Human Services, Equitable Development, & Renter Rights Committee Public Hearing 10/17/19

Good evening.

This is a special meeting of the Human Services, Equitable Development, and Renters' Rights Committee of the Seattle City Council.

The time is 5.17 p.m.

on Thursday, October 17th, and we are in city council chambers.

I am unfortunately not joined by any other council member.

And I say very unfortunate because all day today, council members were waxing eloquent on the budget, on how compassionate they are towards homeless people.

But now that we have an opportunity to hear directly from our homeless neighbors and homeless advocates about a terrific and successful program, unfortunately, I'm here by myself.

I will hope that council members are still on their way to join me.

But I don't know if they will.

I do feel happy that Council Member O'Brien, who sent his apologies, he wasn't going to be able to be here, sent us a few remarks about what he thinks about tiny house villages, which I wanted to read right now.

This is from Council Member O'Brien.

Since we passed legislation in 2015 to allow interim use permits for sanctioned encampments, we found this to be an invaluable tool in addressing the homeless crisis we are in.

Not only do we need to make this legislation permanent, we need to expand opportunities to meet the need.

Thank you to Council Member Sawant for her leadership on this.

That's Council Member O'Brien's statement.

We thank him for that.

And we will continue with the public hearing as we are.

Today's meeting has one point on the agenda, this public hearing into the legislation that my office has put forward to expand options for tiny house villages across the city.

As we have discussed in previous committee meetings that I've chaired on May 24th and September 10th of this year, tiny house villages in Seattle have been perhaps the most successful support for people facing homelessness.

They provide things essential to human beings.

Dignity, privacy, safety, a place to store your belongings.

Many villages have self-management where residents are empowered to democratically run their own communities, and all villages are provided with essential services like case management.

Even based on the metric of the Human Services Department of the City of Seattle, which is tracking transitions to permanent housing, which we don't think is the most useful indicator for all homeless services.

But going by that measure, which ultimately is the most important indicator, you know, were you able to move into housing?

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

And while we have to continue to make sure to advocate for affordable housing by taxing big business, and we are constantly stressing that tiny house villages are not a substitute for affordable housing, for actual housing, we do believe that they have proven to be an effective and successful and humane you know, mechanism to help homeless people, first of all, not be on the streets, not face violence and the elements, and find a path towards housing in a way that no other program has succeeded to do.

We also, in addition to fighting for funding for tiny house villages, for social housing by taxing big business, we also need rent control so people have real options to maintain housing stability.

A lot of people, when you talk to them, why did you become homeless, like what was the starting point or one of the one of the many, you know, one of the combination of starting points why you became homeless, it often has to do with the fact that your rent became unsustainable.

And so we cannot be advocates for tiny house villages without also being advocates for expanding progressive revenues by taxing big business to fund social housing and also advocating for rent control.

And in this context, I wanted to share that we're very happy to report that the 43rd Legislative District of the Democratic Party, State Democratic Party, has just unanimously endorsed rent control without loopholes.

Similarly, important development.

Similarly, even before the 43rd, the 32nd Legislative District of the State Democratic Party won, I think, a unanimous resolution and actually some of the grassroots activists in the Democratic Party who advocated for it are right here, Barbara Finney and her partner Brent McFarlane, so everyone should thank them.

These two legislative districts now bring to 25 the number of organizations, community and labor organizations, that have passed resolutions in favor of rent control.

However, while homelessness exists, there is no reason why people should be left on the streets with nowhere to go.

Tiny house villages can be built quickly and inexpensively.

And as long as we have a crisis of homelessness, there should be tiny houses available for everyone who has nowhere better to go.

This is, that's why this is very important and I'm pleased that we are having this hearing.

around the bill that we have put forward which will expand options to build tiny house villages in Seattle.

In particular, passing this bill will allow villages like Georgetown and North Lake to continue to renew their permits as long as it is justified in terms of how well the village is working and that there is a strong community support for it.

Allow as many as 40 villages in Seattle using this type of permit.

remove arbitrary restrictions about locations of villages, and many other small changes to increase the opportunities to build tiny house villages in Seattle.

So this legislation will be important.

However, it will not be enough by itself.

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

And in the People's Budget Movement for 2019, we have put forward legislation to fund, not just site, but fund an additional 20 tiny house villages in Seattle.

Do we agree with that?

And we need to address the human and democratic rights of houseless people when they stay in Seattle's tiny house villages and shelters.

Those issues are important and should be discussed.

And I have no objection to members of the public bringing those points in public hearing.

even though they are not directly part of the legislation, but we would really want strongly, I would strongly encourage you to also talk about why you support the legislation that will expand the ability to site tiny house villages throughout the city, and why you support extra funds in the budget in order to fund the expansion of tiny house villages, because your testimonials are going to reach council members.

Even if they're not here, your testimonials are extremely important because that is the for us to build this coalition of voices.

So please make sure you advocate for, say what you think about the bill and the funding for expanding tiny house villages.

Before we begin the public hearing, I'd like to mention the next steps for the legislation.

After today's hearing, this legislation counts as land use legislation, which has meant that the city was required to complete an environmental analysis called SEPA.

And SEPA has its own legal requirements, including an appeal process that needs to be completed before the council can vote on the legislation.

The SEPA analysis was appealed to by Elizabeth Campbell, who also held up the Fort Lawton Affordable Housing Project.

So that appeal has gone to the hearing examiner for a hearing schedule for December.

However, the city attorneys have filed for summary judgment, and if they are successful, we could, in the best case scenario, I don't know if this will come to fruition, but in the best case scenario, we could be able to vote on this as early as in November.

If the city attorneys are not successful in that effort, then we will still be able to vote on this legislation, but it will be delayed until the hearing examiner approves the SEPA analysis by the city, done through the hard work of council central staff, whom we are grateful to.

But realistically, if it goes towards this step, that would not happen until early next year.

My office will continue to keep the public informed about the progress of that SEPA appeal.

And when the legislation becomes available for a council vote, we will, of course, inform all members of the public.

We will now begin the public hearing.

This public hearing is part of the legally required procedures for land use legislation like this, like this one.

Everyone who wants to speak shall have two minutes.

Please don't go over time so that we can make sure we get out of here in a timely manner and because I know everybody has.

other things to get to in their personal lives.

Ted will call names, and when you hear, sorry, I'm going to call names, actually, and when you hear your name, please line up behind the microphone so we do not waste time between speakers waiting for people to get in and out of their seats.

And before I call out several names at once, Ted, will you read the legislation into the record?

Council Bill 119656, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning, providing that transitional encampments for homeless individuals are allowed on any property owned or controlled by a religious organization without approval of a permit under the Seattle Land Use Code to permit transitional encampments for homeless individuals as an interim use on all publicly owned or private property within the city of Seattle.

and providing for renewal of temporary use permits for transitional encampments as a type 1 decision of the director of the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, amending sections 23.40.002, 23.42.054, 23.42.056, 23.76.004, 23.76.006, 23.76.032, and 23.84a.038.

It does really sound like an auctioneer.

Amending ordinance 124747.

Thank you for that, Ted.

I just, before I call out the names, I wanted to read one thing that I thought was very striking.

You know, I've been through five budget processes, you know, not including this year.

And every year, the city council goes through the same discussion of, oh, do we have enough data?

There's ambiguity.

Are the sweeps working or not?

Maybe they're working, maybe they're not.

No, we know sweeps don't work.

And one of the, this is not statistical evidence, but this is strong anecdotal evidence, which is that, This is something that I've brought up every year after year, which is that there, I have not, I mean, I have talked to so many homeless community members and advocates.

Not once has anybody said, I was homeless and being swept, you know, being part of a homeless sweep helped me to get into permanent housing.

That being part of SWEEP increased my morale, helped me gain my dignity.

And I'm not being facetious.

The reason I'm saying this is contrast zero instances of homeless people saying that a SWEEP helped me to countless instances where people have said this or that program helped them.

There are many, many, many useful programs that have helped people because it's not a one size fits all.

People have different needs.

And the same thing applies to tiny house villages.

The number of people we've heard from about how this has really been a lifeline for them is just tremendous.

The number of people is tremendous.

I just want to read one such email.

from a resident, Deborah Foster, who says, tiny house villages saved my life.

And she's talking about, yeah, yes, a tiny house village managed by Share.

And we know similar great work is being done by Nicholsville, by Lehigh, by many advocacy groups.

And she says, not only do they manage the village, but they're also responsive to the neighborhood surrounding a village.

They interacted with various resources in the local area to give us one community meal a day from a church, clubs, and agencies.

We had the medical mobile van come every week.

There were pest control checks every month.

and toilet services once a week.

If not for their help with temporary housing and resources, I would have been lost very possibly in relapse with no resources.

The tiny house village I was in taught us responsibility according to our skill level and taught us how important community really is and how important it is to give back to our community.

I will always be grateful to share wheel and Lehigh for making me the community member I am in society today.

No doubt we will hear similar moving testimony tonight.

We have Queen Bee King Rios, Anitra Freeman, Alex Finnan, David Haynes, and Sean Smith.

If you can all line up in order.

I will keep repeating the names, but we don't want to waste time and people coming up.

Go ahead.

Each of you has two minutes.

Good evening, Council Member Sawant.

Thank you for this meeting, and thank you for being present in the chambers.

My name is Queen Bee King Rios.

I'm a member of Will.

I am a leader of women and black.

And for those of you who don't know who women and black is, we stand silent vigil for every single homeless person that dies outside or by violence in King County.

As of yesterday, we stood for nine more people, bringing this year's total to 93 that we stood for in 2019. As of October 11th of 2018, we had already stood for 100. The numbers are going up.

I can't even say how important it is that we have encampments, how important it is for tiny house villages, and how important it is that we need people grassroots community pioneers like Cher and Will and Nicholsville to be given real power to run these communities.

They've been doing it for so long and they deserve to have the power to continue to do it.

I'm a former Cher, thank God for them, participant.

Self-management means a lot.

People should want to see things change in this city.

And if you are the council members don't change it, how can us as a people not want to see a change?

It is so important to me especially because my heart is broken every time I stand a vigil.

It breaks my heart and I want to see change and share and Will and Nicholsville need to have the power.

Thank you, God bless you and happy birthday.

Thank you.

Hey, happy birthday.

Thank you.

My name is Neetra Freeman.

I'm with Share and Wheel and Women in Black.

I am glad to see your proposal, Shama, for $12 million to expand the tiny house villages, 20 new villages, and thank you, Shama, for everything that you do.

Chair and Wheel and Nicholsville are the pioneers in self-managed encampments and in tiny house villages.

No agency would be eager to set up a new tiny house village today if Nicholsville hadn't proven the model successful.

No agency would be eager to claim an encampment if share and wheel hadn't proven the model successful.

Self-managed encampments and tiny house villages have a great track record of increasing community, both within the community and between homeless and housed people.

It is vitally important that the power be given to the people who are doing the work and the people who have the record of doing great work.

Increasing the number of tiny house villages is going to decrease the number of deaths.

Like Queen Bee said, we already have way too damn many.

Please, make there be less deaths next year.

Make there be more shelter.

Thank you.

I'm not sure I can follow up with their completely moving speeches.

My friends in WHEEL and Women of Black do really great work.

My name is Alex Finch.

I apologize for my terrible handwriting, but I am one of the three democratically elected leaders at Nicholsville-Northlake.

Myself, along with my other residents of Northlake, support this green sheet and support this new proposed legislation.

Like they said, with 93 outdoor or violent deaths in the homelessness community, I believe this is morally and ethically the right thing to do.

Not only will it save lives, but it will also help the mayor follow through on her promise of opening 1,000 new tiny house villages.

Tiny houses, excuse me.

I really hoped that the full council would be here today so they could hear what we all have to say.

And I really do hope that after this, they will sign on.

Not just because it saves my shelter, but because without shelter, people do die.

Thank you.

Next is David Haynes, then Sean Smith.

After Sean, it's James Walker and John Trevino.

I'm sorry if I'm saying it wrong.

City Council, people of Seattle, here we are 20 years into the new millennium, and the same 20th century nonprofits are still in charge getting rich.

Sharon Lee of Lehigh Low Income Housing Institute cannot offer honest, forthright, diligent efforts to provide shower and laundry at the urban rest stop.

Why on earth is city council allowing a sub-human mistreating non-profit siphon off so much money she short changes the first world needs and has extra tax dollars to buy off politicians and lobbyists?

We need a federal injunction of Sharon Lee donations to counsel and activist brokering deals that steal from the needs of the poor.

Sharon Lee hires case managers to help homeless find money to pay her rent.

Yet everything Sharon Lee owns was paid by taxpayers ripped off like the homeless.

She uses the shack villages to manipulate the data, sending people from one of her shacks to another one of her rundown, so-called permanent housings, while discriminating against Cher and Nicholsville in competition to data manipulate for more contract money.

Why does Sharon Lee get to charge taxpayers for a village that all was donated and volunteer built?

It's obvious city council sold out the integrity, oversight of homeless industrial complex, and a trade of financing re-election support at expense of taxpayers and subhuman mistreatment of the homeless.

Sharon Lee is on record as saying that she was abused by her stepfather who withheld first world family expenses and denied them nutritional food and oppressed her mom and family.

If you investigate the services she fails to provide such as shower and laundry using racist, lazy, dishonest, rights violating employees and the modern third world slum she is siphoning off of, will prove she is a scorned criminal oppressing the innocent poor and ripping off the taxpayers and justifying an investigation of the entire homeless industrial complex starting with Sharon Lee, low-income housing, Seattle housing and Plymouth housing.

Sean Smith, James Walker, John Trevino, Lindy Knighton.

Thank you Councilor Swann.

It's a shame that the rest.

No, I'm Sean Smith.

And I'm ahead of you.

He just read my name.

It is a shame that the rest of the council is not here.

For we all know that the tiny house villages are an immense success.

It is a shame that they sit in the background and wait for the existing ordinance to sunset and go away.

If they truly believed in the model, they would have signed on by now.

I hope that in the next few days, we have at least the two other signatures that are required to move this ordinance forward.

I don't know what else to say other than People's lives are at stake.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm James Walker.

Thank you very much for doing this and being here, and I know there's a lot to listen to, and I appreciate that, really.

I'm James Walker.

I'm 17 months sober.

I live in the Georgetown tiny house village.

Thank you.

And that Georgetown tiny house village is my cliffside Malibu.

It's the place where I get to work on my sobriety.

I have clean, stable living.

I'm reintroduced to a social situation.

And after six years of trying, it looks like I may get my album done, too.

Sell my music.

But this isn't just about me.

There are people that just need this so much more than me.

I'm going to give one example, change the name.

I'm going to call him Wayne.

He's a deaf and developmentally disabled guy.

He's 28 years old.

He's deaf and he's operating at about the level of a seven-year-old.

And I wish everyone that could hear this could think, what would you do on the streets if you had, as your seven-year-old self, how would you get around?

How would you get a tent?

We were able to get him out of a sexually abusive situation with an abusive partner and get him into a stable place to live.

Secondarily, two more folks, I'm gonna call them Joan and Ken, they got off heroin at Georgetown because they had a stable place that they could be and they're now going to treatment on a weekly basis.

So I just wanted to say, Seattle isn't dying by any means.

It does have people falling through the cracks.

And there's just a lot of people who are not able to make that nine to five job and a thousand dollars rent.

And that's why we need tiny house villages.

And the village is a solution.

You don't have to build high rises.

You don't have to Buy high-rises, you don't have to buy anything new.

You don't have to staff them in maintenance.

We're self-contained units.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So this is John, and then Lindy, and then Rebecca Finkus, and Anthony Lopez.

Hello, my name is John Trevino from Nicholsville, Northlake.

And a poet said, happy families are all alike.

Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

And I think it's kind of true of how people come to homelessness.

We all drift in there, you know, medical debts or addiction or mental illness or all these different things.

me I was living with my younger brother he was giving me a good deal on rent and I had a part-time job he married he married a woman and she was really shy and I was really timid and I I just felt kind of awkward so I like moved into the woods and well I tried to go to a shelter and got bit by bedbugs.

So I started sleeping in ditches and I set up a camp in this ravine.

And I sort of liked it sometimes.

But eventually, it was really hard to talk to people, even in the grocery store line.

And I found Tent City and Nicholsville.

And it's helped me knit back with people.

Anyways, my dreams are beyond being homeless now.

I have dreams that are beyond that.

And I think a monopoly doesn't allow us best to deal with each kind of person who gets into this situation in a different way.

I don't know.

That's my thought.

So thank you for bringing forward this legislation and stuff.

Thank you.

Lindy, you're next, and then Rebecca, then Anthony Lopez, and then Josh Castle.

Hi, I'm Linda Knighton.

I happen to be the state chair of the Progressive Party, and I want to let you know that I personally will endorse this bill for you so that you can use the name whatever good it will do.

Meanwhile, I want to say that the solution to people being homeless starts with housing.

It's so obvious.

And the solution to outrageous rents is housing people can afford.

Sometimes the American dream of homeownership needs to be scaled down.

We need tiny house villages, not only for those now homeless, but for seniors who can no longer afford full-size houses.

And keep in mind, my favorite group to watch out for people with dementia who really need all the care and guidance and help they can possibly get.

People can no longer afford the full size houses, lack of land to build on forces us to seek out smaller scale solutions like tiny house villages surrounding a green space and connected to the rest of Seattle by plentiful bus routes.

Villages where the people run their village, as in the old town hall tradition.

Make more tiny house villages and make room for tiny house villages in our city code, which is one of the big problems.

Everyone deserves a safe place of their own to live in.

And thank you for your work on this and happy birthday.

Hello, I am Becca Finkus.

I work for Lehigh with the Tiny House Program.

And I'm really grateful to the many village residents in attendance tonight for their willingness to be vulnerable and open about their experiences.

And so with that in mind, it's not my place to speak on their behalf of the clients and the many hardships that they faced.

But I do want to speak for a group that's often left out of these discussions.

The tiny house villages currently offer safe and dignified shelter for 26 children experiencing homelessness and 71 total over the past year.

I like to spend a lot of my time at Othello Village.

The kids there ride around on their bikes and they love playing hide and seek and they're the goofiest and sweetest little humans that I've ever had the just It's a pleasure of ever knowing.

The villages offer a safe place for them to take a shower before school, the security of a full night's rest so that they can do their homework, and the stability to think about what they want to be when they grow up.

I urge council to support this ordinance and funding for increased villages in the 2020 budget.

And please feel free to reach out if you have any interest in visiting one of the villages and meeting one of our future astronauts, teachers, police officers, and hopefully presidents someday.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Anthony Lopez.

I'm a current resident at Tiny Cabin Safe Harbor, also known as T5.

This evening, I would like to share a bit of my testimony.

Could you be a little bit closer to the microphone?

Sorry.

This evening, I would like to share a bit of my testimony journey, if you will, at Interbay.

I arrived at the village 11 months ago, broken and lost, with nowhere else to go with my cat.

The village accepted me with open arms, and I've been thriving off and on ever since.

Exactly two months ago marks the one-year anniversary of my sexual assault, which is the reason why I became homeless.

Following that day, I fell into despair and lost all hope.

I started to abuse my prescription medications.

I was headed down a dark road.

During this time, my fellow tiny cabin peers and case managers noticed a change in me, and as I acted out, they reached in.

They came in and coached me with respect and love, especially one of the case managers at the village, Kyle Menzingo.

He took me under his wing and he showed me the light and showed me the way.

I know that sounds corny, but that's how I felt and how I feel.

I am 34 days now clean and sober from the prescription medication.

Thank you.

I've been offered a job with Lehigh.

I've been offered schooling with Fair Start.

And I start culinary school this Monday.

What I'm trying to say is that tiny house villages really do work.

And because of the tiny villages run by Lehigh and Sharon Lee, basically, they have saved my life.

Thank you.

Josh, before you go, next we have, after Josh, we have Elliot Holt.

Then Cassandra Gaspard, Laura Dundas, Jack Imus, and Carlo Grecchi, I think.

Hi.

I'm Josh Castle, and I work for Lehigh.

196 people died living on the streets last year.

Nobody should have to die due to lack of shelter in one of the richest cities in the world.

We are grateful to you and your colleagues for the funding, even though many of them are not here today, for the funding and support of eight tiny house villages in Seattle, which has saved and greatly improved thousands of lives in the course of the three-and-a-half-year-old program.

We are grateful especially to you, Councilmember Sawant, for your leadership and sponsoring of the Tiny House Village Ordinance.

We urge passage of this as soon as possible to expand the number of villages and eliminate the two-year limit.

There is a reason why 43 faith leaders have signed a letter urging the passage of this ordinance.

Residents of most of the villages are here today to share their stories and how the village has been helpful for them.

I think we're all in agreement that we need more tiny house villages.

We're all collectively in agreement on that.

As you know, tiny house villages are the preferred shelter for people being referred to them.

These villages provide shelter, safety, and community to close to 1,000 people per year.

These are not a permanent solution, but a critical stepping stone from homelessness to housing.

People and families who live in the villages often come from chronic homelessness.

They've experienced trauma, violence, and exposure to the cold and rain.

Many lack an ID and any way to prove who they are or have a warrant on the record because they missed a court date, often as a result of simply having no address.

Many are physically disabled, struggling with an addiction, or have a mental health condition.

It is very hard to go directly from these serious challenges and obstacles into housing, especially when that housing doesn't exist.

Every village has case management and several of these social workers or behavioral health specialists.

They work with residents to obtain housing, employment, health care, education, child care treatment, and many other services.

They uncover every stone they can to find permanent housing, and even with the severe lack of housing, they are very successful in doing so.

The villages have very successful, very high rates of access to permanent housing than other shelter programs, and our case managers have transitioned over 500. into permanent housing.

Please pass this ordinance for this very successful program to help get many more people and families from homelessness into long-term permanent housing.

Thank you and happy birthday.

Hello everyone, my name is Elliot Holt.

I live in the True Hope tiny house village here in Seattle run by Lehigh.

I live in a tiny house with a giant Hello Kitty painted on the front of it.

I wanted to urge my support for this measure.

My tiny house for me and everyone in my village, I know the True Hope has really helped them out a great deal and we're like a community there.

And Lehigh has done so much for the homeless community of Seattle.

And I would just want to urge people past this measure to continue to support homelessness in tiny houses in Seattle.

Hi there, my name's Cassandra Gaspard, and I'm currently a resident at Camp Second Chance, and have been since April of this year when I found myself with an eviction.

I am in support of the expansion of the tiny house villages for A, for the simple reason that it's a scary place to be as a woman out on the street, and this time of year is very, very cold and wet.

Like these women here, I think to myself, it's not us against them.

If we, as all the support for homelessness in general, could come together, what a powerhouse we could really be in this city.

So I want to thank you, Council Member, for not only spending your birthday here with us, but for all the work that you do all year long, every day.

Thank you very much.

I really appreciate everything.

Thank you.

And I want you to know I would, I wouldn't be wanting to do anything else on my birthday.

I'm happy to be here with you all.

Yeah, there is a Laura.

Do you have a Laura Dundas here?

Did you?

Okay.

Okay, let me know if later you want to speak.

We have, are you Jack?

Do we have Jack Imus?

No?

Are you Carlo?

Okay, Carlo, go ahead.

And after Carlo, there'll be Naomi C., Brid Fleming, and Reverend Jeffrey, and then Kyle Malone.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

You can pull it up.

You can pull the microphone up.

Thank You councilwoman for SWAT for showing up and do appreciate that.

I live in the interbay tiny cabin village in between Queen Anne and Magnolia and with partnership with the Port of Seattle who quite frankly their involvement puts this council to shame with present company excluded.

I would encourage the council to look up the October 8th meeting to see how something like this should be run.

There's a hundred stories like Antonio's.

I have a similar story.

But that's not the way I like to frame it.

Sorry, I'm shaking.

I like to say what we do for the community.

Kids like Becca are learning civic involvement.

We have kids that help build the cabins, help volunteer, community gets involved.

A lot of us have jobs.

We contribute to the economy.

Get people out of the tents.

60 tents are off the street because of that cabin.

You know, when I get on the bus, I don't stink because we've got full shower services and laundry.

This is, you know, these cabins serve the community, not just us.

There's a lot of things that the Q community gets out on.

Court systems get unclogged because if you're on the streets, you're going to meet a cop.

Just that simple.

Everything you do when you're on the street is illegal.

loitering, vagrancy, having to use the restroom.

Business owners don't want people in there.

We have sharps boxes for people that have addictions.

We take care of that.

They steer people towards help, our case managers.

People who have addictions lean on each other to get through it.

Mental illness, same thing.

Whatever the cost of the village is, is way cheaper than having the system running on its own.

And that's what we do for the community.

And that needs to be sold more, I think.

Thank you for fighting the good fight.

Happy birthday.

First, Ms. Sawant, thank you for being here tonight.

My name is Naomi See, and I'm currently an undergraduate student at the University of Washington and a volunteer at the Low Income Housing Institute.

I feel grateful to have the opportunity today to share my experience over the last months with the Tiny House Village communities.

As a student, I've learned more in these past couple months about compassion, kindness, and community than anywhere else.

Beyond the village's unique success in housing and supporting individuals, the tiny house villages have this incredible ability to facilitate the creation of community on a large scale.

In just a short time, I've had the privilege of witnessing how tiny houses have brought together businesses, religious institutions, schools, governments, and citizens under one shared mission, to care for our fellow neighbors.

There is so much more to each village than the physical structure.

Behind every nailed piece of wood, there is a dedicated volunteer, a passionate donor, and a committed organizer.

Behind every running village, there is a tireless group of CAC members who represent generous and caring communities that surround them.

And behind every positive outcome, there is a gifted human being.

lifted up, and empowered by the community of their fellow residents.

Thank you for being here.

This matters.

And then after Brett, Reverend Jeffrey, then Kyle Malone, and then yes, country with a K.

Hello, my name is Britt Fleming.

Hello, my name is Britt Fleming.

Thank you, miss, for being here, council member.

I understand it's your birthday.

I hope it's the best ever.

I came into homelessness by a way of, it's like everybody else, but in being homeless, along the way, I learned a lot of things about compassion and, humility, pride, suffering, pain, drug abuse.

I did things, I learned to do things my own way, my own rules, set my own rules, spiraling further and further, out of control, further and further, into despair and depression, ending up in...

drug treatment centers, detox centers, ambulances.

By the grace of God, I started climbing back out of there, and along the way, I started finding places like The Mission, which, that's where I learned about humility, The Mission.

And I also learned about other things, you know, it's like, what kind of help there was out there for me.

And then after a few years into it, I ran into a place called Tent City 3, where I became an EC member and a member of that community, but I also saw problems there.

People are speaking here today on the power of being with Nicholsville or this, being with this.

I don't understand any of that.

I only understand that until I found Second Chance Tiny House Village, I didn't think that there was any hope.

I really thought I was going to spin into another winter that I didn't know I was going to live through or not, again.

I was scared to death of the winter coming in 2019 and 2020 until I found the tiny village.

There I found respect.

I've learned community, how to re-step back into society following in the rules.

I've learned that rules are put into place so we can live together as a community, caring for each other, and volunteering and helping our neighbor out.

It's a beautiful thing, these tiny villages.

I hope they continue to grow.

Councilwoman Sawant, I first of all want to say that I am just Privileged to be here tonight and When I heard somebody say happy birthday, I thought it was a joke.

I didn't know that this was actually your birthday This is actually your birthday, yes That's Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday Shama, happy birthday to you.

Please don't embarrass me.

I don't have much else to say.

I just want to say that this is an amazing, amazing example of public service.

And if other public servants had that attitude, that need comes before us, that to serve the community means to meet human needs that are acute.

Homelessness is acute.

The weather is changing.

Mothers and daughters and sons are sleeping in their cars.

I have had no experience with any solution to homelessness better than the tiny homes.

My experience with that has been just, has lifted my spirits.

Everyone that I know that has gone through the tiny house experience has come out on the bright side.

I just want to applaud you and I hope that city council will continue to do what they need to do to protect our children, our vulnerable women, men who can't make it any in this, who have problems and who have been fallen through the cracks, that they will do what they should do as a decent and humane group to support this cause.

Thank you for your service.

So we have Kyle, then Country, then James Brumbaug, and Keryl Lusinian.

Hi, my name's Kyle Malone.

I was homeless before I moved to Camp Second Chance.

I suffer from a seizure disorder and some...

Can you go closer so we can hear you better?

Sure, I'm sorry.

I suffer from a seizure disorder and some mental illness.

Aside from that, I'm a pretty great guy.

Camp Second Chance has allowed me to have food, shelter, this very clothing that I'm wearing.

I wasn't even aware that this meeting was happening until they let me know and made me show up.

The most important thing about Camp Second Chance is it's really its own little community.

I don't feel homeless.

Without it, I would be on the streets battling my seizures, battling my mental illness, and it's terribly dangerous.

So I get case management.

I am on my way to get permanent housing, disability, And there's hope for me again.

Without that, I could very well be one of your statistics.

Whether it be a violent death or just having a seizure in the cold, it's very possible.

So thank you for your time.

After Country is James, James Brumbaugh.

Please come, yeah, please come in the front.

And then Carrie and then Peggy Hodes.

Good evening, Councilwoman.

My name is Country.

I am here on behalf of ShareWill and Tent City 3. I am, would like to thank you above and beyond for your above and beyond call of duty that you have been obedient to and you have totally just rocked it.

It's awesome.

I came to Seattle for the first time in 2015 to join my father, Duncan Stansel, who has been part of the ShareWheel community for 13 years to help him through some tough times and some bad health.

And he took me to Tent City 3, which provided me with a safe place to stay while I could help him with him and his healing and what he was going through in life.

I was so taken by the sense of community at Tent City 3 and that ShareWheel provides with all of their shelters.

They provided me with a safe place to stay.

There was a lot of support.

There was a lot of guidance.

There was a lot of wisdom.

There was genuine TLC for the individuals that came into camp.

They showed all of us and these newfound surroundings, they showed us so much grace.

They did show us humility.

They taught us how to be humble, in fact.

They told us to appreciate what we had, that we're not entitled to anything.

I chose to come back just so that I could be a voice for Tent City 3. I'm here today to thank you very much for your grant sheet proposal to expand the tiny house villages in Seattle.

Sheer Will's ability to provide a self-managed community structure has been observed worldwide and modeled from for decades.

This is an expensive place to live anymore, not just Seattle, but everywhere.

The opportunity to have a safe environment while trying to rebuild their lives is great.

We look forward to the opportunity to open new villages where we can provide this great model for safe shelter again.

This time, if allowed to operate the camps with autonomy, we will give it our best to ensure those we shelter to be safe and free of conflict between involved organizations.

Thank you so very much for everything.

Good evening.

My name is James Brumbaugh.

I'm formerly a, was with SHARE within City 3 and prior to that with their indoor shelter system for a total of a year and a half.

I think I'm going to have to refer to their notes.

Cher has provided, well, I have several friends here today who are here in the tiny villages now.

Several people I know.

I saw one actually working.

They've gotten employment, housing.

and got out of their situations.

I saw one person, one acquaintance, putting up Christmas lights over on the soon-to-be-dead Macy's building.

So this system works.

I'm doing badly.

OK.

The shelter system, especially with tiny houses, it gives a place of community, stability, privacy, security, and dignity.

And you need stability and community to basically stay balanced and be able to progress forward.

If you have stability, and you know where your next meal is coming from, and you know where you're going to be sleeping that night, you can direct your attention to other items, which you may need.

So my friend, he is who?

has electricity, which we did not have.

This provides power for phones and computers where you can do job search, find housing and medical help, and remain in contact with your friends and family.

So just having a door to lock and a place to keep your stuff and knowing it's going to be there provides a great deal of security for people to help them move on.

Tiny houses are temporary, but it's a process.

And we do need more of this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Carrie, and then Peggy, then we have Harold, and then Imogene, and then Barbara Finney.

Hi, my name is Carrie Desinion.

I don't know where the other council members are, but personally, I can't support anyone, I can't vote for anyone who does not support this.

And I guess those people are the ones that I'm chiefly speaking to.

I live in West Seattle.

Since I moved there, the rents, I think, have tripled.

I've also been working outside since January of 2018, so I see homeless people on the street daily, and it is really heartbreaking.

I did the tiny house tour as part of the Green Homes Expo in 2018, and I was very impressed.

And I see a really disturbing trend in online neighborhood groups of really vitriolic blaming of people who are homeless.

And I guess it's understandable if one is feeling that, oh, I can't even support my own family.

Why should my tech to support other people?

But this can happen to anyone for so many reasons.

I think many people here have spoken about reasons they became homeless.

I'll also say this just happened to someone I know who is working because they simply could not find affordable rent in time.

I've got a relative in another state who is building their own tiny house because they're a cancer survivor.

And I understand that there can be problems with tiny house villages and communities and neighborhoods, but this is true of any place that you have people living.

So it's true where you have renters.

It's true with, it's definitely true with homeowners associations.

And so we need to address these problems because the problem of dying on the street is a much worse problem.

So I understand that the permanent solution is very complicated, but that means we need safe, humane, temporary solutions, which this is.

I do not want to see any more stories of someone in my city dying on the streets.

We know that people are dying.

We know that we don't have the permanent solutions yet.

We know that this is a temporary solution that works.

So what more information do we need?

Thank you.

Good evening, Councilperson Sawant.

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

Thank you, Councilmember Sawant, for drafting a new encampment ordinance.

Thank you for proposing 2020 budget changes that would keep Nicholsville-Northlake Tiny House Village open.

Thank you for supporting a new site for occupied Othello residents who don't want to live in the top-down, low-barrier encampment Lehigh created there.

Nicholsville supports the entire people's budget, including rent control and its many crucial elements to alleviate human suffering and spark systemic change.

The draft tiny house village ordinance is an opportunity to improve tiny house villages and add needed protections for residents.

Here are examples of what Nicholsville has learned are badly needed.

Number one, a resident right to privacy and assembly.

At occupied Othello tiny house village, Lehigh has installed seven surveillance cameras aimed at the residents without consent.

There have been multiple incidents over the last five years where Lehigh case managers shared residents' private information, often with other residents.

The Human Services Department recently wrote that Lehigh has no obligation to allow residents to have meetings with people from outside the village.

They don't believe in freedom of assembly, apparently.

Number two, a legitimate grievance process.

Lehigh's sitting on grievances filed months ago in accord with their published processes.

which promised resolution in 10 days.

The ultimate arbiter of all Lehigh grievances is one person, a mid-level manager ensconced in a downtown office beyond whom there's no appeal.

There is no real grievance process for HSD at all.

Number three, a definition of self-management and democracy.

Calling a system where paid on-site managers can override democratically voted village decisions is Orwellian.

Number four, no more monopolies.

granting one large corporation exclusive rights to operate tiny house villages hurts homeless people.

It stops us from seeing what really works best, and it makes no financial sense.

Thank you.

Do we have Harold here?

Harold, you go after Imogene.

So Imogene, Harold, and Barbara, and then Cinda Stenger.

Go ahead, Emojie.

In the old days, I know a lot about the old days.

We had the Committee to End Homelessness.

That was 10 years.

It could be 12. It could be 14 years ago, the Committee to End Homelessness.

They were smart.

They were caring.

But everything didn't work.

Homelessness, there were thousands more homelessness, thousands more homeless people every year.

Nothing worked.

Now we have something that works.

It's been really wonderful and exciting tonight to listen to people say that the tiny house village makes a difference.

It works.

It gives people, it gives homeless people the power to get their lives back.

It's been exciting to hear that, hasn't it?

City Council has got to approve the ordinance.

Ninety-four people have already died and winter is coming.

I hope City Council will want to approve the ordinance and build more tiny house villages.

Thank you.

Good evening, Councilwoman.

I have some evidence.

Two reports came out this week.

One from the California Project Lab, and it demonstrates what homeless people go through on the street.

Trauma, death, and our health, it skyrockets.

You know, I had two, my big left toe and right toe amputated, and I went to Georgetown-Nicholsville, where I found showers, great place to recover, and I'm an exception to the rule, so I'm not gonna say what's good and what's not, but I took a hold of those things that they had there, and I grabbed onto them.

They saved my life.

Whatever was there, let's get at more of them.

We need more tiny house villages, and we live in a democracy.

Whatever one person does doesn't mean the other person has to do it.

One person, one vote, you know?

If it gets homeless people off the street, into some housing, do we really care if that person did it this way or the other person did it that way?

You know, grow up.

We need people off the street because people are dying.

My dog, my best friend died there.

But I'll be damned if I had to say I don't want to go there.

And I think everybody has that right without any more trauma to them.

You know, these reports talk about because they didn't have the data, but what homeless people go through.

Even in shelters, we go through so much trauma because there's so much political fighting.

You know, I'm just not for that, but I am for more tiny houses.

And if we can get wraparound services in those tiny houses and demand that from our service providers, and I could say things that are just not appropriate, because that's nitpicking.

What I do want to say, and I do want to impress upon the council, is that we get more tiny houses, so people get off the street, survive, get those medical things they need, get into jobs, get into school, whatever they need to do, but they don't need to be on the street.

And I thank you and happy birthday.

Thank you.

So after Barbara, we have Cinda Stanger, then Mark Worden, then Penny Lane Panik.

Hello.

Council Members Sawant, I want to thank you for having this on your birthday, and I feel very humbled to be here tonight and hear all the voices.

My name is Barbara Finney.

I'm from District 5 in North Seattle.

And I'd like to read a little something from the beautiful letter that was sent to the mayor and city council from 43 faith leaders.

Homelessness is a crisis crying out for a humane, compassionate remedy.

We are excited that Seattle city council member Shama Sawant has brought forward legislation to allow for up to 40 tiny house villages in the city.

Well, the pastor of the church in our Broadview Bitter Lake neighborhood signed on to this letter, Pastor Gary.

And I want to thank Reverend Angela for that, for help with that, not help but facilitating that it's so important in our North Seattle to have tiny house villages.

We don't have any.

So there's an urgent need to extend the immediate solutions to provide our homeless neighbors with dignity and humanity.

Tiny house villages can be that.

As a trained professional nurse now retired, I assess the navigation team's sweeps as being harmful to the health and well-being of the most vulnerable of us and wasteful of city resources.

I'm asking council to please support council members who wants legislation to allow for up to 40 tiny house villages in the city and use the 10 million spent on sweeps instead for tiny house villages.

Good evening, yes.

I'm Cynda Stenger.

I'm a member of Alki United Church of Christ and Sound Foundations Northwest.

We have built over 30 homes at Camp Second Chance.

It has been...

a labor of love and joy, and we've personally seen transformation in lives, both, we like to say, both sides of the ladder, both volunteers and residents of the camp.

It works.

And I have it on first news that these volunteers are ready to get going and build more houses in these tiny house villages.

So we're ready to go, all right?

So that's awesome.

I want to address specifically tonight and a message to the council that the public is very upset with the amount of drug abuse and number of drug users that are in unsanctioned encampments who need help.

This is a public outcry that we hear all the time.

There's an opportunity for synergy with the tiny house villages and tackling this issue.

We know that people choose to go into rehab when they know they will have supportive housing when they come out.

One reason why Camp Second Chance is so successful is it's a self-declared clean and sober camp.

So if you have the opportunity to have more camps that are clean and sober, more people who are finding themselves lost in drug abuse will choose to go into rehab because they know they have supportive housing.

They know they'll have wraparound services when they come out if they can reside in these camps.

sanction encampments.

So as a message to the city and to the council, this is a tremendous opportunity to show that we are helping to tackle that issue.

Thank you and happy birthday.

So we have Mark and then Penny and then Rivi Washington.

Go ahead, Mark.

I'm Mark Worden.

Thank you council members for spearheading this ordinance and this has got to be some heavy lifting.

You're looking around and you don't see any help right now.

I'm a member of Sound Foundations.

We've already built 32 houses.

We're ready to build more.

I've seen the transformation because I've been there for 18 months.

We're the hammer and saw part of foundations and we've been there every weekend for the last 18 months.

So we've seen a lot of transition in people's lives.

And my partner Tamaz likes to say if we come back in six months and we don't recognize a single face, that's success.

Right?

Is Penny Lane Panic here?

Is that you?

Hi, everybody.

Thanks for coming in tonight.

After you, there's Rivi, and then Eliana, and then Susan Clark.

How you doing, Councilmember?

Happy birthday again, and thanks for giving me this opportunity as well.

My name is Penny Lane Panik.

I've been with Nicholsville as well as Lehigh.

Over the last eight and a half years, I've been homeless here in the Seattle area.

I'm a musician.

I came out here to work on my music full-time from Dallas and found myself, you know, in this position.

Kind of scary, I come from both sides of the tracks now, I could say.

And what I've noticed is, is that there seems to be just a bit of a hiccup in the streamline of the process.

It needs to be a little bit more, well I was in there for Lehigh for nine months.

I just got into my new place in Mercer Island just about a week or so ago, thank God.

It has saved my life.

I went in and I was still using quite a bit and after I saw my thing started rolling in the right direction, paperwork that I needed, things I needed to get reassessed with and back in line with my military benefits I'm trying to get back.

As soon as I saw things moving in the right direction, as did other people when they see their things moving in the right direction, the usage tapers way off, way off.

I've seen people that had just arrived and were just, you know, and then definitely within a matter of just a few months of things starting moving forward, their uses started tapering off without them even really realizing it until it's brought to their attention how great they look, seem to be more focused on what needs to be done.

What I do suggest is that there's streamline within the system.

of a range of maybe three to six months, so that also was Section 8, I'm on Section 8, the process with me, the amount wasn't quite up to par with what was the rental amount in the area, minus maybe $50 or so, and trying to get that infraction fixed so that I could get in.

I had my Section 8 in April, and I just got in just now, just finding, and diligently, diligently, me and Lindsey, my caseworker, looking for places left and right and, you know, that needs to be fixed.

The streamlining of the timeframe within the departments within the city, as well as the amount of people that are hired into help with case management, As well, we had a lot of some hand shift changes there that caused delays as well.

But there should be, you know, maybe three to five months, maybe six, and there should be somebody else right behind us.

I also would think that...

Sorry, could you wrap up also?

Ma'am?

Could you start wrapping up?

Oh yes, I did.

I'd like to turn into a long conversation with me, sorry.

Those who know me.

Please feel free to, you know, offline talk to my staff.

Sure, thank you very much.

I appreciate all that you do.

Please continue your efforts, yes.

Thanks.

First of all, thank you and happy birthday.

My name is Revy Washington and I've been in these halls a while ago and I've been gone for a while.

I'm one of the graduates, I'll say, from the love unit.

I was in a tiny house village.

So I've now got myself an apartment.

So first things first, I am going to say they do help.

You know, they are really a provision for people to really straighten up their life if they choose to do it with the assistance of different places.

But just speaking of things, you know, when I first came up here, I was with Stop the Sweeps.

One of the organizers stopped the sweeps.

That was one of the problems that the city had back then.

We've sort of gotten that down.

We just got out of hand.

People didn't think to stop the sweeps would work.

Well, it's working.

Same thing with this.

You know, people are saying, well, this is not going to work.

You know, supportive housing.

Give them that.

Give them this.

Give them that.

but we all have to come together and do something.

It's not just going to be on the city council, but it's going to be on society too.

Everybody's got to put their work in.

But one of the things I did want to say, I do want to stress and really make known is that inside the tiny houses, I was afforded dignity because when I was out on the street, the navigation team, some of the counselors, you know, I'm asking for, you know, give me applications for this to try to help me with this.

Revy, you're not, you know, you're not in need.

You don't need nothing.

You're too this, you're too that, you're too capable of doing this.

So I couldn't get in navigation centers, so I always had the little tent things.

And when they took us off the field, I just will say one thing.

Me and my group, we had tried to open up exactly where Lehigh has now set up the love unit.

That was one of the places we had wanted to go there.

And they've taken out some of the advice that some of the people have, because back in the day, we tried to get 50 units put out right there, because I was in second chance too.

I left there.

but it's a good thing that they're open.

There are some troubles and some problems within the whole system.

Everybody is not going to be perfect.

It's not going to be one fix-all for everybody.

There are a whole bunch of different things, and nobody's perfect on one side, neither is the council.

But I just want to say that I support y'all, and I'm just letting you know, putting it out here, and let it go around.

I'm just about to put my hat back in the ring, and I've got a couple ideas that I want to bring up and talk to you about for the next new year.

After Eliana, we have Susan Clark, then Pengzi Sui, I think.

I'm sorry if I'm reading it wrong.

And then Jenny Pak.

Hello, my name is Eliana Skatonis.

I'm the chair of the Othello Village Community Advisory Committee, and I've lived for 22 years in the Orthodox Jewish community in Seward Park.

Councilmember Harrell, if you're watching this, I'm one of your constituents.

Councilmembers, 94 of our homeless neighbors have died this year, outside or by violence.

When I stood here before you all during the Housing for All 2017 budget campaign, it had been 64 people, which is a heartbreaking, record-breaking number then.

We said then that without bold action to address both the long- and short-term needs, more people would die.

Despite good intentions, those bold actions have not been taken, and our vulnerable neighbors continue to suffer.

Two phrases which come up frequently in testimony here are, without shelter, people die, and we need to be investing on the scale of the crisis.

And both of those apply to this ordinance.

Shelters and tiny houses don't do anything to address the underlying issues causing our homeless crisis, but they save lives, both literally and figuratively.

And of the transitional programs available, I keep saying this, tiny house villages have been proven to be our most effective harm reduction strategy for addressing this crisis.

Expanding the program as boldly and quickly as possible is an obvious need, and I urge all of you who I hope are watching from home or on the recording later to work to make this happen.

However, as I've mentioned here before, As we pioneer cutting-edge solutions, we must continually learn from our experiences and adjust our programs to ensure they are being as effective as possible and remain rooted in our values.

Currently, this program has fallen short of being truly person-centered in how it's developed and administered.

It fails to provide adequate protections for participants or to center the voices of those most impacted, and the metrics being used to measure success have unintended harmful impacts.

We've also slipped unintentionally into having a single service provider, which leaves the program very vulnerable, leaving it to the capacity of that particular provider, and leaves a limit in the range of solutions that can be offered.

It is essential the legislation be amended to include at least a commitment to addressing these issues.

The rights of program participants need to be clearly defined.

There must be access to a robust grievance process external to the service provider agency, and there must be processes for ensuring the voices of participants are included at all levels of planning and evaluation.

Please make the necessary amendments, pass this expansion, and then get on to the work of addressing the affordable housing crisis.

Thank you.

And I want to thank you, Councilmember Sawant, for being the kind of person who just keeps showing up for communities and centering the voices of people most impacted.

From when I stood here and implored the Council to come join me in protesting the sweep at the Field of Dreams, you have consistently been the Councilmember who shows up when community calls on you.

and that you dedicate the start of your next year of life to building change.

Thank you.

We have Susan Clark, then Pengzi, Jenny, and then Calvin Jones.

Hi, I moved into the South Lake Union Tiny House Village back in July.

Since then, I have started my own business.

I've started to get the documents to get my ID so that I can get into housing and things like that.

Without being in that tiny home village, I wouldn't have gotten anywhere.

I would just be still sitting in my tent doing nothing, like I did for the last two and a half years.

Knowing that I'm safe at night, knowing that I have a place to go, knowing that the cops aren't going to show up and just take everything I have, was such a huge relief.

It's just crazy.

It's just, it gives you such a peace of mind that you can't, unless you experience, you just don't really understand it, but it's just, it meant a lot to me.

We need more of these villages in this city.

I've seen so many people just die.

I've had three friends of mine, three close people in the two years that I've been here die out here on these streets for no reason, no reason at all.

It just, it needs to stop.

We need help.

Thank you.

Pengzi here.

Jenny, Jenny Pack.

Calvin Jones.

I think you're next because, yeah, the other two people aren't here, I don't think.

Hi, my name is Calvin Jones.

I'm a renter in District 3. I guess before I came here, I kind of knew I was in support of tiny house villages, and I read a quick article about it, but I just wanted to say that I've been incredibly moved by everyone's testimonies tonight, and wish that the whole city could watch what has been said tonight.

I would love to have a tiny house village in my neighborhood.

I'd love to share a meal with my new neighbors.

I think the richest society to ever exist does have the capacity to provide shelter for everyone who needs it.

And I'd like to thank you for your leadership on this issue, Council Member Swant, and wish you a happy birthday.

Thank you.

I can't read the next names.

Susanna Smoos, is that, does that sound like your name?

Let me go ahead and call the next names.

And if you had written your name and I didn't call you, then you can just join the end.

So the last three names that I've signed up are Kathleen Myers, Mindy Lee, and then Reverend Angela Ying.

I don't think I can do it.

I'm just so moved by what I've heard.

And we need you.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Mindy Lee.

I'm a member of Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action and the Transit Retirement Union.

And I also used to work on a suicide helpline.

And all the words I hear tonight from the people that have recovered are all the words that I heard, the things that give people the reason to go on living.

Hope, community, understanding.

support, help, and why you would not continue with that in these tiny houses makes no sense to me at all.

It's been proven that it works.

We must continue.

And I live near Licton Springs, if I said that correctly, which has since closed down, and I now have people that come into my carport to sleep.

They use my electricity.

They use the washroom.

I have no problem with that.

These people are desperate.

But if they had a place to go, it wouldn't be necessary for them to do these things.

And so you've got to keep those tiny houses going.

It's important.

Thank you.

And if anybody else wants to speak but you didn't sign up or I didn't call your name, feel free to just line up here.

You don't have, I'm not in.

Sure, yeah, you can testify.

You can testify after Reverend Young.

Yes, that's fine.

Don't worry, just speak afterwards.

Good evening, Council Member Shama Sawan.

I'm glad that you're here, and also to the Council Members that are not here tonight.

I hope you're listening.

I am the Reverend Angela Ying.

I'm the Senior Pastor at Bethany United Church of Christ.

I just wanted to share with everyone in the room that you're not alone, that we're in this together, and that, what do we need now?

Tiny house villages.

When do we want it?

Now.

What do we need?

Tiny house villages.

When do we want it?

When do we want it?

Now!

Okay, I'm used to congregation, so this isn't good.

We do have 43 Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, and Christian, and if not Sikh, faith leaders who have signed a letter and sent it to the mayor and to the city council asking for more tiny house villages led by the city council member Shama Sawant.

And so let's hear for it.

10 plus more faith leaders once they find out that they need to be on the list for more tiny house villages.

Because here's the thing, 191 people died and it's unacceptable last year.

And then if you think about it, 5,000, over 5,000 people on the streets every night under bridges, that's also unacceptable.

I live, I believe, and I live by the faith that love your neighbor as yourself.

Well, basically every person on the street is our neighbor.

So it's about time that we find a way in this city that they can be in a house, under shelter, with health care and with rent control, because this is something that we can do in this city.

We found out from the city and from Lehigh that over 500 people have been able to transition from a tiny house village into permanent housing.

When people say they need more data, the key part is we don't need more data.

We need people off the streets.

Because the city is for the people, by the people, among the people.

And we want no one dying in the city, and we don't want anyone on the streets.

So here's the thing.

We need a budget from the city of Seattle that they will pass more tiny house villages, that they will figure out a way for rent control so that we will not have more people people on the streets, we'll have less people on the streets, if not anyone on the streets sleeping tonight, tomorrow, or the day after.

This is important.

This is unconscionable that people are dying in this extremely wealthy city.

We can do this.

We as people around this entire city and King County, the Martin Luther King County, Junior County can do this.

So tonight, thank you.

Council Member Sawant for basically taking back the city and saying, hey, we basically can do this for tiny house villages, for all the people, because if they're in a home with dignity and love and they could bring up their children in a safe place, because a lot of shelters, it's not available for some of our young girls.

It just doesn't work.

So we can make this happen.

And for what?

Each house only $2,700.

Come on, seriously.

How better, what a better way to spend our money.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Tijuana Moore, and I just wanted to, you know, talk a little bit about the tiny homes.

I've been on the streets for seven years, almost, and I lived in Tacoma, and somebody brought me out to Seattle, and honestly, I never thought I was going to get any kind of housing, because Tacoma, they really didn't help me out at all.

You know, I've been on You have to excuse me, because I have a speech impediment.

Anyways, I was on Section 8 for years, and I have to say that you guys changed my life, like you really did.

I struggle with a lot of things, anger and just health issues, and I eat out of garbage cans, I used to.

When you guys brought me in, I didn't think, I didn't know what to think.

And honestly, I'm bothered by my words right now, because I went over my speech over and over.

But I'm thankful for my case managers, the special project manager, just the opportunity that they give us.

I don't know, everything.

Like I said, you have to excuse me, because I really am always wanting to talk out loud and do this.

And I am somebody who wants to work with different homes, different tiny homes.

and do different projects.

They were saying somebody had dementia or whatever.

We can start an organization where we could do an in-home care thing with each other, not where you're certified, but where we just take care of each other.

I don't know.

I'd have to write you or talk to you more off camera, because I'm kind of stage fright a little bit.

You're doing great.

But yeah.

I don't know.

I really appreciate you guys.

And I hope that it does continue to progress.

And I am somebody who would like to work off hands and just do a little community work with the whole organization if I could.

So that's all I got to say.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

We've gotten through everyone else on the list, correct?

Okay.

Hi there.

My name is Zach Lynch, and I'm thankful to my friend Laura Lee who invited me to come here tonight.

We are both from the UW School of Social Work, so I'm a social work student, and I'm also a chemical dependency counselor for youth.

I just wanted to add, because I feel like it gets left out of these types of conversations sometimes, and not to undermine in any way anything that anyone has said, But I have come through the big money I've been paying to the university to read some really powerful books that poverty and scarcity are manufactured.

I, you know, I've done work in my profession to undo the moral constructions that are normal in our society of addiction, and I've been doing the same for poverty.

But, well, I've been hearing so many people talk about fixing situations through the right conditions and hard work.

I just wanted to voice that some of our systems are constructed to produce these results.

And it's not any sort of failure of character or of human being that people can find themselves living on the street.

And especially where we're at in the development of our social and economic progress, that we're seeing what we're seeing.

You can say it's capitalism.

It's okay to say it.

There are a couple other pieces in there too, but that's the big one.

It's the overarching system that generates that.

Yes, yes.

But there are subsystems within that system that are predatory.

Exactly, yes.

Yes, okay.

Thank you.

Also, the speaker who spoke before you, she wasn't signed up, so if you could find her, just for the record, we need her name.

Is anybody else wishing to speak who hasn't signed up before I adjourn the hearing?

Okay, seeing nobody, raise your hands.

Please don't leave yet.

Did you want to speak?

I only hope that you're a voice of change for Seattle, that they keep you on the council.

They don't go back to the status quo of having a business as usual council.

Nothing really gets done.

So I wish you luck with your upcoming reappointment to the council.

I hope you get it.

Please sign up.

Please sign up.

Sorry.

Sorry, we require you to sign.

You've already spoken.

Let's talk offline.

I know some of you, like Rivi, might want to continue the conversation, so please connect with my staff members and we can continue the conversation.

Just a few closing items before you all leave, so please don't leave just this second.

First of all, I wanted to, on behalf of my whole office, thank you all for the testimonials.

very, very powerful, and they have always been powerful, especially those of you who have personally experienced or are experiencing homelessness, and I've shared your personal stories.

It's really, really, it's important for the larger cause, but I also know it's not the easiest thing to do to share your personal stories, especially from the toughest moment in your life, and to share your vulnerabilities.

So please know that every time you do that, you strengthen our collective struggle and our movement, and it's very, very valued every single time you do that.

I also equally wanted to thank Everybody who's been here, not just tonight, but throughout the years when we've been fighting to address the problem of homelessness, the advisory councils, SHARE, Nicholsville, Lehigh, and the students who are working with Lehigh and the young people who are experiencing through their own work how valuable of a service this is.

All of that is, really a big part of why we're doing this.

I appreciate everybody's wishes to me and also the thanks that you have given me in my office, but please know that really the only power that we have through our office is through the collective advocacy.

So every time you thank me, you're thanking yourselves and our collective work.

because without that, we would not be here.

So in terms of concrete next steps, immediately, Tuesday, October 22nd at 4.30, we urge you all to come and participate in the public hearing.

And today also was a public hearing, but it was specifically for tiny house villages.

But on Tuesday, we will have, the city council will have a public hearing on the budget as a whole.

And there will be, it will be, all the council members will be here.

So, I really urge those of you who are advocating for both the ordinance to expand the ability to site tiny house villages throughout the city and advocating for the funds for those tiny house villages to be put in place, please come and advocate for it because, you know, when you talk about funds, that makes it a budget item.

So, we need your voices here on the 22nd.

Please arrive around 430 because that will allow you to sign up earlier.

My staffers have petitions that, you know, that you can take to your community, fellow community members, other residents.

If you're housed, then your neighbors, your coworkers.

I think people are starting to realize that tiny house villages actually work.

As Emojean was saying, you know, now here we have a solution that actually works, why wouldn't we fund it?

So, please, if you can take some copies of the petitions from my staff members and bring them signed on Tuesday or email them to us or, you know, take a photo with your smartphone and send it to us, either way, just make sure we have those petitions as much as possible because that allows us to continue advocacy.

As far as the rest of the council, I'm sure they will be watching this, and I know this will have an impact, and I'm fully confident that we will be able to get this passed.

but not without your continuing advocacy.

So we will need each and every one of you on Tuesday and also going forward in order to be able to win the funds through the budget in November.

And so on Tuesday, 4.30, please come.

And I also wanted to thank Ted Verdone, who read the bill title with such a flourish.

Nick Jones and Jonathan Rosenblum, all of whom are dedicated community organizers and have done a lot of work.

And the faith leaders, thank you so much for saying to the society at large that this is a moral question and that there cannot be a neutral ground here.

We have to fight for our homeless neighbors because it could happen to you.

As Kerry was saying, it could happen to anybody.

That's how bad the crisis is right now.

I don't know of a single person who has not themselves experienced it or know somebody who's experienced it.

And I think at this point we know multiple people in our lives who have experienced it.

So let's begin to address this crisis.

It is not, it's not an act of God.

It can be prevented, but we need to generate the political will.

And you, your testimonials are a huge reason why we will create that political will.

So thank you so much.

I wish you all a good night and I'll adjourn the meeting and I hope to see you on Tuesday.