Housing and Human Services Committee 5/14/25

All right, good morning everyone.

The time is 9.34 and the May 14th meeting of the Housing and Human Services Committee will now come to order.

I'm Kathy Moore, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council President Nelson.

Council Member Rink.

Present.

Council Member Sacca.

Here.

Chair Moore.

Present.

Vice Chair Solomon.

Okay.

So a note, both Council President Nelson and Council Member Solomon are excused today.

Council Member Saka and Council Member Rink are joining us for the moment remotely.

I believe they are on their way to be here in person.

So thank you everyone for being here today for the May 14th meeting in the Housing and Human Services Committee.

On today's agenda, first we have appointment to the Seattle Women's Commission, then we have an informational item from Housing Connector on their approach to proactively keeping people housed.

And if there are no questions about today's agenda, we will move into public comment.

Seeing no questions from remotely.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

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

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Currently we have three in-person speakers and two remote speakers.

Okay, so we will go ahead and use our usual time.

So if you would please read the public comment rules.

Each speaker will have two minutes.

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

The public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

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

Speakers will alternate between sets of in-person and remote speakers until the public comment period has ended.

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

Speakers' mics will be muted.

They do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow for the next speaker.

OK.

So the public comment period is now open.

And we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

I do want to just note, I'm not sure what everyone is here to talk about today.

Potentially we may have some comments about share wheel and tent city four.

Just want to note that that is not actually on today's agenda or necessarily within the purview of the committee given that the siting decision, siting on city land is an executive decision outside the purview of this committee.

That said, there being no objection from my colleagues, I will certainly entertain normal comment for the standard comment period of 20 minutes, comments relating to that item should there be any.

So, begin with our first speaker.

The first speaker is Erin Burch, followed by Yi Wang.

Go ahead, come to the microphone.

And give me just one second to set up the...

Oh, sorry, we're getting our timer set up here.

Okay.

Looks like we're ready to go.

Okay, we're ready.

Either one's fine.

So my name is Erin Burch.

I live in Capitol Hill.

I am terrified living in Seattle.

I live at East Roy in Harvard.

We have a huge growing homeless encampment that has not been cleared.

Despite multiple complaints, there remains.

The campers are entitled and demand weekly trash pickups saying, I can camp here.

They openly use drugs and are possessive of their corner.

A camper put rocks all over the sidewalk to block people, including those with ADA issues, from using it.

There are more sketchy people in the area and an increase in crime.

There was a threatening, who I assume, unhoused man in the neighborhood one night.

He trespassed on private property and I called 911. I told the dispatcher I was scared and begged them to send someone.

It took over an hour for police to show up.

The officers cannot clear encampments and seemed as frustrated as I am with the current situation.

The city has responded to me saying the priority is not to clear encampments right now, but instead to keep them clean and to be patient.

I have been patient.

The number of unhoused individuals allowed to cop a squat wherever they would like is beyond out of control.

A few individuals do not have the right to terrorize the neighborhood.

I have the right to feel safe and not look at trash, human feces, needles, and scared a propane tank is going to blow up.

Seattle needs to build more shelters for unhoused individuals.

There should be two choices.

Go to a shelter or leave the area.

Squatting on sidewalks and parks or other areas while often doing drugs and having mental health episodes which are upsetting and frightening for others to watch should not be allowed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is...

Our next speaker is Yi Wang followed by Alvin Quarum.

Good morning, council member.

My name is Yi Wang, and I've lived in Lake City for many years.

I'm here today not to oppose to people in 10 City 4, but to speak from personal experience about the real impacts the encampments have on nearby families, especially children.

During the pandemic, an encampment was placed across from my home in Albert Davis Park.

That experience was traumatic.

We witnessed shootings once while I was pulling into my driveway with my daughter in the car.

There was explosions, open drug use, rats, used needles, and even human waste in our front yard.

This wasn't just disruptive.

It was frightening.

My daughter couldn't sleep.

And she began to fear for our safety.

And to be honest, I did too.

I tried to protect my daughter from it all.

But how do you explain that kind of chaos to a child?

She started having nightmares.

She asked me, Mom, are we safe?

And I couldn't always give her a positive answer.

And no parent should have to do that.

I don't know.

I shouldn't have to say, I don't know if we are.

I was hopeful when the camp moved, but the problem didn't go away.

The criminal activities has not stopped in our area, and now the city is planning to move back tent city four, steps away from our homes, daycares, playgrounds, library.

This isn't just about policy.

It's about people and families like mine trying to raise kids live and feel safe, and about the unhoused as well, who deserves better than to be placed in already overwhelmed and unsafe spaces.

I'm asking the city to consider a different path, a more balanced long-term solution that considers both public safety and community wellbeing.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I'll just note for the record that Council Member Saka has joined us.

Up next is Alvin Quiram, and then we'll move into remote speakers.

Good morning.

My name is Alvin Quorum, and I first want to thank this committee and the chairperson, Council Member Moore, for giving us the opportunity to make a statement.

We respect and applaud the work that Chair Wheel and Ten City Four and the Mennonite congregation have done trying to address the problems of downtrodden, so to speak.

And we applaud what they have done.

This is not about them directly.

I have submitted a...

I have submitted a lengthy letter to the mayor's office, and it's available to this committee.

And more details are obviously offered there than I can.

My wife and I have owned the village or apartment buildings for over 40 years, and it feels like we've been watching a train wreck in slow motion as the Lake City area has gradually deteriorated.

I want to just make three points.

First, the process was flawed.

We learned about this by complete happenstance about 10 days ago or so, maybe a few days more than that.

And in the last week, when we've tried to mobilize ourselves a little bit, we have interviewed some 60 establishments and residents and so on.

Virtually none of them knew anything about this.

All of them are very strongly opposed.

The community has suffered severe loss, and we have at least a dozen empty storefronts.

People can't lease their properties because nobody wants to move into a business.

And finally, our plea is simple.

We ask the city to withdraw the current plan and...

which we have been enduring for almost 10 years, most of the time right next door to our apartment building where we have had people intimidated and threatened.

Thank you very much.

Our first in-person speaker is Linda Pruitt.

Remote?

Linda, I'm sorry?

First remote speaker?

Yeah, remote speaker.

Press star six.

Hello, Linda Pruitt here.

Council Member Moore and community members, thank you so much for taking on public comments today.

I'm calling to join my Lake City neighbors in a request to alter the plan for the relocation of Tent City 4 to another location outside of our community, no longer in Lake City.

As my previous colleagues and speakers have said, we've been hosting authorized and unauthorized encampments for nearly 10 years in Lake City, off and on.

One of them at my construction site at 2212 Northeast 125th Street, the site of the former St. George Episcopal Church.

We have been generous, yet we find that Because of our generosity, the Lake City Commercial District and neighborhoods have become magnets for homelessness, drug use, graffiti, unauthorized encampments, vagrancy, crime, theft, and routine SPD calls, as I'm sure all could be documented.

We ask for a break.

We are fragmented, fragile, and not safe.

We need time to heal from the real damage that has been done by probably well-intended but flawed policy on the part of the city and dealing with low-income, homeless, and drug-addicted communities.

We could go on, but I joined my neighbors of more than 80 signatures and our letters.

We ask you to take these seriously and please make other plans.

Thank you, Council Member.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is David Haynes.

David, please press star six.

Notice how City Council refuses to investigate King County Regional Homeless Authority, Sharon Lee of Lehigh, and Cher Wheel about subhuman mistreating people with no real support from government services, such as police, trash pickup, mental health, drug addiction, and behavioral crisis, watered down with unqualified efforts never kept honest by Democrats, lying in the pockets of donors, owners of contracts, patenting costs, unqualified with lived experience required to interact with troubled souls while executives donate and manipulate counsel who seems to conspire to deny better capacity of shelter and housing with plenty of lands available.

We need a renter's revolt to regulate an allowance to renegotiate the artificially inflated rental rates oppressing the working class, kept paycheck to paycheck while greedy speculators get away with it due to corrupt deregulations.

That said, housing connector is one of the best ideas going for people who are concerned about their housing insecurities.

It really makes a huge difference.

It's a saving grace of the good of America that helps combat the abuse immoral financial systemic middlemen, speculators, subject people to after they've been deregulated.

We certainly need a robust great American housing buildup without restrictions that are put on new housing to make it undesirable and less competitive for people who already own a rental that don't want to compete.

And it continues to oppress the working class, just apply to revolt against the corrupt, greedy, self-dealing conflicts of interest, that we see Democrat Party politicians getting wealthy, rich, and powerful abusing their privileged positions.

The council doesn't want to be listed as a corrupt, self-building conflict of interest.

You have to be noble in your legislative use of the pen and discipline the greed so that it benefits the commonwealth instead of lining the pockets of yourself and non-working shareholder middlemen of the greedy, run-down real estate speculation.

I'm telling you, it's unforgivable if you're going to backstab Generation X, Generation Y, generations, you get all the millennials and a whole host of honest working class folks, because you've got a selfish, greedy interest that doesn't have the best interest of the whole community.

It's a justified revolt and it's unforgiving if you're going to empower the corrupt side of greed and continue to conspire against a robust housing build out and all the capacity of shelter for 21st century logistics that make it desirable for people to get off the streets and stop picking people who are all drugged out and whacked out and claiming that they're just like all the homeless people.

Chair, that concludes our speakers or our public commenters.

Okay, thank you.

For the record, just know Council Member Rink has joined us in person.

All right, there are no additional registered speakers.

We'll now proceed to our items of business.

Members of the public are encouraged to either submit written public comment on the sign-up cards available on the podium or email the council at council at seattle.gov.

We will now move on to our first item on the agenda, but before we get there, I did want to just provide a brief update on the Tent City 4 issue for the people who are here and others who are interested.

So based on an email that was sent by Deputy Mayor Washington to Director Kelly Kennison on yesterday, a decision has been made by the executive that the Lake City Community Center property is not suitable to cite the tent city for encampment.

and then provides the following reasons.

It's three blocks away from Tent City 4's current site, and it does not align with the history and spirit of Tent City 4's commitment to the surrounding community, which is to be in an area for no more than one year each time.

In noting the history in this email, they note the Current Ten City Four has been located at the Seattle Mennonite Church for the past year.

Would note prior to that they were in Issaquah, prior to that they were at Sammamish, and prior to that they were in Bellevue.

The Lake City Community Center is situated in the heart of Lake City's commercial district and serves as a hub adjacent to the Lake City Library branch.

The Lake City Community Service Center and the Albert Davis Park.

It also is, the Lake City Farmers Market is housed there during the summer as well.

And community engagement standards were not adequately met.

Next steps listed in the email state the city is interested in supporting a new location for Tent City 4 that meets the needs of the residents and the broader community.

HSD and KCRHA are partnering to identify appropriate alternative locations.

The Seattle Mennonite Church has indicated that they would allow Tent City 4 to remain at its current location until an acceptable alternative is identified, provided Tent City 4 requests a lease extension.

So my understanding is that their lease will expire this Friday and that they do have permission to remain should they choose to do so.

And then the last point in the email here is that the city will continue to fund to the tune of $45,000 in 2025 through our contract with KCRHA to support maintenance, waste management, and utility costs for tent city 4. So that is the latest development in the tent city 4 issue.

like to note that at the, my last update from my district liaison with 10 City 4 is that there are 104 people, quite a number of families.

Some of the families are now being housed in the vacant dentist building that adjoins the parking lot at the Mennonite church, but that there are four families over capacity.

I have brought this to the attention of KCRHA as well as to the mayor's office because we absolutely have to get those families housed.

It's unacceptable that we have families living in a sanctioned encampment.

So my office will be doing what we can to try to facilitate finding more permanent and appropriate shelter for those families, while we also work through my capacity on KCRHA to work with the regional partners to find an appropriate location for 10 City 4 that meets its needs.

So with that said, oh I see Councilman Rink you had a question.

Thank you for this update, Chair Moore.

And I'm just digesting the news myself, so apologies.

I'm just trying to get up to speed, and I appreciate the update.

Did I hear you correctly that the current folks will be able to stay at the current location until an alternative is brought forward.

I think that's the biggest concern for me just coming out of this.

It's a quick decision that was made, so did I hear you correctly that they will be able to stay until an alternative location is selected?

That's correct, yes.

Both my office and the executive's office, I understand, have reached out to the Mennonite Church who said they are more than happy to let them stay until an alternative is resolved.

but they will be following the lead of tent city four on that issue.

Thank you, Chair Moore.

Sure.

Any other questions?

All right.

With that update, we then will now move on to our first item on our agenda.

Will the clerk please read agenda items one and two into the record.

Agenda Items 1 and 2, Appointments 3158 and 3159. Appointments of Nassim A. Ghazanfari and Yunhai Han as members of the Seattle Women's Commission for terms to July 1, 2026 for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

All right, thank you.

So the Seattle Women's Commission serves in an advisory capacity to the Mayor, the City Council, the City Office for Civil Rights, and other Seattle City departments.

Naseem is a physician and activist who's deeply committed to human and women rights.

She looks forward to contributing her perspectives to the Commission as an immigrant professional and with the work she's done in the community, both in Seattle and beyond.

She will be servicing the remaining term of a vacant position.

Eun-ji is a Seattle native returned to hometown six years ago and is deeply committed to giving back to the city that shaped her.

She looks forward to engaging with her local community and making a tangible impact on the lives of women in Seattle.

She is also serving the remaining term of a vacant position.

I just wanted to take this moment to express my gratitude for their willingness to dedicate their time and talents to advance gender equity in Seattle.

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

All right.

Seeing none, I will now move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointments 3158 and 3159. Is there a second?

Second.

Council Member Sacco, was that a question that you had as well?

I just see your hand.

Oh, yeah.

Thank you.

Comments?

If I may, I guess now it's been moved and seconded into open for discussion, I suppose.

Absolutely.

At your discretion, of course.

Go ahead.

No, absolutely.

No, I too just want to, so I reviewed the candidate materials, applicant materials for both of these proposed appointees to the commission and I think Both are exceptionally well qualified and I too want to thank them for their willingness to serve our city and devote their time and talents to serve our city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, will the clerk please call the roll and the recommendation to confirm the appointments?

Council member Rink?

Yes.

Council member Saka?

Aye.

Chair Moore?

Aye.

Three in favor.

None opposed.

All right, thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to confirm the appointments will be sent to the May 20th City Council meeting.

All right, will the clerk please read agenda item three into the record?

Agenda item three, housing connector, proactive approach to keeping people housed.

You bet?

Hi, so before we get started and before you introduce yourself, I did want to just make a few preliminary remarks, which is that I asked for Housing Connector to come here today to present because of all the phenomenal work that they are doing on keeping tenants housed and their approach to rental assistance.

Last year was able, with the support of my colleagues, to secure an extra $5 million in rental assistance, so we now have $10 million to direct for rental assistance.

I also was able to get a SLI introduced which directed SDCI and HSD and the Mayor's Office to really look at how we can most effectively make streamline and get rental assistance out, both at the end of the stream and also at the beginning, to be proactive in identifying individuals and families who are struggling before they get into the eviction cycle.

I continue to be a firm believer that rental assistance is one of the most powerful tools that we have to address housing instability and homelessness.

I would like to see us greatly increase the amount of rental assistance, in fact that was one of the reasons that I introduced a capital gains bill last year where the money would have been directed to increasing rental assistance, and I remain committed to that particular legislative direction.

But that said, there are a number of organizations out there who are doing good work that I would that I think would behoove us to learn from, hence the offer to housing connector.

So that said, if you would like to introduce yourself, please, and walk us through your presentation.

Thank you so much.

Council members, good to see you all.

My name is Skelchram Kelmendi.

I'm the founder and CEO of Housing Connector.

Just a little bit about me.

I've lived in Seattle for about nine years now.

Originally, I'm from Eastern Europe, from Kosovo, and came to the U.S. actually as a refugee.

And so I had the chance firsthand to see the challenges that folks face in trying to secure housing when you have no rental history, you have no credit score, and it's really an uphill battle.

And it's especially an uphill battle when we think about the huge that our communities are facing when it comes to housing shortage and the challenges of simply poverty across the country.

I wanna just frame this conversation to share a little bit about how we think about this issue at Housing Connector.

First, when we think about the current state, there are over 800,000 people that are experiencing homelessness across the country, but that's really masking the issue.

We also know that there's over 24 million individuals that are housing insecure.

What that means is that they are literally one paycheck away one setback away from losing their home.

And this problem is exasperated when we think about the shortage of units that we have across the country.

And as I mentioned specifically for renters, there are lots of barriers that keep renters from being able to access housing or maintain it.

One in three individuals in the United States has a criminal record, which often will lead them to being denied when applying for housing.

Almost one in three Americans have a credit score below 670. And that's a huge indicator when folks are applying again for units.

And then unfortunately, we have over 7 million individuals that are facing evictions in our country.

And so the problem is not only around how do individuals get housing, but there's also a problem around how do we make sure that folks are maintaining that housing, which, Councilmember, I'm so appreciative of your focus around the prevention aspect.

We at Housing Connector saw an opportunity, though.

Ultimately, the solution to the problems of homelessness is housing.

Across the country, there are over 3.2 million units that sit vacant on any single day.

and yet we have all these folks that need a home.

And so what we set out to do was think about how do we support the property owners, the managers who have these units to make sure that they can not only fill these homes and support their businesses, but also give a chance to community members that desperately need that, and then also help them in ensuring that folks are maintaining that housing and not simply circling back into instability.

So I want to talk about some of the problems in the existing system and how I think about it.

It's really, to me, there's two points of failures in our system.

There's a point of failure in the sense that we do not have adequate resources and mechanisms for identifying individuals that are on the verge of losing their housing and delivering just-in-time solutions to keep them in their homes.

There is a second problem as well, which is once individuals lose their home and are experiencing homelessness, the pathway back into housing is incredibly, incredibly difficult.

And so as we thought about how do we address the issue of homelessness and how do we use what we believe we're equipped to be able to add value, we decided to target these two points in the system.

Now, I want to just be clear.

There's a lot of work that happens once somebody loses their home that is incredibly valuable.

When we think about the shelter work, the outreach work, that is critical to our community.

But that is not what we do.

And so what we decided to think about is, again, how do we help in keeping people housed, and then once they've lost their home, create a pathway back into the community?

And that's really what we're about.

It's really this mission and this vision that no unit should be sitting vacant when there are people in need of a home, and we also need to increase the efficiency in the system to be able to drive adequate solutions.

So let me talk about the solutions that we have around housing access and how we get people into housing.

When we think about the resources that are in our community, think about vouchers, think about rapid rehousing, think about all the different funding mechanisms, one of the things that they do not address is the fact that screening barriers still cause folks to be denied for housing.

So if you think about your searching for a unit, you'll find it, love it, you apply.

Unfortunately, your credit score isn't good enough, and you get denied.

That is a lot of time spent searching, a lot of resources spent applying simply to have a negative outcome.

The other aspect is around the difficulties that folks have in finding adequate units for them.

So what we do at Housing Connector is we centralize the housing search for the entire community and the system.

The idea here is instead of having a fractured system of how folks find housing, they have one place to go to find units in real time that have all agreed to reduce their screening criteria.

Now why are these criteria reduced?

Well, again, the key here is our relationships with the property owners and managers in the community.

What Housing Connector does is we support the property owners and managers by providing them solutions to address their main concerns.

We fill their units.

We ensure rent's paid.

We make sure that their property's not damaged and they're left holding the liability.

And then we make sure that they have thriving and safe communities by providing them two years of support after somebody moves in so folks are stable and that property has the resources they need in order to maintain their developments.

And what this has resulted in is thousands of property owners and managers here in the Seattle and King County area saying, yes, I want to be a part of the solution.

I want to open my doors to folks in the community because I know I have the support and this insurance to ensure that I am able to adequately keep them housed.

Now, what I would also say here is this is the solution for all the other nonprofits and organizations as well.

that are doing this work and trying to get folks housed.

When we started Housing Connector five years ago, we had a choice.

Do we create our own platform, or do we figure out how do we partner and leverage what already exists?

And one of the amazing things is we partnered with Zillow, which happens to be here in Seattle, to develop a marketplace specifically designed for individuals experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity.

And what we've done with them over the last five years is created a system and a mechanism that folks can go on Zillow.com, just like you and I would, but now they're able to search for units that are part of the Housing Connector Program and see in real time, not only if they're available, but what screening criteria that they've reduced.

What this means is case managers and individuals aren't wasting time applying for units to be denied.

They're not paying the $20 or $40 application fee just to have that lost.

They know before they apply whether the client would be approved.

But what this also does is for the property owners and managers, we're eliminating waste in their process because they're not getting applicants sent their way who they, unfortunately, would have to deny because they don't pass the criteria.

And this, when we talk to the case managers in the community, what they say is that Housing Connector and the system of Housing Search that we've created has revolutionized their work because it's taken processes that often would take months and shrunk that into days.

Now, the next thing that we're doing is not stopping there.

We're thinking about how do we help the case managers and individuals also have better visibility into what's happening into Housing Search.

One of the problems we have in our community is we have a fragmented system that doesn't talk to each other.

We have HMIS, we have other aspects, but honestly, nobody knows what happens throughout the life cycle of a renter.

And so what we are doing at Housing Connector is centralizing the entire housing journey of an individual from the moment they get in touch with a case manager to two years after they've been successfully housed.

So we not only know how are they doing as far as finding units, but what is happening after they move in.

and this is just one feedback for the community here in Seattle, but also in the other communities we work with across the country, is we often focus on getting folks in the door.

We've gotta do better at keeping people housed.

But to be able to do better, we have to know what the status quo is.

We have to know what is actually happening.

And right now, we're flying blind because we don't have that data.

And one of our goals and one of the things that we've been doing is creating the infrastructure and the operating system for a community to have that visibility so we know what's happening after folks are housed and whether the impact of moving somebody into unit is actually resulting into a sustainable solution.

Now, as I mentioned, that is how we get folks housed, but there's a second aspect to our work, which is how do we make sure that our community is staying housed?

And so what we've designed in partnership with our properties is solutions for housing stability.

Now, this includes financial resources such as rent support.

It includes things like damage mitigation costs to make sure that one Bill doesn't lead somebody towards the eviction path or losing their home.

But really what it also is, is the connection and the touch points with the properties.

So I'm a big believer that data is ultimately going to result in the best solutions and the best outcomes.

And one of the things that we think about housing stability is who has visibility and understanding into what's happening with households.

And ultimately that is the property owners and managers.

The first individual that knows if somebody's on the verge of losing their housing is that landlord.

Why?

Because rent's not paid, a utility's not paid, there is an incident that's leading to a behavioral issue.

And so what we have done at Housing Connector is centralized the property as the single point of contact and the first notification of a destabilizing event.

and a property has an incentive to let us know, right?

They want to make sure that their rent's getting paid.

So they will tell us, oftentimes way before a family might let us know because that family's trying to self-service.

But what this means is we are getting early indications of when somebody's being destabilized or having a setback, and then we're able to step in and support them early, whether it's a financial resource or, again, a case management resource, and keep them housed.

Councilmember Moore, you talked about resources needing to happen at the back end in the evictions, but also needing to go front end.

I'm a big believer, again, that yes, resources need to be there to stop evictions.

But the truth is, if somebody is getting support after they've already gone through the eviction filing, it's too late.

It's been months.

They most likely are three, six, nine months behind on rent.

That relationship with the property has soured.

And so yes, maybe we're providing a Band-Aid at that point, but the situation is usually far beyond salvageable.

I was talking with another community, and one of the things they mentioned that they were really proud of was the amount of rent support that they distributed, millions and millions of dollars.

I asked a follow-up question, which was, what was the average payment to households?

And they said it was $11,000.

To me, that is not success.

If we are paying, and again, I'm not saying Seattle's doing that, but if we as a community are paying $11,000 per family, that family's most likely six, seven months behind.

We need to think about how do we take that 11,000 or 5,000 or 6,000 and make that a $500 payment that's being distributed right in time so we were able to leverage the dollars that we have to be able to serve way more families.

And that only happens if you have visibility into what's happening with households.

And again, this all goes back to the property piece.

One of the things when we started Housing Connector here in Seattle five plus years ago, folks said, I don't think this is gonna work because properties are not going to say yes to this.

And I think what we've proven and what the property owners and managers in the community have proven is that they do wanna be a part of the solution.

If you understand their business needs, if you're willing to meet them where they are, and if you're willing to deliver solutions that are not cumbersome and do not significantly change their operating structure, they want to be a part of the solution.

They are in the business of housing people, not evicting people.

And I think that's been the key to our success, is making sure that we can meet their needs, provide them solutions, and then utilize the data that they have access to and work with them to be able to actually deliver solutions that create win-win outcomes.

The next piece is we are a technology-driven organization.

And sometimes people see that, or they see our partnership with Zillow, and they get really excited.

Here's what I tell folks.

Technology is not the solution to homelessness.

Housing is the solution to homelessness.

But technology does help.

It helps in driving efficiency, in driving visibility, and driving accountability.

And I think for us, that's how we're thinking about how do we use technology to be able to deliver solutions to the community.

And so we're excited around things such as automated messaging, around data integration between private data and public data, and building, again, that operating system that actually allows us to be able to drive solutions and drive strategy as opposed to constantly being reactive to what's happening in the community.

So does this work?

Well, the data suggests that it does work.

In the five years since we launched, Housing Connector has almost housed 10,000 folks.

We currently partner with over 2,700 property owners and managers.

That's over 150,000 units in our portfolio.

And what we've seen is that we have over 85% of households renewing their lease after the first year.

The national average ends up being somewhere around 65%.

And again, the reason why is we're not just getting folks into housing, but we're providing them the safety net to stay stably housed.

And I think that data point and the fact that we have a less than 1% eviction rate for the households that we've housed is a huge reason why the property owners and managers we work with continue saying yes and continue opening their doors.

So some of the results, though, beyond this is that, again, we are creating win-win outcomes.

We've generated over $91 million in revenue for the properties.

And what this means is that they're able to continue operating these buildings.

And I know, for example, here in Seattle, there's been a lot of conversation around our affordable developers and how do we make sure that we're not just building these units, but that these developers can actually operate and have the funds and resources to operate.

And it has to be that the rent has to be paid.

And so we're really proud of the fact that we've been able to do that, because that means that the rent's getting paid, and it means that that family's staying housed.

As far as the government side of it, look, y'all, like, nobody, nobody wants to be focusing solely on solving homelessness once it happens.

KCRHA, the biggest advocates, they would all much rather not have to solve this issue once somebody has already lost their homes.

and they're doing good work and they're trying to address this, but what we know is that once somebody loses their home, the cost of the community is tens of thousands of dollars.

So if you simply take out any of the humanitarian aspect, any of the ethical conversations, and just treat this as a economic problem, This issue causes Seattle billions of dollars a year when we think about all the costs from taxpayers, but also the lost revenue from things like tourism, et cetera.

And so what we are thinking though is if we can shift this burden and say, let's solve homelessness before it happens, we can take that cost from $40,000, $50,000 to $1,000.

And again, the reason why is just like in healthcare.

Prevention is better than the cure.

And we at Housing Connector are thinking about this, that if the homeless system is the emergency room, we have got to be the primary care doctor.

And the way that primary care looks like is prevention.

So we're really excited about that aspect.

Now, one of the things I just want to say is we don't do this alone.

We have over 64 nonprofit organizations that we work with here in Seattle alone.

We have over 200 across the country.

And these are organizations that are utilizing Housing Connector to find units, but then also partnering with Housing Connector to make sure that their residents are staying stably housed once they're moved in.

And we also have a good combination of private funders and partners as well as local partners to make sure that we deliver this solution.

Now, where are we going?

Well, over the last five years, we've learned a lot.

We've learned around how to bring partners in, how to design solutions, and how to not only get folks housed, but keep them housed.

But the truth is, I'm not satisfied, because we've housed almost 10,000 people, and yet what I see is that the homelessness rate has gone up by 18% just in the last year.

And so I keep asking myself and our team, what are we doing?

Like, what are we doing?

And if we're gonna address this problem, we have to completely change the way we think about doing business.

And so our focus over the next three year is focusing on these three pillars of products, properties, and prevention to be able to create an integrated system that is not only getting folks housed, but truly preventing the inflow into the homelessness system.

And we believe that between the resources that the city's setting aside and the willingness of property owners and managers to be a part of the solution, we will not only have the players at the table, but we will be able to design the data system and infrastructure to be able to deliver the solution and then be able to scale this here locally and across the country.

So I always say with our team, the best is yet to come.

And I really believe that.

And I think here in Seattle, we have a huge opportunity to be able to meet the current need and change our approach from being incredibly reactive to the problem to think about how can we be proactive.

And how do we actually solve this issue before it ever happens and get to a position where all of our community members have a chance of stability and a pathway out of poverty?

So I will stop there.

Happy to take any questions and just appreciate your commitment to this issue and your commitment to thinking differently about how we solve this problem.

Thank you very much, that was very informative and actually somewhat hopeful in my ears.

So, questions committee members?

And just for the record note that Council President Nelson has joined us and we've also been joined by Council Member Rivera.

Okay, Council President.

I apologize for arriving late, but I'm glad that I arrived when I did with this presentation because I was, I don't know how many times I've sat at the dais singing the praises of Housing Connector.

And I have done so in 2023, 2022. I'm really glad that you are coming before this new council because what I support about this model is that it's basically a public-private partnership that's seeking to get at one of our greatest challenges, if not the greatest challenge, in a faster expedient way that helps more people, well, faster, and not just, as you noted, which I think is really interesting, not just getting people housed, but making sure that they stay housed.

And I do, so that is really important.

And the relationships that the, that this model has with the actual landlords helps with that.

The, because that is a, those people want customers, they are businesses.

And, and And then there are people that need housing.

And so why can't we use every means at our disposal to help give people the housing that they need?

And this is a model that's unique.

And it is really filling a gap.

And what I was saying in the very beginning is that The people that are monitoring or the unit managers, the people that monitor, that own whatever, the spaces where people living, they have an understanding of what those people are experiencing on a month-to-month basis, if rent is late, et cetera, hardships that befall a person or a family.

And that can be an early warning sign, as you said, to prevent homelessness.

So I just want to say again, thank you very much for the work that you do.

Thank you.

I'm not sure who was next.

Council Member Rink?

Thank you, Chair Moore.

And hi, CEO Kalmendi.

It's great to see you again.

Colleagues, I've talked often on this dais about the work that we did when our...

as a part of the American Rescue Plan.

1,300 housing vouchers with the promise of 10 years of housing affordability.

And I just wanna name that Housing Connector was a critical part of the lease-up, the effective lease-up of those housing vouchers, meaning that 1,300 households over 1,000 people got housed, and I wanna publicly thank Housing Connector for your partnership with KCRHA and the many providers that you listed within the presentation for getting people housed.

We don't often talk about the successes, but that is certainly one that is worth celebrating.

And it's one that I've celebrated for some time until recently learning that it is looking unlikely that those vouchers will be renewed at the end of this year, leading us with a major issue of those 1,300 households needing somewhere to go.

And that leads me to my question for today, which is for Housing Connector, how is the shifting federal landscape impacting some of the property owners and organizations that you're working with?

I imagine there's been a flurry of activity.

I know I'm learning day by day new policies that are being implemented and changes, but what are you hearing from your many partnering networks and what are some of the first issues that come to mind?

Yeah, I think overall we are going to see obviously fewer and fewer resources We're seeing that across the country, and I think it's a real concern as we think about how do we keep people stably housed, and also how do we make sure that we're driving efficiency in the resources we have.

You know, if we have, for example, rapid rehousing dollars that are not being spent, there's a low likelihood that we're going to see that come back to us in the next year.

I do have a huge concern around the stability piece.

Look, one of the things during COVID is there was an influx of resources and dollars, which was amazing.

And I think we as a community and communities across the country felt that maybe that's the status quo and things have shifted very quickly.

And so what we're thinking about and what we're seeing is that there's now fewer dollars to work with.

And so we really have to drive and focus on efficiency.

So Councilmember, I am very concerned around that piece.

You know, I think even just recently we saw our own budget here in Seattle cut by about $150,000 around, specifically focused around prevention piece as a result of some of the federal aspects.

To your comment around the emergency housing vouchers, Seattle, that is a win because Seattle actually in King County had the highest utilization rate in the entire country, the entire country when that happened.

And the reason is we had already set the stage to be able to have this private public partnership.

And so I think, again, as we think about how do we build the infrastructure, build these connections, it's so critical in that moment we were able to take advantage of that because the landlords already were connected, we already had those integrations, and then people were able to find those units much quicker.

Thank you for that.

I have just one final question for today related to data.

I mean, a lot of how Housing Connector works is through really effective data systems, which is certainly a value add that you provide for our system.

I'm wondering about data storage a little bit for you all and kind of the safety and security of that data storage for so many residents who are in low income housing or work with some type of voucher.

Yeah, without getting into the specifics, we have data sharing agreements with every one of our partners.

We have release of information with every resident that we work with to ensure that they know how their information is being used.

And really, the information is simply utilized around delivering the solutions to individuals when they need it.

No information is shared, and identifiable information is shared with anyone externally or properties, for example.

So it's really on just a utilization rate.

I want to be clear, if you want to get into the conversation around the specifics of the data storage, that is outside of my expertise, but I'd be happy to circle back with you and our product lead to be able to come back and kind of provide specifics into that.

Fabulous.

Thank you.

And thank you so much again for being here today.

You always so expertly articulate the issues at hand.

And I want to thank you so much for your continued leadership.

People are housed because of your work.

So thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Sokka.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Skelcham.

Good to see you.

Great to see you.

Thank you so much for your presentation today.

Admittedly, I was less familiar before today with the scope of the work and the impact that Housing Connector performs across our region, but very enlightening and insightful for me here to hear more directly from you.

So thank you.

for the terrific work, the presentation.

Good to see you here.

Just as an aside, I saw our Leadership Tomorrow classmate, Linda Hall from Treehouse yesterday.

Right here in council chambers, we did a fun foster care proclamation.

So great to see LT well represented in these chambers.

In any event, Help me better understand, so you pointed out, you shared some great information, including data, and including the fact that there are 24 million people experiencing housing insecurity, folks that are essentially one paycheck away from experiencing homeless, might be one relapse away from experiencing homelessness, any number of challenges, and We know that many people experiencing homelessness also suffer, many but not all, suffer from very unique behavioral health challenges.

And so as your organization works to connect people with housing, how do you deal with clients or support clients, or maybe that's not part of your mission currently, with very unique behavioral health challenges?

Yeah, so one of the things we do is we think about how do we make sure that somebody is set up to be successful in housing.

And again, this is sometimes we get pushback on this, but I fundamentally don't believe that getting somebody into a unit and for them to lose their housing two months later is a win for anyone.

And it's ultimately a setback for that individual as well.

And so we need to think about how do we identify the right individuals and match them with the right resource and support to be able to be successful in housing.

And what we've seen over the last four or five years is that really anyone that's matched with the right resources and support can be successful.

Again, where are we, though, putting our priorities and our focus and how we're measuring?

And so for the council, I'm sure you hear about move-in rates, but who is talking to you about retention rates?

Is that data even being measured?

And so, council member, one of the things that we do is we focus very heavily on that retention aspect.

We focus on the behavioral lease violations, the lease violations, the non-payments, et cetera, for every individual.

And then we're working with those nonprofits and case managers to, one, give them visibility and understanding into what's happening, but also drive accountability.

And one of the things I learned from my mentor early on is accountability is actually love.

And we think about that as an important aspect in this work, is that to really care about our community and our community members, we need to make sure that we're driving the right support and solutions, but also then holding the community, holding our partners, holding ourselves accountable to be able to follow through on that so folks aren't following through the cracks.

And I'll give you an example of a small issue that leads to big concerns.

Because we don't have the quality data and the data systems, in this industry that has such high turnover with case managers, what happens is I might be working with you.

I help you get housed, have a relationship with you.

I leave my job because, again, it's a stressful, high turnover job.

Now there's no one that you're connected to.

The data, the information, the story is lost when I leave this job.

And somebody's supposed to come in and try to pick that up and try to understand what's going on.

And often that doesn't happen.

And what we see is in those transitions, people fall behind, fall through the cracks, and lose their housing.

And so when we think about what we're trying, for example, to build, with the community hub, the state infrastructure aspect, is that if you left, and your colleague took over, they would be able to see the information of what's been happening with that individual, where they are, and they can step in and make sure that things are not lost in transition and that that individual has the support to continue staying stably housed.

Now, I think there's a reference around individuals that might have more significant barriers and higher acuity.

We also need to understand that the private market is not the right solution for everyone.

You know, that is why we also have permanent supportive housing.

That's why we also have other housing solutions.

And so one of the things when we have a scarcity of resources is oftentimes we are trying to fit a resource with a situation or problem that is not the right fit.

And what that often leads to is bad outcomes.

and again, small anecdote, not to get in the weeds here, but that's how we operate, is rapid rehousing.

If rapid rehousing is a short-term resource intended to help somebody for six months and then fade away, but we are matching it with an individual that does not have the pathway, the plan, and the commitment by the supporting organization to actually get there, all we're doing is kicking the can six months down the road.

Because then what's happening is six months, nine months later, that individual has no means to pay rent, their subsidy has faded away, and now they go down the eviction path.

And we can say, hey, but at least they got housing for six months, and yes, that is so important, let's not lose sight of that.

But what happens oftentimes is then when that individual loses their housing, now they have an eviction on their record.

And now them trying to get back into housing is even harder.

And so for us, Council Member Sokka, that's why it's so important around us making sure that we do not have evictions, is we don't want somebody moving into a unit through a housing connector and then leaving and having more barriers than they entered.

But that's often what happens if folks don't have the right support and infrastructure to make sure that they're stably housed.

Now you also mentioned you didn't know a lot about us.

That's probably by design.

We've tried to stay behind the scenes for the last five years.

And again, the reason for that is the people that are doing this work, the case managers that are doing this work, the properties that are doing the work, they are ultimately the ones that are delivering the solution.

We are behind the scenes, and frankly, we want to stay behind the scenes to be able to equip them to be able to do this work better and faster.

And I think for the last five years, we probably maybe haven't shared as much about the work that we're doing.

And again, I know Council Member Banks shared a little bit about some of those wins.

But the way we think about it is if we are doing good work and we're getting results, there's plenty of praise and things for everyone to take and run with.

But I do think we are at a critical point right now as a community, as in a city, where we really have to reimagine how we're doing this work.

And that's one of the reasons that we are trying to be a little bit more vocal based on the data and the learnings we have on how we reimagine the system and how we keep people in their housing.

Thank you, and I appreciate the reflections there and also salient comment, particularly, I found towards the end about praise and credit.

Couldn't agree more.

Praise and credit is, unlike dollars, it is an infinite, uncapped resource.

We can all share it.

We can all win.

So that's just my default approach.

Another question, hopefully this is a little more straightforward on some of the data reflected in some of the later slides.

So note that you serve 4,450 households, a little over 9,000 residents.

And I also note that you're a nationwide organization serving six major cities.

Correct.

How many clients do you serve in Seattle?

Yeah, so the majority of those households are here in the Seattle King County area.

You know, we've expanded into Denver, Dallas, Portland, Austin, and are about to launch in Orlando.

But all those markets have been in the last, I would say, two years.

And so over 80% of the impact and those numbers are right here local.

Right now in the Seattle area, we have over 2,000 households that we are providing the safety net, too.

So as we think about, like, who do we have visibility in our ensuring that we can provide that support if they need it?

There's over 2,000 households here locally that are in that.

And again, these are probably the highest risk households, because if we think about, like, what is the biggest indicator or one of the biggest indicators of somebody losing their housing and being homeless is have they experienced homelessness before?

And so we know based on that data and research that the households that we're providing the safety net are some of the most at risk, but now they have access to this financial and customer support to hopefully be able to prevent that.

If the number is changing every single day as we have households moving in and households exiting their two years, council member, so I'm happy to follow up with you and give you the exact number as of today after this meeting.

Thank you.

I really appreciate it.

Final question pertains to data.

So I'm a firm believer in the power of data to unlock any number of possibilities and leveraging that data, plugging in through the use of technology to help us unlock, again, any number of opportunities and drive solutions.

To achieve that, you need a very robust set of data, comprehensive set of data, and need to put appropriate privacy and security guardrails around that, of course, where that makes sense, including what the Europeans call pseudonymization of data in an aggregated form, but we need robust data.

And so your platform, it sounds like, well, the platform that you share, you built upon with one of your tech partners, relies heavily on data.

What additional data, what additional information do you think is needed that's not currently readily available or accessible?

What additional information would you like to see in terms of data to help potentially unlock other possibilities and drive further solutions on a going forward basis?

What additional data do you think we might need to look at?

Well, one of my goals over the next few years is to be able to build a predictive model that can identify households at risk and be able to proactively offer solutions.

That doesn't exist right now in the country.

And that is what we are aiming to be able to do.

To do that, you have to have access into the property management data so we can think about payment trends, late payments, et cetera.

The other aspect is I do believe that there's other indicators out there that can help us create a more clear picture.

One of that, for example, is utility data.

And the belief there is that somebody, if they're between paying rent and utilities, they're going to pay rent first and utilities later.

So could we have a partnership with our local utility groups here at Puget Sound Energy to be able to have that integration data and say, hey, if somebody is not paying their utilities, that might be a 45, 60-day early indication that in two months they're not going to be able to pay their rent.

And then how do we proactively reach out to that household and offer potential resources and solutions to help and support them before they fall behind?

I'll give you a personal anecdote.

I mentioned I came here as a refugee, and I'm Albanian, and we're very proud people.

My parents were incredibly poor when we were here, and oftentimes we worked so hard to self-resolve out of pride or out of not knowing that there were resources available to us, And oftentimes, we did that to our own detriment because we waited and waited to try to self-resolve until we were already in crisis.

And again, I think there's a lot of individuals here in our community in Seattle that are doing everything possible, everything possible to find solutions for their families.

And we can support them by letting them know what's available, letting them understand the resources that they have available to them.

to be able to resolve those issues.

I think the other piece here is the system that we currently have often requires somebody to be in crisis before they get help, and they can access resources.

It makes no sense, again, for somebody to already be in the court system or for somebody to already be homeless by HUD definition to be able to access a resource.

Like, that makes no sense, but that's the way the system is.

And so we, again, need to think about that proactive solution, and oftentimes that means delivering a resource before somebody is in crisis.

Thank you, you called out Puget Town Energy as one utility provider.

We have two, at least two in the city of Seattle, Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle City Light.

And you know, might be opportune time for partnership.

So in any event, thank you Skelchum.

Thank you to you, your whole team that isn't necessarily here today, but whose work is represented in your presentation and appreciate you all and all you do.

Thank you Chair Moore for inviting Housing Connector here today.

Thank you.

Councilman Rivera, did you have any questions?

I do not, thank you.

Oh, okay, great.

Well, again, I couldn't agree more.

You have, as Council Member Rink said, articulated so beautifully what's been rumbling around in my brain for the past year, which is that we have to be proactive.

We have to identify people at risk before they fall through the cracks.

We have to remove the barriers.

to people being able to get that help before they're in crisis.

So I couldn't agree more that we have to reimagine how we do this work.

So it is very, it's great and reassuring to hear that that thinking is happening and that that work is happening.

It also means that we do, I think, have to be committed to, at the local level, growing our resources, particularly because of the federal cuts that are coming to the resources and yet being more efficient about doing it.

And I think identifying people proactively drives efficiency.

it's always more expensive once somebody's, and I'm not, you know all of this, I'm just saying this for the record, like once somebody's on the street or in that cycle, it's a lot more expensive.

It's more expensive to go to the ER than it is to go to your primary care provider, right?

So that said, I'm sorry?

Yeah, sorry.

That said, I'm curious about, you know, one of the things that we have problems with is identifying the vacancy rate in Seattle.

We keep harping on this and I'm wondering, are you having any better luck identifying the vacancy rate in Seattle?

Yeah, so we have access to all that data in real time through feed integrations with the different property management softwares.

So the short answer is yes.

There's a more complicated answer, which is what properties, and I know there's been a lot of focus on Citi invested properties, and we work with many of them and have visibility into that.

So I think one of the things that I'm excited about is finding ways to partner with the Office of Housing to be able to, you know, potentially reimagine and think about how to recreate the infrastructure to not only give the city visibility, but also give those property owners and managers the support that they need to be able to effectively operate their units.

Thank you.

Yeah, if we could crack that puzzle, that code, that would be immensely helpful, I think.

And looking at your slide 28, where you're talking about solutions for housing stability, can you walk through a little bit more about how is your funding model work?

Where do you come up with the three months of emergency rental assistance and the damage mitigation and the vacancy loss?

Yeah, so right now in Seattle, we have about, let's say, a $1 million contract that has been held steady for the last four years through KCRHA.

That's funding from the city and the county that KCRHA then distributes to us.

The way we think about this is, again, instead of paying up front, to me, when we were starting this, I was trying to think about who else has figured out how to deal with the risk, because ultimately this is a problem of risk for property owners and managers.

Well, there's lots of people have done that through insurance products.

And so the three months of emergency rent support, the $5,000 in damages, that is provided to those property owners and managers as an insurance package.

So we only pay if there is a setback or somebody has defaults on their rent or has damages.

So when we think about our entire data set, right now, we only have to step in and provide financial resource for about 33% of households.

So the thing here, though, to think about is 67% of households that are exiting homelessness or housing insecurity and moving into housing, all they needed was those lower barriers.

They never had another financial setback.

But if they did, like the, again, one in three, then we can step in and provide whatever it is that they might need and do so right away because we already have those integrations with the property.

On average, it costs us about $1,100 per household to be able to keep them stably housed over the two years.

So if you, again, break that down annually, we're looking at about $550 to be able to provide that support to keep households housed.

Now we have some, what I would consider, just like in anything, some households that tend to draw down at a higher rate.

But what we do there is try to think about what are the trends and indicators of these households.

Is it based on some of the financial situations that they have coming into the housing?

Is it the turnover in case management?

Is it the program that they're in?

So that we can then also get better at predicting what the potential costs and the resources that folks will need down the line.

So that's a long-winded answer, but just to give you a little bit more color into how we think about this is really treating this as an insurance model instead of paying up front and potentially never seeing that money down the road.

Interesting, so, sorry, I've got a throg in my throat today.

It caught me when you said 66% of people are, it's the obstacle that's getting in the way.

So that's the low credit score, right?

The one prior eviction, that sort of thing.

But it seems like you're able to lower those barriers because you're offering to the landlords this protection, right, which is the risk mitigation management.

Is that accurate?

Yeah, that's exactly right.

That's exactly right.

It's, again, when we go to properties, we don't go and say, hey, like, do good for the community.

We say, here's how we're going to protect and support your bottom line with this insurance product.

And as a positive externality of that, you also do get to do good for your community.

But we have to understand that they're running a business, and so that insurance allows them to, in a sense, and again, this is all relative, but take a bigger risk on somebody that they traditionally would not, because now that they know that they're protected.

And what the data suggests is that, for, again, two-thirds of households, once they move in, they really don't need any additional financial resources.

They have it, but they don't need it because that barrier was the only thing.

And I think this also dispels a lot of the myths that we talk about or hear sometimes in public narrative, which is, you know, everyone moving in is just destroying properties, causing issues.

That is not the case.

Like, yes, there's a small minority that is doing that, but the data does not support that claim at a holistic level.

But to that point, I think, do you not also provide tenant services or work with case managers to provide tenant services for higher acuity tenants?

Yes, that is correct.

And one of the things for me is almost everything we think about doing is not recreating the wheel.

And so we tap into the existing infrastructure of case management and resources and simply try to think about how do we better connect that case manager to the individual that needs that support in a more timely way.

And how do you deal with that, you said that gap, because there is a lot of turnover with case managers.

And I know in talking to, I think it's Health One, often when they're talking to somebody, they say, do you have a case manager?

And they say, yes.

Well, it turns out it's, of a case manager for this particular issue or that particular issue.

There's no sort of holistic approach to case management.

But anyway, are you able to navigate that gap at all?

Yeah, so the way we do that is by in a sense creating that web of interrelations between the case manager, the organization, the individual, the property, the property manager, owner, et cetera.

And so what we're able to do is then be that single point of contact for both the case manager and the property, because we have that information and are keeping up with it.

This is especially helpful for property owners, because what you'll hear from property owners is they say, look, I house somebody, worked with the case manager, and now I can't get a response.

That case manager's not there, nobody has information to what's happening, and now I'm stuck on my own.

And so now with that property, they don't have to worry about who the case manager is, what their email, what their phone number.

They have one group that they work with, which is us, and we centralize and triage all those issues to make sure that they get the support they needed.

So it's really around, I mean, it sounds simple, but it is really a data management and contact management aspect there that is just missing right now when we think about the interrelation of the social service industry.

and the private property industry, and we're just trying to close that gap.

And how many private, oh gosh, lots of questions, sorry.

How many private landlords do you work with?

Right now we have over 2,500 private property owners that are working with us.

So, and again, right then you think about vacancy rate, if you think there's 155,000 units, average vacancy rate somewhere between five to 7%.

So on any given day, you have a certain, a couple thousand units that are available to folks.

Specifically, if we zoom into the city of Seattle, on any given moment, if you go to our platform right now, there's over 800 available units that folks have access to with reduced criteria.

And I think one of the things that's important here is that we're giving folks choice.

Like when I started this, the thing I wanted is I wanted folks to have choice in where they live.

And again, that might sound silly to somebody, but it really is important that even the folks that have the highest barriers and they're low income do have choice in where they're trying to live.

And that also means having access to higher opportunity areas.

And so we've worked with the Seattle Housing Authority to try to increase access to opportunity zones up, which is usually in Northern Seattle, the way it's defined, to make sure that families have choice in where they're living and they can make that decision.

We don't make that decision for them.

We don't steer them to the decision, but we do feel it's important that folks have options when making this decision.

Just my last question before I turn it over to other council members.

So, you know, in talking about we need to reimagine the approach, how can we as policy individuals or a policy body, how can we help with that?

What are the legislative pieces or fixes that we can help with?

Yeah, I think, you know, we can do this work as far as the data, the operating aspect, but there's so much that you all can do when you think about the policies that are in place and understanding the impacts of those policies and also making sure that as a city we're aligned in what we are doing.

I think one of the challenges that I see, to be just really candid with you all, is like, during COVID, what we saw is that we can do really hard things when we're all united.

And it's funny, because I tell my five-year-old, like, one of our mottos in our house is, we do hard things.

And we did some really hard things during COVID as a community, but part of that is we were all so aligned to respond to the crises.

And I think as policymakers, as council members, I think if we can get aligned on what the vision is that we're trying to achieve, then we can actually go set forward towards achieving that.

But just candidly, that's not necessarily the case right now.

and I think we need to do a better job as a community in being aligned on what are we trying to do, what does success look like, and only once we can define that can we start working backwards towards achieving it.

So again, not trying to preach here, but I think that's probably the biggest thing is looking to you all as the leaders of the city to help us understand what is that vision, what does success look like that we're working towards, and then we as a community coming together and then creating that work back plan of how do we get there.

Thank you.

Council Member Rink.

Thank you, Chair Moore.

I want to recognize, I know Council Member Rivera hasn't spoken yet, so I'm happy to have her go first in the interest of time.

She's only an honorary member, so, but that's okay.

I can wait.

Thank you, of course.

Thank you, Chair Moore.

And I actually wanted to follow up on the point that Council Member Saka had raised in this point specifically about utilities.

So I want to thank Skelton for explaining this point because we know it's true to be well.

well to be true, pardon me, this point that usually when someone is not paying their electricity bill, something bigger is going on and that person is at risk of homelessness.

And I wanted to notify the committee that in my capacity as chair over City Light, this is something we're actually looking at with City Light.

We have the benefit of having public utilities, which means we as council and as a city can really take steps to build in some intervention and prevention measures within our utility systems.

And so our office has been in conversation with City Light as well as public utilities on this matter.

We have a new report that just came out on the utility discount program.

And so there are opportunities not just in the utility discount program to be better supporting prevention measures, but also building into our system finding ways to reach any new customers or folks who are generally a part of the customer base to try and build in those prevention measures.

So I just wanted to take a moment to notify the committee that that work is happening.

We're trying to sort out a way to make that come to fruition because that is a really effective intervention that we can build in and is feasible to do.

So thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to share that with everyone.

Yeah, thank you.

Now that's a wonderful program and really glad to see you're working on expanding it.

Council Member Nielsen.

Council President, excuse me.

I feel like we've been dancing around this one little thing.

You said one million.

And I assume that that is the support the city gives to Housing Connector.

Earlier in the meeting, you mentioned that providing visibility is really important.

But I do think that putting our money where our mouth is when it comes to making sure that our mission is aligned is very important.

You've been talking about bringing to scale what you're doing for about two or three years.

So what does that look like and what do you need from the city?

Yeah, I appreciate you asking.

I think, again, funding, I would say, in Seattle has stayed steady the last five years, even though our impact has increased by about 600% during that timeframe.

And a lot of the reason we've been able to do that is we've had a lot of really good private funders that allowed us to be able to close the gap.

I do think, as we think about some of these outcomes, There needs to be, for us, a better partnership and integration with the city and how we work with one another, as well as the funding aspect of it.

I do think, from our perspective, I do feel confident in our ability to be able to deliver the solutions around prevention.

building to what that looks like.

Council member, it really depends on the scale that we're operating at.

Like, we can have a conversation to say, hey, Skelton, what would it look like for you all to support, you know, an extra 2,000 households a year?

Now it can calculate that for you and provide that support.

It really depends on how big are we trying to go and how are we going to do that?

And I'd love to have some more meaningful conversations on that.

And we've had some conversations with the mayor's office as well.

The truth is we're gonna do this no matter what, because we need to do it.

I think, you know, Council Member Moore, you talked about like this, you felt a little hopeful here.

Like Seattle should feel like really good in the sense of like, we started this here.

Like the city had a part in us getting started, you know, like I couldn't have done this by myself or just with our team.

And now we've taken the solution that started in Seattle and we've taken it national.

And we should feel really good about that.

And I think we have an opportunity to reimagine what that can look like over the next few years and really be a leader in the country around how we solve this problem and how we position Seattle in preventing homelessness.

So I think the conversation is much more nuanced, and so I don't want to oversimplify it around what is the cost, what is the lift.

But my hope here is that there are more investments, whether it's in Housing Connect or somebody else doing this type of work, so that we can actually deliver those solutions to our community members.

And then I think the other aspect is so that we can have the visibility and we can provide our community members and taxpayers visibility into the actual outcomes.

One of the things I'm really cautious about is over promising things because I think we have a lot of that where people paint this picture of how this is gonna revolutionize the world and then not deliver.

But what I would say is our data speaks for itself.

It's spoken for itself for the last few years.

And my hope is that over the next few months, we can work more closely with the city to think about how do we take that and scale it here locally to be able to impact more lives.

So I didn't give you an, that was like my, I felt like a politician there, not answering your question.

Council member Rivera.

So just one last comment.

What you're doing is working.

I've always said that we should be spending our resources on what is working.

And if we are investing in things that are not working, then we do need to reevaluate that expenditure.

So thank you very much for your very politic response.

I do appreciate that we have been asking for a real-time inventory of available spaces for people that need to get into housing.

And we have also asked the Office of Housing for of existing projects that have been built with city funding.

So it really does, I really appreciate that you have access to vacancy rates because you're working with partners who have to give you the vacancy rates because you are helping get people into those spots.

So to be continued on how to bring that solution to scale.

Councilman Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you for bringing this presentation and allowing me to crash the party.

Because I actually didn't know about Housing Connector till today.

And we have been talking a lot about the need for ensuring we have proper data and vacancy rates by which to tackle this very difficult and important problem in our communities.

I have a question, but I want to make a comment about the alignment during COVID and the ability to work together to get things done.

While I do agree that we should all be working together toward a common goal and exploring creative solutions.

I do think the COVID comparison is not a fair one because during COVID having having been here during COVID and had to help shut the city down and then turn it back on.

There was an influx of dollars from the federal government that was not sustainable.

And I heard you mention something like people expected that that would continue and I'm not really sure I'm very surprised to hear that because we were responding to an emergency and we had pools of money to pull from because we couldn't use them for the original intended purposes because everything got shut down.

So that's where the money came from and we were able to do some things.

And I will say some of the things that we did, we didn't do so well because we were in an emergency situation.

using the hotels to house high acuity folks, that was not, did not work so great.

And we knew that post facto.

So I think that we, while we, during periods of emergency, we can come together and do the best we can under those circumstances.

It's not the same as this, and we're not going to have those level of resources.

That said, the resources that we do have should be used wisely.

and we should have a good plan in place and we should align to have a good plan in place.

And what I really appreciate about what Housing Connector does is provide that data by which we need in order to be able to house people and keep people housed.

And the other thing I wanna say, and then I'll get to my question, is the piece about the folks that are, the most difficult to house are the ones that have, you know, existing challenges that are not just financial, but this mental health or a addiction that they're managing.

And I agree with your statement earlier.

We need to provide both.

We can't just house someone who has those challenges and expect they're going to be successful.

They need both.

You need housing with the with the support, either the mental health or the addiction support.

And then that is what is successful.

And so I do think that our challenges, we don't know the vacancy rates for apartments that have been damaged because we have folks that needed more and they were not given what they needed.

Let's be honest about that.

And so we don't know what that vacancy rate is.

And this is what we've been searching for for a while.

Cost money to fix those units.

Those units are out of commission.

And then in this model, I feel like how do we support these folks within this model?

Because it seems to me like these vacancies maybe aren't necessarily for a person that needs those extra supports, or maybe they are.

So I'd like to hear more about how we're helping that segment.

It is a very, and I appreciate you saying and I agree, it's a very small segment of the population and yet in some places that is causing, and actually let me say this, it's not even the folks that need the additional services to stay housed.

bad actors that have nothing to do, you know, that are coming in and squatting in these apartments and taking over.

And then those units are out of commission.

And so we've got these, to your point you made earlier, there are a lot of challenges here.

So I just wanted to name all of that because that also goes to the vacancy piece.

We don't actually know the vacancy and then we struggle because we've got these issues that housing providers are dealing with.

And so would love to hear, that's a third piece on the second piece of folks that have the needing the services, how you work with that.

I know you're working with case managers.

And then my other question is, I noticed there's some housing providers here that are not on your list, like Mercy Housing.

So I'm wondering how you get folks to join on and how those partnerships happen.

Yeah, so on the list there, those are more on the community partner side, folks working directly with residents, Mercy Housing and other affordable partners we work with on the property side as far as they make their units available for us to fill and then we support their staff.

I think what I hear and the anecdotes I hear from property owners and managers is that it's really, it is those individuals with the severe behavioral issues that are causing the majority of the challenges.

And to your point, the scale of the negative externalities that come with that are quite high because they impact the two units next to them and potentially more.

I think this is where you all, I think, again, going back to maybe Council Member Moore, on the policy side is thinking about how do we also create policies and support for properties to navigate those situations?

Because right now, in our effort to ensure that tenants have protections, which I think I fully support, We've also made it very difficult to navigate those issues that are, frankly, dangerous and incredibly disruptable to the rest of the building that often are causing folks to move out, causing damages.

So I don't have the answer there, but what I will say and what I hear from property owners and managers is that that is their biggest pain point right now.

is they feel stuck, and then what I hear from them is, I want to give a chance to the next person, but I feel stuck in this situation, and I don't know what to do if that happens again.

And we at Housing Connector are not above the law to be able to, you know, go above whatever the city or the state laws are, so we can't even intervene in those situations, council members.

I think your point there is spot on.

And I do think we need to think about like what are the solutions and implementations that we can put in place to support the properties and the residents as well when there is somebody in that situation that's causing damages and frankly causing life-threatening circumstances for folks.

And do you see, do you have a number of units that stay vacant in your housing connector pool?

because folks don't want to be in that building, for instance?

Do you know?

I would have to look at the data to be able to identify that.

I think to your earlier point, it is difficult to quantify what is just the normal rate of vacancy that we should expect.

Vacancy rates should really not be at 0%, similar to unemployment.

It is difficult to be able to correlate the negative behaviors to the vacancy.

Case manager will say, I will not move my resident in there because of some of the other behavioral issues.

There's also a challenge around concentration of poverty.

And when we think about concentration of some of these challenges, so we at Housing Connector, we set a limit on actually how many individuals we will move into a property.

So even if the property owner says, hey, Skelton, please keep filling my building, we will say no, we set a threshold.

Because we also do not want to be in the business of just concentrating poverty and moving a lot of folks into one building.

And so I think there's an aspect of that which we have to think about as a community, which is if we do have a lot of folks that are, you know, extremely low income or may have some of these challenges, then we need to recognize that and treat that properly differently than we would a traditional market rate building.

So again, I think that's where some of the nuance comes in, in those challenges.

Chair, can I ask one more question if that's okay?

I've heard from folks that, or from housing providers, I mean, that they will have a dangerous tenant or challenging tenant that they've evicted.

And then that tenant goes back into the system and then they get put into a different unit in a different housing providers building.

And I don't know if this, I'm sure you're aware of this.

And so how do we ensure that that person is getting the needs met before we put them, because then it's like a cyclical thing.

Yeah, we're just pushing the problem from one unit to another, one organization to another.

I think that's where we need to have, again, better visibility and communication within the system of understanding You know, if somebody was in that situation, we have a commitment, I think, as a community that we've made to help everyone that walks through the door, but also understanding that if somebody was, you know, previously, you know, threatening somebody or stalking somebody, you know, these are real situations that have happened in the properties we work with.

How are we then making sure we're not just moving that individual into the next unit and saying it's the next property manager's problem to deal with?

And so on our team, we, you know, again, candidly, like if somebody's in that situation, they have a negative outcome because of those type of issues that are life-threatening and damaging to a property, we will not rehouse that to another one of our property partners.

I do not feel good to just say to the next property owner, hey, this person did XYZ here.

We're going to move it into your unit and just hope for the best.

If the infrastructure is not there to support that individual, again, it is not in the best interest of the individual or the property in our community to be able to then just pass that to somebody else and hope for a different decision.

I always tell our team, hope is not a strategy.

So unless we're going to change the way we're doing things, we can't expect something different to happen.

And I think the point there is we need to think about what are the options for housing for individuals.

And that individual might be a better case for permanent supportive housing where there's on-site support.

but obviously we have a scarcity in permanent supportive housing, and so the situation and the solution is complex, but I also think we need to think about the real implication that a situation like that has on a property who wants to be a part of the solution, but because of this negative outcome, is choosing to close their doors on individuals in the future.

So my personal opinion is I'm not willing to sacrifice the home for a thousand people to just trade off for one individual.

And again, we can have an argument philosophically on that, but to address this issue at scale, we need to think about how we make sure that there are solutions available for everyone in the community.

And we do that by addressing the real needs that our properties are facing in these situations.

Thank you.

I really appreciate what you've created here and, you know, would love to see, I mean, to my colleague's point, we love to see things that are actually working to help people.

And this is one thing, and I'd love to see how we can, you know, we should be using this as a holistic approach.

and not just, which is why I asked why some housing providers weren't listed on here.

It's like, if we can create this so that everyone can utilize it and it's centralized, that's the word I was looking for.

I think that that is something that, you know, I would be supportive of.

Thank you for all that you're doing to help our unhoused folks in Seattle.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council President, was that an old hand?

Old hand.

Yeah, okay, thank you.

I just want to say thank you so very much for the presentation.

It's been very enlightening, as I said, hopeful, and I would love to continue to work with you in Housing Connector, both on the work that you're doing and also kind of a broader reimagining.

And it would be nice if we could all find consensus.

I don't know if we can, but it is an emergency.

And I know we've continued to say that for 10 or 15 years now, but it's only getting worse.

And so I think we have to be prepared to acknowledge that what we've been doing hasn't been working.

It does all those people a disservice for us to remain entrenched in old ways of thinking.

Anyway, thank you so much for the work that you're doing and coming here today and sharing with us and being willing to partner with us and others to really advance a solution to homelessness.

So thank you.

Absolutely.

We're in this together.

And like I said, I really do think the best is yet to come.

And I'm excited to see what that looks like working together.

Great, thank you so much.

Colleagues, are there any additional questions or issues?

No?

All right.

I'll just make two final points.

I know everybody's anxious to get out of here, but I did want to just make the point again about we do need more permanent supportive housing, and we need more of a spectrum of permanent supportive housing, and that's something that our Frank Chop, you know, rest in peace, was really advancing kind of a nursing home Medicaid model on that.

Fortunately, that seems to be under threat now, but I think there's a lot of good thinking around that issue going on in Olympia, so hopefully we will see some progress there.

I wanted to make a note.

There were some comments about the low-income communities in Lake City.

I just wanted to be very clear that my office there are a lot of low-income communities in Lake City and they are many of them immigrant refugee and People are working two or three jobs to make ends meet and raise their children.

We are very much supportive of the low-income communities and making sure that there is affordability and amenities and services for them.

That is not the issue.

The issue are people who are struggling and people who are choosing to engage in destructive behavior.

just just to re-emphasize the support here and um in my as a district representative and chair of housing community and housing human services for affordable housing and support for low-income communities throughout the city that said um i do want to say this concludes the may 14th meeting on housing human services committee the next meeting Oh, I'm sorry.

I apologize.

I missed my window.

It would still be okay to share just a couple of words.

Oh yeah.

I'm so sorry.

It didn't look.

Thank you, Chair Moore.

And I want to thank you for addressing the intensity for update at the top of the meeting.

Um, I wanted to take a moment to address just some of the work that I've done alongside some of our sanctioned encampment partners over the years, particularly Tent City 3, Tent City 4, Nicholsville.

And I've gotten to know the work of Share Wheel over the years, supporting some of their moves.

And they're never easy.

They're very, very stressful.

They take a lot of time.

It's a lot of paperwork.

They've always been careful to be good neighbors.

In service of being good neighbors, part of their process is to canvas full neighborhoods.

Once they're moved into a site, they'll throw a barbecue to invite in and get to know some neighbors.

And they always leave when they say they're going to leave.

And in the 30-year history of SHARE, they have honored that, which is why I know in this case and I have confirmation that they will be moving from Seattle Mennonite Church, but they will have nowhere to go.

So more than 100 people as a part of Tent City 4 will right now have nowhere to go.

And I know these circumstances are not unique.

We've seen a backlash against siting before, and we can certainly talk about equitable siting of these sites.

And we should have that conversation.

And I'll note, without shelter, people die.

And coincidentally, today on the steps of City Hall, this is the day that the women in black holds their vigil to honor our unhoused neighbors who have passed in the city.

And I invite you all to join today.

And I hope and intend that we can find an immediate solution to make sure 10 City 4 residents have a place to go.

So thank you for allowing me to comment on this, Chair.

You're very welcome.

Just a technicality in response to that, which is that they do have the permission to stay at the Mennonite Church, but because of the way they interpret their responsibility to the community, they will be leaving.

And we are, I know KCRHA and the mayor's office are working fast and studiously to find a place for them.

So when they choose to leave on Friday, they have a place to go.

So thank you very much.

This does conclude the May 14th meeting.

The next meeting is scheduled for May 28th.

The time is 11.19 and we are adjourned.

Thank you.