Seattle City Council Select Committee on the 2023 Housing Levy 4/5/23

Select Committee on the 2023 Housing Levy.

This is our first meeting beginning our first of three months dedicated to the housing levy discussion.

The time is 9.35am.

Apologies for the delay in our start time.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, Chair of the Committee.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold?

Here.

Council Member Juarez?

She'll be online soon.

Council Member Lewis.

Excused.

Oh, excuse me.

Council Member Morales.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Chair Mosqueda.

Present.

Madam Chair, that is six present, one and two absent.

I think that eight are present, is that correct?

And Council Member- Seven, I didn't see Morales.

Okay, sorry about that.

So seven present and two excused?

Yes.

We have Council Member Morales and Council President Juarez excused.

All right, thank you very much.

I want to thank everybody for joining us today as we consider the 2023 housing levy discussion.

This is an opportunity for us to consider a package on the agenda that is going to lead to our exciting opportunity to put something in front of voters.

Today we kick off the first meeting of the Select Housing Committee.

This package has been in development for over a year.

And I want to thank the folks who've had deep stakeholder engagement, policy development work.

We are now taking the baton from the mayor's office as they have transmitted or working on transmitting the housing levy to the Seattle City Council for our consideration.

We will deliberate this select this select committee on the housing levy will deliberate on the proposal in front of us, and the committee will have the chance to consider any changes that they'd like to see before putting this package in front of voters with the final vote of the Seattle City Council by the end of June.

I want to thank the Office of Housing and the mayor's office, our team led by Aaron House for all of the engagement that's been done to date.

And we know this is just the beginning.

We'll have a robust conversation with members of the community about what they see in the package, what they'd like to see.

And I am already very excited about the strong support that I've heard from members of the labor community.

the business community, housing providers and community organizations who are very excited to talk about the ways in which the housing levy has already delivered since 2016 and the incredible need that we still have in the community to continue to build upon the housing levy foundation that has been set in the previous levy.

Seattle, as folks might know, was the first city in the country to fund an affordable housing investment stream through the use of a voter-approved levy, and our levy stands out as the most robust in the country.

Over the last 40 years, we have had amazing success through our housing levy investments.

We have been able to get 16,000 people estimated to be now living in housing-supported homes at any given time.

And through the Housing Levy Seattle as a Community, we've invested in first-time home ownership opportunities, and we have created housing stability for thousands of families.

We are providing solid foundation for making sure that their families, these individuals, these workers, have the stability and health that they need to be able to participate in our local economy, to be creative engagers in our creative economy, and we've helped create pathways out of generational poverty.

We are very excited as well throughout the course of the April meetings.

We will have two meetings in April focused on what we've done and where we are headed, and we will have a chance to look at how these investments have been measured and tracked, and we will be able to see the proof of concept in the last housing levy.

I want to also note that while we will be celebrating the success of the previous housing levy, this levy is upon us because we know that this is still not enough, not enough to respond to the growing population, the influx of folks who continue to want to live in the Seattle area, and also the need to make sure that we're creating affordable housing options for our community that's existed here for generations and folks who are coming.

Since the 2016 levy was passed, we have seen a growth in terms of the need of affordable housing across our city and across our region.

And especially during the covid pandemic, we saw the economic shutdown results in more folks experiencing housing instability.

We need to account for the increased cost of building.

We need to account for the increased costs of the workforce and make sure that frontline workers as well are who are building affordable housing them that they also receive a good living wage job as they seek to invest and build our city's most pressing need, which is housing.

In this moment, we just know that maintaining the status quo investment would actually be taking us backwards.

So I'm very excited that the housing levy is in front of us, that it takes a step forwards.

And I believe at first blush, the conversation that I've heard the press release from the mayor's office, that this housing levy is set to really invest in the health and resilience of our entire community as we create additional housing.

So thank you again to everybody who's participating with us virtually watching online.

I'm very thrilled that we will have the opportunity to hear from members of the public now and then we will turn it over to our housing levy community for a chance to get more information from the mayor's office the Office of Housing, and community partners as well.

Madam Clerk, at this time, I'd like to turn it over to public comment, and we will have the opportunity to hear from everybody who is online, and I will ask you to go ahead and read the first three names into the record.

As a reminder for folks who are online, we'll have two minutes of public comment, and you will hear a 10-second chime when it's time to wrap up.

We have Dennis first, followed up by John Grant and Cliff Cathorn.

Dennis Stills, if you'd like to unmute yourself.

Oh, he's on.

Hi, can you hear me?

We sure can.

My name is Dennis Stills, and I support the Seattle Housing Levy proposal on behalf of Plymouth Housing.

provides permanent support of housing to more than 1,200 chronically homeless adults in Seattle.

We're in the process of opening five apartment buildings and housing 500 people by next year.

We will open Blake House in May, the city's first permanent supportive housing high rise in over 50 years.

Without the housing levy, many of our residents would not have places to call home.

Plymouth applauds the Office of Housing and Mayor's proposal of $970 million to address the staggering housing need in Seattle.

This levy is not just about dollars and projects.

It is about making things better for our neighbors.

One Clement resident was homeless for 20 years and then invested two years and many phone calls to finally receive housing.

People in Seattle should not have to wait years or even decades to find an affordable home.

Clement urges the select committee to advance this proposal.

It lists all areas of levy programs to meet the diverse challenges in our city.

We support additional operating maintenance funding for staff who provide human services every day.

Today's OH presentation shows that many providers like Plymouth are short-staffed.

Our operating funding sources are often insufficient and make it challenging to pay competitive wages.

This proposal coupled with workforce investments from Job Start are steps towards dignity for supportive housing workers.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide public comment This productive process has resulted in a strong proposal that this committee should advance.

Thank you.

Thank you, John Grant.

Followed by cliff cloth, cloth, and good morning, John.

Good morning chair, Ms. Gata and committee members.

My name is John Grant and I'm the chief strategy officer for the low-income housing Institute, a housing development consortium member.

I'm here today to speak in strong support to renew the Seattle Housing Levy at $970 million.

I previously served on the 2009 Housing Levy Oversight Committee, and Lehigh, as an affordable housing provider, have used levy funds for numerous projects, such as Aurora Heights Housing, the Clay Apartments, the Fry Hotel, Good Shepherd Housing, and Nesbitt Family Housing.

As a result of these levy investments, Lehigh has been able to leverage dollars to create hundreds of new units of housing for our most low income residents, in particular, people experiencing homelessness.

Just this last year, Lehigh has been able to house 281 homeless people, most of whom had been chronically homeless.

We know that we have a shortage of 30,000 units for low-income residents.

This is the right level of investment to respond to such an urgent need.

Too many Seattleites are at burden.

Please support this crucial resource at this level.

Thank you.

Thank you, John.

Cliff Clothson, followed by Patience Malava.

Good morning, Cliff.

Good morning.

Can you hear me?

Yes, I can.

Can you hear me?

Excellent.

So thank you very much, Chair Mosqueda, Vice Chair Herbold, and committee members.

My name is Cliff Kaufmann.

I am the Advocacy and Policy Manager for Habitat for Humanity of Seattle, King, and Quetaz Counties, and we're also a member of the Black Home Initiative, and I'm speaking here today in support of the housing levy proposal.

The Seattle Housing Levy is an impactful and groundbreaking tool for producing affordable housing.

We're in support of the mayor's housing levy proposal to invest $970 million over the next seven years, and particularly $51 million for homeownership specifically.

Janet, one of our South Park homeowners, CNA, who cared for people through a pandemic, and one of the nicest people you'll ever meet.

She and her daughter now have the opportunity to have a safe and stable place to live because of the investment from the Seattle housing levy into our South Park project.

We still need to continue to invest in the entire housing continuum moving forward.

for people like Janet and her neighbor Aurora, a local educator, as well as others.

Thanks to the levy, over 16,000 people are living in affordable homes in Seattle, including our nurses, food service workers, and healthcare providers.

Habitat for Humanity, Seattle King, KSF Counties, and other organizations are actually building over 300 permanently affordable home ownership units across the city of Seattle under the previous iteration of the levy.

is particularly imperative that we invest in homeownership in order to close the racial homeownership gap in Seattle, in which BIPOC families are being systematically denied homeownership and generational wealth building opportunities.

Many of our homeowners would be homeless today if the levy didn't exist, and they still had to wait for something affordable on the market.

The housing levy proposal that sits before you is an opportunity to take what works and to go boldly forth and create a safe and decent place for everyone to live.

Please support this proposal.

for housing and for everyone to have a safe and decent place to live.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Cliff Clawson, followed by Lindsey Gratt.

Patience.

Patience, sorry, followed by Lindsey Gratt.

Great.

Thank you, committee chair and members of the committee.

I am Patience Malaba with the Housing Development Consortium, and I was a member of the Technical Advisory Committee which was a group of stakeholders that prudently vetted this proposal.

I am thrilled today to speak in strong support of the mayor's proposal to renew the Seattle Housing Levy at $970 million and excited to see all of you take this burden and move it forward.

Renewing and expanding the levy to meet the growing needs of our community and creating more than 3,000 homes for people and families who need it more and preventing thousands of folks from experiencing homelessness is fundamentally the task of our moment.

It is the task of our generation.

The levy has been a foundational tool and heart and soul for affordable housing in our city.

It's a 40 year tradition of investing with a track record that has consistently met the goals that voters put forward in each ballot.

This is a proven effective solution and we ask that you move it forward.

In a city of rising costs for rent, for healthcare, we can't reduce or prevent homelessness without affordable housing.

We ask you, in taking on this responsibility of moving the most important thing with our collective power to deliver on affordable housing, to move forward prudently, and thank you.

Thank you so much.

Lindsay, followed by Chad Olkin.

We have Lindsay grad on the line.

Hey, Lindsay, it looks like you're still muted.

If you can push star six.

There we go.

All right.

Worked out time.

Thank you, madam chair.

Uh, good morning, Lindsay grad with SEIU healthcare 1189 Northwest.

And we represent union members at downtown emergency services center.

We'll be impacted by this levy.

I was fortunate to sit on the technical advisory committee.

And our two primary goals in that effort were to bring a proposal to the mayor and council that would enhance our unit production and stabilize our workforce in this space.

And we believe we really succeeded and are glad the council is going to be taking this proposal up over the coming months and then recommending it to Seattle voters.

The chair referenced that there's currently about 16,000 people who are living in homes in Seattle funded by past levies.

And of course, over the decades, that 16,000 has been multiplied by the many individuals and families that have moved through those units.

We're gonna be able to add another 3,000 units serving Seattleites at any point in time through this levy, which will not only help people move from experiencing unsheltered homelessness in our community, but will also prevent homelessness.

The second priority for us, and you'll hear more about this today, is stabilizing the workforce.

Um, we want to be certain with this levy that we are not going to, um, build units that then cannot open and serve, um, chronically homeless individuals for lack of workforce.

And we believe the proposal we're bringing to you today is not only going to stabilize and address our recruitment and retention challenges, but make sure we have experienced, uh, staff who can have a long, um, working relationship with clients and truly help them stabilize.

Our union members can be available to answer any questions about their work as the council digs into this proposal, but we commend it to you and think that it is the right package for Seattle at this moment in time.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lindsay.

Chad, followed by Douglas Ito.

Good morning, Chad.

Good morning, chair, and thank you.

And thank you to the members of the committee.

My name is Chad Vaculum with the Housing Development Consortium speaking on items one and two.

I'm here to speak in strong support for the renewal of the housing, Seattle housing levy at $970 million as proposed by the mayor.

As we all know, housing affordability is at a crisis level in Seattle with rental and home prices skyrocketing.

becoming increasingly difficult for way too many individuals and families to find housing that they can afford.

We currently have a very large shortage of homes that are affordable to low-income households.

That's why the housing levy is such a critical tool for our community.

Throughout its history, the housing level levy has made a real difference in tens of thousands of lives of individuals and families here in Seattle.

And Seattle voters have consistently stepped up and supported this proven and effective solution.

And given the state of housing here, this year's housing levy is especially important because it will help to meet the increased needs that are growing for our neighbors.

So this is a chance to make a deep and meaningful impact in our community by creating more than 3,000 affordable homes and preventing thousands of others from falling into homelessness.

I urge you to renew the housing levy as proposed so we can create more affordable, equitable, and inclusive communities and give thousands of people the chance to find a safe, stable, and affordable home here in Seattle.

Thank you for your time and for your attention to this critical issue.

Thank you so much.

And Douglas Ito, you are our last speaker.

Is Douglas there?

Hey, Douglas.

If you are talking, we cannot hear you, but you are unmuted on the line.

So maybe just double check your personal phone to make sure that it's not on mute.

Oh, there you go.

Thanks.

OK, great.

Hello.

My name is Douglas Ito, and I'm a principal and managing member at SMR Architects.

I am also a former board member of the Housing Development Consortium.

of Seattle and King County, and also co-chair of the HDC Levy Task Force.

I'm here to speak in support of the mayor's proposal to renew the Seattle housing levy at $970 million.

The housing crisis has never been greater in Seattle.

Renting an apartment or buying a home is out of reach for so many people.

We currently have a shortage of 30,000 homes affordable at less than 50% of area median income.

This shortage will only grow over time if we don't rise to meet the moment and get this levy passed.

The housing levy is Seattle's key and important tool for getting affordable housing in our city.

The housing levy has created or preserved over 16,000 affordable homes in Seattle over nearly 40 years.

It's a proven effective solution with a record of consistent voter support.

Please renew the levy at $970 million.

This will give thousands of people the opportunity to find an affordable home in Seattle, realizing our shared vision for an affordable, equitable, and inclusive community.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay and we have no one else in the room to provide public comment.

I think that does conclude our public comment that is online.

Thank you all for the testimony today and really appreciate as well Lindsey Grad from SEIU lifting up the investment not only in workers who are building the brick and mortar but also for those who are serving clients of customers, residents, and families in the affordable housing that's being developed across our city.

Very excited about the levy prospects in front of us, and I want to thank the team of folks who is here to walk us through the proposal.

Madam Clerk, could you please read item number one into the record?

Item number one, current and future housing needs and workforce stabilization needs for briefing and discussion.

Excellent.

Madam Chair.

Um, hello, Council Member Morales.

Hi, I apologize.

I just wanted to make sure that it's noted.

I am present today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I apologize.

I saw you mid public testimony.

I know you were here early.

I should have announced you as well.

Thank you, Madam.

Thank you very much, Council Member.

All right, we have you noted for the record, and we have our panelists in front of us.

Thank you so much for being here virtually.

We are going to get started with a panel that includes our friends from the Office of Housing.

This is Director Michael Winkler-Chin and Stephanie Velasco.

We also have with us Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington and our very own Council Central staff, Tracy Raskliff and Jennifer Labreck.

I want to thank you all for being with us as we get grounded here.

This is our opportunity for the city at large and also this council to get grounded in the housing needs across Seattle.

We want to understand more about the workforce needs that I just commented on and was heard in during public comment and what this levy will do to maintain and expand access to affordable housing.

We know we're in the midst of a housing and homelessness crisis.

This has been worsened by COVID as we talked about.

And you'll see in the presentation today, a reference to the King County growth management planning council prod numbers, thanks to our friends who serve on the council there.

Seattle needs approximately 112,000 new homes by the year 2024. The Chamber of Commerce's funded study a few years ago by McKinsey showed that we need between $450 million to $1.1 billion more in funding every year across our region to make sure that we're investing in meaningful housing needs to address homelessness and to address housing stability, and that was numbers that came out before COVID.

And the greatest housing need, as we know, is at the lowest end of the income spectrum.

We need to double down on our investments in deeply affordable housing and that permanent supportive housing services that we just talked about to address housing stability and to ensure that more folks can get inside and out of the elements, out of the streets, out of homelessness, to ensure that our entire community has improved population health.

And that's also good for the health of our local economy.

So, thank you so much for the team that has put this proposal in front of us.

Thank you for centering the workforce who operate permanent supportive housing and provide the labor to build the housing really excited about that.

And today our presentation will colleagues is intended to really just ground us.

And again, we will have another grounding conversation on April 19th with that.

I'll turn it over.

I believe to deputy mayor Washington.

Good morning and welcome.

Good morning, thanks for having me here.

Quickly this morning, I wanted to, before transferring over to the great staff in the Office of Housing, wanted to just take a moment and talk about, kind of build off what you just talked about, Council Member Mosqueda, about our housing crisis.

So in a few minutes, you're gonna hear from the Office of Housing a lot of data that confirms what we already know.

Our city is in a housing crisis.

We have neighbors sleeping on streets, families facing housing instability and displacement from their homes, and many more Seattle residents are struggling to make rent each month while still trying to afford the other necessities like food, transportation, and healthcare.

As you know, the One Seattle Homeless Action Plan calls for all city departments to work together, coordinate city resources, and use data to prioritize our collective efforts to address our housing and homelessness crisis.

Within the framework of strategies that you see on this slide, the housing levy helps us build high quality affordable housing that will be affordable for at least two generations.

It also helps us preserve, operate and maintain existing affordable housing so we don't fall behind on meeting the growing needs we see in our community.

As we kick off this important next step in bringing the housing levy to the November ballot, I would like to repeat Mayor Harrell's call to action.

We must give the voters of Seattle the ambitious and achievable plan that lives up to the scale of the housing crisis and does more than ever to prevent homelessness.

The choices we make today and the choices you council members will be considering over the coming weeks and months in this select committee will impact our city for years to come.

The housing levy is one of our most important tools for addressing housing affordability, and we need to meet this moment with bold action and continued collaboration.

I want to hand it off now to Director Winkler-Chin, and as this committee kicks off its work, my office looks forward to the ideas and discussions that will come out of it.

Thank you.

Great, thank you very much, Deputy Mayor.

So as the Deputy Mayor Washington said, the housing levy is one of the many tools we have to address our city's affordability crisis.

The housing levy is a voter-approved property tax that is collected over a seven-year period.

The Office of Housing then uses those funds to invest in the production, preservation, and ongoing operations and maintenance of affordable housing throughout Seattle.

The housing levy also funds some direct assistance to those low-income individuals and families who may be at risk of losing their homes.

Housing levy dollars work with proceeds from the Jumpstart Payroll Expense Tax, mandatory housing affordability, which you may remember as MHA, as well as public and private funds outside the city to address the spectrum of housing needs you're going to hear about today.

What makes the housing levy unique is that it is one of our most reliable funding sources for producing, preserving, and operating affordable housing in Seattle.

And there is a huge value in the predictability of resources in the development cycle.

The levy is the foundation for the work that we do here at the Office of Housing and it has been for the past four decades.

Thanks to the residents who have voted five times to approve the housing levy, and thanks to the partnership with this council to shape for decades of affordable housing investment.

Before we move on.

I want to acknowledge the full year's worth of work of stakeholder engagement, data analysis, and interdepartmental coordination that OH staff has done to get us to this point.

You will see just a snippet of that work today and more on April 19th when we come back to present on the mayor's proposal.

Today, we're focusing on background data that illustrates the need for greater investment in affordable housing in Seattle and really across our nation and our region in the state.

We'll also share with you the data on the need for workforce stabilization, particularly in permanent supportive housing, which houses people at the lowest incomes with the highest supportive service needs.

Then we'll have time for general questions before we dive into the accomplishments of the 2016 housing levy through the end of 2022. Our goal today is to describe the housing landscape and needs of the moment.

Then in our next presentation on the 19th, we'll describe Mayor Harrell's proposal for addressing those needs through the 2023 housing levy.

So for today, we're going to start broad and then go more specific.

So our first few slides here will be a high-level overview of the Seattle housing market, and then I'll hand it off to Stephanie here, who will talk about how this market impacts low-income individuals and families.

We know the city has been growing.

It's clear just seeing the number of buildings and in some cases, entire neighborhoods that have sprouted up over the past 10 to 15 plus years.

And with that growth, we've seen tens of thousands of new jobs created.

But for every 2.6 jobs that were created between 2011 and 2019, only one home was built.

We also know that a large portion of that new job growth has been in higher paying jobs.

So what that mismatch, so what that has done is that it's created a mismatch of jobs and housing growth that's meant for affordability, or what has that meant for affordability?

Next slide, please.

Uh-oh, we lost our slides.

Hang on.

Okay.

I'm not touching any of it, so I think we're in good hands.

I'm going to have to reconnect to Zoom for some reason.

Okay.

We're going to have to reconnect here in a sec.

Okay.

Do you want us to try to share on our end?

Yeah, that would be helpful if you can.

Okay.

One second.

Let me just check with the clerk.

Okay.

We will work on pulling it up here.

While we do that, anybody want to filibuster?

Any questions out the gate, colleagues?

All right.

Deputy Mayor Washington and Director Winkler-Chin, I will use this as a quick second to say thank you again, and if you could please pass on our appreciation to the Technical Advisory Committee as well.

We know they've been engaged in this work for a very long time, so thanks so much to all of the work that's gone into this moment where we finally have it in front of Council.

Okay, I think we are about there with the slide deck, and we are on slide seven.

Okay, is there a way to zoom in on the one that's on our screen?

Perfect, there we go.

They're working on it.

All right.

Okay, a couple more slides.

Okay, there we go.

So, as I previously said, council members, that housing production is not kept up with the increase in jobs that our city has experienced.

So simply put, housing costs have increased.

As you look at these two bar graphs, you'll see that median rent in Seattle increased by 45% between 2010 and 2021, and medium home values have increased by 54% in that same period.

Now, if you're looking at the tiny print on this slide, which I'm sure many of you are trying to see, it shows that this, data source, and I know you're all looking at this, you'll see that the information comes from a Seattle Times article by Jean Balk titled, quote, the share of cost burden Seattle households has fallen.

And you might be thinking that doesn't sound bad.

That actually sounds pretty good.

We'll talk more about cost burden later in the presentation, but for now, I want to read a quote from that article.

Quote, the fact that the share of cost burden homeowners and mentors hasn't increased doesn't mean Seattle is more affordable.

Rather, it's an indicator of the city's increased wealth and of its exclusivity.

So tying together these last two slides, over the past 10 to 15 years, we've seen a divide open up in Seattle's housing market between households with lower incomes and households with higher incomes.

While housing costs have gone up for everyone and everything, from groceries to childcare to gas to everything, those increases have had a disproportionate impact on low-income people and their families.

So to dig into those impacts on low-income households, I'm handing it off to Stephanie here.

Thanks, Michael.

We advance to the next slide, please.

Great, thank you.

So as Michael said, we'll be focusing today on the impacts of increased housing costs, specifically on low-income households.

But before we do that, and actually, could you go to the next slide here?

Yep, yep, that's right, thank you.

Before we do that, we need to define what we mean by low income.

So you'll be hearing us refer to area median income or AMI a lot during this presentation, which is the midpoint of a region's income distribution.

So half of the households are making above the area median income, and then half of the households are making below that.

This measure is defined each year by HUD, and it's a standard used for all rent-restricted affordable housing.

So whether that's housing funded by federal, state, or local funds, like the housing levy.

And in Seattle, our area is defined as the Seattle Bellevue Metropolitan Area.

Again, this is all defined by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

So HUD categorizes households under this low income definition as low income if they're making less than 80% of the area median income, as very low income if they are making less than 50% of the area median income, and then they categorize households that are making less than 30% of the area median income as extremely low income households.

So using these definitions, over one third of Seattle households are actually considered to be low income.

That's 36% of all Seattle households.

All right, so now, actually, if we can go back one slide.

So how much then do you need to make to actually afford rent in Seattle?

So now that we have our definitions of low income in mind, we're going to look at what it takes for households to be able to afford to live in Seattle.

So first looking at the right side of this slide, the sort of dollar bill graphic here, we have our definition of affordable housing.

So housing is considered affordable if no more than 30% of the household's monthly income goes towards housing costs.

So whether that's rent or mortgage payments and utilities.

That then leaves 70% of the household's income to pay for the other necessities that we talked about.

So groceries, transportation, healthcare, childcare, all of the necessary household costs.

So as we look at that 30% of monthly income as the standard for affordability, we then look at the table on the left.

So we have there the average rents for the unit sizes that are described here.

So studio, one bed, two bed, and three bed.

And then in the far right column, you can see the annual household income that is required to make those rents be affordable.

If you are renting a studio apartment, in order for that apartment to be affordable, you need to be making at least $57,240 a year.

And then again, so that's the income that is required for you to pay no more than 30% towards rent and 70% for all your other necessities.

All right, can we go forward?

I think it'll be two slides this time.

Thank you.

So to put those household incomes into context, these are two hypothetical Seattle households.

On the left, we have Richie and Renee, who work as a barista and a dishwasher and are expecting a baby.

Assuming they're both able to work sort of a full week every week, their total annual income is around $62,400.

At this level, this would put Richie and Renee at about 60% of area median income or considered low income.

We can see that their affordable monthly rent here based again on their income is $1,560.

And so if we flip back two slides, we can look at those average rents and we can see that finding a one bedroom apartment that they can actually afford is going to be really challenging.

We know the average rent for a one bedroom apartment is about $400 more than they can afford.

So they have a couple of choices.

They can either choose to move away from Seattle, which could double, triple, or even further lengthen their commute to their jobs, not to mention increase their transportation costs.

Or they could choose to pay more than they can actually afford on their housing.

And we'll talk a little bit more about housing cost burden.

in a bit.

Before we move on to the other household here, I just want to note that if Richie and Renee were not a joint household, so if they were just renting on their own, just Richie or just Renee, their individual incomes would actually put them at around 30% of area median income.

So even as challenging as it is for the two of them together to find a one-bedroom apartment that they could afford on their own, they wouldn't even be able to afford a studio apartment.

Okay, so then, oops, well, if you could, yeah, just stay right here, we'll look at the household here on the right.

So we have Jaime and Carl, who share a two-bedroom apartment with their child Jade and an elderly mother, Rosalia.

Jaime works as a construction worker and Carl is an art teacher.

Together, they make $104,252, which actually does put them above the HUD-defined 80% area median income.

So we see, though, that they are interested in purchasing a home so that they can live with the predictability and stability of having a house that they don't have to move every time the rent is increased, which we know impacts the entire household.

But they are not able to, with the income that they have, find a home that they can afford to buy.

So these two households are examples of households that would qualify for affordable housing, both rental and for sale programs provided through housing levy investments.

Without these different affordable housing options, both of these households would have to make the tough decisions I described earlier, either move away from Seattle and potentially take on a higher transportation costs sort of to balance out the more affordable housing costs or they may end up paying for more than they can afford for housing, which then forces them to make other tough decisions about other necessities and puts them at risk of housing instability.

So let's move on to the next slide.

So we're going to take a moment now to look at the impacts of the Seattle housing market on low-income households, which are disproportionately represented by households led by people of color.

The quick summary before we launch into this section, as you can probably anticipate, is that households of color are disproportionately impacted by high housing costs, which then puts them at risk for housing instability, displacement, and helplessness.

Next slide, please.

So coming back to cost burden as a definition, so thinking back to Richie and Renee and Jaime, Carl, Rosalia, and Jade, The choice, let's say, if they choose to stay in Seattle and pay more than they can afford to stay, they would be considered housing cost burden.

So when we say cost burden, we're talking about when a household pays more than 30% of their income on housing costs.

And severe cost burden is when a household pays more than 50% of their income towards housing costs.

And if we were just looking at very low income households in Seattle, so very low, again, 50% area median income or below, we know that more than 60% of those very low income households are cost burdened.

We'll see on the next slide another way to slice that.

Thank you.

Oops.

There we go.

So looking at that another way and specifically focusing in here on renters only, we see that the lower your household income, so the bars towards the left side of the screen, the more likely it is that you will be severely cost burdened.

So that's the green portion of the bars there.

Renters that are experiencing severe housing cost burden are the households that are at the most risk of eviction, of displacement, and of experiencing homelessness.

And almost 60% of these extremely low income households, so the bar on the far left, And then 32% of very low income households, the second bar from the left, those renters are paying more than 50% of their income towards housing costs.

So really putting them in a very unstable position in terms of their housing.

Next slide, please.

So now breaking that out by race and ethnicity, we can see here on the right, if you look at specifically black or African-American households, that's right kind of in the middle.

And then Native American, Pacific Islander, and multiracial households, so the bar just to the right of the Black and African American households, we can see that they're experiencing cost burden and severe housing cost burden at higher rates than White, non-Hispanic, and Asian households.

So we know a disproportionate number of Seattle households of color, but specifically Black, African American, and Native American, Pacific Islander, and multiracial households are experiencing cost burden and severe housing cost burden.

Next slide, please.

These trends go through homelessness as well.

You can see, again, looking at the demographics of homelessness in King County across the whole county, see a similar kind of pattern here.

With the exception of Asian or Asian American households, we're disproportionately seeing households of color experiencing homelessness.

So the orange bars there show the proportion of the total King County population that is represented by each of these racial categories.

And the teal bars show the percent of the point in time count of homeless population in King County that were represented by each of these categories.

So if the orange bar is below the teal bar, that means we're seeing a disproportionate number of the people experiencing homelessness in each of these categories.

And then one more slide here to round out our look at housing need from a racial equity standpoint is looking at the split of renters and homeowners.

So when we look at the breakdown of renters versus homeowners across racial and ethnic identities, we see again, as we've seen throughout, that BIPOC households are disadvantaged in terms of being able to achieve homeownership.

So on the left, you can see that only 36% of households of color are able to become homeowners versus 64% as renters.

When you look on the right side of the screen here at white households, it's more of a 50-50 split.

Just over 50% of white households are able to own their own home.

compared to that only 36% of BIPOC households.

And as we know, in our country, homeownership is one of the keys to building generational stability and wealth, which means that households of color, especially Black and Indigenous households, are not able to access those opportunities.

All right, so now that we've examined housing need from a racial equity perspective, I'm gonna hand it back to Maiko here to talk about citywide housing needs today and into the future.

Thanks, Stephanie.

So I'm now going to have us zoom back out and look at the big picture.

Just how much housing do we need today in going forward to meet the needs we've described here?

Next slide, please.

So in 2021, The Seattle Office of Planning and Community Development and Burke Consulting estimated that approximately 30,000 homes affordable to households with incomes between zero and 50% of area median income are needed to affordably house without cost burdening them, the population of renters in that income group in Seattle.

So to say that one other way, this was a point in time count at that moment in time.

If we wanted to make sure in 2021 at that time that every low income and extremely low income renter household living in Seattle could continue to do so without being cost burdened, we would have needed about 30,000 affordable homes.

Note that this number does not include the homes we need to house people experiencing homelessness.

And it also does not include the households who had already moved out of Seattle by 2021 because it had become too unaffordable for them.

Next slide, please.

So shifting from that point in time snapshot in 2021 for affordable housing need, let's look now at projected housing need going into the future.

So these figures were unanimously adopted by the King County Growth Management Planning Council just two weeks ago and show the number of homes Seattle needs at different income levels by 2044, not 2024, 2044, which is about 20 years from now.

And I know that seems like a long time away, but I'm telling you that time happens fast.

I remember 1997 when we were looking at numbers at that point, and I was young then and thought that I had all the time in the world.

And that time expired in 2017. Just looking ahead, that note that in contrast to the last slide, these numbers do account for housing those that are currently unhoused population, right?

So these are a little bit different.

And I know that these are big numbers and it's going to take concerted effort and investment to get there.

Okay, next slide.

So how do we meet Seattle's housing need?

How do we do this work?

This slide shows different housing affordability levels and how we currently see those needs being met.

The Burke report said that, quote, the private housing market will not address the needs of households with incomes at 50% of AMI or below.

We know that.

You can see the check mark here for over 100% AMI, because we know that the private market will comfortably do that.

And in some cases, there might be naturally occurring affordable housing, such as older housing stock but there's a lot of competition for those small number of homes in this range below 100% area median income.

The housing levy and our other public investments focus resources on low-income households and fills the gap left by the market.

In the bottom row, right, the last row, you can see how other programs and incentives can also help fill the gaps left by the market, but especially as we look at the very lowest income range.

It's really our housing levy, Jumpstart and other public investments that are meeting those needs.

Next slide, please.

Before we wrap up this part of the presentation on housing needs, we're going to make a slight pivot to talk about workforce stabilization needs.

In OH's 11 months of stakeholder engagement last year, this was one of the topics that came out the most.

This is a critical area of need, and it has a whole range of impacts.

from the people who work in supportive housing buildings to the operations of the buildings themselves to the residents who live in these buildings.

This is why we're going to spend the last part of this part of the presentation talking about this need.

Next slide, please.

So when we look at the percentage of unfilled positions or staff openings that are being reported by permanent supportive housing providers in Seattle, the dark blue and red lines towards the top, right, those are for the staff openings versus the rates at the state and national level for all industries, the blue, orange, and green lines clustered towards the bottom, we can clearly see that there's a huge difference.

What this slide is showing is that as of 2022, permanent supportive housing providers are seeing between 20% and 25% of their job openings unfilled compared to those of state and national averages that are sitting around 5% to 10%.

This makes it difficult for PSH providers to, one, safely and sustainably operate the buildings and homes they already have open now, let alone to open new buildings.

So as much as we want to talk about the building of new affordable housing, we need to really talk at the same time about how we make sure that those buildings and the people that live and work in them are properly supported.

Next slide, please.

One of the reasons it's so difficult for PSH providers to recruit and retain their workforce is illustrated on this slide.

The work that these folks do every day, working with residents who have challenging mental, physical and behavioral health service needs is hard work.

They're doing often literally life-saving work day in and day out.

And yet all but the program director here would be considered low income and could qualify for much of the affordable housing funded by the Office of Housing.

Next slide, please.

Another way to look at this is we have these series of bars showing, on the left, the annual income from a PSH front desk staff person.

In the middle, in orange, the median Seattle income for a one-person household.

And then on the right, the green color, the annual income needed to be affordable, to be able to afford rent for the average one-bedroom apartment in Seattle.

Many frontline staff and PSH buildings live outside the city.

For those of you who heard Mayor Harrell's remarks event last week, you may remember him talking about one particular worker, Ladidra, who lives with her family in Lakewood, the one that's south of Tacoma, not the one Lakewood Seward Park, but the one that's south of Tacoma, and commutes by bus to her job at DESC building.

And in order to effectively recruit and retain the workforce to do these important jobs, we need to address wages.

You'll hear more on April 19 about how the mayor's housing levy proposal would support workforce stabilization.

But for today, I wanted to share these few slides to convey just how critical it is that we make those investments in people alongside with our investments in affordable housing production and preservation.

And as somebody who has operated housing for a long time, Yeah, building new buildings, as I said earlier, is a great thing, but you really need the resources to operate those buildings safely and healthy for both the residents that live there and for the greater community.

And so with that, I want to pause for comments or questions on the housing needs and workforce stabilization section.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

And I look forward to the April 19 meeting where we will get more into the workforce investments in the 2023 housing levy that's being proposed.

Colleagues, are there any questions that you have at this point?

Yes, Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you.

Let's see.

Page, the slide, there you go.

The slide that is, oh, they're not numbered.

The slide that is titled, What Does Low Income Mean?

It says that one third of Seattle households are low income.

If we were to ask this question differently and ask instead what fraction of Seattle renter households are low income, What would the answer be in that case?

Do we know?

And what fraction of low income renter or what fraction of rent households is low income?

Yeah, what this is a this that.

Fraction is a fraction of all households, as I understand it.

Including including homeowners.

So if we were just to look at what fraction of renter households are low income, do we know what that number would be?

Yeah, if we can go back, I think it's maybe two more slides here.

Or let's see.

Yep, that's right.

So yes, Council Member Herbold, you're correct that this is one third of all Seattle households are low income.

And then there's, if you go advance a couple slides, so past the cost burden, and one more there.

Oops, just one back.

Thank you.

So this is looking specifically at renter households.

We don't have the proportion.

I'm kind of figuring it out here.

But this is showing of the renter households at 100% area median income and below, sort of the number, at least, of each of those at these various low income levels.

But this is an analysis of the low income renter households, right?

That's right, at 100% and below.

We can come back to you and have that number, the proportion of all renter households that are low income.

No, of all households that are renters that are low income.

So taking out all of the homeowners and just looking at what fraction, that'd be really helpful.

I think it's although the levy is not only focused on renter households, it is also, of course, looking at homeownership objectives and goals.

I think for purposes of our discussions around renter household production and preservation, it's really important for us to know of the total residents in the city rather than just asking ourselves what portion of that population is low income, really looking at what portion of the renter households are low income.

Um, and then, uh, really appreciate the, um, the information around, um, the fact that for every, uh, 2.6 jobs created, only one housing unit was built.

Um, and, um, uh, hearkening back to, um, another Seattle Times article from 2017, um, they noted that, um, over the previous decade, 92% of the 31,000 market rate apartments opened in Seattle during that decade were luxury units.

So I think I just want to highlight the fact that for every 2.6 jobs created only one housing unit was built and 92% of them using the previous decade was a luxury housing unit.

So I think that also like if we could update That information and find out whether or not we're still looking at such a high percentage of market weight apartments, being luxury units I think that would be really, really helpful as as well.

And.

I think the only other thing I wanted to emphasize is that, as I think you've really clearly said, the most need is for the most deeply affordable housing.

Of the nearly 71,000 new homes needed by 2044, about 62% of those are needed for folks who are struggling to live in Seattle on less than 30% of the AMI.

It's $35,000 for a family of three.

So just wanted to lift that up and appreciate that emphasis.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Any comments in response to Councilmember Herbold's question?

Any follow-up needed at this point?

Or will you just be able to get back to us?

We will get back with you.

Okay.

Okay, great.

Councilmember Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Thanks to the executive for presenting this today.

I continue to be a big supporter of creating more low income housing.

I spent two decades of my career financing the construction and preservation of 30,000 low income units across the country.

That said, I know there is some sticker shock with the nearly $1 billion price tag of the mayor's proposal.

So I'm grateful for this opportunity to ask questions for my constituents with each presentation we're receiving here.

I want to make sure we're using the best available data, analyzing it in helpful ways so we can better explain to constituents because the proposal is to have 100% of this funded by increasing property taxes.

So here are some questions about the proposal or the presentation today.

slide 18, which talks about the 30,000 homes needed.

Just delving a little bit into that Burke report, I think it's a 100-page report.

It was published a couple of years ago, and I think it's page 48 of that report where this information comes from.

I think that data is looking at census data from 2013 through 2017. But as I understand it, the housing levy units that would be produced, they would be both income and rent restricted.

Is that correct?

Okay.

So then.

I know that 30, my interpretation of the 30,000 homes from the Burke report is that half of those are, the reason there's a need is because people of higher incomes are renting lower income units or more affordable units.

So it's really about 16,000 units that are needed for those at 50% AMI.

If it's the creation of new units from the housing levy, which is income or rent restricted, there's no, there's no, Allowance, there's no way anybody would be allowed to rent a housing 11 unit right because their income would be checked so they their higher income they can't down rent, basically.

So I just want to go.

Council member I asking for confirmation on what you said, I'll turn it over to them, and we can get back to me on these questions are on answers to these as well I just, you know,

Sure, I just, I mean, I guess that's a quick clarification or point of confirmation there.

Yes, any housing levy funded or city of Seattle funded rental unit or for sale, you know, there is an income restriction so you will, you know, household to be qualified based on what their incomes are and it would have to be at a certain income level or below.

So I think what you're pointing out here in terms of what happens in private market housing is that there are some households that are down-renting, like you said, so maybe they are able to afford more expensive housing or afford higher housing costs but are choosing to rent in housing that is more affordable or sort of would have if we were looking just at that affordability level, would kind of target lower incomes than what they have.

And I think that's where there was a slide that we looked at that shows really what does the private market do well.

We know Comfortably, and this is also in the Burke Report, Comfortably is providing housing at 100% area median income and above.

There is some naturally occurring housing that, whether it's older housing stock or other, that is kind of showing up out there on the private market.

But what happens when there are households that are down renting what is already a pretty kind of small supply of housing affordable to these 50% and my households are below makes it very difficult for those households that are sort of the target to be able to find that and that's what the affordable and available I think in the Burke report is what it talks about.

it's difficult for those households to be able to then kind of either compete or even find that available housing.

And so that's why the housing levy and other city investments creating a greater supply of those income restricted homes helps those households be able to find more options throughout the city that they can actually afford and access both.

Council member Peterson, I might ask Tracy to see if she has anything else to add to that.

I know that when we were working on.

Digesting the McKinsey report pre cobit as we were looking at the need for investments in affordable housing before the creation of the regional homelessness authority.

There was some really good data that was presented as part of the McKinsey report that showed how the downward pressure on affordable housing is so immense because we haven't built enough housing across our region.

And many folks who are in need of affordable housing in this area are getting priced out because of the various income, slightly higher income pressures that are pushing folks to find any affordable option across this region.

Think teachers, think nurses, think, you know, at the beginning of their career, construction workers.

And these are folks who you would think would be able to afford, you know, a more middle income affordable rental unit.

But really, the pressure was so immense that we were seeing so many people pushed out of the affordable housing segment of that income ban.

And Tracy, I'm just wondering if you have anything else that you might want to raise regarding Council Member Peterson's question.

As I try to think back on that report about four years ago, so there have been a series of data sets and others that support this very issue about the lack of affordable housing and.

what that then leaves for people at lower incomes.

And I can't affirm enough what Stephanie and Michael have said about the need for those income and rent restricted units that the city funds both with levy, as well as with jumpstart with MHA, because that is what secures those units for people at those income levels.

So they don't have to try to compete in an ever shrinking private market that is not providing many of those affordable units, unfortunately, except for the MFTE program.

And again, what would be publicly funded in part of affordable units.

And, and share I've got three more questions if I could, if you don't mind.

So go ahead, please go ahead, it was just this slide says 30,000 homes and I just the citation it uses the Burke reports I was just drilling down into that for my constituents it's it's really about the levy that is income and rent restricted units would really be going after about half of these homes because People can't down run into levy units so it'd be really about half this number it's still a very daunting number so let's keep if I may just keep looking into this a little bit further here.

The slide slide 19 which also which quotes a different report about the need of housing.

So as was said, that was, yeah, the 112,000 units.

So, um, again, that's over a 25 year period.

So just for the public's benefit, um, I believe that's 4,480 units per year.

That would be needed.

But I think what we're really focusing in on is are those low income units.

So looking at that 80% AMI and below, taking the 70,000 units, dividing that by 25, that's 2,829 low income units per year that would be needed, I believe.

And so I guess what We're really fortunate that we have the housing levy.

A lot of cities don't have this property tax to create low-income housing.

We also have the mandatory housing affordability program, which either requires onsite performance or pays into a fund that creates low-income housing.

Now we've got the payroll employer tax jumpstart, a lot of which is dedicated to low-income housing.

When we're looking at 2,829 units per year, Is there a way to look at all the low-income housing production beyond just the levy?

Because I guess this levy is proposed to create 3,100 units or so over seven years.

What is that?

Less than 500 units a year.

I think it just would be helpful to have a comprehensive look at, okay, here's the need, it's 2,800 units a year.

And then here's the supply from the levy and from all these other sources, because it's, breaking it down per year, I think would be helpful, because the 25 year number, it's harder to try to figure out what we're trying to solve for with the levy.

And if I may, Chair, I'll just keep, ask a couple more.

Sure, I'll come back to you.

I just want to see if there's any response immediately.

We're always happy to be plenty of time.

So we will have folks back in our committee on April 19th.

But is there any response or do you want to respond to the council member later?

Council member, we'll bring back a response next time.

Okay, sounds good.

Council member Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you.

On slide 20, I think that's the next slide.

Really appreciate your mentioning that there is older housing stock, naturally occurring affordable housing that is probably serving in the private market below a hundred percent AMI, even though the check mark here is just above the a hundred percent.

I had thought where it says government incentives for MHA, I thought that the MHA was Also providing zero to 50% units.

Isn't the revenue, isn't the MHA revenue, which I think was $75 million last year.

I thought that goes into a notice of funding availability that goes to nonprofits that then produce under 50% AMI.

Is that?

So would it be fair to say a check mark should also be in zero to 50% under the government incentives?

I guess that's my question.

I understand the question, yeah.

So I think for the way that we were looking at this slide is those MHA investments would really be included in public investment.

And maybe it should more clearly say your housing levy, Jumpstart, MHA proceeds and other local funds.

When we're talking about government incentives there at the bottom row, that's really the onsite performance.

So that's why it goes up to a little over the 80 to 100% because for the MFTE program, you can actually access some higher income units through that program.

For MHA, it's typically, you know, if maybe we could put a check mark sort of halfway in between those 40% and 60% area median income units.

But in terms of those zero to 30% AMI, levels that's really only addressed by public investment, whether it's housing levy, jumpstart, or a combination of MHA proceeds and others.

And, and is it fair to say this slide is really about what the city government is doing because I guess what I'm not seeing here is the HUD programs administered by the Seattle Housing Authority like project-based section 8 or section 8 portable vouchers which would also serve 0 to 50 percent.

I'm not seeing that on this slide but they

You know, this shows public investment that the Office of Housing has done.

You're right, it does not show Section 8. Section 8 is typically for 0 to 30 and lower, much lower than that.

So as somebody, and that sometimes we do really like their vouchers as we think about the housing levy and where those projects go.

Okay.

And in final question, I'm one of the slides mentions the office of housing portfolio being 15,000 17,000 units.

Do we know what the vacancy rate is in those units currently?

And perhaps we could get an update on the vacancy rate and what OH is doing from an asset management standpoint to keep that vacancy rate as low as possible so we're maximizing the number of units occupied?

Yeah, we can get you an update, Council Member, I think by the next meeting because all the providers have provided some data to the state website as of January 31, so we can look at a cut of that.

So I would say that the housing providers don't get to meet their mission, nor do they get to pay expenses tied to their properties and earn revenue unless their units are occupied.

So they are doubly incented to have that housing sit being used, right?

I mean, they're occupied.

So they are, the vacancy loss, we do the standard of 5%, you know, and speaking with some of the private investors and with other high cost cities, they, we have a 5% standard.

Some of the other high cost cities have a 6 to 7% standard in talking with, some of the commercial lenders, they're looking more at a 7% now.

The vacancy loss, so we have an incentive of five, that's the standard that we hold people to.

The vacancy loss is more of an indicator of what is happening during that time.

So is it when they go over five, it's oftentimes either a issue of not having the workforce to be able to turn the unit over, not having the materials of having such a small project that sometimes we couldn't get people to come in to do the work.

or it's a paperwork issue, right?

Because especially for the higher subsidized units, you need a higher level of paperwork either.

I know Council Member Mosqueda, we've had this conversation where there's a social security card or background information.

I'll tell you, it was really challenging to get income certifications done during the pandemic because the businesses had closed.

So trying to get that, it's not that the unit is sitting vacant and that there's nobody needing it.

They're in process.

It's just that we ran into a lot of hiccups during that time.

But we will get you an updated number probably at the next report.

I'd have to check in with the asset management staff.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I'm not seeing any additional questions.

I appreciate that.

There's additional feedback coming from I'll get to Councilmember Nelson in just a second.

Thank you.

Councilmember Nelson just on the series of the last questions.

I wanted to also.

I appreciate that the Office of Housing is going to get back to us with additional indicators.

And I think that that last point is really important and actually echoes what we heard from the Housing Connector folks.

Folks might remember this is a partnership with business and housing providers who had come to our committee at some point last year to try to answer this question about vacancies as well.

And they really underscored what I think the director director Winkler Chin just noted, which is it's a point in time analysis as many folks are hopefully transitioning into long term state, you know, housing out of affordable housing if they're able to secure a higher income.

or it's an indicator that folks are trying to transition in and verification is happening, especially in the last three years.

That verification, as we've heard from housing providers, was a little bit more complicated for people who needed certain forms of identification.

So as Erin House and Office of Housing noted, we have been trying to do some analysis on ways to improve and expedite the type of identification necessary so that more people can get into housing faster.

So there's a number of factors that I just wanted to make sure we lifted up as well as we look at those data points.

And I am excited that we are having a good conversation, a robust discussion, and more to come on that topic as well.

Council Member Nelson, please go ahead.

Thank you.

Just if you could just stay on this slide.

I had a different question, but I wanted to note that I do want to say that the private market, you did recognize that there is naturally affordable housing that is on the market that is not really represented by a checkmark here.

And last week there was a presentation in our committee or on the 22nd that That featured some small landlords and they were mostly addressing their properties which are zero to 20 units are usually much smaller.

Anyway, just wanted to note that the real report does register if registrations of properties is a proxy for those actual units in the marketplace.

There were about a number of properties, 25,000 or so properties registered from one to 20. So just some context.

I don't know where that check mark would fall on this slide here, but there are a considerable number of house and they're not all market rates.

So just wanted to recognize that our small landlords are providing some of those units that are at affordability levels under 100% AMI.

But my original question was on page 12. As we go forward in the weeks to come and we're looking at the actual proposal, I just want to make sure that the cost of rent is is standard throughout all these presentations.

So on page 12, the average rent for one bedroom is about $1,900.

And then on page 11, it is $1,700, but that's across all unit sizes.

So is that the assumption that we're going with, that that is the average rent in Seattle right now?

And what is that based on?

Yeah, so let's see if we go back to, and apologies, this version of the slides are not numbered, the version I had here was, but what I have is slide nine, but it might actually be.

Oh yeah, slide nine.

To go back.

On the header?

Yeah, the header is how much do you need to make to afford rent in Seattle?

One more, there it is.

Okay, so these, the rent estimates here, and we do have the citation on this other version here, is the rent estimates are based on apartment complexes with five or more units, excluding dormitory, senior housing, some other just kind of special forms of housing.

But this comes from COSTAR, and that's why we're able to provide a sort of by unit type, that breakdown.

Stephanie, what is COSTAR?

COSTAR is a market analysis, real estate market analysis tool that provides sort of the best information that we have, some of the best data that we have now on average rents across Seattle.

We used to have, if you all remember, Dupre and Scott was really our go-to database for that information, but COSTAR is one of the other resources that we can use to kind of get that information.

And then the other, I think there was another slide that you mentioned, and I won't have us hunt for it necessarily, but that did have a kind of average one-bedroom wage.

I think that was maybe what you were referring to there, Council Member.

That also was using COSTAR for kind of the average one-bedroom apartment.

and then calculating then the wage that you would need to make to be able to afford that.

So we'll make sure that that is all consistent across.

Thanks for noting that, but the sources are the same.

Okay, thank you very much.

And is 1787 the cost that is basically used as a baseline for the salaries on page 28?

On page 28.

Is this the one that you're referring to here?

What's the header on that slide?

Is this the right one?

We're talking about the wages that one has to

Is this the right header?

Yeah, this is on page 28. Yeah, so is that $45,000, that is the income needed to afford an apartment at $1,700?

So there's another slide.

We'll advance a little bit further here.

It's actually the last slide before the next presentation.

A PSH front desk staff person can't afford the average one-bedroom apartment in Seattle.

Yeah, page 28.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I appreciate that.

Maybe that's a good intro council member to the next part of the presentation, and we can come back to the consistency there.

And I want to also make sure that the future slides have the number predominantly displayed so we can all go back and forth on these important data points.

Okay, I'm going to go ahead and transition us and we will make sure to keep this question in the hopper as we started to get into the next slide.

Is there a chance for us to transition at this point?

Does that sound good?

Office of housing?

Okay, I'm seeing nods.

Yes.

All right, Madam Clerk, I think you can go ahead and move us into item number 2. Could you please read item number 2 into the record?

agenda item number two, 2016 housing levy programs and production report for briefing and discussion.

Okay, thanks.

And for this, we will continue to have director Michael Winkler-Chin and Stephanie Velasco from the office of housing, Tracy Radscliff and Jennifer Lebrecq are also here with us from central staff.

Please take it away.

Well, thank you very much.

So if you look at the next slide, here we are.

As I said in the last presentation, the housing levy is the most reliable, predictable local fund source.

And as we look back on the cumulative impacts of the housing levy, not just the 2016 levy, but going all the way back to 1986, I wanna highlight that every building that's built using housing levy dollars is built to be affordable for at least 50 years, often longer.

So as we talk today about investments made in 2022, we're talking about planting seed.

that will grow into homes in the coming few years, but we've been planting seeds for almost 40 years now.

And those seeds have grown into the entire forest, the whole ecosystem of affordable housing that we see in Seattle today.

Next slide, please.

So this map of Office of Housing Investments from 1986 to 2022 includes housing levy investments in rental housing shown in the orange dot, Other city investments such as Jumpstart, MHA in rental housing shown with the brown dots, and then homeowner investments across all fund sources shown with the green squares.

This is the forest I was talking about on the previous slide.

Each of these points represent homes where people live, and at any given time, we estimate that over 16,000 people are living in levy-funded homes specifically.

This is the power of steady, continuous investment in the Office of Housing and the city's striving for constant improvement.

Over the years, thanks to the reliability of the housing levy, we've gotten better at what we do.

Our housing partners seek out creative partnerships and are paving the way for future-oriented construction methods and community-centered designs.

And we as a city have become more collaborative in how we support the construction of affordable housing across the city by streamlining our permitting and design review processes for affordable housing and working cross departmentally to address the challenges that our silos create.

Next slide, please.

So all of that work is paying off.

We're exceeding our 2016 housing levy goals for producing new rental housing by 27%, preserving existing rental housing by 51%, and assisting low-income homeowners by 32%.

As it says here on the slide, every housing levy has met or exceeded its goals, and we're on track to do the same with the 2016 levy.

This is an exceptional track record, and we don't take it for granted.

OH staff and our housing partners work hard every year to make sure we're living up to the commitments we made to voters in 2016. To go a bit more into detail and what we've been able to accomplish using the 2016 housing levy funds, I'm turning it back over to Stephanie.

Let's go to the next slide here.

So the housing levies, rental production and preservation program works with the operation and maintenance program, and these are both 2016 housing levy programs.

to support permanent supportive housing as well as other affordable housing.

We'll focus here on PSH for a moment.

PSH is permanent supportive housing, which is a proven model that helps people that have experienced homelessness move into permanent housing and access a range of services that can help address their specific needs.

And because residents of permanent supportive housing have very low, or in many cases, almost no income, thus are paying very little towards rent.

The Housing Levy's Operations and Maintenance Program helps to provide that support to keep the buildings running smoothly.

So they really work in tandem, both rental production and preservation plus operations and maintenance.

So the example that you can see here on the slide is DESC's Hobson Place Phases 1 and 2. So rental housing production and preservation funds went towards the construction, development and construction of this building.

And then the operations and maintenance side of the housing levy programs then went to further support the ongoing operations.

And those subsidies from the housing levy were also complemented with vouchers from Seattle Housing Authority, Again, all of these different possible subsidies layered to make sure that this building can run safely and sustainably and will continue to provide housing and services to the residents for many years to come.

Just one other kind of note about this, and I'll be making these fun little facts about all of the housing levy investments as we go through, is that this particular building incorporates a clinic right there on site.

So through a partnership with Harborview Medical Center, It's the first local full-scale healthcare clinic that's specifically designed to meet the needs of people living with disabilities who have experienced the longest periods of homelessness, many of whom are living with serious behavioral health conditions.

So the kind of theme as I'm sharing these fun facts about our housing levy investments is that because of the predictability of the housing levy and because we're able to kind of rely on it, we are able to invest in these sort of forward-thinking, innovative ways to serve the residents who need this housing.

And the last thing I'll say here is that serving those with the highest needs is the highest priority of the housing levy.

So for the 2016 levy, we have a goal of allocating at least 60% of the combined investments from rental housing production and preservation plus operations maintenance.

to serve residents at the lowest income, so 30% median income and below.

We are meeting this goal with the 2016 housing levy investments and we're doing so by prioritizing, supporting buildings like this one, like Hobson Place, that house residents with the greatest needs and at the lowest incomes.

go to the next slide.

I just wanted to say, well, this this is great slide as well, but the previous slide showing where folks live, if we can go back one slide, I think the other way.

Back to the apartment.

There we go.

I just wanted to sort of look at this beautiful example of what the housing looks like in permanent supportive housing.

And as we have a conversation as well about the need for additional units, this has to be coupled with the conversation for additional staffing as we started with today, as you heard from folks who testified in public comment.

And as we look more into the vacancy rates.

We also have to recognize that part of the reason that there's some vacancies is that we have to staff up to ensure that there are people to care for those who need permanent supportive housing.

So, we just know we can't operate some of the units that are needed unless we do both investment in brick and mortar.

and investments in the workforce.

And that's what I think has been really struck here as a nice balance in the proposed levy that we're describing to make sure that we're building more units and we're also investing in the workforce.

Anything to add to that Council Member Herbold?

Yeah, I wanted to just slightly different topic.

Appreciate Madam Chair making that emphasis around the need for funding to support operations, as well as to support the workforce in operations.

There are several examples of projects, buildings that are going unfilled because of some of the workforce challenges of our external partners.

But the point I wanted to make is, it's not called out on the slide, but the slide where you're referencing 40 years of housing levy investments.

And this is a point that I think people have heard me make before, but I just want to recognize the fact that There's been a lot of great affordable housing development all over the city, but it has been somewhat geographically concentrated and the.

the outcome of geographically concentrated affordable housing development is that we are not doing as much as we can to mitigate risks of displacement for folks from their communities outside of the central city.

And that is going to be a big priority for me in these upcoming discussions.

I recently looked at a redlining map, a historical redlining map for West Seattle and it looks a lot like today's map when you're looking at income in the city with the border being 35th Avenue Southwest.

And it just occurs to me that we really owe the residents of that community as more development happens.

We owe the residents of that community more affordable housing investment than it has seen over these 40 years of housing levy production.

Thank you.

I see one more hand and then we'll take that question and then I'm going to try to get us through the rest of the slides and we'll take questions again at the end.

Council Member Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you chair you had mentioned a good point about the vacancy rate as, as I understand it with the 17,000 units in office and housings portfolio, if it were a 5% vacancy that'd be about 850. vacant units, but permanent supportive housing is just a fraction of your overall portfolio.

So it would be helpful when you provide the vacancy information, if you could indicate which units are permanent supportive housing and which, which aren't so that we could then, um, get a better understanding of that.

Cause I could see how, you know, those units would, would need more robust staffing.

Um, I just thought that permanent supportive housing, do we, do we know how many BSH units we currently have in the 17,000-unit portfolio?

We'll have to get back to you.

We don't have it right off the top of our head.

OK.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the non-permanent supportive staffing housing providers over the last three, four years have continued to also come to council for the need for additional support for staffing as well.

Even though they're not traditionally permanent supportive housing, we call them the non-supportive housing, supportive housing providers because they too are seeing an increased need for housing stability, which thanks to this council, we have been constantly trying to invest in additional wage stability.

But as the report noted that was commented on earlier, we have severe shortage both in traditional non-permanent supportive housing and non-permanent supportive housing housing providers.

I would just add that to the request for the Office of Housing if there's some way that you can help us see who falls into each bucket and that clearly there's housing needs or staffing needs in both categories.

Point well taken.

Okay, let's get through the rest of the slides and see if there's any additional questions.

Great.

So looking here at this slide, housing levy funds also support, so in addition to permanent supportive housing, also support the development of affordable housing that's by and for communities of color.

So the two examples that you see here on the left, you see Filipino Community Village, which was developed by Filipino Community of Seattle.

It provides 95 affordable homes for seniors, as well as community-oriented spaces, one in particular focusing on STEAM, or science, technology, engineering, arts and math, learning, child care, health screenings, and community gatherings.

So again, it's another theme for a lot of these affordable housing developments is it's not just the housing and not just the residents of that housing that are being served, but the broader community as well.

The last note here is that you can see some murals sort of towards the bottom left of that picture of Filipino community village.

And that is, those murals depict important figures in Filipino and Filipino American history.

So you'll hear this theme again, as we talk about All All, which was developed by Chief Seattle Club and opened last year with over 80 homes.

And to date is serving over 95% of its residents that are native Indian or Alaska native.

As we saw earlier on an earlier slide about housing need, Native Americans face disproportionately high rates of homelessness.

And at all, they're able to access really culturally specific services, as well as kind of the design of the building itself is also designed to reflect Native Indian, Alaska Native, and urban Native cultures and art.

So again, As we're talking about the availability of these funds, housing levy funds, as well as other local tools like the Jumpstart Housing Community Self-Determination Fund, it's the combination of all of these different fund sources that we, the Office of Housing in the City of Seattle, are able to use to make a sustained impact in supporting community-based organizations as they build the communities that more authentically reflect and serve their unique histories, culture, and people.

All right, next slide.

So here we're talking about creating opportunities for homeownership.

So on the left side, we have copper fines.

And actually, this is, I think, maybe just to briefly respond to Council Member Forbold's comment.

This is one of the places we'll, at least on this slide, that we'll talk a little bit about the opportunities through surplus city properties that we are able to start to make investments in sort of the more geographically diverse areas of the city that we don't always have access to through the applications that we receive.

So Copper Pines is a good example of that, where that's located in Loyal Heights on land that was previously owned by Seattle City Light.

So that's seven homes, sort of like townhome style, you can see there, that opened last year.

And in the photo there is Nicole Stanley.

She was at the Housing Development Consortium's event last week and Mayor Harrell spoke about her family and shared that Levi, Nicole's partner, who's a member of the Chippewa Cree tribe, is the first in his family to own a home and Both Nicole and Levi work in hospitality and service industry.

Even though they had spent many, many years saving up, they were constantly outbid on homes by other buyers who had more resources.

And so because of Habitat for Humanity, because of the housing levy investments that were made here, they were able to purchase a home and really have the stability of that home and not have to move out of where they were renting every time rent was increased.

That's one example there.

The other example on the right side is Village Gardens, which was developed by Homestead Community Land Trust.

That's 16 homes in Leschi Central District, again, also on land provided by the City of Seattle, which it was previously a pea patch, and that's why the name there is Village Gardens.

So there are, within that 16-home development, 10 of those homes are affordable-to-income qualified households.

and Homestead Community Land Trust and the developers, EDGE developers, worked with Africatown Community Land Trust to really do affirmative outreach to members of that community or members who have ties to Leschi in the Central District to make sure that they, if there are folks that were interested in purchasing these homes that have those ties, that they're really the first to know about these opportunities.

And then just generally about homeownership here, a couple of things I'd like to highlight is that a lot of times these, again, as we're thinking about kind of forward thinking and thinking about the next two generations of housing, one, a lot of the homeownership opportunities that the housing levy supports are higher density homeownership opportunities.

So usually townhomes, stacked flats and condos, And an example that was funded in 2022 just last year for Habitat for Humanity is a building in Columbia City that will be actually the largest habitat development in the world.

This will be 58 one and two bed condos.

So really looking at not single family homes necessarily, but really looking at those higher density opportunities so that we can create as many home ownership opportunities that are permanently affordable as possible.

And then the other piece of that is these homes, including the examples that we have here, built with sustainability and energy features that help those homes and their inhabitants improve general climate resilience.

So, for example, heat pumps that will help efficiently keep families warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

really making sure that as we're building these and as we're making these investments for 50 years or more, that we're making them with the future in mind.

A couple other things to note here is as we've been making those investments, these homes are also resale restricted.

So that means that as the original homeowners either decide to move on, whether that's to other affordable housing or to market rate housing, When they sell those homes, those homes are then also made available to other income eligible households.

And so that's really the power of permanent affordability, which means that if prior years funding can continue to serve these income eligible homebuyers at resale and will do so well into the future without additional city subsidy in place.

And then another piece of our homeownership or creating opportunities for homeownership is purchase assistance loans.

So, in addition to actually developing homes, new homes, we're also supporting new homebuyers as they are working to purchase homes on the private market.

All right, next slide.

We talked about low-income home buyers.

The housing lobby also provides some direct assistance to existing low-income homeowners so that they can stay in their homes so that they're not displaced.

So one example here, and you can see the house on the right side of the slide, is a story here about Willie and her husband.

So back in 1962, Willie, who was a recipient of a home repair grant, bought this 1910 home in Seattle's Central District and raised a family.

After her husband passed away, Willie wanted to stay in her home that she'd been living in for more than 50 years.

But one morning she woke up and there was no hot water.

And then, so the inspection showed that the house had a blocked sewer drain, water had sort of seeped through the clay sewer pipe and damaged the house.

So a levy funded grant of $10,000 was able to cover the cost of the repairs and new water heater and with city staff managing that whole process, Willie didn't have to oversee the project on her own.

So that's just one example of these kinds of ways that housing levy funds are really helping homeowners, a lot of them who are households with at least one of the members of the household that is 60 years or above, all of them at extremely low or very low incomes, that we're able to prevent these households from being displaced from experiencing housing stability by keeping them in their homes now.

And then here, another way that we're able to kind of stabilize homeowners is through these foreclosure prevention loans, and you can see between 2018 and 2022, Homesight, the organization that we work with to administer those levy funds, had made a total of 13 loans.

All right, next slide.

This is the last kind of program that we'll talk about here on the housing levy.

So the Office of Housing works with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority to administer the Homelessness Prevention and Housing Stability Services Program in the 2016 housing levy.

So that serves families that are either at imminent risk of experiencing homelessness or already experiencing homelessness.

And the Regional Homelessness Authority works with these organizations that you can see represented here by their logos to make sure that that assistance is really reaching those who are most in need.

by offering culturally specific and in-language assistance when needed, and really using the communities and outreach that these organizations already have out in community to really reach those who need it most.

So just a note on this, more than 95% of the households who received homelessness prevention assistance from 2016 levy funds were still in stable housing after one year.

these funds are really going to help households stay out of homelessness, or in the case of rapid rehousing, kind of quickly get into housing after experiencing homelessness.

All right, and then the last slide here.

Yeah, thank you.

So again, and this is, I think maybe to Council Member Peterson's question and comment earlier, Every one of these programs that we talked about in the housing levy works within kind of a larger suite of programs and investments that we have at the Office of Housing.

So in addition to housing levy funds, we also have those Jumpstart payroll expense tax funds.

We also have funds from MHA and the incentive zoning programs.

We also have programs through the affordable units that are provided through MHA and EISEN.

This whole suite of reports kind of gives a breakdown for every one of those programs and shows how they each are producing housing and housing people across the city.

So they all work together and we'll look forward to showing that a little bit more visually how all of those work together.

That's it.

Madam Chair.

Yes, thank you so much.

Okay, we have about 10 minutes for questions Council Member Herbold is the first step in the queue.

Thank you.

I'm just going back to slide 28, if we could.

So sorry, do you mind saying what the title is?

A summary of 2016 housing levy production, 2017 to 2020. There we go.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, Madam Clerk.

So on this slide, where would we find information about the numbers of units or numbers of buildings that the Office of Housing preserved for affordable housing, specifically by acquisition from private owners on the housing market?

Yeah, so Acquisition and Preservation Program doesn't have specific goals associated with it because it's using funds that are not kind of already committed to other programs.

And so it doesn't have a goal associated with it.

So it's sort of not a goal to measure up against.

But we do in the Housing Levy Report, and we can certainly send it over, or I can even maybe cite it right here.

have a number of units of buildings that have been supported through the Acquisition and Preservation Program.

And actually, for each one of these, we have kind of the numbers on the investment amounts, so investment totals, as well as the units, as you can see here.

But on Acquisition and Preservation, as of the end of 2022, that was 1,827 units of housing that was supported through the Acquisition and Preservation Program.

So that could either be land that was acquired and there's kind of an anticipated development on that land that's helping to sort of sum up to that, or an actual number of homes that were actually acquired through that program.

Thank you, I'm most interested in the number of of homes acquired for for this line of inquiry, and I appreciate appreciate that I believe the preservation.

line of investment includes both investments that we're making in our current portfolio as well as new acquisition and I'm really most again most interested in acquisitions from private property owners and I totally appreciate that there isn't a goal in our previous housing levies.

I am interested in whether or not we should create a goal for this new housing levy moving forward, given that the conditions of building, the cost of building, the available land for building, have changed so drastically and are going to continue to change.

I really wanna think about how we can embrace more fully the strategy of purchasing affordable homes and buildings from the private housing market.

Great, thank you for that early heads up.

Additional comments or questions?

I will just, oops, I just closed my other Zoom.

I will just, oh, excuse me, I'll go to Council Member Peterson.

Thank you chairman skate I want to echo my support or state my support of what counselor herbal just said about adding a goal to track preservation and and also acquisition and encourage the acquisition of marker eight housing and then to impose the restrictions on that.

Since the housing is already built, it can be provided faster as those units turnover to welcome those of lower incomes in those buildings.

Also was in terms of the reducing homelessness.

One of the things I've noticed over the last couple years during the homelessness crisis is that there's sometimes there's not a direct connection necessarily between people currently in tiny home villages, people who are living unsheltered, And our office of housing portfolio because that portfolio is really managed and owned by the private sector in terms of nonprofits who are general managers or.

in charge of the ownership entities.

So if there's a way to have a requirement that if there is a vacancy at these buildings, that they are required to take people who are experiencing homelessness, just so there's a greater nexus between reducing homelessness and what we're trying to do here by creating these low-income units.

Because the way it's set up now, OH can't make them necessarily take somebody who's experiencing homelessness.

And so I think having some greater flexibility for OH to work with those providers to have them house those experiencing homelessness, I think would be an improvement on the current structure where it seems to be, there seems to be a little bit of a disconnect.

So just want to signal that I might want to craft something like that.

Thank you.

Thank you for the early heads up on that.

Any additional comments or response?

Okay, I would like to go back to the slide saying creating new opportunities for home ownership.

Sorry.

It is like the fourth to the last.

There we go.

Okay, thanks.

I think that this is an exciting opportunity as well for us to recognize the way in which the housing levy policies and resources complement existing housing policies and directives at the city.

This effort, this is one of many efforts.

This is an example of one of many efforts to build on previously Let's say, not usable or excess land that the city of Seattle has.

And when we deploy the housing disposition policies that we passed in 2019, and we allow for there to be the creation of affordable housing.

on public land that was previously used by the city but is now surplus land, we can actually reduce the overall cost of housing and increase the total unit count.

So this is another great example of us being smart stewards of both public resources in terms of the dollar amounts and public land to make sure that we're reducing the overall cost of building affordable housing.

And these are great examples of affordable housing, our first-time home ownership opportunities, which we are really trying to grow and create in the 2023 levy as well.

So I just wanted to lift that up as a good example of where we see the housing levy policies braided with existing administrative and finance policies, the ANF plan that the City of Seattle adheres to.

And this is a great way for us to think about how the housing levy complements existing policies and and strategies from our city and it also complements hopefully what we'll continue to see in terms of additional investments from federal support and private support as well but the housing levy is really what roots us in our ability to have the resources necessary and then to the extent that we can complement on existing policies that we've been able to push forward in the last few years like the housing or the land disposition policy It's a great example for us to be able to lift up what we're doing to reduce overall cost and create homeownership opportunities.

Thanks for including these slides as a good visual of what it means to have first-time homeownership opportunities on previously Seattle City-owned property that was sitting there derelict or surplus.

Any additional comments?

I see all of our council members on the line here and I don't see any additional questions at this time.

I look forward to continuing to build on the questions that have been teed up today and the future presentation for April 19th.

Just by way of reminder for folks, we will have a meeting on April 19th.

Of course, we will start again with public comment at the top of the hour.

We will have a conversation that I think is going to get more into the workforce complements in the housing levy.

We know we've got to invest in the workers who lay the foundation for these homes and the workers who provide critical services within the units for our most vulnerable neighbors.

We'll have more information about that as we have the next presentation on the 19th.

And then colleagues, after that, we will have the chance to hear more from central staff as they are analyzing the proposal as transmitted.

And starting in May, we will really have the chance for the council to dive into the details of the proposal and any additional compliments that we will include in the introduced legislation.

that Council will make sure to move forward before our May meeting.

I, for example, am really excited about any additional opportunities that we may have to complement housing with the community and cultural hubs, pairing affordable housing with child care services, small business opportunities, community space.

We have some great examples of how the housing levy has invested in those in the last decade.

And I'm excited for us to think about beyond unit count numbers, how we're investing in the families and the community, the seniors, and our most vulnerable so that we can create not just a room with a door or a one or two bedroom or a three bedroom, but how we're actually creating greater stability and opportunity for community engagement, improve social determinants of health, and really create spaces and places for folks to live and thrive throughout Seattle.

Is there any final comments from the Office of Housing or central staff?

Looking forward to seeing you on the 19th.

Okay, great.

Seeing none, colleagues, that does conclude our agenda for today.

We will see you on April 19th at 9.30 a.m.

It's 11.32 and the meeting is adjourned.

Thanks everyone.