limited to, any real estate broker or real estate agent, salesperson, or employee from soliciting the sale of a residential property when the owner has indicated that they do not wish to sell or be contacted about a sale.

Solicitation can occur through any form of communication, including but not limited to mail, oral communication, or electronic communication.

Solicitation means attempting to purchase, acquire any interest, or convey residential property And examples of solicitation include advertising the accomplishments or abilities of a buyer or buyer's representative, requesting that a homeowner lists their property for sale, or inquiring if the homeowner is interested in listing their property for sale, offering or acquiring of an interest to offer on the solicitor's behalf or another's behalf to purchase or acquire any interest in a homeowner's property, and to provide or offer to provide any type of service or assistance to help a residential property owner make a decision about selling a residential property.

I do want to clarify that in the draft ordinance, just simply having a communication to a homeowner that has the market value of the home is not considered a solicitation.

Next slide, please.

The Office of Civil Rights would be responsible for creating and maintaining a public do not solicit list of residential property owners who have opted out of receiving solicitations, and they would also be responsible for enforcing the ordinance.

Any real property owner who has been solicited to sell their residential property and does not desire to be solicited may request to have their name and address put on the do not solicit list.

I think it goes without saying, but just to be super clear, if a homeowner does not opt to be on the do not solicit list, then they can continue to be solicited.

So you have to actively opt into the list and you have to have actively received at least one solicitation in order to be able to opt into the list.

Inclusion on the do not solicit list legally signifies both a desire not to sell and a desire not to be solicited.

The legislation does establish enforcement provisions, including monetary penalties and a private right of action.

Penalties include $1,000 for a first violation and $2,000 for subsequent violations within 12 months.

And the legislation would go into effect on June 1, 2027. And that mid-year effective date is to allow OCR the first six months to establish the process, the systems, and the materials so that they can essentially be ready to go on June 1 and open up the do not solicit list, or open it up for people to have their names added to the do not solicit list.

All right.

Implementation costs are estimated to be $200,000 in 2027 and 370,000 in 2028. Implementation costs are largely labor.

Two staff positions at OCR needed to implement the ordinance.

2027 costs include one full-time engagement specialist and some Minor program launch costs and 2028 costs include both the ongoing engagement specialist position plus a new position for senior civil rights investigator and, of course, ongoing program costs.

I don't have a slide for this, but I did just want to take a moment to talk about timeline and next steps.

This legislation is currently on the agenda as an informational item only, so it has not yet been introduced.

It is currently scheduled to be introduced and discussed at the July 8th committee, which is next week, next Wednesday, with the potential possibility for a vote.

If folks would like to, council members would like to discuss amendments, then the amendment concept deadline is a new day on Wednesday, July 1. That's it.

Thank you so much for that, Jen.

I really appreciate that.

And I forgot to say before you started presenting, just colleagues for your awareness process wise we're hearing from Jen and there's an opportunity for you to ask questions of central staff so colleagues I'll be turning to you in just a moment and then we will have a panel of some of the fantastic folks who have engaged in our office on this piece of legislation to share more information and details around the impacts for themselves and their communities.

So with that colleagues I will open it up at this time for questions to central staff.

Council Member Rink, you're recognized.

Thank you, Chair.

This is an important piece of legislation.

In my mind, it is absolutely imperative that we take this up so we can stop, frankly, the harassment our residents are experiencing.

So I wanna thank you for your work on this and bringing this before committee.

And I wanna thank everyone who has come out today to share public comment and share your story.

Truly, thank you for coming down to City Hall.

I think it's worth uplifting, particularly from public comment, just the psychological harm that these incessant solicitations have had on residents, and we need to take steps to curtail this practice.

And so I know we're going to get more into some of those experiences during the panel discussion, and for the staff presentation today, I just have a couple of questions focused on implementation and mechanics of the bill, but I wanted to start on that note and thank everybody for being here.

I'm wondering if we can speak to you quickly about how we, the city or Office of Civil Rights might go about publicizing the opt-in program to ensure that we're having maximum utilization where possible.

How are we thinking about partnering with organizations or partnering with community to make sure folks know about this opportunity?

I'm always concerned when we have opportunities in the city, like with the senior property tax exemption through the county, we've seen some underutilization of that.

And so how are we thinking about maximizing utilization and how folks can really know about the program?

Thank you.

I will say that I think that this is a reason that OCR feels that a full-time engagement specialist is needed because they are committed to reaching out and making sure that homeowners know broadly all across, since it is a citywide policy that they know across the city are aware of the opportunity.

I do know that they've been in conversations with the Department of Neighborhoods about maybe partnering and also with the Office of Housing who does have some contracts with homeowner stabilization organizations.

I don't have a report back yet on those conversations, but I think those are some of the strategies that they're thinking about.

And of course, I will just also say there is both outreach to homeowners and then there's outreach on the other side, which is to those who are impacted by the ordinance in terms of agents or businesses and making sure that they're fully aware of it too with the idea that it's better to let folks know upfront rather than trying to get them through enforcement.

Appreciate that.

Thank you.

And as a clarifying question, the fine amount in the bill for a violation is $1,000 for the first violation, then $2,000 for any subsequent violation, but within a 12-month period.

So can you provide some clarity on if the $2,000 fine is for all violations after just the initial one or just within the 12 months of a first violation period, or if there's a different fine amount?

can you say that one more time?

Right, so the language within the bill talks about how the subsequent violation, so after there's a first violation with a $1,000 fine, there's a fine of $2,000 for any subsequent violation, but within a 12 month period.

And so I'm wondering if the intent is just to keep it really focused within that 12 month period, or if we're really looking at any subsequent violation regardless of time period.

Because the clock reset after 12 months.

I think I'm going to have to read this carefully and probably talk with the attorney's office to just make sure I'm answering that question accurately.

Fabulous.

Okay.

Thank you.

And then I think I just had an additional clarifying question around just the term solicitation and if the word solicit is defined right now in code, because when it comes to our bill's definition of solicit, is this definition to be implied only for the purposes of this bill or broadly across city code?

So we added this as a definition to section 14.08.020 of the Seattle Municipal Code, which has to do with fair housing.

And so it has been added as a definition to that part of the code.

Thank you so much, Jen.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

I appreciate that question, Council Member Rank.

And I'll just share quickly our intent regarding the fine was to ensure that we are having something that is enforceable and acts as a deterrent, but also not having a fine that was so large in nature that we might catch up folks who are making errors.

So excited to engage with your office more and appreciate those questions.

Councilmember Lin, you are recognized.

Thank you so much, Chair Foster, to everyone.

coming here today.

Certainly an issue that needs to be addressed, both in terms of the constant anxiety, mental health, but also the real potential for lost wealth that can occur when these solicitations are able to take advantage of someone who might not be aware of the true value of their property.

Just in terms of just trying to imagine sort of we certainly have a real problem and sort of the best way attack it.

To me, it sounds like these wholesalers are probably the root of the bulk of these solicitations.

People that are sending out these mass texts, mailers, whatever, and then somehow are reselling them to whether it's developers or other sort of buyers.

And do you know in your research sort of Have there been attempts to sort of regulate this wholesaler activity, either at the state level or in any other parts of the nation?

Thank you for that question.

And I will just be honest that I've taken over this legislation from my colleague, Tracy Ratzleff.

And so she may have more background on sort of what other efforts have been made to regulate wholesalers.

Obviously we have the examples from the two jurisdictions that have the do not solicit list, but I'm happy to confer with her and see if there's other sort of broader examples besides just the do not solicit list that we can share with you.

Yeah, thank you.

And part of it is just I'm just trying to think of how do we sort of I think there's a lot of benefits to having this do not sort of contact me registry.

And I'm also just a little bit worried about sort of the effort it will take to get the word out and to get people onto the list.

And if there was a way to just prohibit wholesale activity in general, whether that might be Another tool in our tool belt, and whether we might need some state legislature to help us.

I also just wonder about enforcement.

It seems like if it is wholesalers that there's probably just a relatively small number of them.

So hopefully, I know that the It's really frustrating when you do these do not call lists and you tell people to not to call you and it never seems to work.

People just keep calling you.

I'm hopeful that somehow, because it's probably a relatively small number of folks and they're probably local, that we will be able to put some real teeth behind this.

But any sort of thoughts about our ability to actually enforce this and go after these folks who are engaged in this activity?

I think this is something OCR is concerned about as well as the one, the department that would be responsible for administering.

I think this is why they feel that a full-time senior enforcement specialist position is needed.

They've also recognized that it could be, you know, that it comes in from a general phone number.

It's not as if the business is easily identifiable and so that they recognize that part of Part of the work here will be identifying who the wholesalers are.

And so I think that the best response I have at this point is that as a department OCR feels that they need that position in order to be prepared to enforce what could ultimately be in some cases a tricky ordinance to enforce.

Thank you so much.

And I'll just one sort of last comment question.

One, I think this is really exciting.

And I think this might need to be sort of an iterative process.

We're trying to regulate some area that we have not regulated before, and we might need to come up with, as we sort of explore this further, find better ways to target this activity or, again, maybe work with the state legislature to address this more sort of comprehensively.

across the state or potentially work with title companies who are usually going to be involved in pretty much every real estate transaction.

But I do also just want to be careful about not prohibiting other types of activity that might be perfectly acceptable.

So one thing, I don't want to prohibit the government from reaching out to homeowners.

There might be times that the government needs to reach out, and the word solicit is so broad, it doesn't just, as I sort of interpret it, it's not just sales, it's any interest, and any interest could be pretty broadly construed.

And so I just want to be cautious about our language in terms of not being overly broad.

I'm worried about whether this could prohibit lenders from potentially reaching out to homeowners for sort of refinancing.

I'm not sure if that's the focus of this.

It doesn't seem to be the main focus, but again, the words solicit in any interest in real property is so broad that I just, I wanna target the legislation to the main issue here so that we can be most effective, but also not sort of accidentally bring in other types of activities.

So that's all my questions for now, but again, I think this is really exciting and I think we have a real potential to put an end to some real harmful activity.

Thank you so much, Council Member Lynn.

And we'll make sure to have Tracy, who is working on this for the majority of the time, follow up with your office to do a briefing.

Thank you.

Council President Hollingsworth, you are recognized.

Thank you, Council Member.

Sorry, thank you, Chair Foster.

Really appreciate you bringing this forward and looking forward to looking over it.

very much needed right now, which is great.

And the only question I had, and I had some of the questions that my colleagues had, so I'll be following up with those, but the only question I had, and I don't know if this is in our code, but the money that comes potentially, monies that come in for fines, is that, and I know that probably hasn't been decided, but I'm assuming it goes into the general fund or, you know, just like fees that are collected by a department, but in somehow, if those could be potentially looked into earmarked for anti-displacement things or equitable development or something of that nature that goes back into helping protect folks and what the bill intends to do.

So you don't have to answer that now.

I don't know if that's in a certain charter where things can't be earmarked for fines or whatnot, but I just wanted to throw that out there.

Thank you.

I think you are correct, council president, that unless otherwise directed, funds would probably just go to the general fund, and I'm happy to work with your office about other options for that.

Council sort of can't bind the future of decisions of future councils, but I think there's some things, some options I'd be happy to talk to you about.

Council President, any further questions from you?

Oh, your hands down.

All right, got you.

We're good.

Oh, my bad.

No, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for those questions, colleagues.

I really appreciate it.

And it is fantastic to both hear your interest and your commitment to this work, as well as opportunities to continue to explore whether that is in the space of a nexus and investment with the fines or to make sure that we have follow up and clarity on the impact and the scope of the ordinance.

So I appreciate those questions, colleagues.

With that, unless there are any further questions for central staff, I'm gonna move us into our panel presentation.

Thank you so much Jen, we really appreciate you.

And I'm gonna get us started with welcoming our, oh actually, sorry about that, I need to read item two into the record.

So clerk can you please read item two into the record?

Agenda item two, panel discussion on unwanted homeowner solicitation for briefing and discussion.

Okay, and with that, I would like to invite up to the table here, Chikundi Salisbury with Black Legacy Homeowners, Gregory Davis from Rainier Beach Action Coalition, and Beacon Hill Community Leader Maria Bataola.

As our panelists are coming up and grabbing a seat at the table, I want to use this as an opportunity to thank each of them for engaging with our office on this piece of legislation.

But beyond that, as you'll hear in the panel today, each of these leaders has a history of community work and organizing for homeowner protections that started long before we started to discuss this legislation.

I also wanna express my appreciation to the range of community leaders who've met with my office to discuss the impact of unwanted solicitation in our neighborhoods, including those who are on our panel, as well as Michael Brown from the Black Home Initiative and Anjanae Slaughter with Young Black Homeowners and many other folks who have engaged with us.

With that we will go ahead and make sure panelists that we've got your mics on and thank you so much for being here today with us.

We really appreciate it.

And if you could first please introduce yourself with your name, organization and personal history of community engagement and the community that you live in.

And we can start with you Chikhandi.

Good morning.

My name is Shikundi Salisbury Sr. and I represent the Black Legacy Homeowners Organization, which is a program of service as a lifestyle.

And I currently live in Southeast Seattle, where I've owned my home for the last 29 years, this year.

And I grew up in the central area.

Thank you.

Maria?

My name is Maria Batiola.

I'm a community leader at Beacon Hill, specifically chairing Beacon Hill Council.

I'm a Filipino immigrant, and I have owned my home in Beacon Hill for 37 years.

Mr. Davis?

Good afternoon.

Good to see you.

And good to see you again, Councilmembers Lynn and Mercedes Rincon.

It's good to be able to say again, because that means we've seen you before, and that's really important to us, that we see you.

Thank you for the...

And also, Hollingsworth, Councilmember Hollingsworth, and thank you, Chair Foster.

My name is Gregory Davis.

I'm with the Rainier Beach Action Coalition.

We steward the Rainier Beach Neighborhood Plan.

We hire people from the neighborhood to implement strategies in that plan.

Priority hire, free orca cards for all, equitable development initiative, sweet beverage tax are some of the policies RBAC has walked alongside with many others to put in place for the city.

My personal community engagement started in neighborhood planning back during the Norm Rice administration.

leading for six years, leading to six years serving on the Planning Commission.

Presently I serve on the leadership team for the Black Home Initiative board member with the Nehemiah Initiative effort to help black churches develop their land for housing and also I'm a member of the Race and Social Equity Task Force.

Thank you so much panelists.

So colleagues, I'm gonna open it up with just a few questions for our panelists to give them an opportunity to share and then we'll have an opportunity to have questions from committee members.

So I will just start us off with a broad question, which is as community leaders, how have you seen unwanted solicitation targeted towards homeowners impact families in your community.

And can you just share how you and other community members have tried to respond to those aggressive tactics?

And we'll just start in the same order.

We'll start with Chikunde and we can just go down the line.

Again, thank you for having me and allowing me to share my personal experience along with channeling and representing our members at Black Legacy Homeowners.

I most certainly have seen the detrimental effects of these aggressive tactics.

One of the reasons that I even started and helped co-found this organization is because of these predatory tactics where I've seen my neighbors be impacted, not only by the calls, but the incessant visits and the like.

And some folks may remember, even prior to the Black Legacy Homeowners, we had a campaign called, This House Is Not For Sale.

in 2019 and 2020. So this work has been an ongoing effort.

It is not brand new, even though you're due to the Council of River Foster.

This is work that myself personally and my community has been working on for many and I'm actually proud to say that I stood with the realtors organization during that campaign because we wanted folks to get proper representation, right?

And we had these signs that we put in people's windows said, this house is not for sale.

So I guess I say that, to remind folks and remind my community that this is work that we've been doing and we're excited about being able to move this effort forward.

It is ongoing and the work...

I have many realtor friends and associates and quite frankly the calls have gone from that neighborhood realtor that you would see at the coffee shop that everybody knew was a real estate agent and them calling neighbors in that neighborhood.

This has turned into call centers.

We have, you know, many of our members have reported to me that, you know, when you get the call, if you will, you can tell that it's a call center.

It's somebody many times, not even in this country.

And it's a farm, it's a call center.

a mill, if you will, of calls going out at thousands a day.

We've recognized that we have AI calls now.

If you listen closely, it's not even a person, right?

So this has gone too far.

We most certainly, like I said, I remember having neighborhood realtors that we all knew that are part of our community and we celebrate those folks.

And hopefully they'll be able to work with this ordinance and find new creative ways to still be in community.

But our members specifically have come to us about the, and we've heard here today through testimony, the anxiety, the angst, Oftentimes we've seen members being targeted at their lowest time and we refuse to believe that it is just coincidence that we're getting calls after a family member has passed away or some kind of traumatic thing has happened in this household or recently as we see other development in the neighborhood happen.

As one of the callers said on the phone, our members, including myself, we feel hunted and I myself have been hunted, if you will, right?

So those are just some of the things that we've been doing to work on behalf of this, on behalf of our members to to be able to be on the other side of this equation.

And so we, I most certainly respect the realtors and I respect the good actors in the space, but this is also again gone too far where it's actually causing harm.

And during this time where we, actually this is a great time for us to talk about, we talk about how alerts and technology and screens have been affecting our mental health.

This is just one more alert that we do not need.

And so I'll say this to say that we are interested and I'm interested today in shifting the burden from us as homeowners It is not, we should not have to be burdened with the incessant calls and putting each one of those calls in the spam, right?

We wanna shift the burden to the good actors who in fact, there are good actors out there, but shift the burden to them to determine if in fact, I'm a person who would like to be contacted.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for that, Mr. Salisbury.

And before I turn to Ms. Pateola, I wanna ask when we met, you shared some stories with me around the impact of some of the outreach.

And I wonder if I could ask you to share any stories in committee today.

Well, yeah, so one of the things that most certainly had to start the campaign, this house is not for sale.

I talked to you briefly about my neighbor who was called by an aggressive person and then eventually visited and the person left candy on their...

because they knew they had two young children.

and left a note, hey, if you would like to sell what candy associated with it.

And then, of course, my neighbor threw the candy away.

Her kids had a meltdown.

And she just related this story.

I'm over it.

Why is this person continuing to bother me?

And so we have addressed some of those things with some of the other legislation, but specifically being able to tell somebody to not solicit to me anymore and have that mean something is incredible, right?

The other piece, I think the story that I relate to you is we had a neighbor that in the interim of trying to get the right information, the issue here is these calls come all the time.

And long story short, this person ended up doing a short sale to an aggressive prospector when we as community was trying to get them the information around foreclosure assistance and how they could move forward.

So there's many calls like this, many of these aggressive folks who, and I'm sure that my realtor friends would say that they are bad actors, if you will.

But from where we sit, they're all the actors in the space.

They're in the real estate space.

And we most certainly would like to see the real estate space help protect our mental health and help keep us in our homes.

Thank you.

Ms. Pateola, I'll ask you the same question just around what you've experienced or seen in your community in regards to unwanted solicitations.

Thank you.

Good morning, council members.

Thank you, council member Foster for bringing this forward.

And thank you, council member Lynn, Mercedes Rink, and of course our council president, Hollingsworth.

I am...

further stimulated by the stories of our African-American neighbors and community members.

And I'm thinking about our Beacon Hill population.

Every time I come before you, I talk about the 40,000 residents that we have, the 70% people of color, the 40% immigrants and refugees.

And I want to contextualize what's happening to us right now.

With this current presidential administration, our population, specifically our immigrants and refugees, are afraid of any contact from governments because ICE has no distinction on who it goes after.

So picking up a phone call, looking at a phone number you don't recognize, is very scary.

The downside of that is you don't get information, or you may not get help from our local folks who are trying to help people.

The other piece is our GLTBQ community.

And of course, as people of color, all of these policies seem to dismiss us, and we are very, very scared.

So I'm going to tell you three stories.

One, I've already typified.

An immigrant business owner will not do their calls.

So they're doing back signal.

They're doing text with people who are trusted.

How do you do your business?

Second, Japanese-American who used the phrase horrible.

This is horrible.

even before we had a conversation about what that experience is.

It was PTSD.

I don't have another word other than you're scared even before you go, when you look at your phone.

And the third is I'll tell you my experience.

I'm a first-generation immigrant, and when I get these phone calls, Part of my job is to serve community.

So there are many phone numbers I don't know.

So I will pick up that call.

And I know when there's a pause, because I go right away, hello, my name is Maria.

You know it's from a robocall.

And then the next thing I have to figure out is, am I going to answer it so I can say, take my name off your list?

I have no accent because it was beaten out of me when I went to University of Washington.

So now I pick up the call and I get a friendly, hi Maria.

So hi Maria, oh, I must know this person and now I'm doubting my memory.

And then you get the call and they're talking as fast as they can and I cannot interrupt.

So I have to yell, I have to be a person I don't wanna be to stop something that's coming into my space, into my home.

and those letters, they look official, like I'm supposed to do something to respond to them, otherwise I lose out.

That's kind of scary.

So with a lot of gratefulness, thank you for introducing this, because the truth of it is that our goal in Beacon Hill is to stay in place.

to stay in place because people are having a hard time, particularly now, with increased cost of living, of housing, of being able to just continue to stay in place.

And yes, what was said very early on about taxes, When there is new development, it changes the tax configuration.

We're the highest tax rate.

And the assessor's office, because I called and I said, how come our taxes are so high?

Next city, it's not.

Well, we have a compendium of levies and so forth.

So our goal is to stay in place.

And the last piece is an enhancement for the ordinance.

You need to reach out in multilingual ways.

the opportunity to be in front of you, but there are so many people who are taking care of their kids, going to school, working, working two or three jobs that can probably come and tell you their story if this is at night or on a weekend.

And even at that, we have a hard time pulling people in.

So I just wanna say this is much needed.

those robocalls and really just asking, particularly Council President Joy Hollingsworth thought of whatever fines get gathered together.

I would recommend strongly that it be given to community to do their education and their advocacy because they're closest to the people and they will do a very good job.

Again, our mantra, very similar, do not sell, ours is stay in place.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Ms. Bataiola.

Mr. Davis, the same question to you, if you can just share about your community experience.

And also, actually, I'll give you, please speak to the report.

I think you maybe brought a copy of it with you as well.

So thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

and I fail to say that I'm also a homeowner, been on Beacon Hill since 1984, same home.

Of course, we've received these solicitations and it's likely that if you got a view, you'll probably get twice as many.

That seems to be our experience.

I do have a couple of stories.

One is our organization Fortunately, we were recipients of an equitable development initiative grant that allowed us to purchase property in Rainier Beach, actually right across from the Rainier Beach Light Rail Station.

And there's two homes on that property.

We had a P.O.

box, and we were getting solicitations through the P.O.

box.

And what was interesting is they were camouflaged as direct mail solicitations, but the subject of the direct mail solicitation was wanting to buy our property.

So the sophistication exists in the industry to do it in a number of different ways.

The other story that was really tragic for my wife's family owned a home in the central area, and they were elderly and were approached, and they actually took up the offer of selling their home.

I'm pretty sure they didn't get full value of it, but the other offer was to be able to live in the home for free for a year.

until they took it up.

Once they were out of the home, whoever the party was that purchased the property put four more townhomes on that same property.

So imagine if that was an opportunity that the family could have had, an opportunity to take advantage of.

They would not only have been in place, but would have been able to increase their generational wealth as a result of it, but did not have a chance to experience that.

So in terms of the policy brief, really excited to be able to talk about it.

This is the fifth year anniversary of developing the policy brief.

We called it disaster gentrification in King County, how to stop it from happening again.

We knew through certain experiences, particularly the subprime mortgage loan situation, that during disasters there are people out there ready to take advantage of the most vulnerable.

So the people who put this together, this policy brief together five years ago, that I have to say are a very important group of talented people, and I just want to give them some props, because they are concerned about the most vulnerable in this city, in our city, and they were involved in this work.

the Multicultural Community Coalition, Puget Sound Sage, Yodonos Tesfetti, and Eliana Horn, Howard Greenidge, respectively.

I'm sure you know Howard Greenidge and his wonderful research advocacy ability.

So they were assisted.

These individuals and their organizations have assisted this city in attaining, actually, a national reputation for being an equitable-based municipality.

We've been organizing since 2010, where we worked on the aforementioned projects that I shared, the Free Orca Cards for All, Equitable Development, Priority Hire, the Sweet Beverage Tax.

One constant within this group was recognizing that helping the most vulnerable not only helps them, but it also helps others who are not so vulnerable.

and one of the things that we also do is to seek through our policy making not only local impact, but regional impact.

And so if you're following Equitable Development Initiative, you know it's happening in King County.

If you're following the free Orca card for all, we know that of late last year it got accepted in the whole state, so anybody under the age of 18 could ride public transportation for free, even the Washington ferries.

So this policy is couched in a community policy brief.

This policy of no solicitation is couched in a larger policy brief, again, that we call disaster gentrification.

And if I may, I'd like to go into it just a little bit more.

So in this policy brief, there are actually other policies Besides the no solicitation, reducing evictions and foreclosure was one of the policies that came out of this brief, and we saw how that has been enacted.

Creating opportunity for BIPOC communities to secure land and buildings to preserve affordability by robustly funding acquisition and preservation funds was enacted.

Increasing BIPOC power in planning and development by establishing local planning and accountability through equitable development zones.

There's some work kind of meandering towards that direction these days.

Preserving affordability and creating a path for tenant ownership by passing a Tenant Community Opportunity to Purchase Act.

Another policy that was in this policy brief was stopping harassment of vulnerable homeowners by creating a no solicitation cease and desist zone.

And the last one in the brief was discouraging property flipping for profit through a tax on certain real estate transactions.

One of the policies that we didn't get to that we are now working on is a vacancy solicitation tax, because there are many property owners in the city who own property that are not, that are just holding it, and it's creating blight in the neighborhoods.

So the point is that this policy brief was able to support the most vulnerable in our communities.

One of the things that we did here from central staff was the reference to policies in New York and in Philadelphia.

One of the policies that's included in the policy brief that wasn't referenced was Jersey City, New Jersey.

And they called it a no-knock ordinance.

to address aggressive solicitation by developers to long-term residents.

And essentially, the residents submitted their individual addresses to the city clerk, and the real estate agents are required to obtain the list and bypass any home that has submitted their address to the registry.

They also have a $1,250 fine for folks who actually added a required completion of 90 days of community service on behalf of the person and or have their license revoked.

So the other cities in New Jersey have followed this too.

It was interesting the idea of the cost.

and what happens with the fees.

And while I can't argue with Maria's perspective, I do know that the city is challenged with this budget, so how about that go cover the cost of the work that needs to be done to regulate this particular issue.

So that's our share for the policy brief.

You can go to the Puget Soundstage website, enter in disaster justification policy brief and community policy brief, and you'll be able to see it and read it.

Thank you so much for that and I really want to just send my appreciation to all of my panelists for all of our panelists for being here today but again not just for being here today and I think Mr. Salisbury you said it so well like no one on this panel is new to this and so while I feel very honored to get to be new here and to pick up this engagement.

It's really the work that you all have done for the last several decades that laid the foundation for the conversation today.

So I just want to express my thanks.

And I think it was also really important that we got a chance to hear from everyone on the panel today so much around what we're seeking to protect here, which is people's peace of mind, but people's existing wealth, as well as people's opportunity to take advantage of what they already own and to build there and to grow that opportunity.

So I think you all spoke to so many of the things that, as the author of this legislation, I'm really trying to get at.

So I want to thank you for that.

And I'm going to give an opportunity, I'm cognizant of time, so I want to turn to my colleagues for questions for our panel now.

So colleagues, what questions do you have?

Council President Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

And thank you all for being here.

Everything that you all talked about completely heard the same things.

And one just quick comment too, which understanding why this is important, I have elderly people in my family and my mom's been targeted for scams on her bank account.

I have an aunt who has sold car insurance.

hasn't never owned a car but has been paying it for the last couple years and I think about our biggest assets trying to protect that piece and which are people's homes so I do really appreciate this legislation and yes the community has been doing this and I think it shows also the seriousness that the city has and the commitment with Councilmember Foster and council members and people within the city that, you know, we're trying to find some legislative legal pathways for protection.

And one of the questions I had literally while y'all were talking, I was looking at all the letters that some like my family members had received.

as far as someone knocking on the door and leaving a signed sale agreement on the front porch with their signature and an offer in an envelope that had the House deed, you know, the whole nine, these tactics that people do.

One of the questions I have is what are, besides the legislation, what are some ways that you all have been able to connect with people to save people's you know, homes if they don't, because usually people feel like they have to sell or they are subject to sell or whatever, what have you, is because they don't have resources for some improvements they need to make.

They cannot age in place.

The taxes are high.

They did a reverse mortgage and their kids found out after they died.

They're not aware of how to navigate probate and all these things.

They might not know how to put a home in a family trust.

So when someone dies and it's transferred, you know, like someone can be able to inherit that property without certain taxes and so forth.

What are some things that you all have done you think that has worked that we're as a city missing that we probably need to resource better to help curb some of these issues going on?

Thank you.

I could start.

This is Shikundi Salisbury.

Thank you, Council President Hollingsworth, for that question.

One of the things we've done successfully, in fact, why we started our entire organization, Black Legacy Homeowners, is to remind people that they're not alone.

Oftentimes, these decisions are made at our lowest moment when we've had a traumatic family event, such as the death of a spouse, or the death of a matriarch or patriarch and the like.

And so we've reminded folks through our outreach and engagement and just fellowship to hold their hand, that we're gonna be here.

Somebody is here to hold your hand.

And we encourage people to share this information.

Don't let pride get you gentrified is one of our taglines.

And so we hold folks' hands and connect them with the resources.

Right now, currently, the foreclosure assistance is not where it was.

And so some programs have begun to decline.

However, there's been many programs that we've been able to assist people with.

And so that's what we're doing.

And for full transparency, we have received some resources and funding from the Office of Housing to be able to connect people.

And we wanna continue to do that work and be able to scale that work, if you will.

A great example of that is we've had members who thought that they had to sell their home because they couldn't afford to get the roof done and knew that they did not particularly qualify for a program, but we were able to help them fill out the application for the low-cost grant, if you will, low-cost loan for them to get those repairs made.

We recently had a person who signed one of those agreements that you talked about where they had left it.

Actually, the grandson had the grandma sign this agreement.

And long story short, the developer, the person, the predatory person had got on their deed and we were able to connect them with some legal help through our friends at the Urban League.

Ms. Linda Taylor connected us with some lawyers and eventually we were able to get this person back their property and they got their money back.

So there is relief out here through organizations like ourselves who are connecting people with these resources.

So in addition to having this type of legislation, we are armoring ourselves with the fact that almost everything we need is within our community if we can just turn to one another.

We still want legislation like this, but we know that just even within our organization, we have lawyers, we have construction people, we have folks who know We have mortgage folks who know about mortgages and can look over documents.

So that's what we've been doing is just utilizing some of the resources that we have on the ground amongst our sales.

But again, we're asking for the city to be able to bring government to bear to help us out and be able to shift that burden.

So those are just a few of the things that we do with our organization.

And of course, you know, our suggestion is to be able to not only help us scale to reach many more homeowners and folks in community who are on the edge.

We want to be the opposite.

We are the other phone call, if you will.

We are the other doorknock.

We are the persons in groups that say you do not have to move and we would love for you to stay and we want to help you.

And we know that there's other communities that are doing the same work and there's other neighborhoods that are doing the same work.

And what I told the Office of Housing one time when we were um and I'm gonna finish up but uh um what I told them one time is that there's nothing wrong when when you have four five ten and a hundred predatory folks calling to try to trick you out of your property it's okay to have uh three four five six seven eight redundant organizations if you will if I'm calling somebody or I'm talking to somebody in Rainier Beach about saving their house and Greg talks to them the same way, that's okay.

There's not just one person.

In fact, if all of us talk to somebody at Beacon Hill at the Red Apple and we tell them the same information, oftentimes the messenger is just as important as the message.

I guess that's one of the things I would like the city to do is to move away from this kind of one okay we've got that one service provider or that one community group that does that and we've put all our eggs in that basket right and because we know that there's way more than one person calling us, right?

And so most certainly we could do that.

So those are just, you know, some of my suggestions, if you will, and the things that we are doing at Black Legacy Homeowners and seeing our other, I guess what I would call peer organizations in community as well.

Thank you so much for that.

If there's anything anyone would like to add, we can, I'd love to hear that.

And then I'll be turning to Councilmember Ring for her questions next.

I'm kind of hesitant because what I realize is that, and I'm going to do it fast.

I'm sorry.

I took too much time.

No, no, no.

It's good.

It's good.

You're good.

The important thing is we need to step up and look at the big picture, because for me, these robocalls are the vultures that's coming in and picking on our community.

The bigger picture for us in Beacon Hill in the stay in place are two strategies.

One is how can we help manage the cost of living in Beacon Hill?

So there are many programs that the city has in terms of reduced utility costs.

There is weatherization that, because we're dealing with health issues, and by the way, this is a paranoia and psychological health issue also.

We're doing that, and through time, because we're framing our issues as environmental justice in terms of displacement, health over the pollution from air, land, and indoor pollution, the conversion of oil to electric.

There are many, many programs, the assessors, senior reduced property tax rate, I think at some point we are just running here and there, and this bundling needs to occur.

So part of what we're going to go to, our Council Member Lynn, is to really say, we need an EJ plan for Beacon Hill.

Because when you zoom out, right, this is the continuing legacy of redlining.

redlined in, redlined out.

And so that is part of the strategy of what we're trying to do.

The other thing is that we need you to really take a hard look at the comp plan.

Our hope is our children and the friends of our children and those folks can stay in Beacon Hill, and we're looking to help develop our property in the family, in the family, for the friends of the family.

And one of the recommendations we made is defer that construction permit, 60 to 70,000, until point of sale.

We want to be able to help, and we have surveys that we've done at Red Apple through our partner coalitions for immigrants and refugees from CIRC, for ACRS, CICS, and so forth.

to get that.

And in full transparency, we are six to eight volunteers in Beacon Hill Council.

We were asked to become a nonprofit many years ago to be able to connect with the city because they are giving grants, but we chose not to because we want to be as pure advocates as we can be.

and there is still that need.

So I love that this is something specific that can be done that is now, and we need to look at...

This is one of those diagnostic pieces, but we really need to look at what is driving this, and we need to go back to that racism and the get-go.

Yeah, I would say two things.

One is we have a copy of the community policy brief at our office, particularly page 33-34.

So when somebody says they get a solicitation, we give them a copy, and we'll actually mail it to the party that sent them the inquiry.

We'll pay for the stamp to send that, so the party gets this policy brief document.

While this might, I mentioned that I was part of the Black Home Initiative core team.

I'm glad that Michael Brown's name got mentioned in this work.

And while this might sound counterintuitive, how about helping more black folks be first-time home buyers?

Because when that happens, they are going to be educated about the predators out there in this current state because this is such a pervasive situation.

So the idea of more home buyers into the system, more educated home buyers into the system will help spread the ability to counteract these predators.

Thank you so much for that.

And thank you for that fantastic question, Council President.

I appreciate that.

Council Member Rink, over to you.

Thank you, Chair Foster, and I wanna first and foremost recognize that this is just an incredible panel.

Thank you all for the work that you do for our neighbors, for our communities.

You all are incredible leaders in your own right, and I'm just really grateful that you were before committee today.

And my question for you all builds on the question that I had for the staff presentation just around implementation and utilization, and so I'm wondering if each of you can speak to assuming passage of this and moving forward, how do you see yourselves working with this particular, with the Office of Civil Rights?

We talked a little bit about how there will be a funded enforcement part of this.

What would you like to see from that staff person within OCR?

How would you like to see them interacting with you in communities to really make sure that we're taking full advantage of the legislation utilizing this to the maximum extent possible?

Yeah, so most certainly, assuming the passage of this, we want to make sure that the Office of Civil Rights is given the actual tools and not just the FTE.

I saw in the in the brief or in the slide it talked about the FTE and the staff person but a staff person without the budget or the authority to be able to move effectively is going to have one hand behind their back and so when I talk about the tools oftentimes what we would like that will lead me personally and I think I'm speaking on behalf of our or organization right now.

When I say that, we're talking about the effective marketing techniques, right?

What we cannot have is where it's just some QR code, it's on the city website, right?

We wanna see aggressive action out in community and wherever that FTE, the person that's hired, they need to be able to have authentic partnerships and communications with established community groups, right?

And so oftentimes we see people who have no tie to that community.

So as I mentioned in my last comment, the messenger is just as important as the message.

So whoever is working at the Office of Civil Rights to implement this, One, they have the ability to partner, and sometimes that means subcontract, but also partner and have the tools, if you will, the language tools, the translation tools, and not only the old school, the PDF, but real digital tools, video, Things like that to be able to get the message across to homeowners so they can see it in a multi-platform approach, right?

And it's not just emails.

We need to be able to be just as aggressive as the people on the other side.

And how do you do that with one person?

I mean, it's a start, but most certainly do the additional resources to scale their efforts.

As a retired bureaucrat, I retired as a diversity manager for King County, so cross-cultural communications is really critical and important.

I know Council Member Foster and all of you work really hard to get the funding from this, but it is just not enough.

And even when I think about, oh, Department of Neighborhoods has trusted community folks who can do language translation and interpretation, how can that be and how can you partner?

I think there are three things that really come up for me, and you guys need to figure out the money.

The first thing is, you have community organizations that support you.

I think it's important for us to do editorials in people of color and newspapers.

That's one.

Second is, look at partnering with the King County Assessor to have a multilingual mailer go out with our tax assessments, or sooner.

Again, keep looking at the systems you have.

The low-income notices that are put out by utilities to homeowners, I mean, that's another venue to be able to get the word out to all homeowners because they get bills.

So keep looking at that.

And I do think this QR code thing is just killing our communities because the ones who can do QR code probably are not necessarily always property owners.

So you have to really...

I think you're going to have to have some advisors to pull this together.

The other thing is how do we...

The young people are so good at social media.

How do we take something that is so powerful and important, be put out together?

Because our young people, and sometimes when I say young, it's probably 60 and below.

Those young people are the ones who are gonna get the word to us.

Because frankly, people just shut down when you experience this kind of continuing harassment and abuse, you just shut down.

So those are just some of the tactics I'm thinking of, but you need to increase the money for this and maybe part of the fines could come back to ongoing education and communication.

That first year, you're not gonna get as much.

Probably in the second and third years, that's when you're gonna get a lot more.

Because my guess is that the solicitors are going to find an alternative way to get to people.

And then you have to up your game in terms of the ordinance.

Thank you.

Well, we're organizers at heart, even though we're in this urban planning space.

What we'd be willing to do is to help the Office of Civil Rights connect with the licensed real estate agents.

Like, let's test their resolve.

Like, this is the industry, and if they're as, especially if they're asking for exemption, if they're as concerned, have them contribute to the pot to support the cost.

The associations that exist, you know, we're talking about how do we afford this, test the resolve of the industry, and have them organize themselves to contribute to supporting this, to go after those wholesalers that seem to have risen in this arena.

So have them just kind of help pay the freight if they're sincere about their concerns.

Thank you all for being so concrete too on exact ways that we can be providing, really making sure that we're doing this right or in a way that is really genuinely meeting need or trying to get the word out.

I think that's really valuable for us to bring forward to OCR.

And I think that just us moving forward too, you know, this is, You know, Councilmember Lin mentioned this earlier in committee, but this work will likely be iterative.

As was just said, they will probably refine their game to try and keep up this practice.

And so I think that really demands of us to be making sure we're evaluating also this particular piece of legislation.

So a humble ask to our chair.

I hope next year we can have kind of a check-in on the implementation of this work just to really keep it up and reevaluate to how we can bring online more strategies to try and address this issue.

And I wanted to kind of close with just naming a couple of things that I heard in this discussion today because the incessant nature of these requests, this legislation really focuses on addressing.

And I heard a number of things through our testimony today.

that certainly need addressing, too.

I heard it mentioned that we have these folks using personal information like a death in the family to try and target people.

That needs to be addressed.

I heard a wide range of deceiving practices, official-looking documents, candy.

so well to me, a signed sale agreement.

I'm sure there's a myriad of other deceiving and manipulative tactics that also need to be addressed.

And then the use of AI and whatever all of that means and the emergence of AI in our communities.

And so in my mind, there's a lot more work to do here.

So a humble ask that as we move forward, we make sure we're taking this up potentially in committee next year just to evaluate and find more opportunities to iterate on the work.

And I thank you again, Cher, for bringing this before us today.

Thank you all.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Rink.

And over to you, Councilmember Lin.

Thank you to our wonderful panel for the years of work all of you have been doing to support our community.

One question I'm just trying to think logistically what happens if you put your name on this list.

But I think as you were mentioning, Shikundi, that oftentimes people that are most vulnerable are also dealing with something else.

Maybe it's death in the family.

Maybe it's taxes.

Maybe it's other costs.

And so I just want to be mindful that that we aren't prohibiting somehow people from getting the help that they need.

And so distinguishing, again, just want to be careful with our language about solicit, that we're not prohibiting the good work that you do, for example, to go out and talk to people who are maybe vulnerable.

to make sure that they have access to resources, that they have access to potentially sort of a broker that will help them get the full value.

There are times that, you know, people might need to sell their home, and so they might put their name on the list, but then circumstances might change and they might need to sell their home, so how do we make sure this doesn't prohibit them, somebody, from being on the list to preclude all the unsolicited calls to make sure that they still have full ability to go out and get a broker to sell their home if they need to or to get the support that they need.

So that's just something I want to be mindful.

I don't know if it's a question, but just sort of I'm assuming that if you're on the list just for our panel, that that should not sort of prohibit somebody from being able to proactively seek a broker to sell their home if they want to, or if there are resources, that it should not prohibit groups like black-loving homers from reaching out and saying, hey, here's this list of resources.

I just want to clarify that that's not the intent and that, if needed, we should clarify the language

Yeah, most certainly, Councilman, I could just hop in.

My bad.

Could I hop in?

I'm sorry.

I was going to go to you anyways, because we talked about it.

I just was on the edge here.

I was on the edge.

And I guess what I would say is if you look at the bottom of the screen, it says unwanted, right?

We are talking about this unwanted solicitation where people are contacting you out of the blue.

As we know from all of us in Southeast Seattle, we don't necessarily see them in Northeast Seattle, but our neighborhood is already inundated with signs on every telephone pole that says, we buy homes for cash.

So these numbers, there is no lack of phone numbers to call in our community if, in fact, you are distressed at this point, right?

There's no lack of good actors, real estate agents at every grocery store.

on all of the different, your carts and everything else.

The real estate agents are most certainly advertising where they can as good actors.

And I would say some of the predatory people are most certainly advertising as well on every telephone pole, right?

So the information is around us continually.

And so folks that do want versus unwanted.

If they do want to be able to engage in whatever edge of that commerce they would want to engage in, there is no lack of that information in community, right?

And I'm not the legal person.

I do want to look at the actual legislation again, or I have somebody in our community like Inye and Lois Martin and those folks.

I'm more of the talking head, but we have people that will go and look in there.

But my understanding is this doesn't preclude us from being able to go and offer resources to people.

And we're saying to people, did you know about this program or that program?

That is my understanding is that the work that we do in terms of offering the like of these letting people know and FYI is much different than asking you to engage in a transaction or do you want to sell?

And so I'll let the legislative language folks, that's why y'all are on the council, but the lay person in me, the lay organizer, as Gregory has said, it'd be sees a clear difference from a person going out and offering resources to people around how they can stay in their home is clearly different from an unwanted solicitation to sell your home.

I think that was fantastic.

Thank you so much.

And Councilman Berlin, I appreciate that question.

And I think it's a great followup on the questions that you asked earlier.

And I just wanted to share, you know, in terms of drafting it, that's part of the reason why we took the approach of creating the opt-in do not solicit list, as opposed to the zone approach, which you heard folks speak to that some other cities did, and that's part of how New York did theirs.

So we wanted to make sure, and I remember when Mr. Salisbury and I met and we talked about this, you sort of said something around the effect of, well, if somebody wants to sell their house, they can.

And if somebody wants to sell their house and they're on this list, This is the intent of this legislation is not to prohibit somebody from putting their house for sale.

It's just to stop the unwanted offers coming in.

But Councilman Berlin, I really appreciate your question on making sure that we have this language absolutely right so that we're not precluding any of the good work that our community members are doing.

And I know one of the benefits that we have of Council Member Lynn being on Council is not only is he a great lawyer, but also, excuse me, a great representative, but also a lawyer.

And so he's bringing his eagle eye.

So I look forward to more engagement with your office in the next couple of weeks on this.

Council Member Lynn, did you have any other questions?

I think I saw your hand go down.

No, I just want to clarify that, yeah, I'd love to work with your office.

Just want to make sure that if somebody gets on that do not solicit list, that that doesn't preclude some of our community organizations from working with that homeowner, that they're sort of a carve out or that they're not inadvertently wrapped into that definition of solicitation.

So that's all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I think that's fantastic.

And I think, again, it goes well with what Council President asked earlier in terms of those existing programs that we know work so well and we wanna make sure that we can still allow the outreach coming from those programs like weatherization and others.

Colleagues, not seeing any further hands and I wanna turn to our panel and say thank you so much for joining us today and for for sharing your wealth of knowledge and history and context with us.

This is incredibly helpful as we begin considering this legislation for council.

So I will close us out here and say, as we heard at the beginning of this meeting, this item is on our agenda today as an informational item.

I think we heard lots of fantastic questions and engagement from our council members today.

We plan to have this ordinance on the agenda for official introduction at the next committee meeting on July 8th.

And we will be engaging with council offices to make sure that we have the appropriate timeline for amendment concepts.

With that, is there any further business to come before committee?

Okay, fantastic.

This concludes the June 29th, 2026 special meeting of the Housing Arts and Civil Rights Committee.

Our next scheduled meeting is on July 8th.

Thank you for attending.

It is 1133 AM and we are adjourned.

Thank you.