Housing and Human Services Committee 1/8/2025

Eighth meeting of the Housing and Human Services Committee will now come to order.

I'm Kathy Moore, Chair of the Committee.

Will the Clerk please call the roll?

Council President Nelson?

Present.

Council Member Rink?

Present.

Council Member Saka?

Here.

Chair Moore?

Present.

For present.

All right, thank you, and welcome everyone to our first committee meeting of the year.

We're starting out a little bit slowly today, but we will, the pace we'll be picking up shortly, so welcome everyone back.

So for the agenda today, I've heard about a few timing conflicts, so if there's no objection, I will move that we hear the CSE presentation immediately after we vote on appointments, and that we hear OH's RSJI presentation afterwards.

So we would address agenda items 1 through 9, then here agenda item 11, and then our final agenda item will be agenda item 10. Are there any objections to changing the order of these two agenda items?

Okay, thank you.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is amended as described.

So now move on to adopting the agenda as amended.

If there's no objection, Hearing none, today's agenda will be adopted as amended.

All right, thank you.

Okay, Madam Clerk, do we have any public comment?

We currently have no public commenters today.

Okay, thank you.

All right, so thank you again everyone for being here today on the January 8th meeting of Housing and Human Services Committee.

On today's agenda, first we have nine appointments to four commissions, the Disabilities Commission, Human Rights Commission, LGBTQ Commission, and the Women's Commission for possible vote.

Agenda item 10 is the Race and Social Justice Initiative presentation from our Office of Housing.

And agenda item 11 is a presentation on HSD's current response to commercial sexual exploitation.

All right, there being no public comment, let us move on.

Clerk, will you please read agenda items one through three into the record?

Agenda items one through three, appointments 3035 through 3037, reappointment of Shelby Day and Jessica Lowe, and the appointment of Jacqueline Piguero to the Disabilities Commission for terms to April 30th, 2026 for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

All right, thank you.

So the Disabilities Commission serves in an advisory capacity to the Mayor, the City Council and the City Office for Civil Rights and other city departments.

Shelby is seeking reappointment for a second term.

She has worked on wheelchair accessibility and hopes to focus on employment and accessibility this year.

Jessica has been co-chair of the Disability Commission for the last two years and she seeks her reappointment for another full term.

to continue her work in supporting the Commission's transportation and accessibility goals.

And Jacqueline studied criminal law at Seattle University and looks forward to the opportunity to work towards the goals of accessibility, advocacy and recruitment.

Are there any comments or questions for committee members before we move for a vote for these three nominees?

Thank you.

Seeing no further questions or comments, I now move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointments 3035 through 3037. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of the appointments.

Will the clerk please call the roll and the recommendation to confirm the appointments?

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Rink?

Aye.

Council Member Soria?

Aye.

Chair Moore?

Aye.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries in the committee recommendation to confirm the appointments will be sent to the January 14th City Council meeting.

Will the clerk please read agenda items 4 through 6 into the record.

agenda items four through six, appointments 3038 through 3040, appointments of Anika Khan, Komudi Fedake, and Radhika Joshi as members of the Seattle Human Rights Commission for terms to July 22nd, 2026 for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

So the Human Rights Commission serves in an advisory capacity to the Mayor of the City Council and the City Office for Civil Rights and other city departments.

Anika is a youth program manager with Celebrating Roots, advocating for at-risk and low-income communities.

Komudi works as a human resources administrator for Mary's Place and has worked advocating for the working class with MLK Labor, and the Washington State Labor Council.

And Rajika is a software engineer for Microsoft and a passionate community advocate and looks forward to contributing meaningfully and productively to the Human Rights Commission.

Are there any comments or questions from committee members before we move for a vote?

Thank you.

Seeing no further comments or questions, I now move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointments 3038 through 3040. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of the appointments.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the recommendation to confirm the appointments?

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Rink?

Aye.

Council Member Sacca?

Aye.

Chair Moore?

Aye.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to confirm the appointments will be sent to the January 14th full city council meeting.

Will the clerk please read the title of agenda items 7 and 8 into the record.

Agenda items seven and eight, appointments 3042 and 3043, appointment of Barry Fuentes to the LGBTQ commission for a term to October 31st, 2026, and Jason Self to the LGBTQ commission for a term to April 30th, 2026 for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

The LGBTQ commission serves in advisory capacity to the mayor, the city council, the city office for civil rights and other city departments.

Barry is a business manager at Amazon and is passionate about addressing mental health and support services for the LGBTQ community.

Jason has years of experience in health insurance and benefits administration and looks forward to bringing that knowledge to the LGBTQ commission to advocate for improved healthcare access, focusing on the needs of trans and non-binary individuals.

Colleagues, are there any questions before I move for a vote?

All right, seeing no further questions or comments, I now move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointments 3042 and 3043. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of the appointments.

Will the clerk please call the roll.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Rink?

Aye.

Council Member Sacca?

Aye.

Chair Moore?

Aye.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to confirm the appointments will be sent to the January 14th full city council meeting.

Will the clerk please read the title of agenda item 9 into the record.

Agenda item 9, appointment 3044, appointment of Hannah Glover to the Seattle Women's Commission for a term to July 1st, 2026 for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

The Seattle Women's Commission, as all the other commissions, serves in an advisory capacity to the mayor, the city council, the city office for civil rights, and other city departments.

Hannah works at the Elizabeth Gregory Home, a low barrier women's day center.

She's worked with women to help them navigate the processes for affordable housing and has witnessed firsthand the obstacles women face in this arena.

Colleagues, are there any further questions before I move for a vote?

All right, seeing no further questions or comments, I now move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointment 3044. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of the appointment.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Rink?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Chair Moore?

Aye.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to confirm the appointment will be sent to the January 14th full city council meeting.

All right.

And since the agenda has been amended, will the clerk please read agenda item 11 into the record.

Agenda item 11, HSD's current response to commercial sexual exploitation for briefing and discussion.

All right, thank you.

So today we have with us HSD's Director Tanya Kim and her team.

And once everyone is seated and set up, I will turn it over to them to introduce themselves and to start with our presentation to walk the committee through their work, including the Domestic Violence Committee that Councilmember Kettle serves on.

definitions, city contracted providers working in this space, and city-funded strategies.

And I would ask, since we are on a bit of a short time frame, because we will be losing from this committee to members, that we hold our questions until the end of the presentation.

Thank you.

I'm Tanya Kim, Director of the Human Services Department.

And I am Allison Forsyth, the Senior Planner with the Mayor's Office on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault.

Well, it is only January 8th, and so I can say Happy New Year.

And also, I wanna extend a warm welcome to Councilwoman, Councilmember Rink, and we've not met yet in your official capacity, and so really pleased to be with you today.

And thank you for the invitation to kick off the new year with a briefing.

It's a heavy topic.

We have a short period of time, and we'll do our best to talk about our current investments, really as a primer to what's to come next week.

And we'll talk a little bit more about January as the Human Trafficking Prevention Month.

But rather than having proclamations come to you without additional context, this is an opportunity for us to give you a primer on the importance of commercial sexual exploitation.

In this short briefing, we're gonna cover a lot.

And some of you are very familiar, Council Member, or Chair Moore rather, has been a leader in this space, and so I know that there's been a lot of discussion even throughout budget season.

But we're gonna start, of course, with who we are as the Human Services Department.

The unit that carries out this work is called the Mayor's Office on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault.

It's within HSD.

We're going to talk about MODVSA.

Then we're going to, in recognition of Human Trafficking Prevention Month, we're going to get into our efforts, specifically around commercial sexual exploitation.

And so we're going to start off with some terms.

We won't cover all of them extensively, but we'll provide that for you.

We are also going to discuss our services and investments.

We have some considerations.

We're well positioned to offer some insights.

And then we're gonna talk about one of the work groups that we participate on with, and that's called the Coordinated Effort Against Sexual Exploitation, or CEAS, and then with the proclamation ending with some next steps.

I will share, too, that with all of this work, and I did mention budget season, which is fresh, top of mind.

It's a new year.

We've got a lot of work here at the Human Services Department.

I do want to thank the mayor for adding $2 million into our base budget so that we can expand on this important work.

I also wanna recognize Council's leadership, particularly Chair Moore, for providing clarity and direction that you'd like to see us take with that through, as expressed through Council Budget Action CBA, So thank you for that.

So there's a lot of work to do.

This presentation is about our existing work.

We are in January 8th.

We're gonna begin some expedited planning community engagement and we'll follow through with all of the new expanded efforts.

That's not what this presentation is.

Again, it's an opportunity to give you a primer for what's to come for the proclamation and just understanding human trafficking as it relates to CSC.

This is for the general viewing public and new council member, Rink.

I always like to start with our department because we do so much.

And so for the Human Services Department, our mission is to connect people with resources and solutions during times of need so we can all live, learn, work, and take part in strong, healthy communities.

It says that we connect people with resources and solutions during times of need.

I will say the six impact areas, you can also see we've got some prevention in there too.

So to the extent that we can prevent people from needing services, that's fantastic.

But there are cases, of course, where we work with vulnerable populations.

And for today's presentation, we're emphasizing the supporting safe communities impact area.

And that's where MODVSA and some of our other community safety efforts reside.

The unit that carries out this work is MODVSA.

Again, that stands for the Mayor's Office on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault.

I'm going to take a step back just to talk about MODVSA very briefly because really it's CSC is a part of a broader effort of work on ending gender-based violence.

MODVSA since 1989 has been addressing gender-based violence and promoting cross-sector collaboration.

We apply nationally recognized best practices and support survivors to hold and hold offenders accountable.

So we've got a range of services that we contract for, as well as convenings that we participate in.

So just as a whole, to give you a flavor of the impact that the small but mighty unit makes is that just last year, through our partnerships with community-based organizations, Served 10,000 survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault through a coordinated regional network Along with contracting, we have contracts with community-based organizations.

I want to mention, too, that those CBOs are often, well, they are the subject matter experts, but often bring a depth of lived experience.

MODVSA's other recent projects, just a quick shout-out to a new program called Seek and Speak that's a collaborative with the Seattle Police Department, where a sexual assault, it's a sexual assault alternative reporting program.

and we also have a sex buyers diversion program.

As I mentioned, Chair Moore is a leader in the space, and so you may be wondering, what is council member Kettle doing in this photo?

He serves on the Domestic Violence Prevention Council, and in recognition of DB Awareness Month in October, he happened to be walking by, and we grabbed him to take this beautiful photo, and we're wearing purple in honor of that.

So there's work to be done throughout the year.

This is focusing today on CSC.

And so with that, I'm going to hand it over to my colleague.

This year, you're going to see me coming to table talking about all sorts of topics that the Human Services Department touches.

I hope to bring more subject matter experts within the department as well as the community throughout the year.

We're going to add a layer of depth to our conversation.

And so I'd like to introduce Allison, who is a part of MODBSA and is a seasoned planner.

Thank you so much, Director Kim.

It is a pleasure to be with you this morning.

I am very excited to talk about this.

It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

And I appreciate the work that you've put towards this, Council Member Moore.

And...

To start off this presentation, I just thought it would be helpful to provide a few key terms just to kind of set the stage.

I know that there's varying degrees of awareness, and so I won't review every one of these terms, but just to kind of provide some context and clarity on what we're talking about when we say CSE or CSEC.

CSE is the exchange of something sexual for something of value.

It could be money, resources, shelter, it could be intangible, but it is something sexual for something of value.

And when that exchange involves a minor, it is called CSEC, or the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children.

There may sometimes be a third party involved that might be a pimp or a trafficker, there might not.

But for the purposes of today, we use the term CSE to describe a lot of this work and just kind of point us in the right direction moving forward.

If you don't mind going to the next slide.

Just a quick overview of some of the best practices when it comes to survivor-centered CSE services and also what does that term survivor-centered even mean?

When it comes to CSE, Autonomy and empowerment are incredibly important.

It's how survivors are informed and supported in making decisions around their own healing journey without external pressure.

Confidentiality and transparency looks like clear boundaries between providers and clients, open communication.

These are both essential components for building trust with a population that has experienced so much trauma and as a result is quite wary oftentimes of systems or providers.

Trauma-informed care, I think is a buzzword that gets thrown around quite often.

But in short, trauma-informed care looks like services that recognize that often behaviors are responses or maladaptive responses to trauma or to the abuse and harm that they're going through as a result to get their needs met.

And so trauma-informed services are designed to avoid that re-victimization, that re-traumatization.

And lastly, but equally important, culturally appropriate services emphasize programs led by survivors, emphasize inclusive and affirming services, and prioritize survivors in leadership that are inclusive.

Thank you.

And with all of these best practices in mind, I'd like to shift our focus to how MODVSA invests in services for this population.

And again, these are our investments for CSE specifically.

But in 2022, MODVSA administered a broader request for proposal process to invest in gender-based violence services, including CSE as well as DV and SA.

or domestic violence and sexual assault.

And as a result, the following strategies were funded, mobile flexible advocacy, shelter and housing, outreach and education and 24-hour hotlines, and therapeutic and medical advocacy.

Mobile flexible advocacy is Advocates that are available to provide individualized support they meet the survivors where they're at they help survivors navigate systems like legal medical housing with the purpose of empowering them to rebuild their lives following victimization and And our shelter and our housing strategy includes both crisis housing like shelter, transitional and long-term housing models that meet survivors where they're at and that kind of meet their needs following their abuse and following their victimization.

our outreach, education, and 24-hour hotlines, as you can infer from the title.

It is providing crisis intervention, referrals, and connecting survivors with services at any time.

And lastly, our therapeutic and medical advocacy services include immediate, ongoing psychological assistance to mitigate the effects of PTSD, which the vast majority of those who experience gender-based violence also have those symptoms.

And medical advocacy includes programs such as the SHE Clinic on Aurora, which is run by Aurora Commons, and it provides drop-in health care to those who are involved in the sex trade.

So the list on the right of this slide, you'll see really quickly, those are the existing providers that we fund through MODVSA that specialize in CSE.

And so you could see with the 3.3 million of existing dollars that we have, the new 2 million is a significant increase increase for us to expand the services.

And so, um, we will definitely, and I know that, um, chair Moore will invite us back to talk about that.

Um, but just, you know, wanted to, uh, underscore that this, um, currently doesn't include that 2 million.

Thank you.

And MODVSA is well positioned to not only enhance our own investments, but also to amplify considerations for key leaders and policymakers.

And our community engagement work on the topic around CSE highlights the following considerations.

Firstly, that there is an opportunity for holistic solutions.

We know that in order to address both the immediate safety concerns and the underlying systemic drivers of exploitation, a coordinated city-wide response is of the utmost importance.

It's critical.

And furthermore, this response has to approach enforcement in tandem with survivor-centered trauma-informed services.

They have to go hand in hand.

Additionally, the need for increased support services was brought up in our community engagement to expand shelter, advocacy, and harm reduction services.

Demand reduction efforts currently target very visible forms of trafficking, such as those on the street-based sex trade on Aurora.

But it is also important in order to ensure equity with law enforcement to also consider the less visible forms of trafficking that require more proactive demand operations.

And lastly, public awareness campaigns, implementing campaigns that educate the public and reduce the stigma around the topic.

And all of this together under the umbrella of collaboration, encouraging that collaboration by using groups such as CEASE, which I am excited to talk about in more detail on the next slide and other similar coordinated efforts.

There are a lot of work groups around commercial sexual exploitation, around human trafficking.

I am very excited to talk about the city's coordinated effort against sexual exploitation work group.

It is established over 12, 13 years ago in 2012 to address the systemic gaps in Seattle's response to CSE.

And the primary purpose of this group is to develop a unified coordinated network to combat CSE by fostering collaboration amongst government agencies, nonprofit, and community leaders.

The group resumed in 2024 after being on hold during the pandemic, and now it serves as a convening space for those doing this work to identify gaps, trends, and develop strategic recommendations for city leadership.

And now I will hand it back to Director Kim.

Great, thank you.

And Chair Moore, I know we owe you a listing of the various groups, the purpose of those groups, as well as the membership, but wanted to underscore cease, which Allison went over succinctly.

And so there was an opportunity there.

So just lifting that up for you.

And so with that, here we are.

We gave you a lot to think about.

I know you've already discussed this.

I don't want to, again, suggest that in just a few minutes we can cover this massive topic.

It's going to be a year, multi-year long conversation.

We've got a lot of work to do in this space.

But talking about the awareness component, that takes us back to what is January as the Human Trafficking Prevention Month.

And so I want to recognize that the national campaign was established in 2010, and the observance affirms our ongoing commitment to protecting the freedom and equality of all individuals.

And it strengthens our efforts to root out human trafficking in all its forms, and for us, highlighting the aspect of CSC within human trafficking.

So next week, with the mayor and council under chair's leadership, we are going to collectively proclaim January as Human Trafficking Prevention Month in Seattle.

And so, you know, it's again, really appreciate the invitation to offer this here in the space before the proclamation comes to you.

Awareness is important, but really it's the substance and what we're doing behind the scenes and the lives that we are impacting is gonna be where we're measured and then we're gonna be judged.

And so thank you for the opportunity.

And with that, I'm gonna pass it back over to you, Chair Moore.

All right, well, thank you very much for the presentation.

And as you have so rightly said, this is just scratching the surface of what's out there in terms of who's doing the work, what services are needed, and the depth and breadth of the work that needs to be done.

So thank you for that introduction, and thank you for the work that you've been doing to date.

Really, really appreciate it.

And I wanted to just acknowledge that Council Member Rivera has joined us in her honorary committee member role.

And also want to say, I was so remiss not to welcome our newest member, Council Member Rink, to this committee.

So thank you, Director Kim, for reminding me to do so.

So thank you for being here and welcome.

And to that, I will turn and let's see if colleagues have any questions about the presentation.

Any questions?

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you, Director Kim and staff for being here.

I have a question about just context.

Why was this work paused during the pandemic and what happened during that time?

These individuals were not victims were not getting assistance.

What was happening?

I think it would be helpful to know.

Yeah, thank you.

That's a great question because we don't want to leave the impression that the work was paused.

It's one of the work groups, the convenings of the providers and system folks that was paused because during the pandemic, people were just trying to meet the basic needs of what the pandemic required.

the work was absolutely continuing during that time.

So the service providers, there were also other meetings that were being had over Teams or Skype back in the day.

But the CSC work itself was not paused.

But the coordination work was not happening, It was.

The coordination in this under cease was not happening because we were just trying to meet the basic needs during the pandemic.

So that's correct.

But quickly, you recall with the state of emergency and we were operating under the continuity of operations plan, we really have clear direction on what it is that we're to focus on.

uh and at that time it was making sure that people were safe they were getting the contracts were being executed we had to pivot some of the programming because of the you know social it's it's remarkable welcome 2025 but at the time uh particularly when at the height of the pandemic uh when we're just trying to figure things out um all service providers were really were pivoting and we ourselves had very clear direction on where our attention was, and they were some basic things like getting people food.

So it's remarkable now, here we are in hindsight, thinking about where we've come, but the work was absolutely going.

It's just that we suspended some of the convenings for those reasons.

Thank you.

I can add to that as well, where there is CEASE, which is more for the systemic and broader work group of the different partners, including SPD and Seattle Municipal Court.

But there were always the adult survivor collaborative.

I didn't want to inundate you with different acronyms of different collaboratives, but that was a funded network of our providers that continued to meet throughout the pandemic.

So some of our funded providers were continuing to have quarterly meetings and coordinate services ongoing.

It was just kind of that broader level that paused temporarily.

Yeah.

And that's the list that we're going to make sure that Chair Moore has.

Thank you.

And I know some of the work, Director Kim and I worked together during that time.

So I know there was a lot of colleagues going into it, including since folks can move around because they, you know, the folks had to be in place how to help.

victims of domestic abuse and how to shift the work to ensure that we were still providing services.

I know all that was happening, but I think it's important that you mentioned that as part of this pause, that the work itself was not being paused and that there were other, to your point, Director Kim, other creative ways to be able to reach out to victims during that time.

So thank you for that.

And then I have a question about the county's role in all of this.

Are they part of this CEASE convening group?

And what are they doing and how does it intersect with what the city is doing?

Because we have our investments county has their investments and how do we leverage?

I can talk more from the service.

Thank you for that question.

The county has a great King County CSEC program.

They work very closely with us.

We also have partnered very much with the Children's Justice Center of King County, which handles all the child abuse, and they see a lot of at-risk and CSEC programs.

minors coming through.

So we've worked very closely in collaboration with the program leads from the Key County CSEC Task Force.

And it's a dear, dear collaboration.

So we coordinate closely together.

As far as investments, I couldn't speak to those quite as much.

But as far as collaboration and work groups, we definitely complement and not try to duplicate.

But there's been a lot of planning going into making sure we're not stepping on each other's toes and we're complementing the work that they're doing over there.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Council Member Rink.

Thank you so much, and thank you for the warm welcome.

I know I'm meeting with your office next week.

I'm very excited about that.

I think we can all agree that forced commercial sexual exploitation is wrong and a problem that is affecting communities nationwide.

So really appreciative of this presentation today and also hopeful that in these conversations as we continue them, we are making space for nuance between forced commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking by nefarious actors and fully autonomous survival based street sex workers who are doing such as a means of labor.

And to that end and knowing just the realities of this work, I'm often thinking about data and how are we fully meeting the need that is out there.

So for HSD, how are you all going about just measuring need within this area?

I know in my discussions with organizations that are doing this work, there's always an ask for more resources, but how are we really measuring and making suggestions or trying to understand how we are meeting the need?

And if I can ensure that I heard your question correctly, it's how are we measuring the need?

And so is this enough?

Or as we're going to expand with this $2 million, how do we ensure that we're expanding it in the way that meets those needs?

Is that right?

So it's not about the performance measures, but it's satisfying the need that's out there?

Correct.

Very good question.

I would love to add part of the community engagement that I've been doing this past year around this topic was going to these providers, including the King County CSEC task force and asking, what is it that we need?

What is it that's working well and what have we never had?

So I don't know if you asked these providers of, imagining a world where the needs are all met of this population, it almost feels difficult to wrap your mind around because it is a newer topic of the last 10, 15 years.

But I would say that we have a lot of providers telling us that their advocates have full caseloads.

A lot of their advocates and their programs have wait lists for services.

So we're very excited about the upcoming CBA.

But there's been a lot of discussion around kind of working with what we have, and now we're kind of at an opportunity where there's more attention on this to look at, well, considering that we've always kind of been, or the providers have been working with little, how could we really effectively expand in a way that is the most efficient?

I think I'll just add that once, you know, you have a pulse on what the need is and then the conditions could change.

For example, the state funding levels are an important consideration.

There's these other things that are happening in the landscape.

During the pandemic, if when, you know, there's a shadow pandemic with all these other things that are happening where it was less visible.

And so I think that one of the important parts is bringing the topic forward, having the coordination and looking at the data, and being really mindful of not having stagnant, and there's nothing wrong with anything that we've been doing, but not having a stagnant service delivery program, but that we're very current, and having these open conversations, doing the community engagement, watching what's happening regionally.

We can't do this work in isolation.

It's interstate, it's international.

And so the level of collaboration and data is so important to really understand what the need is, because it's not isolated to one neighborhood.

It's very complex, and so really appreciate the fact that there has to be a more sophisticated level of coordination and analysis on this.

And if I could add just super briefly, I apologize, but also when we're talking about this subject, there's so much stigma around selling sex or trading sex that it is very rare to meet someone who's willingly gonna come forward and self-identify as having experienced that.

So I would say out of all the forms of gender-based violence, there is a lot of stigma around identifying.

And that goes towards measuring data, collecting information, surveys, statistics.

And I really appreciate, Council Member Rink, your awareness of the nuances between We have children that are being trafficked and sexually exploited.

We have fully autonomous sex workers.

We have the whole spectrum of commercial sexual exploitation.

And all of that requires a little bit of a nuanced response.

And it's not a one size fits all for service delivery.

Thank you for that and I just have one more question if that's all right.

Thank you so much for that answer and you know having worked in homelessness that a field that also similarly I mean intersects with this but also has its own data challenges.

I'm always clear-eyed on that and how are we doing our part to do our best to fully represent and understand who may be experiencing these conditions.

But my next question is kind of related to our funding strategies in areas.

And we know one of the ways that traffickers will, I mean, the primary way that traffickers will maintain control over their victims are just finding ways to subjugate them, keeping them vulnerable.

in many cases through financial control.

And so thinking about where right now in the funded strategies area does flexible cash assistance fit in, or is this an area that has been explored?

A lot of our programs do receive funds for flexible assistance, for client assistance.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you.

Great question.

Thank you.

That concludes my questions.

Thank you again for the presentation.

Thank you very much.

So I had a couple of questions as well.

I just think it's important to recognize that we're not just talking about street-based sex work.

We're also talking about massage parlors and all escort services and all the online activity that's out there as well, which is often Being online and then behind closed doors is often more, it's not seen, it's hidden, and it's a lot more dangerous in many ways and more exploitive.

So important that we keep that in mind as well.

It isn't just about Aurora.

But one of my questions is in terms of how is HSD measuring success for the work of the providers that they are contracting with?

Because we don't really see a lot of it, and so it would be helpful to know exactly how that's being measured.

That's a great question.

We'll follow up if that's okay with a more robust answer, but I know that we have just high level for today's presentation.

Yeah, absolutely.

As far as our CSE investments, it's similar to all of our broader gender-based violence investments where it is, did the survivor access services?

Did they get what they needed?

And then did they self-identify a goal and meet that goal in a service plan?

And especially I think some helpful context for this particular population as well is that you're gonna have folks at all stages of change and willingness to engage in services.

And oftentimes those that we see that are the most visible are the ones that might not be anywhere close to wanting to engage in services.

And so a lot of the folks that have engaged in services are no longer engaging in the sex trade or it's all kind of overlaps, but essentially it's quality and quantity.

How many survivors have we're serving, and then how can we ensure that the services that they're receiving are good and equitable and getting their needs met.

And these are things that we track on a regular basis as part of the reporting requirements.

I will also note in the follow-up, you know, it's something that, it's not like...

It's not like a tutoring program where you might in the following quarter see grades increase to a varying degree.

I think there's a lot of trauma that people have experienced when they're young or things that they're experiencing now.

And it's, again, going back to the, it's absolutely not a one size fits all for the individuals who are being impacted and potentially their families and their kids and their household.

And so it's making sure that we're meeting folks and offering the options and array and having it self-directed in a way for it to be successful.

for long-lasting change, and you're building relationships as well.

There's a lot of, I think, trust building that needs to occur, which is probably not a surprise, but just want to underscore that we're working with people long-term, and maybe there are instances where there's quick transition, but I have looked at some of the data, and it's a long-term effort.

It is similar.

I think if you're aware in the DV realm, they say sometimes that a victim or a survivor, it takes seven attempts to get out from their abuser.

There's very similar data that suggests it's the same for the sex trade, where that incentive might not be the romantic relationship, but if you know that you could go on Aurora and make a quick $1,500 and you have rent due tomorrow and a child crying, there's a very real incentive to continue to go back to it despite the harms.

So it is in this world getting very creative with empowering and working with these survivors and these providers are doing a fantastic job of really working with them to identify and build up their own lives free from exploitation.

Well, and again, I think we continue as council member Rink noted, we really need to continue to provide housing because that is one of the major, I think, ways of keeping people in the trade unwillingly.

And that was certainly one of the things that was behind the impetus of the budget ad, was to be looking at an emergency receiving center to sort of have a place where people can go initially, and then we can work to transition into more supportive housing.

job training and really helping people have the skills and the support, wraparound support they need to be able to make those permanent changes.

The other thing that I wanted to ask and then I'm afraid we're going to have to move on is given the, how is the CEAS workgroup, looking at the CEAS workgroup.

What role are they going to play in ensuring the successful implementation of the new CSE law that was passed this last summer?

Because right now things are not, we seem to be sort of stalled and we have a lot of former providers and there's frankly a little bit of turf juggling going on, jostling going on, which I don't think serves anybody.

And also just the fact of having so many players, how do we, the logistics of bringing everybody together.

One of the things that I really, was proud of in the process that we went through was the fact that we brought a lot of other voices to the table and it seemed like there was a window there where there was a lot more collaboration and discussion along the whole spectrum of perspective and less sort of people being in their various camps and I think ultimately that's where we need to be and so to the extent that we can continue that process and really push against the tendency to become isolated and siloed and locked in is going to be, I think, an important part of what CSE does.

So I've made my point, but I'd like to hear what you view them, how they're going to help with this.

I can answer that.

So CSE right now, because it just resumed, and I want to underscore that it is open.

This is not just for a group of those who are currently contracted with us.

This is really meant to be systems-wide.

that there's lots of possibility, and so we're committed to having that conversation with you on what that looks like.

And so consider us a thought partner.

We're gonna focus on how to get that two million and get all of this work organized and coordinated in a very timely fashion.

That two million requires us to also expedite an RFP to get those services online as soon as possible.

that's there and then we're also committed to taking a look at the work groups that we're involved in and or that community is leading and there's other so we will follow up with you on the appropriate spaces and as we can help with the ordinance and partner with SPD and attorney's office and others we are we are willing more and willing and able to do that.

I just wanna give a quick plug to what you said about housing because we have also our new council member joining us too, is that just a quick note that housing in this case also is expensive because we need to take confidentiality and security into consideration, and there may be families involved.

So just wanted to plug that note, too.

Two million is wonderful in comparison, especially with the 3.3 million that we currently have, and we'll probably hear that there's a greater need out there, but we're going to do the best that we can.

We need to start somewhere, and we're really excited to partner with you this year on that.

Yeah, absolutely.

far greater need than what we are funding for when the service level that we are providing.

And I'm just so grateful that we are actually being able to have these conversations in public, that we've brought, I mean, you guys have been laboring heroically in the shadows in a way and I think it's incredibly important that we are continuing to really expose this shed the light on the light of day on this and the incredible need that remains that we need to address and I think council president you had a question

Well, since I put up my hand, a couple of my questions have been answered.

One of them was, does the $3 million include the $2 million that was just appropriated?

And you're shaking your head no.

So that's one of my questions.

I didn't know that cease existed prior to maybe three or four years ago.

I didn't know that it went back maybe even before 2012. So that is really interesting.

Perhaps there can be at some point in this committee or maybe when you put out the RFP for the two million or whenever.

Whenever it makes sense, I would like to have some information about how you see CSE changing over time with the fentanyl crisis, the infusion of drugs into our city, I am interested in understanding changing natures.

And I know we're not just talking about what's going on in Aurora, for example, but I do imagine that there are patterns that we must take, we should be aware of and also respond to.

So that's something, you know, we're talking a lot about data.

I know it's hard to track, you know, but, and then just how many incidents are brought to the attention of law enforcement, how many new people are contracted providers serving, anything that you can provide to fill out the information for us so we can get a bigger picture of the issue.

Yeah, absolutely.

And the proviso actually suggests and asks that we collaborate within multiple offices and systems.

And so I'm sure data is going to be required for us to analyze and really track to see what impact and what else the need is.

And so absolutely heard.

Thanks.

Right, well, we are running short of time, so I'm going to wrap it up.

But thank you so much for the presentation.

I really appreciate the grounding for the proclamation, and I will be looking forward to bringing that forward next week.

So thank you again, and thank you for the work that you've been doing.

Okay, will the clerk please read agenda item 10 into the record?

Agenda item 10, Office of Housing 2024, Race and Social Justice Initiative, update for briefing and discussion.

All right, so thank you.

So today we have with us our wonderful Office of Housing and Deputy Director Andrea Akita, as well as Nathan Antonio, to present OH's annual update on their work regarding the city's recent social justice initiative.

And I'll turn it over to the presenters.

Thank you, Chair.

Good morning, council members.

I'm Andrea Akita, Deputy Director for the Office of Housing.

Oh, and I'm sorry, my colleague is, we're getting set up here.

I'm Nathan Antonio.

You hear me now?

Okay.

And I'm Nathan Antonio.

I'm an analyst and change team co-lead at the Office of Housing.

Welcome.

Thank you.

We're joined today here in chambers and virtually by members of the Office of Housing's change team and our leadership team who collectively and collaboratively lead and implement our race and social justice work.

So I hope there's some noise over at Seattle Municipal Tower right now because we're really proud and we're pleased to spotlight a few of our accomplishments and highlights on ongoing work of our OH colleagues as well as our community partners to achieve greater racial equity and social justice.

The Office of Housing's vision and mission are grounded in race and social justice principles.

We believe that everyone should have a healthy and affordable home.

And to achieve our mission and vision, we partner in creating affordable housing by equitably investing, preventing displacement, and increasing opportunity for people to live in Seattle.

We partner with and invest in projects developed and operated primarily by nonprofit organizations.

So today in our presentation, we'll first provide a brief overview with data on racial disparities in housing.

We'll highlight OH investments and developments that are owned and operated by Black-led and Native-led organizations.

And then Nathan will describe policy and planning changes with three specific examples, from OH's housing funding policies, from the use of the Racial Equity Toolkit, or RET, in resident services funding, and the impact of permanent supportive housing workforce stabilization fund.

So we know that structural, institutional, and systemic racism have created inequities that are pervasive when we talk about homelessness, affordable housing, home ownership, and associated income disparities and wealth gaps for black, native, and other communities of color.

So you'll see this illustrated in the next few slides through how racial disparities show up among those who are homeless, how it appears in who is rent burdened, and in who rents and who owns their home.

So this slide looks at racial disparities for our unhoused neighbors.

This data is from the 2024 King County point in time count.

And to orient you to the chart, the percentage of individuals of different racial and ethnic groups are identified by orange bars.

And then the green lines represent the percent of the overall county population for each group.

So where you see an orange bar exceed a green line, there's a disparity between the unhoused population compared to the overall population.

And as you can see, this shows us what we've known for some time, that homelessness continues to disproportionately affect communities of color.

In King County, 19% of those experiencing homelessness identify as black African-American, while only 6% of overall King County population identifies as such.

In addition, we see that 7% of our unhoused neighbors identify as Native American, while that group makes up only 1% of King County's population.

So the next slide looks at housing cost burden.

And severe housing cost burden occurs when someone is spending more than half of their income toward housing costs.

And this leaves these individuals and households with less money for other necessities like food and health care and their other payments that they need to make.

It's generally believed that renters who are experiencing severe housing cost burden are those who are most at risk of eviction, of displacement, and of homelessness.

So when rental housing costs are as high, such as they are in Seattle, the lowest income renters have the highest rates of severe housing cost burden.

So yellow and red in this chart equals cost burden and severely cost burdened.

And you can see again that black African-American households followed by Native American, Alaska Native households are experiencing a higher rate of housing cost burden and severe cost burden than white or Asian households.

So when we look at the breakdown of renters versus homeowners across racial and ethnic identities, we see that households of color, especially those who identify as black, African-American, or Native American, indigenous, are less likely to own a home than their white counterparts.

Only 35% of households of color in Seattle are homeowners, while 50% of white households in Seattle own their own homes.

Home ownership in this country is one of the keys to building generational stability and wealth.

So how is the Office of Housing addressing these challenges?

The Office of Housing is investing in the creation and preservation of affordable housing that's developed and operated by organizations, and I said primarily nonprofit agencies, that are representative of and rooted within Native Indigenous, Black African, Latine, and Asian communities.

And this map shows the investments in rental housing across the city that have been committed by the Office of Housing in the last seven years.

It's $210 million invested in creating more than 2000 affordable rental homes for individuals, families, and seniors, including people who are experiencing homelessness.

And I want to dive into this a little bit more because the green dots represent buildings that are owned by or in partnership with these community-led organizations, such as El Centro de la Raza, Africatown Community Land Trust, the Seattle Chinatown International District PDA, First AME Housing Association, the Filipino Community of Seattle, Interim CDA, the Ethiopian Community of Seattle, New Hope Community Development Institute, CMAR, Mount Zion Housing Development, and Chief Seattle Club.

OH has partnered with Chief Seattle Club as an example to develop All All, the Sacred Medicine House, and Goldfinch projects that are all on this map.

And through close collaboration with Chief Seattle Club, the City of Seattle and other public funders are building homes that center traditional wellness with culturally appropriate supports that are crucial to healing for our indigenous communities.

All All, which means home in the shoot seed was developed by Chief Seattle Club and opened in the Pioneer Square neighborhood in 2022. And it contains over 80 apartment homes, including 10 studios that are set aside for homeless veterans.

In addition to housing, the project features health care and social services that reach over 2,700 people annually, 88% of whom have low incomes and 93% who are American Indian and Alaska Native.

Last April, Chief Seattle Club celebrated the opening of Sacred Medicine House, its fourth development project, which added 120 units of permanent supportive indigenous informed housing in Lake City for people experiencing homelessness.

So if we fly over the city and go to the Central District, the next example I wanna highlight is Bryant Manor.

And Bryant Manor meets a critically unmet housing need for affordable, family-sized units in Seattle to serve black community historically located in the Central District.

For more than 50 years, Bryant Manor provided affordable housing to families in the Central District.

And today, First AME is redeveloping Bryant Manor, increasing the number of affordable rental homes from 58 to 250 for a future generation of families.

Fame Housing celebrated the completion of its first building last September with 101 new apartments, along with a new Ashe Prep Early Learning Center on the ground floor.

And then in South Seattle, the Ethiopian Village, which opened in May 2023. In response to gentrification and the growing cost of living in South Seattle, the Ethiopian Community of Seattle, or ECS, established partnerships to create a building with 89 affordable units that are filled with natural light, community lounges, and outdoor spaces for our low-income seniors.

Seniors have been closely involved in the design of the building to make sure that it meets the needs and reflects the Ethiopian culture.

Ethiopian Village promotes healthy, dignified aging, and its residents are able to participate in the programs that promote community, reduce isolation, and make social services easy to access.

really inspirational work across the board.

The next slide, we focus on two home ownership collaborations that we're supporting.

Through our home ownership investments, we're excited to see a new partnership between Habitat for Humanity and African Community and Housing Development, or ACHD, who will develop three of the Rainier Valley affordable housing initiative sites.

OH's investment of 6.7 million will support Habitat and ACHD in the creation of 65 permanently affordable for sale homes.

Another collaborative is the Black Home Initiative that's advancing change and opportunity for black homeowners in South Seattle, South King, and North Pierce counties.

And OH is part of the network of nonprofits, private companies, philanthropy, and government that's focused on increasing black homeownership.

Our staff is co-chairing the sustaining existing home ownership project team of the initiative, and that project team has about 40 active members.

Among the key participating organizations are Wanawari, which creates spaces for black ownership, possibility and belonging through art, historic preservation and connection, the Black Legacy Homeowners, which protects and empowers black homeowners through education and outreach, and the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle.

Before you change slides, what does RVAHI stand for?

Sure.

That's the Rainier Valley Affordable Housing Initiative.

I'll talk now about some more specific policy and program work at OH supporting race and social justice.

In the updates to the housing funding policies, which you approved earlier this year, we made some changes that will expand opportunities for funding and access to assistance.

We prioritized inclusive funding by adding more explicit language about supporting organizations that serve communities historically excluded from equitable access to housing, particularly those that are led and staffed by people of color and rooted in community.

We strengthened our commitment to fair housing by enhancing the language in our priorities around affirmatively furthering fair housing to embrace investing both to provide access to opportunity and to mitigate displacement.

We also more explicitly committed to promoting geographic distribution of our housing investments throughout the city.

We also further promote diverse housing options through increased emphasis in our policies on providing a range of options, including family-sized homes and home ownership opportunities.

We also now allow for more flexibility for participants in home ownership programs.

Most notably, we were able to create an exception to the first-time homebuyer requirement, but just for owners of resale-restricted, permanently affordable homes, so that allows them to access another resale-restricted home in the case of needing to up or downsize.

We also made funding adjustments to the caps on homeownership development subsidies, down payment assistance, and home repair grants that should help facilitate construction of more permanently affordable homes with more bedrooms, and also make it easier for low-income prospective home buyers and current homeowners to access assistance.

And also in the policy changes, we expanded the home repair grant eligibility by raising the income ceiling for the program to 80% AMI.

This allows more households, particularly those with some income, which is often fixed, to access assistance, allowing them to make critical repairs so they can remain in their homes.

Moving on, I will highlight one of the Racial Equity Toolkits, or RETs, that we did in 2023, which was on the Resident Services Program.

In 2022 and 2023, a version of the Resident Services Program was piloted using CLIFR, or Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Funds.

And in the 2023 housing levy, $10 million over the seven years of the levy was included to support an ongoing Resident Services Program.

While the levy-funded program was built on the framework of the CLIFR version, we did do an RET and theory of change to help update the program design.

The resident services program offers funding to operators of non-PSH affordable housing to hire additional resident services staff and to provide more robust services.

The idea being that by supporting staffing and services, we can help improve the health and economic well-being of residents to improve their lives, their involvement in their residential communities, and thereby increase the stability of their personal housing situations as well as that of the building.

A primary need identified through the RET was improved reporting to understand the demographic profile of service recipients and the impact of program services so that both we and providers can better understand who is benefiting from services and how.

So given that we have committed to working with providers over the life of the program, to help them augment and align their tracking and reporting systems to improve the quality and detail of data so that we can use it to inform program improvements in a more systematic way, as well as share insights about their program outcomes that they might not otherwise notice.

Even now, with less than a year of full program implementation, we have much stronger relationships with provider staff and have already shared some information and ideas for improving data collection.

And we look forward to deepening this collaboration as we get more trend data and providers become more experienced with their programs and tracking systems.

I'll segue now to talk about a different program, the Permanent Supportive Housing Workforce Stabilization Program.

Over the course of the housing levy renewal, we worked with our provider partners and staff team to analyze existing projects and staffing needs to offer investments that would meaningfully lead to stabilization of their workforce.

The goal is to support real progress in improving worker wages, decreasing position openings, and providing better care for residents and buildings.

The intersection here with race and social justice is the demographic profile of the PSH workforce.

As you can see in the chart, the PSH workforce of the organization supported is at least 60% people of color, while the proportion of the city's population is about 40%.

Black folks alone are overrepresented in the workforce by a factor of more than six.

This group of workers is also disproportionately female, which is broadly the case in nonprofit and care fields.

So any improvement we can make in the economic standing of this generally underpaid workforce and improvements to their workplace that can be effectuated through better staffing and more stable operations will also benefit this group of mainly people of color.

Since these investments have been in place, we have some evidence that they are making a difference.

Just one example of what already appears to be a success the reported average hourly wage of staff showed an increase over 2023 of about $4.60, which is roughly 17% higher than it was at the beginning of the year.

For comparison, CPI increased 3.4% in 2023, and the national average pay increase was 4.6%.

So the wage increases we observed not only outpaced inflation, but also wage increases in other sectors.

Another element of the Workforce Stabilization Program is workforce development.

Catholic Community Services, as part of a partnership with Seattle Central College, offers a program called the Social Service Provider Academy.

The Office of Housing partially funds curriculum development, instruction, materials, supplies for students, and scholarship opportunities for partner agency staff to take advanced courses to help them build their skills and open up opportunities for career advancement.

This financial assistance is a major help for these workers who are generally not paid commensurate with the difficulty of their jobs.

Research on PSH staff wages that we conducted in preparation for the housing living renewal found that many roles were compensated on par with or below that of baristas and fast food workers, for example.

Add on that many of these folks have kids and other people in their personal lives that they take care of, and you can quickly see how their pay does not go very far.

Case in point.

Carmen Clark, who you see here, applied for a Social Service Provider Academy scholarship through Catholic Community Services.

Carmen was working two jobs at CCS, one at the Women's Referral Center and another as a case manager at the Bunny Wilburn Home.

Carmen loves what she does, and she knew she wanted to obtain higher education to grow professionally.

But when she enrolled, she knew she was taking a big step that would require all of her strength, determination, and focus to successfully pursue a college education while also balancing her home life, raising her four children, and working full-time.

Carmen said that her classes have given her a better understanding of the harm reduction, trauma-informed care, and motivational interviewing skills she was already practicing at work.

She also reported that she has learned how to better assist and support her clients through stronger communication, social, and interpersonal skills.

She also shared that her improved ability to review and understand policies and how they impact her and her work with clients has opened her eyes to the intersection of policy and practice, which has left her wanting to learn more.

Returning to the impact of workforce stabilization on building and organizational operations, analysis we conducted for the housing levy renewal showed that the openings rate of some provider organizations had been creeping up for several years, from as low as 9% in 2016 to over 20% in 2022. Over the course of 2023, as these investments were being made, the data we received from providers showed that the openings rate dropped from 23% to 12% on average among the organizations supported.

Notably, this occurred at the same time that the same organizations were creating new PSH staff positions.

So it's especially remarkable that they were able to close that gap at the same time that they were growing their workforce, and all during a period when there was a lot of demand and competition for labor in many sectors.

So this is an excellent example of how targeted investments to help frontline workers, who are predominantly people of color, majority women, and typically from low-income backgrounds themselves, has downstream impacts that also benefit other staff, residents, buildings, their organizations, and our communities.

I'd like to close with something that Lehigh shared with us about the impact of workforce stabilization investments on their organization.

I'm quoting here.

Hiring additional staff has increased our ability to deliver programs and services, fulfill our mission, and more effectively serve our residents.

In addition to improving the financial stability of the property supported with this grant, the funding has had ripple effects across various aspects of our organization, impacting our mission fulfillment and overall sustainability.

So granted, this is just one year of data, but there's already been some very promising signs.

So we'll continue working and learning alongside of our partners to monitor trends and bring back actionable information about the impacts of the city support.

Thank you.

We're happy to entertain any questions you may have.

Oh, thank you.

That was a really informative presentation.

Thank you for that.

Do we have questions from committee members?

I guess my question is when you said that there was a, um, $4.50 increase in wages for permanent supportive housing for stabilization staff.

So was that since which year?

Because I'm assuming that has to do with the, with, it coincides with our, the ordinance in 2019 to increase service provider staffing levels at the rate of inflation.

the wage increase that we observed in the data was just over 2023.

Okay.

Got it.

Thank you.

Council member Rink.

Thank you so much for the presentation and welcome.

Um, I wanted, I really appreciate the component of today's presentation related to our workforce because in so many ways, um, our success in many of these programs relies on a strong frontline workforce.

to carry out and keep our neighbor's house healthy and safe.

And I wanted to ask a little bit about UW's wage equity study for human services providers.

which I think was eye-opening to many.

And I know given my work over the years, too many of our human services workers who are doing this critical work, they themselves are a few paychecks away from qualifying for these programs.

And the UW study found that the median annual pay for human services workers in the nonprofit sector, median annual pay is 37% lower than non-care industries.

And I want to name that for the public, and I also want to commend the fact that we are making progress in increasing those wages, but wondering about the path forward.

And what are the next steps for improving this body of work?

Are we considering some of the recommendations from the UW report, and can we be doing work on a contractual level to help support wage equity in the sector?

Thank you for that question, Council Member Rink.

One of the ways in which we intend to continue this work forward, the Office of Housing has long been investing in the operations, maintenance, and services within the buildings, recognizing that it's not just producing units, as you noted.

The challenges I think that we see are that our contracts within the Office of Housing may not affect all the workers within an organization.

So when we talk about permanent supportive housing, that may be only part of the lines of business of an organization.

And so increasing those wages along with the other work that the council has done through other human services contracts will help, but it still leaves some gaps because as you know, nonprofit organizations are often braiding and seeking a number of different funding sources in order to make their individual programs work.

So I think there's a lot of work that we need to be doing in collaboration with other funders of these programs.

We know that the costs are increasing for operations exponentially, while the revenues, especially in our projects for very low, extremely low income households, cannot keep up with that.

So I can't speak to all of the recommendations in the UW report.

It did come out kind of at the same time when the Office of Housing was looking at resources like the renewal of the Seattle Housing Levy, as Nathan mentioned, as well as Jumpstart funding, which tends to be very flexible in order to balance the number of units under production along with the ongoing healthy, safe operations of those buildings.

Thank you.

Thank you and would just close with a note to say I know this is also intimately linked with our larger work to create more affordability in this city.

Many of these workers again are commuting from out of county to come up and work and support our neighbors and so would just name again this is also more largely connected to our ability to address affordability challenges in the city so folks are able to stay here and live nearby where they work.

So thank you again for the presentation today.

Thank you.

I actually have a question from council member Saka who had unfortunately had to leave early.

So I'm gonna take that question and then council member Rivera, I'll get to you.

In looking at the slide around BIPOC community led development home ownership.

His question shows that we clearly have the opportunity to increase home ownership in black and brown communities.

So he's wanting to know, as am I and I'm sure all of us up here, what are some additional ways or things that we can be doing locally to increase home ownership rates among black and brown communities?

We're actively working with the communities who have been the most affected in order to make sure that we are reaching populations within Seattle that are legacy black homeowners.

So some of the groups that I mentioned We are working in partnership with them.

We have looked at different programs to do that, to increase their ability to develop home ownership programs.

There's work that we've done with the Nehemiah initiative, which is a collaborative of many black churches in the Central District to look at land and then the ability to take that land and turn it into home ownership opportunities.

It's very collaborative work.

Our funding has increased over time, thankfully, to be able to dedicate resources to our home ownership work, and we'd be happy to come back and tell you more about the different ways in which we're doing that.

We also just received a grant from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development called Pro Housing, which is an innovative way of looking at how we can convert potential renter properties into homeowner properties.

And so finding opportunities to do that with the partnerships and the networks that we've created will be part of that work over the next year and two years or so.

That sounds incredibly exciting.

I would love to learn more about that so maybe we can talk about that offline or even bring you back to committee because I know particularly with the comp plan that this is an area of concern for many of us and really continue to harp on the need to have increased home ownership opportunities.

And I guess one of the things, one of the questions I had too was relating to and looking at, you say homes owned and operated by or in partnership with BIPOC led community organizations.

clearly important that the buildings be owned by BIPOC, but also that those units, I'm assuming, are rental.

And so what we're trying to do is convert those rentals to either condo or co-op or an ownership opportunity.

So there are two sort of pathways there that I think we need to continue to pursue.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

I agree with you.

A lot of my questions were actually answered.

I will request, if possible, there was so much information and so much helpful information.

And if it's possible to get a copy of your presentation, your remarks to the presentation, the notes, I guess that would be helpful.

Because you gave a lot of really great data and other information media information that's not contained in the slides and that is really helpful to know.

I'll say generally speaking, I very much appreciate the racial equity toolkit.

It's a really great tool and an important one to tell us how we're doing with our programs and how to Antonio, as you put it, how to improve our programs in service to community.

So it's really important work.

I appreciate the work.

I appreciate you coming today.

And like I said, I'd love to have your notes so that I have the information that you were sharing because clearly a lot went into this.

And it does help inform the decisions that we have to make on behalf of constituents in the city in our capacity.

So thank you.

Thank you, chair.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, I too would echo that request if we could, because as Council Member Rivera said, there was a lot of really helpful information there.

Council Member Rink, was this a new hand or?

It is a new hand, I'm sorry.

I have one more question just in our last couple of minutes.

I wanted to bring up, KUOW released a report that stated student homelessness has increased 20% in Seattle public schools, and that came out last week.

I thought that was important to name, especially with this conversation.

and thinking about that that's over 2,200 K-12 students.

This has me also thinking about with today's presentation, how age is layering into some of this.

Of course, we don't have a racial breakdown by students experiencing homelessness as reported here, but how are you all tracking when we're thinking about our kiddos and young people, especially those who are, whether experiencing homelessness, but also just in a rent burdened household, and how that can fuel adverse childhood experiences.

but also thinking about age and the increasingly challenging conditions that our elders may be experiencing in communities.

So if there's a possibility to follow up and just talk about an additional layer of data here as it relates to seeing by race and by age, that would be fantastic.

But do you have anything to share on how you're capturing age?

No.

I'm not sure that we do, but we will do more research on that.

And I'll say that, you know, with relation to daycare, we have also been involved partnering with enterprise community partners, related to how we can make our investments in housing coordinated with childcare and early childhood education.

And so co-locating those within housing and promoting family housing that is affordable, larger size units, which we know that the market doesn't naturally produce is another goal for city of Seattle investments, but happy to look into that more for you, council member.

Fabulous.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Yeah, I have one other question, and then we'll have to wrap up, because I think we're going to lose quorum permanently in a minute.

Which is, in looking at the slide, which says 40% of Seattle renters are cost burdened, and then just looking at the immense disparity for cost burdened communities in the black community, also Native American, And this kind of leads into the question about why is that when we have MFTE and when we have mandatory housing affordability, why are we seeing such racial disproportionality with those tools in place?

I think it may get back to a number of factors, including just historical systemic institutional factors, which Black Native American households are not on par with white households in terms of wealth, income.

There's just a number of things.

I think the example that Nathan gave around many people working in the service industry who are supporting our affordable housing, there's larger factors than just the affordable housing side.

I think that we, as a city, are trying to look at strategies that are going to achieve greater racial equity.

So housing is one of them, workforce development, income, increasing income, all of those things contribute to a person's ability to do that.

Specific to the kinds of programs that we're developing, MFTE, MHA, oftentimes, right, we're setting an income.

Well, there's a couple things.

I think we came to you all and described some of the challenges when you look at an AMI, Area Median Income, that takes into account both renters and homeowners.

It's an aggregate of all of those.

Renters tend to have lower incomes overall, but we're setting it at an aggregate, excuse me, AMI level, which takes into account homeowner incomes.

So it's skewing the affordability for those households.

So that's playing a factor in what we're seeing, as well as when you move into a home, you have to be able to...

the income levels are set at a particular level.

And if you're at below that level, you already may be paying more just because it's at or below that income.

So again, there's a lot of interest.

We're happy to also provide and have more dialogue on what we're seeing behind some of the contributing factors to that.

Yeah, thank you.

I think it would be, I know we're looking, should be getting some feedback about the MFTE, and I know there was a discussion about trying to adjust the rates to better match the true incomes of people who need MFTE, particularly around not looking basing it on ownership and rental, but I think also to include this piece about how do we address, is addressing just the AMI level, is that also going to get at the racial disproportionality issues, or are there other things that we also need to do?

I mean, I realize in this broader systemic in society, yes, but the focus here on housing, It seems like that's a particular lens or analysis that we should be looking at as well.

Thank you.

So anyway, well, thank you.

This has really been a very informative presentation.

Really appreciate all the information, appreciate all the work that you've done, making great progress.

So thank you so much for coming today and sharing that.

Thank you.

We appreciate your interest.

Yeah.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, that...

Is there anything further?

11 o'clock.

This concludes the January 8th meeting of the Housing and Human Services Committee.

The next meeting is scheduled for January 22nd, 2025. The time is 11 o'clock exactly, and we are adjourned.

Thank you, everyone.