Seattle City Council Human Services, Equitable Development, & Renter Rights Committee 9/10/19

Good afternoon.

This is the regularly scheduled meeting of the Human Services Equitable Development and Renter's Rights Committee of the Seattle City Council.

We are in council chambers.

It's 2.06 p.m.

on September 10th, 2019. In today's meeting, we will have two discussions about Seattle's tiny house villages.

And needless to say, all the discussion today is framed in the context of the unprecedented and stunning affordable housing and homelessness crisis that our city is facing.

And it needs to be mentioned that this crisis is happening at the time that the city has never been wealthier.

And so we strongly believe, as those of us who are fighting for the rights of homeless community members, but for a city that is affordable for all of us working people and ordinary people, we believe that the city and the region have more than enough wealth to solve this crisis.

But it has been a shortage, not of ideas that are well-founded in data, there's been a shortage of political will, and we are here, you know, in the fall, almost the autumn of 2019, and it was last summer that after having fought for a tax on big business, unfortunately, the mayor and the majority of the city council repealed it.

But here we are, the crisis is not going to go away, and so all of us, but especially elected officials in this city bear a tremendous moral and political responsibility to offer solutions to this crisis.

And that is why this discussion is important, not only in itself, but because it is part of that larger discussion about what are we going to do about this crisis.

As we discussed in the City Council Select Committee on Homelessness that we held on May 24th of this year and that I chaired, The tiny house villages in Seattle have been perhaps the most successful support for people facing homelessness.

And those of you who are watching this either in chambers or on video and didn't watch that committee, I would urge you to watch that committee discussion.

Ordinarily you won't catch me saying watch some committee that has very boring technocratic conversation that is of no consequence to ordinary people's lives.

But this committee was very important.

We had testimony not only from those who have experience in running tiny house villages, but we had testimonials from those who had helped build the tiny house villages and people who had resided either formerly or currently in tiny house villages.

And it was such a powerful testament, not only personal testimonies, but of numbers of how successful tiny house villages have been in helping people provide helping people have humanity and dignity, like privacy, safety, a lock on your door, a place to store your belongings.

And I have to say, as a woman myself, it is the most palpable feeling I feel is how much security it provides for women and LGBTQ people, not only away from the elements, but we know the dire statistics when you're on the streets and the sexual violence that you are vulnerable to.

Many of these villages have self-management where residents are empowered to democratically run their own communities.

Even based on the principle metric of success that the Human Services Department of the City of Seattle uses, which is tracking transitions to permanent housing.

Seattle's tiny house villages are far more successful than even the enhanced shelters.

In reality, I don't think that by itself this is the best measure to go by because it is more complex than that.

And hopefully we will have a discussion on that.

I'm hoping that my office can bring in this discussion in a much more serious way in terms of reframing the metrics.

And we don't believe that just having transitions to permanent housing as a measure is useful in the absence of real affordable permanent housing.

I mean, in the absence of the city council and the mayor's office having made strides on that front, you cannot then turn around and tell the non-profit agencies, well, you haven't transitioned them to, but transition them to where?

You know, we need housing to transition to.

But even if you use just that measure, actually tiny houses have been remarkably successful.

That's why it's important.

And I had a few more remarks to make before we start public comment, but I wanted to acknowledge I've been joined by my colleague Councilmember Juarez.

Thank you for being here.

So first, we will discuss the legislation that my office has prepared to expand the options to build tiny house villages in Seattle.

And as we've said before, there's no reason why a city of Seattle, which is home to so many millionaires and even billionaires, could not afford to end homelessness.

We need to tax big business to fund a massive expansion in investments in publicly owned social housing, which, by the way, will also be a creation of thousands of public sector unionized living wage jobs.

But we also need rent control, so we need bold policies like that so that people have real options for affordable housing.

However, while homelessness exists, there is no reason why and there is no justification for why people should be left on the streets with nowhere to go or forced to live in tents.

Tiny house villages can be built quickly and inexpensively.

And as long as we have a crisis of homelessness, there should be a tiny house available for everyone who does not have anywhere more secure to go to.

I think that's the bottom line.

This is not, as I said before, this is not an alternative to making actual housing possible.

And the tiny house villages are not pretending to be a substitute for permanent affordable housing.

But they have been proven to help homeless people get back on their feet.

As I mentioned, the bill I'm proposing will expand options to build tiny house villages in Seattle.

And when we get to that agenda item, Council Central staff member Ketil Freeman will go over the specifics and the community members involved in operating and supporting several tiny house villages in the city will give us a vision for what the city could do to build on what we have.

I should caution that passing this legislation alone will not be enough.

We will also need to fight for funding to expand tiny house villages in the budget.

I urge Mayor Durkin to put this funding in the proposed budget she will be presenting later this month.

And if that does not happen, then our people's budget movement will need to fight to amend that budget accordingly.

In our second agenda item, we will begin a discussion about something that I was just alluding to.

which is protecting the rights of homeless people who rely on the homeless services supported by Human Services Department.

As we have discussed in the past, and this came up in our select committee as well, there have been certain disagreements between Lehigh and Nicholsville on how that should be carried out.

And we, my office has discussed the issues with both organizations several times.

And we believe that while those discussions continue and, you know, continue amicably, that these issues are a symptom of a larger question, which is that there is no real grievance procedure for the residents to appeal decisions made by whichever agency that might be that is running the service that they rely on.

And it is not just about tiny house village residents, this is about homeless people who rely on city-funded services in general.

And it doesn't seem to us that the Human Services Department is playing that role, instead putting that burden on each agency, and it doesn't feel like that's the best approach.

And it's important, and as I've mentioned many times in the Select Committee as well, our goal, our objective should be united in making sure that we provide the best possible solutions for homeless people and not attack any organization, because all the organizations in question have done amazing work and continue to do amazing work.

And my office and I have the deepest respect for both.

And in fact, I would say that it is precisely because tiny house villages have done such great work and have provided a real example of self-management that the disagreements are a reflection on, you know, people finding their own agency and deciding how they should run it.

So it is a real reflection of people feeling empowered.

And so let's bring that in the most positive way possible.

And that fundamentally, the issues are tied to the fact that the city measures the success of nonprofit agencies in a very narrow way and overwhelmingly based only on whether they find permanent housing in the absence of having permanent housing options.

I should say, except for the navigation team that carries out the sweeps of homeless people, they are not subject.

And I have brought that up multiple times.

Community members have brought that up multiple times.

But the sweeps of homeless people which is the one, probably the one thing that should be held accountable to movement to permanent housing has not been held accountable.

But other agencies are being held to that and I don't think it is giving us a clear picture on how homeless service agencies are doing.

We need a more comprehensive and human-centered approach to measuring the work of homeless services that the city contracts with.

And I don't believe that my office has all the expertise on this.

We know a few things, but I think the reason we are having this discussion, and I think it needs to go forward, is that we will rely on community members and service providers themselves to provide us more insight on what that comprehensive measure will look like.

But today's discussion is just an initial discussion.

Before we begin our first agenda item, we have public comment, and I know several of you have signed up, so Ted Verdone from my office will be reading out the names.

And Ted, please read out a few names at a time so people are ready to go, and we don't waste time and people coming up.

So the first couple names, David Haynes, followed by Dick Burkhardt, followed by Hattie Rhodes, followed by Donna Anderson.

City Council, today would be a perfect example of taxpayers needing an investigation of the social welfare industry's donors and their cozy relationship with the politicians.

How does Sharon Lee of Lehigh, also known as Low Income Housing Institute, also controller of Urban Rest Stop, who overcharges her own nonprofit's rent to finance her debt at expensive services and hours, how is it she gets to sell her land for redevelopment with a contract exempting developer of any affordable housing in a trade of one shack, tiny village, for every level of the building that she's allowing this developer to build at $8.7 million.

Just recently, low income housing, also Sharon Lee's, sold her headquarters for $8.7 million to a qualified developer with a guarantee they would have to build her a shack for the homeless for each level of the housing.

We need an investigation, that's the reason why the city council has been promising affordable housing from qualified developers.

Yet, why does the greedy unqualified developer and donor, Sharon Lee, get to sell a building in the for-profit market originally paid for by taxpayers?

to a developer with a special deal exempting affordable housing requirements during the redevelopment.

Also, she can get a shack, a tiny village, to parasitically skim the subhuman mistreatment of a management fee, acting like she's helping these people in an industrial toxic zone.

They're cheating the taxpayers, they're cheating the homeless, and they're cheating the entire community when they make it seem like they're the experts who are self-appointed.

We really need an investigation of why Urban Rest Stop is closing early.

And Sharon Lee, who controls that, is still getting $8.7 million in the for-profit market while trading the integrity of affordable housing that we've all fought for, for a shack, a tiny village, to management fee skim.

Hello, I am Dick Burkhart, a long-standing member of the Othello Tiny House Village Community Advisory Committee.

I enthusiastically support the expansion of city-authorized tiny house villages to 40, including the option of religious sponsorship.

However, I am concerned about an issue that should not be an issue, that is the integrity of the operator of a tiny house village.

And Othello has been painful for me to watch the well-being of the villagers, even the operations of the CAC, sacrificed to the politics of Scott Morrow.

It's not just his continued illegal presence, but his intentional disruption of normal village operations and governance.

In the past, Scott has tolerated drugs in return for political loyalty.

I saw a big bucket full of drug deals that had been left in the guardhouse when Lehigh took over last spring to end the illegal Nickelsville occupation.

Now, just like a certain occupant of the White House, when an uncomfortable fact comes to life, Scott has attempted to accuse his perceived enemy, Lehigh, of the sins of which he is guilty.

to produce a narrative that will satisfy his political supporters.

This has got to stop.

So I would like the ordinance amended to require that the operator of any tiny house village have a demonstrated track record of integrity, both within the villages or encampments, in relation to the city and other authorities.

In addition, the operator should have no role in the selection of the members of the CIC to avoid conflicts of interest.

After Hattie Rhodes comes Donna Anderson, followed by Harold Odom, followed by Anitra Freeman.

Hello, I am Hattie Rhodes.

I live at the self-managed Georgetown tiny house village operated by Lehigh.

I don't have a statement prepared.

What I have instead are several statements from villagers that live at Georgetown that wished to be here.

Unfortunately, they have mobility issues or they have appointments, but they still wanted to make sure that their voices were heard and that They all supported more tiny house villages.

So that's for you.

Thank you.

My name is Donna and I live at Georgetown.

I was here back in April and spoke to the council when the new Lehigh transition was happening.

I can say now like I did then it's been a very positive partnership.

I believe that with Lehigh's help the village is definitely a working self-management role model for cities and towns.

anywhere that have a homeless problem.

I think the homeless problem here grew so fast, so big, that on the scale of solutions, we kind of were up here.

So hopefully with this new ordinance and the new villages, we can kind of go back and get some of the basics, maybe some outreach, you know, some people like us to help the NAV team and the REACH members.

People in those situations are more likely to take help from us than the people that are going to sweep them.

So I think that's one maybe solution or a little bit of help.

And then someone actually came up with the idea, maybe the NAV team, come up with a checklist that we could take to these unsanctioned camps and say, hey, if you clean these two things up, you know, the neighborhood or whoever said you could stay here as long as everything was kept clean.

Still unsanctioned, but maybe keeping them from getting swept.

And that would have, I mean, to me, that would relieve pressure for the city and Lehigh to hurry through the process so much.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

You said it bluntly.

Let's stop the bickering.

What sickens me is that we're talking about one against the other.

What sickens me worse, we're not talking about the homeless.

If they can't get along, tell them to leave.

Tell them to leave, we don't need them.

I work with lived experience.

I was homeless, lived under a bridge, had my two toes amputated.

Tiny house villages are a springboard.

Provide laundry, provide a place where you can get help, but if there's that, it's not there.

You can't get it.

Pass that bill, but pass it with robust, robust, robust, I can't even say it.

But a lot of, let's just go different words, a lot of services and resources.

Demand that there's a rapid rehousing person there.

Demand that there's a case conference person there.

Demand that we have someone there to talk to who's qualified.

I'm not gonna get into bickering of who's who.

When I got to the townhouse villages, I got time.

We are good.

They're working together.

If they can't get back to there, then it's hurting us, the homeless.

It was great for me to go from there to a job.

A lot of people have done that.

Other people take care of medical issues, family issues.

I got back with my son.

but talk about the homeless.

Screw the agencies, because it's a million dollar business.

How dare they talk about themselves when homeless people are dying on the street.

Shame on them.

And if they didn't hear you, I did.

We don't need them.

Let's get some other people in there.

Thank you.

After Anitra Freeman comes Rebecca Burnash, followed by Eric Davis, who's actually, I think, presenting, right?

So Cassandra, maybe, Gaspand, followed by Rodine Allison.

Thank you.

My name is Anitra Freeman.

I'm here today with Cher Weil and Women in Black.

I'm glad to see the council looking at expanding the encampment ordinance.

In our ongoing homeless state of emergency, encampments and tiny house villages are lifesavers.

FEMA has declared that King County is so prosperous now that we no longer need their funding for homeless emergency services.

Here on the ground, we know better.

Tomorrow, We'll Women in Black stand vigil for the latest seven of 83 outdoor violent deaths of homeless people this year.

Survival does take more than just shelter.

It takes community and the morale building of being involved in and contributing to your community.

Across the country, the longest running encampments and tiny house villages are self-managed, with our local share wheel, Tent City 3, and Nicholsville being shining examples and shining examples of democracy.

I hope Shearwheel and Nicholsville will have more self-managed encampments and tiny house villages under the new ordinance.

Please support our community and please join us tomorrow as we vigil for seven deaths and lay five new leaves of remembrance of over 300 people who have been homeless, and died in Seattle.

Here's your invitation and a list of the dead.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Rebecca Burnash, and I'm a resident of Camp Second Chance.

This one?

Okay.

My name is Rebecca Burnash.

I'm a resident at Camp Second Chance, and I'm here in support of the more tiny house villages, and just in support of that myself for what it's done for me and in my life, the steps I've needed to take to not be homeless anymore.

Being chronically homeless for five years, this is the best thing that's happened to me being in the tiny house village.

So I'm just here to support that.

First of all, I want to say thank you to the Councilmember for fighting for the people, for those of us that don't have a voice for ourselves.

My name is Cassandra Gaspard, and I had a good-paying job, and due to circumstances, I ended up with eviction and homelessness.

I knocked on tiny house doors, and I was blessed enough to be taken into a clean and sober Camp Second Chance.

I've been clean and sober for over 12 years, and it means a lot to me to be in a village that adheres to that.

I also have a pet, and it's hard to be on the streets being a woman and having a pet that I love dearly.

I'm here to support the expansion of Tiny House Villages, and I'm grateful for the blessings that all that comes with the villages, so thank you.

Next up is Randine Allison, followed by Travis Grantham, followed by Teresa Homan, followed by Lori McMurtry.

My name is Rondine Allison.

I'm from Whittier Heights, Tiny House Village.

And I used to be living in a tent in the Soto area.

And I was homeless for almost a year when I caught a new case and I had to go back to jail.

And while I was in jail, The father of my kids was murdered.

October 11th will be a year, and I was unable to make it to any of the services.

The navigation team approached me one day, and we started talking, and he said, are you willing to get off the streets?

And I said, yeah.

And I told him about the father of my children.

And like a week later, someone came to my tent to talk to me.

And I didn't know anything about them.

And they got me into Whittier Heights.

And I feel safe.

I was running from a domestic violence relationship.

I'm safe.

I'm indoors.

I have a job.

And I'm slowly, slowly starting to love myself.

I'm just grateful for the villagers to give me that second chance when no one else would.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Travis Brantham and I am a resident at Camp Second Chance.

I had no idea what tiny homes were until I had the opportunity to actually find a place that I could call home.

When I came there, I was asked, where are you from?

And I literally said, my truck.

Now I can say that I'm from Camp Second Chance, and I can tell somebody what tiny homes and the villages are all about.

I felt like I had no purpose, and now I have a job.

I feel like I am of value.

And I love being able to look at the community where I live and call them my family, because I didn't have that.

And everything that these people are saying up here, it's our life.

And without that, then we struggle.

And so all these homes that are being discussed about being built for these families is very much needed.

Thank you.

Hello.

My name is Teresa Holman, and I work for Lehigh.

And I am the special projects manager of Whittier Heights.

And I just want to say, I've only been with the organization six months.

I've worked in permanent supportive housing for 10 years, though.

And to move into this shelter what model, I can't believe how brilliant it is.

I can't believe how really effective it is in terms of setting the residents up so that they will be successful in permanent housing.

And one of the ways in which we do that is there's study after study that says there's a correlation between broken families and homelessness.

And so for those that never had the support of being loved in spite of mistakes and being loved through the various experiences of their lives, we are in a position to create a place that is safe, that they can build community, that they can build that relationship.

I'll tell you really quick, one thing we're doing in this community is we started a talking circle.

And we open up our mandatory meetings with these very vulnerable questions.

And the whole purpose was to, for the residents and the staff, as we're answering the questions, we're finding out how similar we are, how alike we are.

And it's making the community stronger, it's giving the women more, and it's giving them more cohesion and that they have each other's back and they know it.

So I'm super proud to be doing this work.

And I just wanna say, having been in the business this long, this model is excellent.

It's great because we have the supportive services available, the chemical dependency counselors, the case managers and everybody else.

So thank you very much for your support.

After Lori McMurtry comes Alan Martin, followed by Early Spruill, followed by Peggy Hotz.

Hi, I'm Lonnie McMurtry.

I'm a resident at Whittier Heights in Ballard.

And it's saved my life.

Nobody knows what can happen tomorrow.

Anybody can become homeless.

Anything can happen at any given time.

I didn't know my family would be killed from a drunk driver and one thing led to another and I ended up homeless from a journeyman in the union to nothing.

The REACH program was awesome because they gave me a chance and took me to one of the tiny houses and I saved my life.

I got humanity back, my respect, my morals and values.

And being a woman out there in the streets isn't easy or being a man isn't easy.

A lot of the public shun us because of stuff they show on the news.

And they spent over half a million dollars last year just picking up trash around the camps.

I could have all been put towards housing, towards, you know, they're doing all the wrong things.

They're making, creating more problems for the homeless and for more homelessness with the low-income housing.

What is low-income housing?

It's not for us.

You have to have a voucher, you have to make so much a year, you have to, and so I just hope that this goes through, that there's more tiny houses around, because there's even ones in Hawaii.

And you know, it's pretty awesome where you can get back on your feet, you can get your self-esteem, you're safe, you can feel a part of, you know, you can build somebody up and make him shine from a dole penny in the ground, you know?

And I just think there, that it's awesome, the REACH program's awesome too, they do their job, they do what they're supposed to do, they have funding, they do, if you get on your feet and you help yourself, they'll help you.

You have to wanna help yourself.

And if you don't wanna help yourself, there's people around that will help you help yourself to make you feel better as a person.

I'm just really thankful for the tiny houses and I think that they're awesome, they're little tiny houses and it's like a little tiny house No kitchen or bathroom, but we have that there, and you can fix it up the way, it's your own.

You have your own key, you're safe, you can come and go.

Two year program, about two years, and in that two years you have all the opportunity and help and resources to get on your own feet.

We just need more housing after the fact, so.

But I think they're great, and I sure hope this bill passes because it saved my life and a lot of people.

It's helped a lot of people.

Thank you.

Hi.

I'm glad that I'll be part of Lehigh.

I mean, Nicholsville, Tiny Elms Village.

But if Lehigh and HSD Upward Management continues to show us that they're not willing to work with us, then maybe they are the problem.

I am on time to leave you early.

Hello, my name is Early Spruill.

I'm a resident of Othello Village.

I'm here with friends from Nicholsville, Othello, presently occupied by Lehigh.

It is at 7544 Martin Luther King Jr.

Way South.

Residents at the former Nicholsville, Othello, have been living under Lehigh occupation.

It's 24-7 around the clock with paid security guards, video cameras, and everything is locked up.

No vote.

on who comes and goes since April.

That's over five months.

That's a unique position from which comment on a new draft encampment ordinance.

Thank you, Councilperson Sawant for proposing it and supporting us.

Now, Lehigh wants to impose a church on operations.

A religious encampment operator is called.

The residents at Othello voted to turn down this church because the pastor has been on the Lehigh Board for three years and there's obvious conflict of interest.

Residents at Othello Village have filed many grievances against Lehigh staff here.

They have not been resolved.

As a matter of fact, the HSD contract specialist says Lehigh didn't even show the grievances to him.

The Lehigh Board of Directors bears responsibility for this.

They have been told for years that Lehigh staff hides its grievances and they have done nothing about it.

Now they want to put Lehigh Board of Directors in here as the encampment operator.

We need our independence from the low barrier village that Lehigh has turned occupied Othello Village into.

Give us a piece of land to move for two years.

The city has plenty of property they could share.

We will find our own religious encampment operator, move our tiny houses there and have done with Lehigh and HSD.

We are tired of being on strike in the village we built up and now have seen the Lehigh ruin.

If HSD wants to pretend this is a good way to run things and spend taxpayers' dollars, let them.

But let us move to someplace where we can live in a sober environment.

Families shouldn't have to live around people who act out and who get loaded in camp.

But that's what Lehigh allows, and we know those people need some place to.

We hate to see money wasted on Lehigh security guards who don't do the job around this place.

We'd rather just run things ourselves the right way.

Our fellow residents never signed up for this Lehigh and HSD nonsense.

We signed up for a sober, self-managed community.

Give us a religious encampment operator, a piece of land for two years so we can get back to it.

It will be the best investment you ever made.

Besides this, I got one thing to say.

I've been there for two years, and before Lehigh came there, that camp ran perfectly fine.

Besides the supplies you guys sent us, we didn't need your help besides whatever you were doing because I never met one of you guys in two years.

You guys paid the honey bucket bills, electricity, a few other things, but the camp is not what it used to be.

I don't think you guys are qualified to even run a camp.

Peggy Hotz, followed by Tatiana Hampton, followed by Kira McCoy, and then the last speaker is Jean Darcy.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Peggy Hotz, and I'm a Nicholsville volunteer and founder.

In a week and a half, Nickelsville will celebrate its 11th anniversary, most of that time without a steady source of financing or a permit.

Through the years, thousands of homeless people work together to provide safe shelter in a self-managed setting.

Despite this present period of intense struggle, Nickelodeons are committed to continuing to operate villages and encampments where sobriety and safety are paramount and everyone participates in a democratic community.

In other words, the city of Seattle is going to need to work with us.

because we're not going away.

Nicholsville and hundreds of our friends have worked to promote mediation between Nicholsville, Lehigh, and HSD, but bullies don't negotiate unless someone more powerful insists.

While those who could have helped stood by, these homeless people were subjected to aggressive and outrageous acts by Lehigh staff and HSD.

Recently, at occupied Othello Village, The Lehigh site manager decided to abruptly toss 99% of the large muscle toys of the 10 children living there, including tricycles, wagons, and pedal cars into the dumpster.

At Nicholsville Northgate, a Lehigh staff emailed a refusal to provide supplies that agreed to stand 20 days earlier, including women's hygiene products for only half a dozen women that Lehigh claims it can't afford.

The people of Nicholsville villages have discussed their options and have fair and reasonable solutions for each village.

Nicholsville North Lake wishes to remain on the same small piece of unused city land and find a faith-based organization as a sponsor.

Occupied Othello Village asked to move to an unused piece of public land and have a religious sponsor.

The Human Services Department has already admitted that Lehigh has violated their services agreement at both of those sites and said they are out of compliance.

The City Council has power here.

Certainly, you have the power of the purse.

Please require HSD and Lehigh to respect this sensible solution and stop their funding until they do.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I'm Tatiana and my partner, Julie, and I are Nicholsville alumni.

Nicholsville saved our lives twice and those of countless others over the last decade.

As long as there is homelessness in the city, there will be a need for Nicholsville type encampments where people can go to stay together to stay safe.

I want to thank Shama for sponsoring the new draft ordinance and for listening to the voices of the disenfranchised.

You always made me feel like my voice was heard and I am grateful.

Nicholsville-Northlake has been under attack because they have voted democratically to run the camp themselves while accepting case management.

It has become clear through the actions of HSD and Lehigh these last five months that they do not want democratically self-managed camps.

HSD informed Lehigh they were not abiding by the ordinance and threatened to shut Northlake down.

Nicholsville is an authorized encampment operator.

Lehigh is not.

If Lehigh is not living up to their end of the bargain, they should be removed as fiscal sponsors of Northlake and allow the residents to find a religious sponsor to continue running the camp as they have been.

Othello has been occupied for five months now, and the 50 people that were residents before the takeover do not feel safe, nor did they agree to low barrier individuals sharing their home.

Those Nickelodeons have a new plan to separate themselves from Lehigh in a way that should be agreeable to everyone.

Allow the Nickelodeons to move on to a new piece of land with their tiny houses and let Lehigh put whoever they want in the land they own.

These people deserve to feel safe and to have their rights respected.

If you want to solve the crisis we're in, listen to the people in it.

Liberate Nickelsville and allow them to continue the great work they've done for over a decade now.

Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Kira McCoy.

I have a master's in public health.

And when I was a graduate student at the University of Washington, I helped to conduct a program evaluation of some self-governed encampments.

And that work has continued on.

And I'm here to share some findings of a 2018 evaluation a UW graduate research study that looked at the results, the goals that were set out by Nicholsville.

So their methods included focus groups, and they also did interviews and observed intakes and disciplinary hearings, and then they also reviewed disciplinary records.

The results are that They achieved their goals to use a democratically run governance system.

They found to have built community cohesion.

And then residents reported building several skills, including interpersonal communication, conflict resolution skills, all because of the self-governing principle.

They also learned writing, time management, carpentry, self-advocacy, and civic engagement.

And the residents all agreed that they felt that the rules were clear in terms of self-management.

So the results of this research study were really positive and looked at the public health benefit of having self-governance.

And I can share the report with you all if you would like.

But we think that this is a really important alternative to the charity model where you're having that concept of nothing about us without us, where you really allow folks that are experiencing homelessness to build political power and trusting their lived experience.

As previous folks have mentioned, Lehigh has violated their services agreement and so we're asking that Lehigh and HSD respect the self-governance of Nicholsville or please stop the funding to them until they do so.

We think that tiny house villages meet an immediate public health need, and we really need to uphold the dignity of our neighbors by maintaining self-governance.

Thank you.

Councilmembers, I'm Gene Darcy.

I did serve on the Community Advisory Committee for the Nicholsville encampment, not quite a tiny house village when it was on Market Street in Ballard, and I'm currently serving on the Community Advisory Committee for the Whittier Heights Village and am very impressed with the operation of both of these.

encampments.

Nicholsville was very responsive while they were on Market Street to any complaints, any problems, and were always present at our CAC meetings to let us know what's going on.

So I definitely support that model of self-management.

I absolutely support the expansion of the number of tiny house villages.

I'm here to ask for your help.

For the first half of my professional life, I worked for a large corporation.

For the second half, I worked for a large government agency.

Neither of these were direct democracies.

In fact, most organizations in the United States are not direct democracies.

They're top-down, hierarchical organizations, where decisions are made by a few unelected managers, and the workers just follow directions.

Few of us in this country are familiar with direct democracy, where the workers make the decisions.

Some examples of these are unions and cooperatives.

We are fortunate to have a few organizations here in Seattle that are self-managed, that do practice direct democracy.

Nickelsville, Share, and Wheel are some of those organizations.

It's a rare and precious example, in my opinion, of people organizing and advocating for themselves, showing the rest of us what true democracy looks like.

Since most of us are unfamiliar with direct democracy, some may view this as suspicious and perhaps inconvenient.

I'm here to ask you to support mediation between the self-managed democratic organization, which is Nicholsville, and the Department of Human Services, which is a top-down hierarchical organization.

Please help to bring the parties together to better understand each other and to resolve their differences.

Please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

That is our last person to sign up to speak.

will those of you who are here for the first time please join us.

Sure, Ketel Freeman, Council Central staff.

Sharon Lee, Executive Director, Low-Income Housing Institute, or LEHI.

Eric Davis, Lehigh site coordinator for Camp Second Chance.

Barbara Grace, Barbara Grace Hill, neighbor and community advisory council member for the Georgetown Village.

Melinda Nichols, board member of the Low Income Housing Institute and carpenter builder of tiny houses around the city.

Ted Verdone, shaman's office, council member's office.

Thank you all for being here.

And I know some of you were there at our select committee, which had an initial discussion about the track record of tiny house villages and providing services.

Sorry.

Yeah, I was just saying that some of the people who are at the table were at the table at the select committee that chaired recently before the council break, where we had some really good insights into the track record of tiny house villages.

And today, as was said in the initial remarks, we will be discussing the the bill that we have in front of us.

And I wonder if, Ketil, you could first walk us through the memo that central staff have prepared for us to sort of summarize the bill, and then we'll open up the discussion for other people here.

Sure, so you had mentioned in your introduction kind of dry, technocratic meetings, and that's what my role is here.

So I'll walk through the memo and describe a little bit of the regulatory context for...

It's not in any way a commentary on you all.

The responsibility lies with the elected officials.

I'll describe some of the regulatory context for permitting transitional encampments, which are also known as tiny house villages, and then briefly walk through your proposal.

I'll also describe the ACIPA appeal, which has been filed, which acts as kind of a procedural limitation on full council action on the bill that would need to be resolved.

So, first of all, as the committee is aware, the 2019 point-in-time count of people experiencing homelessness in King County identified approximately 3,500 unsheltered persons living in Seattle.

Of those unsheltered persons, about two-thirds, 2,267, lived outside or in tents.

That includes folks living in tiny house villages.

As of July 2019, and so my information may not actually be as current as some of the members here at this table, There are eight authorized encampments located in the city, and the memo lists eight of them, and the location is shown on a map at the very end.

As the committee knows, there are three regulatory pathways, and they're all different for authorizing tiny house villages or transitional encampments.

They can be authorized as temporary uses for up to six months, as interim uses for up to one year, and as accessory uses to religious institutions for an indefinite period of time.

There's a table on the second page of the memo, which I'll just briefly walk through, that highlights some of the differences between these different pathways, and Council Member Suant's legislation would modify all of these in one way or another.

First, duration.

Temporary use encampments can be established for a period of up to six months, and they can be renewed.

Interim use encampments can be authorized for up to one year and may be renewed only once, and encampments that are accessory to a religious organization can be authorized for up to any length of time.

There are different locational standards that apply.

The strictest is for interim use encampments.

Those can only be located on private or city-owned properties, and most non-residential zones and some commercial zones, they're also not permitted, such as neighborhood commercial one zones.

They have to be at least one mile from other transitional encampments.

There are also some limitations that go along with the maximum number of interim use encampments that can be permitted in the city.

No more than three can be permitted in that.

It was a policy choice that was made many years ago now, and as a matter of fact, the authorization for interim use encampments as a whole will expire absent council action in March of 2020. With respect to physical development standards, temporary use development standards are determined on a case-by-case basis, but sort of the state of the practice now is that the physical development standards for tiny house villages established as temporary uses are more or less the same as those established for interim uses.

The physical development standards include screening along each non-city boundary.

Aspects of the encampment that are close to residential zones have to be set back at least 25 feet from those zones.

and the site has to be at least 5,000 square feet.

There's also a limitation on the number of residents, no more than 100. That's also true for encampments accessory to religious organizations.

Finally, there are different types of permit requirements and outreach and notice that go along with those permits.

Temporary use encampments established through a temporary use process require mailed notice to nearby neighbors and a 14-day comment period.

Encampments that are established as an interim use require at least a meeting 14 days prior to a permit being applied for, and we have some Citizens Advisory Committee members here, and each encampment must have a Citizens Advisory Committee.

Finally, with respect to the type of permit, encampments established through a temporary use permit are a Type 2 permit for the purposes of the Land Use Code.

That means that it's a discretionary decision made by the STCI Director, and that decision is appealable to the City Hearing Examiner.

Interim use encampments are non-appealable type one decisions, so there's no discretion exercised by the STCI director.

And for religious organizations, no permit is required unless the use is not already, is not accessory to our religious institution.

You may notice that a lot of the regulations for religious organizations are less prescriptive than the other pathways and that reflect some limitations in state law to protect the freedom of conscience of those organizations.

Councilmember Sawant's legislation would make some procedural changes and also some substantive changes to the overall regulatory scheme.

It would remove the current requirement that encampments on property owned or controlled by religious organizations be accessory to an existing principal use.

As I mentioned, it's sometimes the case that A principal use must first be established, usually some sort of a community center for the religious organization, and then the encampment is established that's accessory to that.

So in the proposed legislation, If a given religious organization like a church owns a property, but that property hasn't been put to any use, or as you said, principal use, they could still, if they wanted to host a tiny house village.

Or if they just have a leasehold interest in the property, yeah.

And Sharon, I'm sure, can tell you more about this.

To get to the point where an accessory use can be established under this pathway, sometimes the principal use must be established first.

Sometimes a change of use permit or something like that is required.

It depends on the site conditions and how large the encampment is proposed to be, but the regulatory burden is sort of larger or smaller depending on those circumstances.

Your proposal would also permit transitional encampments on sites owned or controlled by other public entities.

So that could be King County or the state of Washington.

There's currently, I think, a tiny house village established on port property in Interbay.

And if I can just jump in, washed out land is one that, which is state owned land, is one that often comes up as a place that tiny house villages consider wanting to set up on.

I don't know if you can do that legally.

I don't think you can tell the state that they have to do that.

No, the state would probably have to agree for the city to have some sort of a leasehold interest or something like that for an account to be established.

It would remove the requirement that transitional encampments be located at least one mile from any other legally established transitional encampments.

It would authorize interim use encampments in residential zones.

That's a substantive change.

Allow unlimited renewals of the one-year permit, so an interim use encampment could have multiple one-year renewals.

Remove the requirement that encampments must be located at least 25 feet from any residentially zoned lot, and that's a consequence of expanding the areas where interim use encampments can be located.

Require screening on all lot boundaries.

So that's currently there's not a requirement that the street front boundary be screened.

Yeah, please go.

Just being a little bit wonky, so it requires screening for all lot boundaries.

Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Yeah, so currently there's a and this is really and this is a physical development standard that I think I can tell you a little bit about it, but I don't know if I can trace it exactly.

But I mean, the origin story for this suite of regulations has to do with an encampment that was proposed at El Centro de la Raza in about 2000, year 2000 or 2001. And there was a consent decree that the city entered into to allow that encampment to be established.

And a set of physical development standards were established through that process.

And I think in some ways, the screening requirement is a carryover from kind of best practices learned over time for establishing tiny house villages.

Yep.

Let's see.

Oh, and increase the number of authorized interim use encampments from three citywide.

That's the current maximum established through the interim use process to 40. and remove the sunset date of March 2020 for interim use encampments.

So post-March 2020 interim use encampments could operate in the city and allow for renewals of encampments established through the temporary use process through a type one non-appealable decision.

So that's the gist of Council Member Swan's proposal.

I did mention earlier that there is a SEPA appeal.

There's some incorrect information to sort of change circumstance here.

There's a pre-hearing conference that's scheduled for September 16th, not September 26th.

Yeah.

And after that pre-hearing conference, we'll have a better sense about what the schedule will be for the appeal hearing.

Right.

I'm noticing that if the legislation is to be meaningful in terms of removing the sunset date, then the legislation would need to be passed.

in February or early March?

Yeah, probably, I think it's actually March 31st is the exact date, so it probably needed to be passed about 40 days prior to that.

40 days prior to that, okay.

Can I say a follow-up?

Yeah, please.

I'm just going to ask it on the other page.

How did we, how did we, when and how did we decide three?

What year and when, or why?

I can't remember the year exactly.

It was probably about 2015, maybe Ted knows, 2015 or 14, and that was.

2015, he got it.

Oh, 15. And so that was a policy choice that the city made at the time about how many temporary use encampments, not temporary use, interim use encampments should be allowed.

It wasn't this current council?

No.

Well, partly.

Well, not me.

I just want to make sure.

Not you.

But from what I recall, and maybe Ted has more to add, but it was not a very familiar thing to a lot of the policymakers.

And I think it was a huge thing that we wanted in the first place.

I think now, and the number three I think comes from the fact that people didn't want to take responsibility for it, elected officials didn't want to take responsibility for it, but we had a lot of confidence that this would actually be the sensible way to go.

But now we have so much evidence, I mean just overwhelming evidence that it's working.

We heard testimonials today and we have heard them before, so I feel like, yeah.

because you obviously have the legislative intent, so you knew what was being discussed in 2015 when they decided on three.

Just quickly, in general, what did they just say?

Was it just three?

Did it start at 10?

Or there was some reason why?

That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Do you have a chance?

I mean, I also remember a little bit of the political context at the time.

And as Council Member Sawant said, at this time, they were often tents, not tiny houses.

In the next panel, when folks from Nicholsville come up, they can talk about how At that time, basically, every tiny house village was established by people going and setting up a tiny house village and then fighting to not be removed.

So, you know, this legislation was one as...

Sort of a struggle.

Yeah, it was absolutely a struggle.

And when the legislation was passed, I mean, today we've got just person after person in public comment coming up talking about how important tiny houses are for them.

At that time in 2015, the public comment had many people coming up being worried about these villages in their neighborhoods in a way that we don't see now when they've really proved what good neighbors they can be.

So in that context, there was a whole series of restrictions that were put into the legislation that made it that made it more restrictive.

And I remember that Council Member Swatt put forward an amendment that at that time did not pass to remove the zoning restrictions, but did pass an amendment.

We were able to get an amendment that allowed universities like the University of Washington to host them.

So, you know, there's this constant struggle over where they could be.

Thank you.

Quickly, so back in 15 though, those were tents.

They weren't like wooden, the ones we see now.

We've come a long way since 2015. So that's what I'm getting at.

Yeah, absolutely.

We have.

And we don't want to go towards them.

We want to go towards the kind of infrastructure we're talking about here, definitely.

But I think the point also should be made that that was the necessary starting point.

If we hadn't fought for that, I don't think we would have been here.

And I agree with you, Council Member Juarez, three is a random small number, and why three?

If it's going to work, then why not more?

But at that time, that was the context.

It was a little discouraging at that time to have one, only three, but we knew that we would get to a much better point where a lot more community members would agree that this is the right way to go.

So I'm glad we're here.

If I can just vote with one thing, as you know from what we're reading in constituents in media.

It's going to be, if it's in your memo, please correct me.

I just got it, Ketel.

That kind of historical narrative and background to explain to us, and particularly someone like me who's going to be looking at this, how we got from three just areas where we, in 2014-15, you were just looking at tents, to a more sophisticated, and I've been to Sharon Lehigh's tiny house villages, the one we had on Othello on Aurora, not Othello, I'm sorry.

I forgot.

Those were the wooden structures with the roof and a bathroom and a place to take a shower.

All of those things.

I don't think people understand the progression from a tent, someone just pitching a tent, an area that's been enclosed that either is low barrier or no barrier to have social workers, a door, a window.

I don't think people understand that history or that continuum of how this grew into this.

Some people don't understand it.

So I'm hoping that we'll get a little bit more of that narrative further on.

Okay, I think that's a good idea.

Sorry, Ketil, I should let you speak.

But just to say, I would strongly support if central staff would like to include some of that narrative and

Sure, I can, I mean, I can look at the, I can go back and look at the consent decree, and we have other sort of permit history that we can look at to sort of characterize how things have evolved since, in the last 19 years, when the city's been sort of establishing sort of on an ad hoc basis the regulatory.

And the follow-up to that, Cato, and Chairwoman, is that then people are going to ask, why 40?

How do you go from 30 to 40 from 2015 to 2019?

So I'm going to want to know why 40?

Sure.

Absolutely.

And just to be clear, the limitation, the three interim use encampment limitation is not a limitation on the number of encampments that can be established in the city, because there could be as many encampments associated with a religious organization as there are sites and willing hosts for those encampments.

So it's just for this particular interim use transitional encampment.

OK, good.

So I wanted to give some background and then I wanted to have Eric Davis talk about self-management and how that works because that's happening in a number of villages.

And then I wanted Melinda to talk about the partnerships with volunteers and donors.

incredible support.

And then to have Barbara Hill talk about community support through the Community Advisory Committee and how Georgetown Village and other villages have been able to, because of the Community Advisory Committee requirement, stay in touch with the neighbors and get business community support as well.

But I think your point is well taken.

When we, I was there back then, right, and what they had, the city's idea at that point was tents on platforms.

So what was included in the city budget was go get a whole bunch of tents and have platforms and porta-potties.

And so the first few, Villages or encampments were primarily tents on platforms.

And as you know, that was seen as very, very primitive and very basic.

But as the effort, we worked very closely with Sharon Nicholsville.

The effort to have tiny houses was such a tremendous transformation.

And so not only are the tiny houses heated, but then pretty soon they had electricity.

They have an outlet.

You can charge up your phone.

They have light, they're insulated.

And then the kitchens became not just, you know, crates with, you know, milk crates with stuff in it, right?

Now the kitchens have running water, refrigerators, freezers, cooktops.

And then we're trying to eliminate all these other tents.

And so tents have now been transformed into tiny houses because of the quality of the living environment.

And then also hygiene facilities.

We now have showers and laundry.

We've added laundry to many of the villages, plumb toilets and showers.

and community meeting space.

And then, of course, the security, defense and security to make it really safe.

So the tiny house villages are so much better than what was initially envisioned three years ago.

It's so much better now that the continuum of care is now classifying people living in tiny houses as being sheltered, just like an enhanced shelter.

So they're no longer unsheltered, but they're sheltered.

So they're actually...

showing significant, I think, points, added points when we are competing for federal funds because now we have more people, homeless people are sheltered as opposed to unsheltered.

And then because the city, we want to thank the city for the financing for the case managers and social workers.

We've had more than 500 people move into permanent housing, long-term housing.

And so we are making that effort to increase the number of people who are permanently housed.

Because the tiny house villages can have people stay for two, three, six months, and then the case managers are so good at moving people into employment, housing, and also services.

So it's been phenomenal.

And the thing that's very tragic to me is that the sweeps continue.

I mean, there's so much sweeping going on.

And the people who are now being swept, They don't have an opportunity to move into a tiny house, whereas we feel that it would be their first choice.

Why would they go to a shelter or a mat on the floor if they could move to a tiny house?

Absolutely.

And not to mention all the resources that are being spent on the sweeps, which could instead be spent on providing whatever is needed for more tiny house villages, including the resources that need to be spent for case management.

And we want to thank the city and the mayor's office for announcing the extension of three of the villages.

So both, you know, we have Georgetown, Camp Second Chance, and Othello just got a six-month extension through to March.

And so we would want to make sure that it doesn't like, everything doesn't just close in March.

That's why this bill is also very important that the tiny house model continue.

It's already I think in the city, part of the tiny house village budget is in your biennial budget.

So we're hoping that we can just, we can add additional villages moving forward.

The camp second chance West Seattle.

Yeah It's known as Myers way.

Yeah, and so what we want to do is have a way to improve the current villages.

And Inner Bay just added 20 tiny houses with the expansion.

And Othello Village is now adding 12 tiny houses instead of replacing the tents that are there.

And so people are really appreciative of the fact that they don't have to, you know, there's some of them have been mixed with tents and tiny houses.

So going forward, we want all of them to have tiny houses for people in terms of living in a dignified way.

We do want to, emphasize that some of the villages, and we want to thank you in particular for financing Whittier Heights for homeless women.

Whittier Heights is operated, so it does have Lehigh staff.

And then some of the other villages are democratically run in terms of self-governance.

And that includes Camp Second Chance, Inner Bay, and Georgetown.

So there are different models.

There are different models of, some of them are staff managed, and some of them are democratically managed, self-managed.

And then there are some that are for women, and there are some that include families with children, and then there are some that are singles, adult singles, and couples only.

So I think we've grown to have a diverse response to meeting the homeless need.

So it's not just like one flavor.

We have a variety.

And also True Hope Village in particular was developed to specifically address the underrepresentation of people of color, communities of color in the shelter system.

And that is working out really well with a partnership with two African-American churches, the Urban League, Seattle Indian Center, and REACH.

So it's on 18th and Yesler.

Yeah, and it's in partnership with the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church.

Reverend Jeffrey with the New Hope Baptist Church and Reverend Willis with the True Vine Baptist Church.

So moving forward, I just want to have maybe Eric Davis talk about self-management in terms of Camp Second Chance.

Sounds good.

Oh, OK.

Guys, Eric Davis.

A little choked up here.

This whole subject is, like Sharon was saying, there are several different models, different ways people operate.

But essentially, it's empowering for all the residents in each encampment to have some say-so of how things are ran, how things got there, the security, the comfort.

When you allow people to have a position in the encampment to say, hey, well, I want to be kitchen coordinator.

I want to be donation coordinator.

These people have different positions which operate the camp.

At the camp meeting level, everyone discusses every problem, if there's a problem, and solutions.

No one just selfishly says, well, this is how it's going to be.

We automatically vote on those things and then we reflect to the code of conduct to make sure that's just and that's fair.

The difference in the old days and now is we've upped the ante a bit.

We've made sure that there is an outside source, which is our sponsors, to have that grievance process.

So you eliminate the clique, the people that have felt like they've been just kicked outside and no one else to turn to.

You need that check and balance.

And so what we do there is we've added the grievance process with our sponsor.

We've also added the case management.

one of the things that was missing in self-management.

There was the right to say who stayed and who goes, but there was no one saying who moves to an apartment, no one addressing that issue.

And so when you have that and you throw a site coordinator or what they used to call a camp manager in there, all these things line up together and there's a check and balance.

The model with the self-management and the democracy part, when they start to separate that, it gets a little bit twisted.

You must have that line of code of conduct.

You must have that line of empowerment.

But there needs to be a positive outlook, a positive outcome.

So we're all sitting here today.

We're talking about, you know, a model.

If we don't come to an agreeance, we shouldn't move on.

You know, in my opinion.

We would come to an agreeance before that meeting was over.

Or we'd say, well, let's table this for next week.

But no one got to settle just on one person say so.

You eliminate that.

It has to be some empowerment for the residents so they feel comfortable.

They don't feel like they're dictated to.

When you get that, now people want to work together.

And you'll find you get a lot of more positive ideas that work if they give it time.

It works, like the case management in the last, I got to speak on this, in the last three months, 18 people been moving out of Camp Second Chance quickly in the housing because there was self-management.

Now, the self-management working with the case manager made it work.

Because we had to discuss these things and say, look, you can't stay here forever.

We voted on it instead of just saying you have to do it.

And then we showed them the benefits of it by letting them see apartments in different places.

And you didn't have to be alone out there.

If you don't have that option to discuss it.

then it's just more like dictatorship.

So our version of Camp Second Chance is still self-managed, it's still governed by the people, for the people, but you add the resources included in that to help you.

You don't just say you can do this or that without any positive outlook.

As long as they see that the outlook is beneficial, housing, jobs, sobriety, They seem to think, hey, well, you know what?

You're not dictating me.

You're actually showing me an avenue that I need to look at before I dismiss it.

That's the type of self-management we deal with there.

Sobriety and safety being first.

And of course, housing.

All those three things we all talk about in such a way, it doesn't seem like you're being dictated to.

You're not being forced to.

What you are being informed of, how times are changing.

and how people look at you laying in an encampment for years, but you're not moving forward.

Back then, it was okay, because you didn't have a case manager.

Now, case management's there, we need to use it.

There are apartments there.

There are programs there.

There's more funding.

In our self-management model, we teach governing on that issue.

In other words, we make it where it's a subject that you just discuss all the time.

So when they say head of security, all that, we don't do all that.

We have a simple model.

There's a site coordinator, there's a self-management, I mean there's a case manager, and then you have your kitchen coordinator and your security guards.

All of these people inside of a meeting decide how the camp runs with you and you as input.

You don't even think it's a self-management encampment.

It's more of a community sitting down and having a discussion about what we're going to do for next week and how we're going to help this person that just came in the wheelchair.

That democracy has turned to a kind of a discussion like we have in here.

You don't really feel like you're discussing a problem.

But we have to keep all the real answers up front.

The case management, the apartments, and the housing and sobriety, those things are included because the resources are here.

I think where they get twisted is they want the old model where no one steps in and can tell them what to do, whether it's healthy or not.

That's not healthy for this population.

Now there are government agencies and programs and apartments and different vouchers that we didn't have seven to ten years ago.

We had to just lay in a tent.

There wasn't even a case manager coming into the tent cities.

I'm teaching them, and along with the rest of the staff there, we need to use these programs that are given to us freely.

This is how we move forward.

These models, these tiny houses, they're so comfortable, yes, but they're not the end.

This is meant to be transitioned.

But I address it in a soft, subtle manner and let them know you need to do this.

And that's the way we do it there.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you for sharing that.

The points that have been made by Eric and also by Sharon are important because we, and this is also in the spirit of what Council Member Juarez was saying, that we have to share the history and the evolution of these services because they're also a way of clarifying a lot of the confusion that might exist out there, unfortunately fueled by corporate media that somehow if a certain tiny house village offers all these services, somehow people will just come and stay there.

I don't believe in, I mean, I think that's mythology.

I think people want their own homes.

It's sort of dehumanizing to even think that people just want to be there and not have their own home, sort of not according them that respect that they would want that.

But nevertheless, it's actually helpful for us to have actual evidence to show that that's not true.

It's not that tiny house villages because they offer certain services to allow you to have your humanity and dignity that you're just going to stay there forever.

Actually, the framework is such that especially through the case management that you are provided whatever you need in order to move to permanent affordable housing and that's what we want for everybody and that's what the residents also want.

So I think that that was important to clarify because we hear so much of that sort of as part of the demonizing of homeless community members.

Yeah.

So Melinda, if you could go next, that'd be great.

Certainly.

It's been really exciting over the last several years to be building so many tiny houses.

And one of the important things about how they're built is that the public helps build them.

And not only does the public help build them, but our students, our pre-apprentices, our colleges.

The Tulalip pre-apprenticeship program has built 20 of them.

They're going to be building the first small house.

They're going to be doing the sample of that as well.

So we have a lot of wonderful partners.

And people will call me up on the phone.

I want to build a tiny house.

We have people who individually will build a tiny house every month.

We have people who learn to do tiny house builds.

They haven't done any construction before.

They come and build one, and pretty soon they're starting to do that kind of work.

When we did Whittier Heights, it was for women only, so I said to Sharon, hey, let's have women build it then.

Because I'm a...

That was, by the way, really excellent.

Because I've been a carpenter for 46 years, and there weren't any women then.

And you, I don't know if I asked you this before, you're a union member?

I was, yes.

And I was also, I worked for the city of Seattle.

I was the first woman on the Washington State Apprenticeship and Training Council.

I initiated the diversity.

That's excellent.

Right.

So it was as a result of the city of Seattle.

And so anyway, we had 225 women volunteer to do Whittier Heights.

And can I ask a question, not really pertinent to the main discussion, but I've been wanting to ask.

The women who came to, you know, who volunteered, were many of them experienced in carpentry?

Yes.

Oh, plumbers, carpenters, electricians, you name it.

And we had some women that we helped get into the apprenticeship system.

We have one woman who is an electrician apprentice right now.

So yes, it's been a really good thing.

The creativity of what we're doing, and many of the people who are working on these are women and people of color, and we need more of them in the construction industry, so this is a positive thing there as well.

So we're excited to continue.

We really need more places to build tiny houses, and we have volunteers who are ready to go anytime.

Right.

I should mention one of the things that stood out to me from our last discussion at the select committee was, I think, slides that you all were running through, and Josh was there as well, and Josh is there in the audience.

There was one picture from a tiny house construction that you all had done.

This was at, was it a key arena, or where was it?

Oh yeah, Century Link.

Century Link.

Exhibition hall.

I know Josh mentioned that during that time, that the night before it, some, who had performed?

Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift, yes.

or Taylor Swift had performed in that hall.

And then the next day, they were building tiny houses there.

He didn't say Taylor Swift.

That changes everything.

I want to ask you a question.

What is the lifespan of a tiny house?

The lifespan of a tiny house, I would estimate to be between 8 and 10 years, conservatively.

We've had ones that, I mean, frankly, I built one at home.

It's still there.

It's 30 years old.

You have to make sure that it doesn't leak, and you have to do some maintenance.

But they cost $2,700 for the materials, and that's all.

And we have donations for all kinds of them anyway.

So, but I'd say conservatively, eight to 10 years.

So the ones we have now are still good.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Long term life on them.

Yes, they'll last a long time.

And we do need to maintain them and be aware of it.

Absolutely.

Yeah, and I want to make it clear that at each village we have one or two case managers and the goal is to help move people into permanent housing.

So we actually help pay for the U-Haul, the moving expense, first and last month rent security deposit.

And then, because Lehigh owns 2,300 units of housing, we prioritize people moving from tiny houses into our housing.

But they don't have to.

If people want to move elsewhere, there's other housing available, like public housing, like Section 8, nonprofit owned, or even market rate housing.

but they have to get on oftentimes a waiting list.

So the best place to wait for a vacancy to open up is to wait in a tiny house.

If you are out there in your car or if you're out there on the street, I mean, how can someone even find you to say that, oh, you know, it's time for you to move in.

So that's why we have such a high number of people getting housing, successfully getting housing and maintaining housing.

also been contacted by a variety of other cities to say, how do you do tiny house villages?

And so Seattle is incredibly innovative.

Not only are we innovative about doing such a wonderful thing, but using our volunteers, creating options for diversity in our construction industry.

Everything that we're doing around this really is building our community, and it's a wonderful thing.

So over the course of a year, we can help 1,000 1,000 separate homeless men, women, and children over the course of a year.

So we had more tiny houses.

I'm talking about, if you look at, we now have nine tiny house villages in Seattle.

And then people are staying two to six months, or the average is probably more like four to five months.

So a tiny house can serve multiple people.

And then we also have families who are sharing a tiny house.

So we can house a lot of people.

And I know that homeless individuals, even those living in their cars, we have a lot of people actually were living in their cars, and they opt to come into a tiny house village.

So that's also part of the solution with people living in their cars, is to open up more villages.

Yeah, seems like a no-brainer.

And in terms of the size of the tiny houses, presumably you have larger ones if to house a family or How do you do that?

We want to make sure that we're legal in what we're doing.

So our tiny houses are all 8 by 12 feet.

So they're 96. It's by law.

Yeah.

And then if we have a family, occasionally we will build two houses.

They'll be a little bit apart and there'll be a window between them so that there is some, you know, we're trying to make it as flexible as we can.

But at this point, they are all small.

Okay, good to know.

So Barbara Grace Hill is a long-term member of the Georgetown Community Advisory Committee and it'll be great if you could talk about your experience.

I'd be happy to.

Thank you so much for having us and listening.

And it's been an honor, actually, to sit here today and listen to what everybody has to say, including the residents of the village in particular and their experience.

It's the thing that I think matters the most is that about community.

And I kept hearing it over and over again, we all did today, from the residents themselves, but also around this table about the importance of community building and how it affects not just the residents in the village, but the community around them in the neighborhood and the communities around them in the building community.

or in the giving community.

My background is I had the great fortune in my life to leave corporate America and help start Fair Start, which is a job training program in Seattle.

And I was sitting here today thinking about how, and I've thought about this a lot over the last couple of years of being on the advisory council, on how when there's a great idea, I kind of know it when I see it now.

I knew it with Fair Start.

My parents were totally upset that I left corporate America to leave my money and all of that stuff behind and go do this thing.

And it was the same kind of passion.

and commitment from the individuals that were involved with the organization and the people that were there to help them, from the chefs to the case managers to the community at large.

And I'm seeing the exact same thing happen here with the villages, that if we can, as a community, come together and talk to each other, and reason things out and let there be no gossip or criticism, but instead join together on the common commitment that we all have to house people, to help people who want help.

I have not met a person in the village who didn't want to.

Have a great life.

Who doesn't want to have a great life?

And I've also met a lot of people in there who have experienced a lot of trauma.

And there are many of us in the world that have experienced a lot of trauma.

And if you can get to a place in your life where you feel like you might have a little safety, a lock on your door, a safe place to sleep at night, a little community and companionship, a warm smile, a handout from a friend or a case manager.

Miracles happen.

It's that simple because we're all human and we've all had hard struggles and the villages create that.

The piece about housing is really important, and I'm a big believer in that, that the villages are a continuum, that they are on a continuum, and that there has to be a continuum.

We can't just go from on the street to full apartment living with a job and income, and it's not instantaneous for any of us, and it's certainly not going to be for people who are struggling with other issues.

They've gotta get to a place where they can be safe.

So what we've seen at Georgetown Village, is we have seen that happen, that that get built.

And it came from the outside and the inside.

Our community was upset when we first were told that this village was coming.

And it was, somebody mentioned it earlier, the initial conversations were, this is going to be terrible, and what's going to happen?

You know, our neighborhood, I don't even know what the arguments were, really, frankly, they weren't mine, so.

Yeah, yeah, you remember them.

So, now, we, in January of this year, the Community Advisory Council for our village did a survey of our neighborhood.

Georgetown is a small but mighty neighborhood.

We're quirky, we're weird, we're a lot of artists, it's industrial, it's not your normal, average neighborhood.

When the village came in, the neighbors really, truly, immediately embraced it.

We did different kinds of events in the community where the Georgetown community village folks came and volunteered.

We have carnivals and all kinds of events, and they consistently over the years have come and signed up and helped with clean up and volunteerism and all of those things and made themselves known on our community clean up days and and they do regular walks throughout the neighborhood to clean up around the neighborhood with their village t-shirts on so that they're recognizable to meet neighbors and clean up and kind of make their presence known which helps we have we have a lot of crime in our neighborhood.

We're an industrial neighborhood and there's a lot of opportunity for petty mischief in particular.

So that helps that the village has been there and walking around and doing those things.

So in January when we were looking at the end of the two-year permit.

We, as the council, wanted to go out to our community and ask them, how do you think this is gone?

What do you think should happen next?

Would you support the villages maybe staying longer?

What would it take to do that?

Those kinds of questions.

And of our community, that is really only about 1,500 people, we got over 100 responses, which is a very large valid sampling, 6%.

return on any survey is considered good, and so this was well over that.

And out of those surveys, 71% of the community, which was people who live there, property owners, business owners, renters, 71% were in favor of extending the village and keeping it there.

Many people in the neighborhood say, why would you, why would the city spend money closing down a village?

Why don't we spend that money making another village?

What is the fiscal point of my tax dollars going to close down something that's working so well?

They're really confused about that.

So we're having discussions with them.

The Human Services Department has gotten better in listening to us over the last couple months after us begging and pleading, please talk to us and listen to us.

The people in the village have great information, as we heard today.

There's some great information in this survey, which I will leave with you also.

Some statistical data, but also some really amazing anecdotal data that I think would be very helpful.

Talking about the things that work and the things that need to be better.

And have you all as a community met with the mayor's office on this?

And actually, the way you said that, that was a really good question.

Why would the city spend resources taking down a tiny house village rather than using it to build another one?

And then after you respond to that, Council Member Juarez had a question.

We were hoping to meet with the mayor.

There was a recent walkthrough of Georgetown with a lot of the different departments, and the mayor was supposed to be there, but she wasn't able to attend.

And so no, we have been working really hard just to get the ear of the Human Services Department.

And it has been hard.

say it hasn't been.

We have been really struggling to be heard.

And the thing that's ironic about that to me is the same thing as what's happening here today.

When you get all of the people that are interested and committed to something at the table, and everybody's committed to the same thing, and I don't believe for a second that the city of Seattle is not committed to ending homelessness in this city.

And that, you know, that the nonprofit organizations that are involved are committed to ending homelessness, that the people that are on the streets are committed to ending their own homelessness.

The volunteers, that we're all committed to the same thing.

So it's been...

our plea with the city to please sit down with us and talk to us and listen to us.

We have some really smart people out there who have background and experience in, you know, things that can be very helpful.

So they're finally starting to listen.

We have our challenges.

We've had some other challenges that I won't even bring up at this point.

We feel like they're starting to listen.

And I really do believe that the community advisory councils are key to all of that.

We weren't sure at first what we were supposed to do, or what our role was, or why we were there, sitting at the table, and now what do we talk about?

It took us a while to get up to speed, because this is a new program.

It took Fair Start a while to get up to speed.

And now it's an international program.

Can I just interrupt you?

Yes.

Just quickly, are you done?

Yes.

OK.

You started to talk about what one of my questions are.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to.

No, no, no.

So I'll be a little bit more pointed.

So were you on the Georgetown Community Advisory Council before Department of Neighborhoods transitioned over under Director Nyland beforehand?

Oh, let's see.

When did that happen?

Because.

It happened in 16?

2017, 2018 was the village, right, you guys?

So no, 2720 is after, right after that.

You came after we did the reshuffling and reconfiguration.

Yeah, just after.

Of the community councils, because there's a different version before they made that change.

But let me just come back to that.

So I'm just going to be real candid with you.

So that's District 2, Georgetown.

Yes, it is.

And we've heard a lot of things in the last year coming out of District 2. I'm just going to focus on Georgetown.

I don't want to go to every district and every neighborhood.

And I appreciate your background and your narrative and your understanding and your expertise, particularly in starting Fair Start.

So how do you respond to community concerns and some of the media narratives out there that District 2, in particular Georgetown, in particular tiny house villages, did increase, so to speak, public safety issues and public health issues?

It did happen that in Georgetown, crime and homelessness and RVs tents happened at the same time that the village happened to come in, but they're two very different things.

And when pressed, and I've had many conversations with neighbors about this, I feel like that's my responsibility on the advisory council is to have those conversations and to listen and to sort through that and have those discussions.

The village, it's what a lot of people do that don't understand the whole picture.

And it is about education and talking and really educating people around what homelessness is about because the villages were not the issue.

What was the issue in this city that happened to be happening at the same time was the disparity in the economic disparity in housing that, you know, the rise of Amazon and the, you know, hundreds of thousands of employees that came in with, you know, six figure incomes and rents increasing.

And, you know, it wasn't just, tiny home village.

My son left the city.

He was born and raised here and left here.

He couldn't afford to stay here anymore.

That's not right, but it's OK.

He's doing all right.

But wow.

And it had nothing to do with the villages.

That had to do with the economic climate of this city, of this state, of this country, probably the world.

It just happened at the same time.

The villages did not cause an increase in crime in the Georgetown neighborhood, and there may be a few people that like to say that, and some of them may even, you know, be some of the community leaders on the community, you know, whatever, councilor, you know, there may be, or business people, or whatever, but the people, The survey we did, that's why we did it, because we were wondering ourselves.

And it was like, are we just being bleeding heart?

Are we missing something here?

No. 71% of our community said they appreciated the village being there, that it was fine, that we were proud to have them as neighbors, and that we would like to keep that.

And in this study, you'll also see that there's some caveats, too, that we would like more attention from the city.

We'd like to be at the table.

We'd like to talk about the crime, the RVs, the encampments, the fact that we are in an industrial area, so we're kind of You know, it's a complicated neighborhood.

So it's all in there.

There's a lot in there.

Did I answer that question?

I think so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is a general one, and I'm sure Sharon can respond or one of you.

I don't want to dictate who.

So what is your response when we hear from particular community members?

And this is just we hear it citywide.

where we should just take an abandoned, let's say, store or a huge big box store or a grocery store, which we see in our district, just big buildings that have left.

We have like a name six up the top of my head, whatever, just so they're empty now.

And so what is your response, and I appreciate your comment about the continuum of care, that you don't just find somebody unsheltered where they're at and just say, you know, here's a place to go, you need to go.

And then people in the community don't understand when you talk about, it takes a while to get there.

So what is your response when we have people say, well, the answer and the remedy to homelessness when you have these big box stores or buildings or whatever, we've seen them everywhere, why can't we just put in beds.

Why can't we just contain these people, quote unquote, and just plug it in that way and then have nurses and social workers just come there?

Why do you have to?

I'm speaking from what I've been hearing for the last three and a half years on council.

Let me just finish.

So if we can contain this group that needs services and bring services to them, some people feel it's more cost effective to do that than to have these tiny house villages sprinkled throughout the city and deploying resources to those areas.

So I think what we're learning is that when you have a large group of people who have been homeless or chronically homeless, and you put them in one large space, you're setting yourself up for lots of problems.

And the first is a public health problem.

There are serious issues around the spread of communicable diseases.

So for instance, hepatitis A is a serious problem.

And some communities are even having typhus.

Okay, typhus that is now resurfacing because of lots of people congregating, lots of stuff congregating, lots of people's belongings, right?

And then you end up with critters that spread diseases.

So one reason why a lot of people who are living solo, they're living solo in a tent on the street, is because they want privacy and they want to have their belongings safe.

If you say to them, move into a shelter, They don't want to move into a shelter with 100 other people, and they won't be able to do anything because they're going to worry that their stuff is going to be stolen.

How could you even sleep and feel safe about sleeping when you're worried about people stealing your belongings?

So I think what's...

great about the tiny house is that you don't have everyone sharing the same, like if someone has some terrible disease or who's sick, you're not sharing, you're not bringing the same air, right?

Because every tiny house is open to the, you know.

And so I think it makes a big difference in terms of people's privacy.

You can lock the door, you have windows, you have heat, no one's gonna steal your stuff.

So it's a big, and if you look at the cost, King County opened up the jail, right?

And they opened up Harborview Hall.

Those were very expensive.

So if you look at having to find a building, renovate it up to standard, you're talking about possibly years.

If you look at Bellevue trying to, you know, Bellevue's been trying to site a shelter for homeless men.

It's taken years, right?

Whereas a tiny house village can be put together in three months, and you have the volunteers, you have the community people, and then they're on skids so that you can even move them.

You can take a flatbed truck and pick them up, move them to the next village if you want.

So you cut through some of the bureaucracy around building codes and having a large shelter like hundreds of people in one space.

Sorry, we need to...

Can I just say one thing really quick about that?

Absolutely.

I just want to let everybody know that we are very over time.

But to what Sharon was saying, that also on the other side of that too, if you put homeless people in one little area, into a box, into a ghetto.

We all know that ghettos don't work.

But also it's, the community does not get to see and learn and get some myths broken about what homelessness is and who these people are because they're our neighbors and they could, people said it, they said it could happen to you, it could happen to me.

And at this rate, that is not even a metaphorical thing to say.

Oh, it's not.

Even the skyrocketing rents.

Not in terms of the economic disparity.

Yes, exactly.

But it breaks that myth down and people start seeing that this isn't a big scary deal.

These are our neighbors and people that have value and are fun to have around.

The homeless community members are not scary.

The experience of homelessness is devastating and we have a moral and political obligation as a society to do everything in our power to reduce the number of those experiences and while that experience is being had to make it as less traumatic as we can and that's where the tiny house villages are playing a role.

And homeless phobia is also devastating.

Back against the homeless phobia, yes.

But I think that you all and also people from, I mean, we want to make sure that we don't make this about Lehigh versus Nicholsville.

I think all the organizations and community members who have played a tremendous role over the years in humanizing the stories of homeless community members and specifically doing the work that you all are doing on the ground.

I think that the most powerful thing that you're bringing is the combination of the humanity and the actual evidence, statistical evidence that this works.

And just one other point I would add of to the question that Council Member Juarez asked and Sharon and you all responded to.

And I think that was important that that question came up.

One other point I would add, why we should not just have like a big box store and have beds there.

In addition to all the powerful arguments that you made, Sharon, about communicable diseases and security for your belongings and all of that, is what about women?

You know, I don't, as a woman, if I experienced homelessness, I would be devastated if somebody told me the best you can do for me is, you know, sleep in these public quarters where I don't know if I would be safe or not.

I mean, I don't think that it is in any way okay for us to say that if this is something you wouldn't want on yourself, you have no right to say that somebody else should put up with it.

And so I think that together, I think this has made a strong case for it.

And I think those questions should come up, and I wonder if it will make sense to put all of this information together also in print so that people are able to see it and, you know, really eliminate this kind of phobia, which has no basis in reality.

I really appreciate all the eloquent points that were made.

But just in the interest of time and out of respect for the people who are in the next item, just two points.

Sorry, no, you should finish what you're saying.

I wanted to introduce two other points before we close this item.

One is, and I was just mentioning this to Council Member Juarez before we started our meeting.

I wondered if Sharon wanted to briefly comment on this.

The King County Superior Court has just dismissed the lawsuit from Safe Seattle against the South Lake Union Tiny House Village, I think which is a really positive thing.

And I appreciate the city attorney's office sharing this information with us, especially as we were, you know, in advance of this meeting.

I wondered if you wanted to comment on that.

And then before we close this item, Ketil, if you could just briefly just tell us what the next steps are, what to expect.

Sure.

So this proposed legislation is an amendment to the land use code.

And as with every amendment to the land use code, there's a certain amount of procedural friction.

The legislation, I believe, will be introduced this coming Monday, if not, probably the Monday after that.

Every piece of land use legislation requires a public hearing and 30 days' notice of that hearing.

Because there is a SEPA appeal, the full council can't act on the legislation until that appeal is resolved, and there's obviously some uncertainty there, and we'll have some more clarity about the schedule after the 16th.

September 16th.

But in the meanwhile, although the council is not in a position to do anything legislative in terms of voting on this bill, we were able to have this discussion today and we are able to schedule the public hearing while the hearing examiner is doing its work.

That's correct.

Great.

And Sharon, in close

I was just going to add to the schedule.

So Monday, at that pre-hearing conference, we'll find out when to expect the hearing examiner to rule on SEPA.

Council can act after that, as Ketil said.

In order to schedule the public hearing, Council Member Sawant has put out a request to schedule the public hearing to the Council President's office because the Council President needs to approve it over these coming months.

So it's tentative it needs to be approved.

But if it's approved, that would be on October 17th, that public hearing, so people can start marking calendars for that.

But evening because we want to make sure working people are able to come.

Yes, and I and I hope we can Yeah, we have the permission from the council president But we feel that we it's important to do it now because it also has relevance to budgetary items So it's good if we give the chance give the members of the public a chance to weigh in on this In closing, Sharon, if you wanted to comment on the lawsuit.

Yes, I want to comment on the lawsuit, but I also want to emphasize what Barbara Hill has said.

Your proposed ordinance allows for up to 10 people for the community advisory councils.

Right now, the ordinance has seven people, so your bill will expand it so that 10 people will be in advisory capacity including, you know, business and neighbors and church groups that can assist and support and monitor the villages.

So I just want to make sure that people understand that community input and participation is going to be even greater under your ordinance.

We were very pleased that the Safe Seattle lawsuit was dismissed.

There was summary judgment.

It was dismissed.

And basically, Safe Seattle had filed a lawsuit against the city and Lehigh, and we did a joint defense.

And it was against Lake Union Village.

And so one of the arguments they made was to say that we were running an assisted living facility without state license.

And of course, we are not running an assisted living facility.

So anyway, this is the second time that a NIMBY nuisance lawsuit has been dismissed.

And so it's a hassle, right?

It's a nuisance.

But we're happy that we prevailed.

So thank you.

Congratulations to you on yes a very very important victory for homeless community members and everybody who is advocating for them and yes so we please stay tuned for for us to confirm the date and time of the public hearing.

It will be here of course in chambers and tentatively yes it is October 17th and Like I said, those of you who are watching this, please keep in mind that we want to push forward this ordinance, but this will not provide the resources that tiny house villages will need, especially for case management.

So in that sense, it does relate to the budget discussions that the council is going into.

And I invite everybody to bring those points up at the people's budget.

rally that we will be doing.

I don't know if we have a date for that yet, but we will be announcing that.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you, Ketel.

Apologize to people who are coming next for the delay, but I hope you're still able to for the next item if you can come forward Thank you all.

It was a really good discussion.

And thank you consumer Morris Okay, great, thank you, thank you very much I appreciate it

No, it's okay.

Once again, apologies to you all.

We were late, but I thought that was a very useful and extremely productive discussion.

I appreciate all the community members, including from Nicholsville, who are still waiting here.

Can we have just brief one-sentence introductions, and then you can take it away.

Eliana Skatones.

I'm the chair of the Othello Village Community Advisory Committee.

And I'm Sean Smith.

I am the elected external affairs coordinators for Occupy Othello Village.

And Eliane, when I did the agenda, I incorrectly said you were in Northlake, so just for the record.

He did correct it in the notes that we have for the meeting.

They're a lovely group of people.

It's an honor to however briefly.

Go ahead.

So I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to discuss some aspects of the tiny house program.

You've heard a lot of moving testimony today about why tiny houses are needed, especially for couples and families.

We heard mention of pet owners.

who might not be able to use traditional shelters.

As you've also heard, the advantages go really far beyond those issues of capacity and accessibility.

We've heard about cost effectiveness, but far beyond that, we've seen the amazing harm reduction that comes from it.

And we've heard, especially from some of the Whittier Heights residents today, who are talking about some of the trauma they've experienced and how amazing it was for them to be finding community.

For people to move from unhoused to housed, and Barbara was referring to this as well, there often really needs to be healing and skill building, as well as all the practical pieces that case managers might help with.

And the isolation, trauma, and disempowerment of homelessness are profound and often need to be repaired, something that particularly the self-managed village model has proven amazingly effective.

at addressing.

We heard so much today about the power of community and the community building.

So what I've seen the most of is at Othello Village, where I've observed how Nicholsville's approach has supported residents developing that strong sense of community.

And we talked about the self...

The self-management, I'm hoping that in a minute here Sean will speak about some of the specifics about what makes the Nicholsville direct democracy and their approach to self-management unique.

The most important outcome I've seen from the villages is the growth and empowerment that comes from having real agency in one's life and future.

Mentorship from those with lived experience and meaningful work building one's community.

So, Sean, do you want to?

I want to start by saying that many, many years ago, I had the great fortune of working with Roberto Maestas at El Centro.

He became a mentor of mine.

When I first reached El Centro, I was subjected to this idea of community.

something that was foreign to my existence.

And I remember that sitting in a first community meeting there, how incredibly empowering it felt, how liberating and relieving it felt to be felt as my voice was being heard.

I found that again in Cher and in Nicholsville.

Both democracies where people who live within their communities are making the decisions that affect their lives.

This gives them self-agency.

That self-agency gives them the skills and abilities to self-manage.

That self-management is what is needed when they move on to permanent housing.

They no longer have the support of a village in behind them once they're into an apartment.

They need those skills in order to move forward.

It starts with the simple things like security.

Security giving them a sense that they're part of something, that nothing is for free.

and that work moving forward, and then they get to help make decisions regarding how that security works.

Then they get to make decisions on how that village moves forward.

It's incredibly empowering, and it's something that is underestimated.

It's something that should be measured.

Absolutely.

And it's something that we've heard so much about, a number of us on the different CACs, where we hear people come and tell us what it was for them to be working securities and taking responsibility for the well-being of the village.

and making the decisions about it.

And it's a beautiful thing to watch.

The other thing that I've seen from the outside here, watching with Nicholsville, is the effect, not just of the community at one village, but of being part of a union, so to speak.

That Nicholsville, for many people, who've been living in isolation, experiencing traumas, is a place where they come together and have built collective power and have been able to come as a group and advocate for the needs of their communities.

It's also been really amazing to see how the different villages have been able to learn from each other through having the collective organizing and be able to share tools and approaches that work for their villages.

Can you, actually, specifically on that, Eliana, can you tell a little bit about how do the residents across different tiny house villages get together?

Like, what are the, like, do they have, like, regular occasions, like, breakfast meetings or something?

Like, in what context do they come together?

So, on a weekly basis, we come together as an organization.

We call it our NCC, or the Nicholsville Central Committee.

It's when representatives from all of the villages come together and collectively we discuss what is affecting an organization as a whole, what weaknesses or problems are facing each village, and how as a community as a whole we can respond.

It goes back to what Eliana was saying, that that in itself gives agency in a broader context than just working in the village.

And I've been honored to be able to attend some of those central committee meetings and get to see messy democracy in action, which is always very beautiful, and see people working through their shared concerns and the concerns of their individual villages.

This has been amazing.

That's great.

Go ahead.

The point that you're raising, that it's like a union, I think, is really important because in the last discussion we talked about how innovative the tiny house villages that Seattle has are and how people around the country are coming and looking at them.

But it's not like something like that comes out of nowhere, right?

There was that whole process of, because Nicholsville and Shearwheel, empowered people and were like a union, it was a place that homeless people could come and fight for a model that would work.

And it was a fight.

And I mean, Nicholsville and Cherwell probably would not have happened if Nicholsville and Cherwell hadn't been there to fight for it.

And now when we talk about expanding it, I mean, that same organized force is needed.

That democracy goes back several decades.

It started at the base of the kingdom in a muddy lot when the mayor, Norm Rice, was shutting down services in the city and trying to force poor folks out.

People banded together because we're safe and secure together.

And we fought.

We stayed in four broken down, mash-style army tents, trudged through six months of rain and mud.

And from that, the Aloha Inn was born.

The Cher Indoor Shelters were born.

And actually, Lehigh was born, with partnership between Cher and the Catholic community services.

I think that sometimes in the rhetoric, we forget that history.

It's important to remember that we work together and that we should be working together in the future because I don't foresee any short-term end to what's happening in our state or across the country.

Homelessness is on the rise across the country.

It's an epidemic due to high pricing.

Yep.

I think we should also note, though, that one of the amazing things that's happened as we've had more sanctioned opportunities come out is we've seen different models happening that meet different needs.

Before I was involved with the CAC, I did a lot of work supporting unsanctioned encampments.

And you've probably seen me in here with Housing for All and Opposing Sweeps and other things like that.

And you could hear from people on the streets a range of experiences for what types of supports they felt would work for them and how they felt about some of the different providers of care.

And so I think it's a strength here that we're seeing multiple models.

It's one of the things that I hope we can preserve as we scale up.

this model.

Whittier Heights has a very unique approach and they're dealing with a higher need community.

And we heard amazing testimonials today and some testimony from Gene on the CAC about how amazing that has been for people.

We've heard things from the people who have been really happy with how Camp Second Chance has worked for them.

or how Georgetown's model is working for them.

And we've also heard some pretty passionate statements from folks at Nicholsville who want the chance to maintain their form of self-governance and their model of care.

And so I'm excited to see us try to scale up something that's had so many amazing successes.

But I also want to make sure that we don't try to turn it into a cookie cutter model.

Yes, that's a very important point you're making, Eliana.

Yes, and diversity of tactics.

It's very, very important to note that the many ideas that are being tried out and they're working and it's not just one thing.

Just in the interest of time, I feel like we could have a very long discussion on the history.

And I don't mean that in a derisive way.

I mean that it would be very enjoyable to actually have you know, more involved discussion on history.

And in fact, I thought Council Member Juarez made a good point that, you know, the brief points in the memo don't actually capture where this is, you know, where, how we came from, you know, basically a group of courageous people occupying city land without permission for the attendant campaigns to something that is working much, much better, but that without a starting point, we wouldn't be here.

However, in the interest of time, two points that we should cover today before we adjourn is, One, as we've said, both Lehigh and Nicholsville have done amazing work, and I have no doubt will continue to do very important work.

And we, but we need to find some resolution to the current situation that we can move forward.

And I wanted to give some time to you all to see, for us to hear, I believe Nicholsville has a proposal to explain that proposal.

And then third point we should cover before we adjourn is, something that I'd mentioned in my initial remarks when we started the meeting, which is that one of the problems to which all of this dispute is emerging is the fact that the City of Seattle and the Human Services Department is not playing a much more active role in conflict resolution, in grievance procedures, and there's no process being set up for that at all.

And maybe you have ideas for that.

And so if you can both weigh in on both topics,

Sure, I'll start with Nicholsville's proposal.

We've had a long relationship with Lehigh, but I think at this point, we both know that that relationship has reached its fruition.

And as such, it is time for us to part ways.

We're asking to give us control of North Lake, We'll find a religious encampment sponsor and run the camp the way it's been running since its inception.

Help us find a piece of land for those of us at Othello.

And we'll find a religious sponsor and start anew with the folks that want to leave Othello and work in the Nicholsville model.

We're asking that we continue to operate the tiny house village at 22nd and Union The way that it's been operating for years Which is under the religious encampments ordinance?

As far as things that need to happen.

There needs to be a clear-cut grievance process built into the city.

At present, HSD has no clear-cut grievance process.

There is nobody to field questions or grievances regarding HSD vendors.

And moving forward there needs to be something as such.

Each operator should be required to have clear and transparent grievance process and benchmarks should be made requiring those folks to utilize those practices.

So I was excited to hear the proposal that Nicholsville's making for a resolution.

I'd really hoped for mediation.

I had passionately believed that with a really good mediator that folks could dig down and address the different needs and fears of the community and of Lehigh.

in their role in the middle with the pressures that they have from HSD for certain performance metrics.

And the fact that they're holding, they're the ones who are on the line from the city's perspective.

But that hasn't happened, and we've had a lot of time.

The council has been, thank you, amazing in supporting the residents' call for mediation, but I understand that it's a difficult thing to make happen, and there isn't support from Human Services Department for that.

And without that support, Lehigh's going to continue as they are.

So I'm excited that we could find a resolution that leaves Lehigh to continue managing the site that they're on right now for Othello Village and for there to be a space for the residents who wish to leave to be able to leave and continue the management style.

that they signed up for in the first place.

Northlake is an amazing community.

I'm not actually on their community advisory committee, as we said, but I've had a chance.

I'd have to have a change of residence to qualify.

But there's an amazing community that they've built there, and the residents there feel really strongly about continuing with the community they've built in the style that they've built it.

So I think finding a religious sponsor and enabling them to continue, and I don't think they're asking for city funds for that.

It would be to rely then on the support of the larger community that would meet those needs.

Do you have a question?

I think we got an email from a religious sponsor, or somebody was volunteering to be the religious sponsor for the North Lake site.

Is that right?

I believe there is somebody who is very interested in that.

To address the other issue, there's something that I think goes a little deeper than that.

And it's the thing that I felt I've said the most often since I've been on the CAC, which is that the voices of the people primarily impacted have not been being included.

This is amazing that Sean is here at the table.

At the last meeting, I was at the table and a resident from Othello Village was not.

for talking about Othello Village issues.

And all through the planning process, there'll be talk with service providers who will get brought into the conversations, but not with the people who are primarily impacted.

When we deal with questions that come up along the way about how the village is working, the Human Services Department will not talk to the residents.

they will only speak to the service provider.

And that's really shocking to me.

That does not feel like good practice for how these things should work.

And when we deal with grievance processes also, we're not getting adequate voices of the communities.

Barbara alluded to the frustrations that many of us in the CAC feel.

We're supposed to be an advisory committee to the city, and we have trouble getting HSD to even hear what we're saying and respond to it.

let alone actually take any of the advice or insights that we have to share.

I mean, I know you guys are at the, what did you call it, Ted, the 30,000 foot view from where you're looking in policy setting and the budgets and all the big picture look.

The residents are there on the ground with the lived experience.

Those of us who are there trying to support them are seeing a lot of that in the weeds things and have, I think, insights to offer that aren't being included and that the grievance policy issue is absolutely one of those.

It is...

But it's far from the only one.

It is far from the only one.

It's a matter of process.

Right.

About are we going to have a good process that includes people in the discussions about what's happening rather than telling people what you're going to do to them or for them.

And I know that that's a value that the council holds.

It's a matter of how do we set up good process to enact those values.

The grievance process issue is one that it's hard for me to talk calmly about.

It was really shocking to me.

You don't have to be calm, just be you.

I'm going to try to be calm because it's easier to be coherent when I'm calm.

And I'd like to get these points across.

It was shocking to me to come on to the CAC and have residents tell me that they would reach out to try to address issues of staff member misconduct, both within the agency and to the human services department, and not be able to get a way to have that action be taken on that in a timely, satisfying fashion.

And I looked at that and I said, how is it that we have city-funded services and recipients of those services don't have a way to complain if they're experiencing what they believe is misconduct?

And I think it's shocking that it's being placed on, it's in the contracts for the service providers that they're supposed to have a grievance policy.

There has not been adequate oversight to ensure that there is a good policy and that it's being followed and how are those things working out.

But I think it's reprehensible to put that on the already burdened service providers without having there also be a comprehensive city planned way of ensuring that good practice is happening.

So that's, and I know that Council Member Mosqueda had spoken about wanting to see something about that come into this next budget cycle, to be looking at something that's external to the individual agencies.

I hear it from people who've been in shelters or on the streets as well.

and they don't have communities who have their backs to be able to feel more confident in raising their concerns.

But as we scale up and are providing services, we need to make sure that we're also protecting the people receiving the services, and also, frankly, protecting the reputations of the service providers as well.

Without a way to do a fair, appropriate investigation of grievances, we end up with swirling rumors.

Absolutely, and it seems like a basic framework that needs to exist.

And you're right, without that kind of framework, everything dissolves into just...

Probably not very helpful conversations, but still legitimate that people are complaining, but then there has to be a channel for the complaints to be addressed.

And a transparent one that people can see what are the complaints, how are they being addressed, that you can look at and say, hey, what happened with this?

How is that happening?

It may seem a little granular, but Pathways Home says that we should be utilizing a person-centered approach.

How can you say that we're using a person-centered approach when you're not talking to the people that are the most effective, when you're not having that conversation?

Right.

Without revealing any confidential issues, what's an example of misconduct?

I'm going to give an example from a village that's no longer in existence.

There's a village that's now been closed down where there were allegations that were brought out, and this is a matter of public record at this point, which is why I'm choosing this example.

You had one of Dr. Hagopian's students who was speaking today about the results of the study that they were doing.

As part of that study, they uncovered allegations of sexual harassment by a case manager, and they were trying to get those allegations elevated and ran into a lot of difficulty in having there be a good process for how that was investigated and how people's concerns were addressed.

And that person remained employed for some time after that.

They no longer are employed by any service provider agency that I know of, but it was a very long time.

And there was a point in the exchanges that got shared with the city and publicly where, it might have been Dr. Gropian herself, it might have been one of her students, said, you do realize that talking to the person accused does not constitute an investigation of these allegations.

And that that should need to be said is very troubling.

And I place the responsibility for that not on any individual service provider organization, but on the Human Services Department that should have been ensuring that there was a way for these to be addressed.

There were concerns about somebody at Othello Village that were brought directly to HSD employees.

And there was nodding and the rest of it, but there was no, here's a plan for how we will investigate these concerns and ensure that they are properly addressed.

After the fact, there was no coming back and saying, here's how we responded to your concerns, here's what we discovered, here are the remedies we're going to put in place so that you can feel safer moving forward.

And those are the things that I would expect.

And those are the things that I think when we set up programs, it's important to get built into them, that we don't farm it out to the individual contractors to each come up with their own process for it, which has been very hard if people move from program to program.

It's hard enough to access these.

And it makes it very difficult for transparency.

Very difficult.

And like you said, ultimately, it also ends up putting a burden on the reputations of the agencies, many of whom are trying to do really important work and very sincerely.

I've not encountered anybody in the work that I'm doing that I don't believe is sincerely dedicated to trying to address the problems.

I have differences of opinion about strategy or approach with some of them, but the sincerity of people's desire to be trying to address things and address them fairly is genuine, I believe.

So, I know we need to talk more about this, and I will be planning to schedule this in upcoming committees.

But just very quickly before we close, is it possible for Nicholsville and Eliana and anybody else, any of the other advisory council members who want to join in this?

Can you write a memo or a letter, whatever you want to call it, and send it to my office explaining?

I mean, I'm talking about two separate letters or memos.

Why do you think that the City of Seattle and the Human Services Department has not played the kind of role they need to play and not offload all the burden on agencies in terms of really giving voice to the residents or the people who are using these services, who need to be heard the most, and with the grievance procedure being one example.

But also in that letter, if you could also highlight, Sean made a very important point, which is that Pathways Home says we need a person-centered approach, but we don't have that.

right now and we need to bring that out, so if you could write that.

And the other thing I would request you send me also is your proposal in writing, you know, like why you believe that at this moment the proposal as you stated in terms of sort of parting ways for now between Nicholsville and Lehigh, but also, you know, stating the fact that we have a long way to go and The organizations have worked together in the past.

We, as Sean said, we believe that they will be working in the future also together because this problem is not going away, but right now you feel that this proposal is the most sensible thing for us to have.

I want to throw out one thing that wasn't on your list that I know I mentioned to Ted.

One of the other things that I'd like to see addressed in the coming budget cycle is to look at the metrics of success for these programs, and I believe the Councilmember alluded to it earlier, and I know that I've heard other Councilmembers, particularly Councilmember Mosqueda, mention it.

that right now we're measuring, as I was saying, I believe you've addressed this a little bit, right now we're measuring solely by exit to permanent housing, and that's leaving out a lot of the good work that's being done.

But it's also creating pressures on the service providers to make choices that might not be in the best interest ultimately.

To use short-term solutions to concentrate on clients who are more easy to transition through because there is so much pressure to generate those metrics.

And in fact, because of that, probably the more vulnerable people end up facing longer bouts of homelessness or worse experiences than they would if the agencies were free to provide

And the case managers themselves are placed in a very difficult position for the success of their work.

There's so much that's important in helping people resume their educations, to get a job, to get medical care, all of those critical things that will help move people forward in their life.

And measuring it just, what I wanted to say about that, though, it connects to the person-centered approach.

is there was a great list that was in a previous select committee meeting that was generated by suggestions from service providers, and it was really moving in a good direction.

I wanted to suggest that there also be outreach to some of the impacted communities in the shelters, in the tiny house villages, other recipients of things under that category, to look at what metrics are meaningful to the people receiving the services that make them feel this agency, this case manager is doing an incredible job helping me feel supported.

Connected to that, HSD recently did a program review on the success of the villages.

To do that, they spoke with a service provider employee and case managers and they reviewed case files.

at no point was participant satisfaction or experience a measure that was being looked at to determine the success of the program.

And I find that shocking.

That is absolutely shocking, Eliana, what you're saying.

And in fact, if you could incorporate these points also in the first memo or letter that I mentioned that would be very useful to us, because like you said, it's not just the grievance procedure.

We're talking about something as fundamental as the metrics or measures used to evaluate effectiveness.

And if we have a problem there, we have a very fundamental problem.

And we know we do.

We have that problem.

And some of these things that we find out are shocking, that this even exists.

And I also find it deeply, and this makes me unhappy, deeply ironic that at a time that we have many members of the political establishment saying, well, we need data-driven approaches, we need data.

I mean, I hear data, data all the time.

I'm all for data.

As an economist, I am strongly for data.

But what are the data you're using?

You know, like you said, if you're not going, if you're not carrying out analysis, you know, survey-based analysis that includes the input of the people that need most to give input, then our data are not useful.

measures that we use, that we set up based on the data are not going to be very indicative.

And in fact, that also plays an insidious role in allowing anti-homeless, anti-poor, and right-wing views to say, well, none of this is working, just ship off homeless people somewhere, you know, like completely dehumanizing viewpoints.

But if we actually have better measures and, you know, perspectives from the people who are using these services, actually we could also dispel some of those really negative mythologies.

We need to recognize that what we measure is not only what we value, it's what we're reinforcing.

When I was homeschooling my children, I looked at what I'm testing.

It says a lot about what I actually mean I want them to learn and what they're going to focus on in their studying.

And I think when we look at what we're asking of service providers, we give them a really long list.

There's a really long list of what they're theoretically supposed to be covering.

But what gets tested?

That's what we're really saying is the bottom line about where resources and energy need to go.

And we're building our systems of support on the backs of service providers and agencies who are making enormous sacrifices, who are very stretched in terms of energy and dollars.

And there's a limit to what they can humanly do.

So we need to be really clear about where we want those priorities to be.

Absolutely.

And in fact, one of the most powerful things of all these discussions we've had about tiny house villages is the incredible success rate that we're seeing.

We want to have that kind of success rate with other agencies and with other services, the other types of services for homeless and other vulnerable people, and we don't have that.

So I hope that this will be the beginning of that.

I would also, in closing, I would also urge that specifically on the question of what Eliana you brought up, which is funding and outreach to residents and community members who are using these services that, you know, doing that study.

And it's quite stunning that HSD did not at all reach out to them.

It's, so that we would like that to be one of the demands we bring up to the people's budget movement.

So, let's make sure that you all are connected with my office so that we can talk about that.

I'm really happy that other council members are also interested in it.

Hopefully, we can move forward on that in a concrete way.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

Usually, you will catch me saying we have enough studies.

Let's do it.

But there are studies that would be useful, actually, and this is one of them, I think.

And unfortunately, it has not been done so far, and we should be doing it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Sean, did you want to say anything, any last comments?

I know there's a lot to be said.

Unfortunately, I'm also running up against my next thing, so.

Yeah, I've got plenty of comments.

I mean, I could relate back to some of the questions that Councillor Juarez raised, you know, like the screening requirements.

I was there at Ten City Three when the consent decree was made, and part of that was to siphon off the camp from the rest of the world so that there were clear boundaries as to where the camp lied.

That's where that requirement came from, is from that consent decree that was made in 2003.

Wow, I did not know that history.

John has an amazing wealth of history.

I know.

We need that to be documented because I know a lot of people.

See that gentleman right over there?

Raise your hand, Marvin.

You see that man right over there?

That's the man who has the most continuous history that I know of our encampments within the city.

We should probably find a video documentary so that we can have that.

No, I'm not even joking.

Are you all okay if we adjourn for now and then we'll please stay in touch with our office to continue the discussion?

I really appreciate all the community members who participated in this, all the organizations that participated in this.

including Nicholsville and Lehigh and the Community Advisory Council members.

We have others there.

Ed Mast is there as well.

He's on the North Lake CAC, actually.

He's actually on the North Lake, not by a typo.

That's fantastic.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

I thought you brought up some very important questions that we should have clarified.

And I really appreciate you being here, Council Member Juarez, for this discussion.

I'm not here.

Maybe if I'm not here, I'm watching on TV.

It's especially heartening when we can see the people who are watching us.

Thank you all and meeting adjourned.

Thank you.