Sustainability & Renters' Rights Committee 1/23/20

On a schedule.

We'll get in touch with you soon.

Devin and myself is gonna be reaching out to set something up.

So, yeah.

Can I call the room to order?

Can I call the room to order, please?

Adam, can we have the room to order, please?

This is a specially scheduled meeting of the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee of the Seattle City Council.

The time is 6.03 p.m.

on January 23rd, Thursday, January 23rd, 2020. I'm joined by Council Members Morales and Lewis, and I'm Council Member Sawant of the Seattle City Council.

In, so first of all, I have to, if there are no objections, approve the agenda.

No objection.

Thank you.

Hearing no objections, the agenda is approved.

In today's meeting, we will discuss, consider amendments, and vote on the ordinance that my office has produced to ban most winter evictions in our city.

Last November, the City of Seattle Renters Commission recommended that council take up this urgent issue.

They pointed out that winter evictions are especially cruel and harmful.

In 2018, the Seattle Women's Commission and the King County Bar Association jointly issued a study, Losing Home, the Human Cost of Eviction in Seattle.

This study found that nearly 90% of people evicted become homeless and that people of color were disproportionately evicted.

In fact, black tenants experienced eviction at a rate 4.5 times what would be expected based on their demographics in Seattle, according to the study.

Most Seattle tenants are evicted for not paying rent.

In most cases, the study found evicted tenants owed one month or less in rent.

In one case, the tenant was evicted for owing $10.

And one of the renters in our city, Kealani Luxmore, was evicted for failing to pay $2 in outstanding rent.

You cannot make this stuff up.

There's an article in the Seattle Times as part of their project, Homeless, where they covered Kehlani's situation and how, as a matter of fact, Because she had legal representation from the King County Bar Association's Housing Justice Project, they were able to fight her case and have the judge turn down the eviction.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

There are so many hundreds, if not thousands, of tenants who are getting caught.

in what is a veritable eviction epidemic in our city.

And I should also note at this point that it was really important that our movement, the People's Budget Movement last year, many of whom you were part of, that we were able to win funds for a city-funded legal representation for tenants facing eviction.

You know, this is a concrete example of how these dollars can actually help people to not allow their lives to fall apart.

The majority of the tenants who were evicted reported that they fell behind on rent because of loss of work or medical or family emergency.

The study pointed out that according to the U.S.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, it typically takes a worker once out of a job a little more than nine weeks to find a new job.

That's an average.

So that's not nearly fast enough to stave off eviction if the landlord is unwilling to exercise compassion and flexibility.

Eviction can also be a death sentence.

The study reviewed 2017 evictions and found that six Seattle tenants died during or right after eviction.

Four tenants committed suicide, one died of an accidental overdose the day after being evicted, and one tenant died during the eviction process while receiving hospice care.

The study also found that at least nine people who died homeless on the street in 2017 had an eviction filed against them in the three preceding years.

These data are a brutal indictment of a private housing market that is dominated by corporate landlords who take care more for profit than housing people.

Of course, we recognize that there are good landlords out there, families who own a small number of rental homes, who care about their tenants, who make timely repairs, who don't try to get away charging the highest possible rents.

But those landlords aren't why we are considering a moratorium on winter evictions tonight.

They're not the problem.

We're here because of the big corporate landlords who control the bulk of the 174,000 rental homes in our city.

They are in the business of maximizing profits, and they do so by exploiting tenants, as the data in the Women's Commission and Bar Association report demonstrate.

The report also notes that following eviction, people reported increases in mental health crises, displacement of their children from school because they had to move, and forced relocation outside of Seattle.

As bad as that is, it gets worse, much worse, when the weather turns bad.

As the Renters Commission pointed out in their letter last fall, and I wanted to quote some of it, During winter in Seattle, temperatures regularly fall into the 30s overnight, and according to All Home King County's Count Us In, a report for 2019, 41% of homeless neighbors sleep outside every night, with an additional 19% sleeping in vehicles.

Neither of these situations provide much protection from the elements, and both can be deadly.

According to the King County Medical Examiner's Office, 191 homeless individuals died last year, and 57% died outdoors, in a vehicle, or in an encampment.

While exposure to the elements cannot be blamed for every one of these deaths, it is most certainly a contributing factor, as exposure to harsh weather and living conditions only exacerbates many medical-related issues.

Additionally, according to the 2019 point in time count, 84% of homeless neighbors were previously housed in King County with an eviction given as a direct cause of homelessness for 15% of survey respondents.

It isn't just hyperbole when we say that an eviction notice can be a death sentence.

That was all the City of Seattle Renters Commission.

The Renters Commission is not exaggerating in stating that winter eviction can be a death sentence and likewise our movement is not exaggerating in saying that this ordinance before the committee tonight will save lives.

I congratulate the members of the Seattle Renters Commission for demonstrating leadership on this issue.

and salute all of the people who spoke at a public hearing I held in my committee last December when I unveiled the original legislation.

So I just wanted to mention members of the Tenants Union, Nicholsville, B. Seattle, small landlords, the Transit Riders Union, Socialist Alternative, Democratic Socialists of America, and many more.

When I announced that we were introducing the bill in December, we got a number of calls into my office.

The overwhelming majority were positive and supportive.

One, I remember in particular, a gentleman called our office and told my staff, quote, I don't agree with Samanth on most things, but on stopping winter evictions, I agree with her, it's the right thing to do, unquote.

Before we go to hear from members of the public, I wanted to note a few things about what this legislation does and does not do.

Under this ordinance, the tenants are still obliged to pay their rent every month.

If you do not pay your rent in winter, your landlord can still bring you to eviction court afterwards.

The eviction order simply would not be carried out until April 1st when the cold, wet winter months are over.

The argument that renters would willy-nilly risk eviction by non-payment of rent in winter months, as has been stated by some political figures and landlord lobbyists, is a ludicrous idea not based on facts or reality.

Such points are only made by those who are completely out of touch with the lives of majority of renters.

Renters do everything in their power to avoid any eviction on their tenancy records, because once you have an eviction, it never goes away and it creates major obstacles to renting in the future.

One benefit, a real benefit of this moratorium for both tenants and landlords, is that it gives tenants extra time to cure their non-payment.

There are tenant assistance resources available, but often tenants don't learn about these resources in time to stave off an eviction that happens over the course of just a couple of weeks.

With the winter moratorium, tenants will have a greater opportunity to get connected to help.

Tenants cannot simply avoid paying the rent during the winter eviction moratorium.

Under my substitute ordinance, which we will be discussing with the help of Ali Panucci of council staff.

Tenants engaged in criminal activity will not get protection from eviction.

We also want to protect small landlords for unmanageable situations.

So we do have some amendments aimed at protecting the needs of small landlords.

For instance, people who rent out their single-family homes can still sell their homes as long as they provide the 90-day notice that already is required from them for the rest of the year.

And an owner who wants to stop sharing his home with a tenant doesn't have to wait until April.

We had some discussion about how to define the winter months.

Obviously, day-to-day weather is unpredictable.

So to decide where to draw the line, we looked at average temperatures, average precipitation, and also some related precedents, and of course, the recommendation from the Renters Commission.

In Washington state, there are protections in effect.

Sorry, in Washington State, there are protections to help prevent utilities from being shut off during the winter, and those protections are in effect November through March, so we aligned our bill to those months.

Some may argue that it's not really that cold or wet in November, so why not have a shorter moratorium?

I think the data show clearly that eviction can be traumatic in November as well as in January, and at our committee table shortly, you will hear from a tenant who was evicted in November with catastrophic results for her family.

The excellent briefing memorandum from Ali Pinochi notes that while there are currently no known U.S. examples of limiting rental evictions during a set period of winter months, there are myriad examples of local and state governments limiting or even banning evictions under certain weather conditions, and Ali will go over this, and even more examples of governments protecting tenants from utility shutoffs during bad weather, and this is evidence from throughout the country.

Indeed Seattle and Washington State actually have worse and even anachronistic renter protections compared to some even some southern states as data from the US Department of Health and Human Services shows.

We're in no danger in Seattle of overly legislating the for-profit market.

Renters here are being heavily exploited.

These examples from other states and municipalities point to the acknowledgment that government has a moral and ethical duty to protect people from exposure to the elements, and that this duty trumps the financial interests of private businesses.

That is the intention of this ordinance, to put the health and well-being of Seattle residents, especially families with children and elderly family members, first.

To reduce homelessness, to save lives, to put people before profit.

Before we begin the discussion on our agenda item, we have public testimonials, and I will read the names of the people who have signed up, and Ted Verdon from my staff will give me additional names that are being signed up still.

Each person will have two minutes to speak, and please wrap it up after your time ends, and you can pay attention to the digital timer there.

I'll read a few names, and you'll hear your name being called out, so please be ready in line.

We have Marilyn Yim.

Angie Gerald and David Haynes.

Good afternoon, Council Members, or evening.

I'm a small mom-and-pop landlord and I have a few comments on Bill 119.726, the Winter Eviction Moratorium.

I wanted to start by saying that this proposal likely amounts to a regulatory taking of private property because it deprives property owners of economically reasonable use or value of their property for half the year, which would violate U.S. constitutional law.

This five-month moratorium would in reality stretch to seven, eight, or nine months due to courtroom backlog that it creates in April.

This would amount to tens of thousands of dollars over that period of time.

Evictions have been going down in King County for the last 14 years.

There were 1,200 eviction filings in King County in 2017. Fewer than half of those actually resulted in completed evictions, and that was for the whole year, not just for November to April.

It seems that you could address this issue more effectively by providing emergency rental assistance directly to affected tenants rather than make this sweeping change to law that would shift a large financial burden onto the private property owner.

Emergency rental assistance would also spare the tenant from a traumatic courtroom experience and keep them reliably in their homes.

I would encourage you to provide funding to keep people in their homes instead of this proposal.

This will hit small landlords like me the hardest.

We are already struggling under a very broad suite of changes that the city has been making.

Mom-and-pop landlords like me are historically the people who provide more affordable middle housing that hardworking people rely on to live in the city.

We provide hands-on local management.

We have been willing to work with people, work things out with them, and less likely to evict.

These things should all be encouraged by the city council, but I'm finding that ordinances like this strongly push me to reconsider whether I want to continue renting out my house.

I'm a working person, a union member, who bought a triplex to live in because that was the only way that I could find to afford living in Seattle, by renting out two-thirds of my house.

This is part of my home and part of my retirement.

And I cannot absorb this kind of great loss.

If this is really about corporate landlords, then I would strongly urge you to really exempt small landlords like me.

I would ask that you really consider the negative spillover effects of this and other ordinances that you've recently passed and find other ways to address the real goals that you're trying to accomplish.

And I'll just say I'm willing and available to meet with you at any time.

I would really like to work one-on-one and talk about the issues that face small landlords.

So thank you for your time and for your consideration.

Thank you.

Angie Gerald, and David Haynes, and then after that, Sebastian Posada.

Hi, my name is Angie, and my husband and I rent two single family houses in the Finney Ballard area.

Since 2003, we have housed families with small children, working professionals, and tradespeople.

Our tenants have included a university professor, a paralegal, a King County worker, a FedEx worker, a plumber, a police officer, and a clothing designer.

Our most recent tenants who signed a lease just prior to the first-in-time ordinance taking effect are a group of millennials that includes a small business carpenter, two shop workers, and a grad student who hopes to be a Seattle public school teacher.

Our ability and the ability of other small landlords to offer naturally affordable housing is dwindling very quickly.

This legislation and other recent ordinances have significantly increased the risk, liability, and cost of small landlording in Seattle, with higher rent for tenants and higher qualifying criteria for applicants.

It's a significant barrier to new landlords as well.

I have reached out to council members and participated in the city's RRIO survey in 2017. I have found no indication that independent landlords are a part of the legislative process or have any voice at City Hall.

The result is the corporatization of landlording in Seattle.

City Council is creating a rental market that's more expensive, less flexible, and less based on local relationships.

It favors property management companies, and it favors large corporations.

Please shine a spotlight on small landlords and local businesses to fully consider what kind of Seattle you are creating.

To prevent people from being evicted in winter, help them pay their rent, help stabilize their lives.

I'm opposed to this legislation.

Good evening.

Exemptions from evictions is great.

So would winter survival rapid rehousing vouchers for those already cheated by landlords.

When is council going to write ordinances to protect women who have to bucket their water to the bathtub because her landlord refuses to pick fix the pipes that are ruined in the bathroom.

The landlord always tells her he'll get around to it while forcing her to be friendly because he lives on site.

What about the woman who has to live in a room share basement that was leased for a year that is overwhelmed with flooding and black mold that's making her sick?

The landlord threatened to file an eviction notice if she kept on complaining and a court order against her bank account to force her to pay the remaining months on the rent, attempting to ruin her credit, creating Friction and intimidation, which is denying her rights to leave and get her money back.

We need more protections from abusive landlords and their rundown housing that's inflated, dilapidated, and ruining the quality of the first world pursuits of happiness.

And this seems to justify asking the city council to write laws that fine landlords the overpriced rent.

They charge for all the oppressive things that are wrong with their rentals, that are less than proper offering of housing, and go after the banks owning the rundown property and back charge them what they overcharged the renters.

We need laws that require, encourage, and force the banks to invest in 21st century first world apartment housing.

Maybe even using the excuse their rundown 20th century housing stock isn't up to par.

Also, encouraging home ownership alleviates the oppressions of renting rundown rentals.

And please, don't make this committee about taking names of renters for another re-election voting block and trade of favors.

We need a renters revolt to offset that with a great American housing build out without unqualified non-profits getting in the way.

We have Sebastian Posada followed by Tanisha Sullivan and then Elizabeth Lyles.

Good evening, my name is Sebastian Posada.

And quite honestly, I'm just here to remind everybody that housing is a human right.

And we've been infinitely trying to perfect the human condition.

And yet here we are in the year 2020, still discussing the minute details of why a human being should not be infinitely entitled to their home or their shelter.

As opposed to discussing true research and development to solving homelessness, whether it's substance use education or or legal protections for those people that are part of a generation that for some reason or another have been allowed to take on responsibility of quote-unquote owning the right to give people shelter and giving them tax protections or tax incentives to transition out of those income brackets into something more humane that does not force them to have to deal with this dehumanizing rhetoric on a consistent basis.

I'm just trying to remind guys that we are human and we should be aiming to protect those rights and to remind ourselves of the Constitution and how it's meant to protect us as individual citizens, not separate us like capitalism is trying to do with regards to shelter and housing.

One of the biggest responsibilities as citizens is to advocate for those who cannot advocate for themselves.

Passing this legislation would save lives in all, thank you, and alleviate the major crisis of homelessness in the city where we continue to struggle with this issue.

This measure will help everyone by protecting families and keeping more people off the street.

We must prioritize taking care of our community so we all can thrive.

Thank you.

files will be Charlotte Thistle, Sally, sorry, yeah, Roach, Cato Rubin, and Janet Manfleet.

Go ahead.

Hi, I'm Elizabeth Lyles.

I don't have anything really prepared.

I just don't understand this war on landlords.

I think most of us are the good guys.

And, you know, again, I'm talking about the little landlords, many of whom, 40% of us, have now all sold in the last two years because of these onerous laws.

I barely get by, and I bought my house for, you know, 40 years ago, and that's the reason I'm able to rent it, because I paid very little for it.

but I go to the food bank sometime.

And you cannot tell me that if someone knows they're going to be evicted, they're going to keep paying rent.

I just think that's BS.

I mean, if I was in their position and had no money, I'd probably stop paying rent, too, if they know they're going to be evicted.

So I just think it's unrealistic of you to claim that I am going to get my rent.

And I'm screwed if I don't get my rent.

Somebody said, well, you should have a slush fund.

I live hand-to-mouth like everybody else that makes 30,000 a year in this city.

I drive a 1996 car, you know, which is in the shop for $3,000 recently.

We all just get by, and we're not the enemy.

So, you know, some of my friends have left their houses vacant for two years because they are afraid to rent under these laws.

I have been, you know, I've been an abused woman.

I would never have expected my landlord to pay for the damages and the violence that my boyfriend called.

all these crazy things that are anti-the-landlord, when most of us ...

I love my tenants.

My tenants love me.

I lowered my criteria so that I could take them.

They invited me to their wedding.

We're not these monsters, these greedy, racist monsters that you guys portray us to be.

Or have a slush fund.

Give us a carrot in front of a stick instead of a stick.

Give us 20 percent back to renting to people with felonies.

But again, I've had a lot of violence in my life.

These are broken cheekbones, broken teeth.

I should be allowed to feel safe in my own home.

And the person that I'm dealing with, many times, you know, I have a personal relationship with my tenants.

I like them.

They like me.

And that's the way it should be.

Thank you.

Charlotte Thistle, then Sally Roach, and then Cato Rubin.

This one here, testing.

Can everyone hear me okay?

So I understand there have been some amendments that have been made since I first read this ordinance.

So I'm responding to this wording, which I quote, regardless of whether just cause for eviction may exist, an owner may not evict a residential tenant from a rental housing unit from November through March 31st.

Now, if the amendments that have been passed render what I'm about to say irrelevant, that's great, but I'm gonna make my points anyway just to make sure.

I'm a single mom.

I don't get any child support from my daughter's dad.

I own a home.

I rent rooms to supplement our income so I can support myself and my daughter, and I also work part-time, and I'm working towards finishing my degree online.

My income is under $25,000 a year.

And 98% of the tenants that have lived in my house over the last 10 years have been terrific people who got along well with each other and with me in our shared space.

But there have been some exceptions.

One example was an alcoholic person who became romantically involved with one of the other tenants.

When the other person broke off the involvement, they became hostile, began threatening and harassing the other tenant.

This same person also brought a violent wanted felon into the house and began harboring him in their room and in another instance tried to steal my bicycle.

This person was disrupting the peace and making everyone in our house feel unsafe.

Thankfully, under the Just Cause Ordinance, I was able to evict this person.

The Just Cause Ordinance is a very important protection for homeowners and anyone who lives in shared housing.

I am afraid that the wording, as I read it, of these evictions and winter ordinance would put homeowners who rent rooms in their home and anyone in shared housing at risk.

Most people that I've spoken to, including those who support the ban on winter evictions, believe that under this ordinance a landlord would still be able to evict if they have just cause and obtain a court order.

When I told people that the evictions in winter ordinance wouldn't allow a landlord to evict a tenant under any circumstances at all from November through March, most people didn't believe me and some people accused me of lying.

Could you please wrap up?

Yes, I could.

Because others are also going to speak.

Okay.

I just want to make sure that if a tenant creates an unsafe situation in a shared household, there needs to be a way to remove them.

Thank you.

I believe it's now Sally and then Cato, if I'm reading it correctly.

I'm Sally, I didn't really come here prepared to say anything, but I'm one of those people that I own a house in Georgetown that's a large house, and it has sat vacant for two plus years because I'm afraid to rent under Seattle's onerous rental laws.

And I would love to be able to rent the house, but with all the restrictions and all the hassle, and this just adds one more thing.

The thing is, is I can sell that house, and I can make some really good money, but with my mother-in-law's house, I'm sentimentally attached to it, and I would rather keep it and rent it, but if I would rather sell it than have to, if I have to lose it because I have to give somebody six months free rent, that really removes all the impetus to be a landlord, and in Georgetown, They're selling the lot, and they buy the lot for $800,000.

They put up 3 million and a quarter townhomes on that piece of property.

And then I don't understand how that benefits the homeless people at all, because if they can't afford the rent for a month, they certainly can't afford to buy a million and a quarter dollar condo or townhouse.

So it seems to me there ought to be a middle way.

Maybe if you're going to exempt people, exempt small mom and pop renters, landlords, from having to do the eviction.

It just doesn't seem right that somebody who is like, for me, I'm paying my bills and doing my thing, that I should have to support people who choose not to pay their rent, and that I have no recourse.

I have to support them and give them six months rent a year.

or five months free rent a year because it's cold outside.

So I understand, Seattle has a huge homeless problem, but I don't think this is the answer.

Thanks.

Sorry, after you, are you, am I saying your name right?

It's Kate.

Kate, okay.

So for some reason, yeah.

So after Kate, we have Janet Van Fleet and then Travis Johnson.

My name is Kate.

I'm representing BC Adults, an organization dedicated to empowering our houseless and renter neighbors.

And we would like to thank Councilmember Sawant for introducing this ordinance.

We are in total support.

I don't know how many of you guys were outside today, but it was miserable.

I was outside for about an hour.

I'm soaked to the bone.

I'm freezing.

This is putting people before prophets.

It's important.

So many people face evictions, and in the winter months, It's miserable outside, and we need to focus on humanity.

It's inhumane to put people out in the cold.

Most people don't want to be evicted.

Most people will do whatever they can to avoid it.

And it's my understanding that more than a quarter of evictions were filed by the sixth of the month, when most rent is due on the first of the month.

So these landlords who are filing for eviction are getting people out as quickly as possible.

So they're being put out on the street within weeks.

That seems dangerous to me, and it's important.

Thank you.

Thank you, and I'm sorry I mispronounced your name.

We have Janet.

I'm Janet Van Fleet.

Thank you for having this hearing this evening.

I am in favor of this ordinance.

I stand when I can with Wheel Women in Black, a group that stands every time someone dies outside by violence or in a public place and has no place permanent to live.

We have already stood this year, I believe twice, still standing for people who died in December and I'm here because I want to prevent all such deaths and having an ordinance that would protect people from being evicted in the winter seems like one step toward that goal.

I'm very sad to hear that People are willing to let a house sit empty when there are people freezing and miserable and lacking the privacy that they need to be a human being in this city every single day.

I hope that we can somehow quickly come all of us to a better solution than that.

And I hope that perhaps assistance to keep people in homes that are owned by small landlords maybe could be part of that.

Thank you very much for considering this.

Thank you.

After Travis Johnson, we have Nancy Rankin, Jessica Scalzo, Roger Valdez, and Jeffrey Cook.

Good evening.

Hi, I'm Travis Johnson, and I'm a Nickelodeon.

Winter evictions, they all should realize that it went 60% in the greater Seattle area in a year.

I think it's cool to kick out people in Seattle during winter.

It is extremely cold in Seattle during the winter and usually raining.

So please don't kick out Seattleites in the winter.

Thank you.

Thank you and congratulations to the people who won their hard-won election.

That election was between whether we wanted a city that was run by big business and for big business, or whether we wanted a city that addressed the worst ravages of big business.

And we clearly decided we wanted the latter.

And I believe that this ordinance is a move in that direction to protect the citizens.

I want to reiterate some of the statistics about evictions, that the biggest group of people facing evictions is actually women with children.

A child gets into trouble, is getting antsy, and they're evicted.

So we're actually talking about throwing kids out of their homes and the trauma that can result in.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Jessica Scalzo and I am a renter.

I have not struggled to pay my rent up to this point, but I definitely am in favor of no winter evictions with, I guess the, I don't know what you call them, but.

it seems like there's some rules to it where if someone is causing too much of an issue or I think something to do with maybe having crimes charged on them or felonies that there could be reason to evict somebody.

I'm also not a small landlord, so I don't know what that's like and all the rules that they have to deal with to keep up their rental property.

But what I know of council members is that you're willing to work with everybody, so I feel like it really is just small landlords that are here, and I don't hear any corporate landlords yet, so something could easily be worked out, but I don't know.

Yeah, I do think it's very cruel and unfortunately not unusual to evict people during the winter months.

I think it's cruel to evict people in general, but especially during the winter months.

So thank you very much for the time.

And then Jeffrey Cook.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant, members of the committee.

I've sent you some written comments that I I'm sure that you've taken time to look at.

This is, there's been lots of good comments about, from the folks that are property owners and housing providers.

I think one problem, Council Member Somlitz, is you keep repeating the 90% become homeless number.

That's just false, it's not substantiated.

So we're currently doing a public disclosure request of that information.

That was an aggregation of some percentages in a very small survey of uncertain sample size.

So it's just false and you keep repeating it.

It's just not true.

So as soon as I get the information on where that survey came from, I'll send it to you.

Those numbers are not tracked.

So we don't know what happens after people get evicted.

You could spend some resources trying to find that out rather than doing this.

Secondly, you can't, it's great to be elected to the council.

I appreciate your win.

Over Amazon, I would love to talk with you about how we tax Amazon for housing.

I think that's not a bad idea.

However, you can't just abrogate the decree of the Superior Court by legislative fiat.

It just violates the separation of powers.

It's a basic constitutional principle.

So if you try to ban divorces for five months out of the year, You can't do that, okay?

So finally, you need to understand that you're gonna have an impact on low-income housing that's tax credit financed.

That's gonna present a tremendous problem for the investors, and it's gonna force those agencies like Plymouth Housing Group to have to put more money in an escrow account to offset the risk.

So this is just not a well-thought-out idea, and your amendments don't fix any of that.

Good evening, Jeffrey Cook.

I've been a renter for a lot of my adult life, but I never remember a time when I felt it was my right to live for free on somebody else's property.

I always found a way, even with my nonprofit arts job, to find a way to pay my rent so that I knew that I was doing the right thing.

You said something about how the government needs to be helping people who are in trouble, and I appreciate that, but that's not what this is doing.

This is, in fact, pitting average citizens against average citizens to solve a problem.

that isn't really being solved at a government level.

You're asking the independent landlords to figure out a way to come up with the money to support someone else.

My husband and I recently bought a small fixture upper house from our elderly neighbors, and we have sunk everything into it.

mortgage, we borrowed money, we cashed out our little bit of retirement savings, and we fixed up this house perfectly according to the huge long list of things you're supposed to do as a landlord in Seattle.

And now if I have somebody living there who can't pay their rent, I can't cover it for them.

We are intentionally keeping the rent low.

We are making no money on that.

Are you listening to me?

We are renting it for the same price as our mortgage.

There's no extra money.

We did that to support the working class people of Seattle.

That was part of our plan.

So I can't just support pay five or six months worth of someone else's rent, this is only going to make the problem worse for our community because we will just sell the house.

It's not worth it.

We can probably make enough money to cover what we put into it so far if we just do that.

Then that's one more house, little three-bedroom house that somebody could rent.

that is not going to be around anymore.

And that's what independent landlords are just going to keep doing, is saying, this just isn't worth it for me anymore.

So if someone's being evicted for $2 or $10, that's something we got to fix.

But this living in someone's house for five or six months and not pay any rent, that's just not going to work for those of us who only have that as our one asset.

Thank you.

Good night.

Thank you to everyone who testified in public comment.

And I should acknowledge for the record, we've been joined by Council Member Peterson.

I wanted to read the agenda item into record.

We are discussing Council Bill 119726, an ordinance relating to termination of residential rental tenancies, prohibiting evictions in winter months, and amending section 22206160 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

Could the presenters please come to the table?

Could we have one-sentence introductions from each of you first?

Jonathan Rosenblum, staff, with Council Member Kshama Sawant.

Alicia Roberts from Nicholsville, Northlake.

I'm John Manella.

I'm a renter, and I'm on the board of the Tenants' Union of Washington State.

Allie Panucci, Council Central staff.

Thank you all for being here.

And also, I wanted to once again mention thank you to all the committee members who agreed to have a 6 p.m.

committee meeting.

To begin our discussion, Alicia Roberts has had the courage to share with us her personal winter eviction story.

I really appreciate your willingness, Alicia, to share these personal events with us.

And hopefully, as a result, other people will be protected from going through what you went through.

So did you want to go ahead?

Thank you.

It's a little hard for me to share.

Don't, just take your time.

You're going to do great.

Let me tell you about my winter eviction and how it devastated my family.

A little over five years ago, me and my four-year-old daughter moved in with my mom.

She had a stroke and couldn't live alone, and I couldn't afford where I was living anymore.

We got put on her Section 8 voucher and filled out the application for the apartment complex.

They knew the circumstances of why I was there.

I had a written statement from her doctors saying she couldn't live alone and the rent was never late.

The landlord wouldn't approve my application because I still owed a half a month's rent from the place I had recently moved from.

We had until the end of the month to move.

During this time, my father passed away.

Needless to say, we didn't move out at the end of the month.

I started looking for places to move to which I wasn't having any luck with.

I talked to the landlord, and she wouldn't budge, and she started the eviction process.

We were physically evicted by the sheriff's department right about Halloween.

My mom was 72 years old, and I couldn't have her sleeping outside in the winter, so I couch-hopped her from one friend to the next.

Me and my daughter slept in my Jeep that whole winter.

She was in preschool, so that made it a little more difficult.

I was able to sign up for McKinney-Vento through the school, so that helped, but she still missed school.

Having my daughter in the vehicle with me, I always tried to find a safe place to park at night.

We parked a lot at Walmart, grocery stores, with well-lit parking lots in neighborhoods I felt were safe.

Every night, I would try to get to the store to use the bathroom, or we'd have to go outside.

I ran out of gas a lot because I would use it up keeping the heat on at night.

We got harassed by the police constantly.

If they caught us sleeping in the car, they'd make me move it, saying it was against the law.

One time, they wanted me out of the city and followed me to the city limits, and this was in the middle of the night.

Several months later, I would eventually lose my vehicle, the only safe and dry place I had to sleep because the police were so against me sleeping in my car.

At one point, my daughter got really sick.

She had a temperature of 103, 104, and it was below freezing outside at night, around 16 degrees.

We were able to stay at a friend's house until she got better.

All winter long, we went through this, us sleeping in a car and couch-surfing my elderly mother.

I couldn't take care of her the way she needed, and during this whole time, I continued to try to find a place to rent.

We were coming down to the wire.

If I didn't find a place soon, we would lose our voucher.

I finally found a place a week before that happened, and it met their criteria, but Section 8 wouldn't approve it because they didn't want to pay the amount the apartment managers were asking for, even though it was in our allotted amount.

I lost the voucher.

I tried fighting for it, getting an extension, but it was no.

I couldn't lose the only thing we had, the only thing to keep us all together.

I refused to take no for an answer, so I started calling places in Olympia to fight it.

That was when I found out there was a less than 1% availability of three-bedroom rentals in the whole county, and out of that less than 1%, how many of them would take my voucher and fall into the price range that it was for?

Almost impossible.

I was able to build a case I could present to their board, and they would decide from there.

So I started gathering documentation needed to prove my case.

And then I lost my daughter to CPS.

Losing her broke me.

Up to that point, I had been battling a drug addiction on and off for three years.

I dove head first in that addiction.

Two months later, I was able to get into treatment and got sober.

A month after I got out, my mom passed away and I relapsed.

It took me a long time to recover from everything that happened that year.

I got clean and started staying at Cher and then Nicholsville North Lake.

They gave me the stability and the community support I needed to stay sober and start standing on my own feet again.

I celebrated two years sobriety on the 11th of this month.

I see my daughter all the time and can have her full time when I get into permanent housing.

Things are better now.

I don't know how different things would have been if we could have stayed where we were that winter.

I will never know.

But maybe being able to help prevent that from happening to someone else can make a difference in their life and in their future.

Pass Councilmember Swann's moratorium on winter evictions now.

Thank you very much, Alicia.

Really appreciate that.

Thank you.

John, did you want to speak on behalf of the Tenants Union?

Sure, I can say a few words.

The Tenants Union of Washington State is 100% behind this piece of legislation because it's just like It makes sense.

It makes sense to throw someone out in the middle of the street in the middle of winter is just beyond the pale.

I appreciate some of what the small landlord said.

I really do because we At the TU, there are some good small landlords that actually will work with tenants and try to avoid the eviction process.

But that is the exception, not the rule.

What tenants need is time.

In almost all the cases, they need a little bit more time to come up with a plan or to make ends meet.

And just like the person from B Seattle said, Your rent's due on the first, and then eviction starts on the sixth.

That's crazy.

How can you be expected to become a rental expert in five days?

Oh, just pay it.

That's the whole problem is that they don't have money.

People don't want to live for free in some place.

They want to pay rent.

Nobody wants an eviction on their record.

They want to pay rent.

They just need more time.

This isn't about letting people live in houses for free.

This is about being humane and rational.

It is absolutely ridiculous to suggest that people want to just freeload in your house or your extra house that you might have lying around.

It is unbelievable to think that.

That is not what's going on here.

What's going on here is an epidemic.

And what we need is rational, common-sense legislation like this that will prevent people from dying in the street.

That's it.

That is what we need.

It is very simple.

Coming up with a plan is fine.

This period of time, you just need to give your tenants time.

And frankly, in most cases, it's not the small, independent mom-and-pop landlords.

It's overwhelmingly these corporate landlords that come in and raise the rent, and then you already have problems struggling with paying your rent because your wages have not gone up.

So you already have this problem paying your rent, and then the minute that you're late, boom, that's when they get you.

And you just, all we need, all we need is a little bit more time.

And to throw people out during the winter, it's just, I mean, I had things prepared.

before I came in here, but it boggles my mind to think that this is okay to do, that it's okay to throw someone out, a family in the middle of winter, to throw them out onto the street.

It is ridiculous.

So once again, we fully support this legislation.

We think this is a great idea and we should absolutely go ahead and do it.

Thank you.

So as I said before, Ali Panucci from council central staff has prepared a memo that explains the overall legislation and contains some of the amendments that were also referenced in public comment.

If council members are okay with it, we will have her walk through the memo and then we can start looking at the amendments.

Thank you, Chair, Councilmembers, good evening.

Council Bill 119726 would amend the city's Just Cause Eviction Ordinance by providing a defense to eviction between November 1 and April 1. The Just Cause Eviction Ordinance requires landlords or property managers to state one of 18 approved reasons listed in the ordinance in order to proceed with an eviction.

In addition to requiring that the eviction meets one of the approved reasons, the Just Cause Eviction Ordinance provides a defense to eviction if the landlord or property manager has not registered the unit under the City's Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance.

I will now briefly describe, I'm going to a little bit more detail on what the bill does, highlight some of the investments that the City makes to prevent homelessness in other areas, and walk through the two proposed amendments.

And I'm happy to answer questions along the way, so if I'm

Sorry, Ali, just in terms of process, do we have to move the substitute or anything like that?

I mean, when I read the item into record...

Do I have to do anything more?

So you read the item into the record.

When we get to the amendments, amendment one is the substitute bill.

So that will proceed as an amendment.

So you will need to move to amend the ordinance or substitute the version attached to the memo.

If that is approved by the committee, then we would move on to the next amendment.

And I noted in the footnote to the other amendment that to the extent that the language is somewhat inconsistent between the two amendments, At the direction from the committee, I'll reconcile that in the final bill if both amendments proceed or other amendments are contemplated.

Okay, please go ahead.

Okay, so as I described previously, the proposal would add a defense to eviction if it would result in vacating the housing unit at any time between November 1 and April 1. This does not prevent a landlord or property manager from moving forward with eviction proceedings, but instead provides a defense to the tenant in those eviction proceedings.

Presumably, the judge would delay the enforcement of that eviction, either setting a later date or may delay the hearing until a time under which the physical eviction could proceed.

So in that sense, it's relatively straightforward.

It's just the physical eviction could not occur, but it would not prevent the tenant from being evicted.

Currently, the city invests in homelessness prevention programs that include services to qualifying tenants facing eviction.

And so the distinction here that I'm about to describe is these are interventions that are typically trying to help the tenant prior to being evicted.

So if they, for example, are issued a 14-day pay or a vacate notice, there would be resources available to tenants to remedy that situation.

And with the changes to state law, the courts have more discretion to consider payment plans and that sort of thing and could access those funds potentially as they are moving into those proceedings.

In 2020, the city invested $3.3 million, and I will just note in the memo I distributed to council members, I dropped the word million, so it's not $3.3, it's $3.3 million.

So my apology to support programs that provide emergency rental assistance to qualifying tenants who have received a 14-day pay or vacate notice.

And just over a dozen organizations in the city receive portions of these funds that are made available.

In addition- Ali, can I, well- Oh, sure, go ahead.

Madam Chair.

So Ali, can I follow up on that just a little bit?

Sure.

Because I noticed on the email or the memo that you sent out on January 10th, there were a couple of enumerated possible areas of amendment or alteration to the ordinance.

One of those would have been, or was targeted as creating a mitigation fund in situations where it's demonstrated to have this judgment proof.

I'm just wondering how the 3.3 million in the rental assistance kind of fills that potential gap.

I notice that's one of the things that isn't included in the substitute ordinance.

So I just wanted to ask if there was, are resources already in play and that was a factor.

So I was laying out options available to council members to consider as you're moving forward with considering this this legislation and so the distinction and what I sort of briefly described in that email versus the mitigation funds I was just describing is the The organizations that the city currently funds is to provide emergency rental assistance, essentially, to tenants who receive a 14-day.

So it would be to the tenant to pay the landlord.

This was addressing questions I was receiving or concerns that we had heard about the potential that if a tenant is judgment-proof in that if they successfully were able to use this defense in eviction and were not required to vacate the property in that five-month period, it would be a fund that could be made available to to landlords under certain conditions, and I didn't Unless I'm asked to sort of develop an amendment and pursue that, I would work with you or other council members to determine sort of under what criteria the city might release those funds.

Last year, the city adopted legislation to provide additional protections to tenants in domestic violence situations.

And part of what wasn't included in that bill was a mitigation fund for landlords who, and it was essentially so that the domestic violence survivors were not responsible for paying damages that may have occurred in the unit due to the domestic violence incidents.

And the mitigation fund would be available to landlords who are unable to collect the damages from the abuser in that case, the person who created the damages.

And so this would be sort of along similar lines that in the event that a tenant was evicted on April 1st, but remained in the unit for some period of time and didn't fulfill their obligation to pay rent during that time, under certain conditions the city could consider some sort of mitigation fund to help back pay some of that rent to the landlord.

And Allie, just a quick follow-up on that.

Would that involve a new appropriation of money or could it potentially come from the 3.3 million that we've already kind of talked about for rental assistance?

It would likely require a new appropriation, because the $3.3 million, I would imagine, has already or is in the process of being dispersed through contracts with the Human Services Department.

Like the bill I was discussing regarding domestic violence survivors, that bill set up a fund, but it was subject to appropriation.

So essentially, it could be established without yet having identified the source of funds, and then through the city's supplemental or budget process in the fall of 2020 for 2021, I could work with council members to identify where those resources might come from.

All right, thank you so much.

Sure.

Jonathan?

Yeah, just to clarify, Allie, that $3.3 million funds, even when they're dispersed, they exist, they're a resource for tenants, right now to access if they can't make the rents, right?

Correct.

Okay, so there's the program to support tenants for emergency rental assistance.

In addition, the city extended funding for Seattle Rental Housing Assistance Pilot Program that provides rental assistance and utility discounts to tenants who are on the Seattle Housing Authority's wait list for housing choice vouchers that will provide longer term rental assistance.

And then in addition, the city also has a severe weather response plan for people experiencing homelessness.

So these aren't exactly resources to prevent homelessness, but for people experiencing homelessness, this includes expanding access to shelters during severe weather events.

The memo attached to the agenda provides some additional background information, including related policies in other jurisdictions.

I'm not planning to go into great detail of those tonight, but I will just generally summarize.

I did not find any examples in this country of cities or other jurisdictions that provide a blanket prohibition on evictions.

in winter months.

Paris, France is the only example that I have found, and I did some research, but I don't read French, and so a lot of the information was in French.

So I did my best there, but I did find examples of some cities or counties that have regulations or business practices in place that the sheriff's departments who typically enforce the evictions follow, or in the case of Washington, D.C., the U.S.

Marshal's Office, that prevent the enforcement of evictions during certain conditions.

So if the temperature drops below a certain temperature, snowing, that sort of thing, the actual physical removal of the tenant from the unit will be delayed for some period of time.

In addition, there are several states that have cold weather rules that would prohibit utility shutoffs between November and April generally.

And then there are two examples found in California that is not related to weather, but it is similarly limits the ability for a landlord to move forward with an eviction during the school year if the tenants have school-age children or are educators.

But it's important to know in those cases that those are related for no-fault evictions.

So that would be the case under which, let's say, the landlord is intending to redevelop the property.

That is not the fault of the tenant, so the eviction couldn't proceed.

However, if it was due to the nonpayment of rent, the eviction could proceed during that time.

I have two questions.

I will ask this one first.

prohibition could go indefinitely until the temperature is above 15 degrees Fahrenheit.

Is that how it works in practice?

So in practice, the Circuit Court of Cook County issues general orders to the sheriff during a set period of time.

And so in one example, it was between November and January 2nd.

So I think it sort of depends on when the string of days occurs and they may issue another order, how it plays out in practice.

But in general, what I've heard in talking to some folks and trying to get in touch with people who work in Cook County is that in general, the sheriff's office just waits until the temperatures have gone up.

So the court, It gives the authority to the court to issue an order to cease the eviction.

Correct.

And I noticed that the language is permissive.

It says may.

So under that ordinance, I guess a party would.

petition to the court for a delay in the in the imposition, but that the judge could deny it.

Is that true?

Yeah, and my understanding is that the sheriff's office generally does, as a business practice, does not enforce during that that time.

So it is, I'm not, I'm not an attorney and I know that you are.

But it wasn't clear to me exactly how this plays out on the ground in all cases, but I think your interpretation is correct.

If there are no other questions at this point, I'll move on to begin describing the amendments.

So the Amendment 1 sponsored by Councilmember Sawant is a substitute version of the bill.

It's attached to the memo.

This would do a couple of things.

It would make structural changes to the bill and modify the language to clarify that it provides a defense if the eviction would cause displacement from the unit between November 1 and April 1. And then in addition, it adds limits on evictions in winter months that would apply to only a subset of the just causes that are listed in the just cause eviction ordinance.

So I'm going to quickly summarize the situations under which the eviction could proceed at any time of year.

So that includes if you were evicting a tenant who was residing in the same house with the owner or the owner's agent.

So essentially, you own the house, you're renting out rooms in your home.

and you want to move forward, so you could continue to do that.

If the owner or the owner's immediate family wishes to occupy the premises and they've been provided a minimum of a 90-day written notice, which is required by the ordinance.

If the property owner is selling a single-family home, this does not include condominium units, after giving the tenant the required 90-day notice that they are intending to end the tenancy.

It would allow the eviction to continue if the property owner was planning to discontinue use of a unit that was not authorized under the land use code.

So essentially they're renting out an illegal unit and they've received a notice of violation from the city.

In those cases, the owners must pay relocation assistance to tenants.

who are forced to leave because of that violation.

If there's a violation related to the number of tenants sharing a dwelling unit and the city has issued orders.

If the landlord was terminating a tenancy in a house containing an ADU in order to comply with the development standards, excuse me, an accessory dwelling unit after they've received a notice of violation.

or if an emergency order to vacate and close the property has been issued by the city and the tenants have failed to vacate by the deadline given in that order.

And typically when emergency orders to vacate, there are relocation assistance funds available to low income tenants.

And then also if the tenant engages in criminal activity or operates in a legal business in the building on the premises or in the, area adjacent to the building or premises, or if they're causing a nuisance due to criminal activity or illegal businesses.

So in those cases, if the cause for eviction is brought by the landlord, is due to one of those situations, the eviction could proceed at any time of year.

Thank you, Ali.

And so just to also read a little bit from this part of your memo, the Just Cause Eviction Ordinance specifies 18 causes.

or 18 just causes under which eviction can take place in the city of Seattle.

And I believe you've listed eight of those causes where this bill, if passed, would not provide any defense from the eviction from taking place.

In other words, in any of these eight cases, the eviction would still proceed under the existing law and would not prevent them, even in the winter months.

Yeah, and I will note, while I just listed, I guess you said eight, some of those are a, as written in the substitute bill, they are a portion of one of the causes.

And so it sort of depends on how you're parsing out there.

It's not accurate to say.

The counting, but, and I'm happy to update a table I created previously that sort of outlined the causes and share it with committee members and the rest of council.

So if there are other causes that I may have missed to present your intent council members want, or if there are other causes that council members are interested in considering exempting for, I can provide that.

Here are the ones that are clearly Would not be like would no longer be limited for evictions under this ordinance And here are the ones where the eviction would be limited in winter months so I can just distribute that to council members tomorrow afternoon That would be helpful.

Yeah, okay, I Would so for now anyway to in order to continue the discussion with the substitute language as a new base I would like to move the amendment for a vote, but just to make sure the members of the public understand this is only the vote to amend the legislation that's under consideration because we made changes to the legislation as was written before.

So it's not the actual legislation that's being passed for this second.

So I move to substitute version two for version one.

Second.

Thank you.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, so we now have the substitute version of the legislation under discussion.

Council Member Peterson, would you like to speak to your amendment?

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

I do have some other questions to start with.

Is that okay?

Yeah, you can start with us.

So first, taking a step back, thanks to everybody who came to speak tonight from all angles of this legislation, and want to thank the Women's Commission and the King County Bar Association for their report, Losing Home, which Council Member Swamp references in the legislation, and thank the state legislature last year for extending the notice period from three days to 14 days, and I know there's a lot more work to do to prevent evictions.

I am interested in the financial assistance piece.

I think that that is another way of tackling this challenge is providing targeted financial assistance to deal with the financial crisis or need that's occurring at the time.

I am concerned overall with this legislation.

It is bold and I admire that.

I am just concerned big picture that because there's no other U.S. city that's done it, it's untested.

And I don't believe that's the best way of going about public policies to do something, to cast such a wide net so quickly with potential unintended consequences and whether it would be a sustainable law.

So a couple questions for central staff.

Just for the public to understand and to illuminate the discussion, what happens to the leases signed between a landlord and a renter if this is passed?

Is it supersede a signed contract lease?

I apologize, I missed, I overlooked an important detail.

The Just Cause Eviction Ordinance applies to tenancies that are month-to-month or verbal contracts, and it does not apply to tenancies where there is a lease agreement that doesn't have a, you know, many lease agreements have sort of automatically shift to a month-to-month agreement if not otherwise renewed, but if it is a, a lease that is not renewed and just has an end date, the just cause eviction ordinance in Seattle does not apply to those situations.

So this would not apply to those circumstances.

Just if I can also clarify then.

So you're saying that in cases where someone has like a year-long lease, for example, like this ordinance that we're discussing would not but wouldn't be applicable.

They would still be subject to the same winter, I mean the current eviction.

They would be, yeah, they would be subject to the Washington State Tenant Landlord Law as well as other applicable local regulations.

Typically a lease agreement will have a you know, is the contractual agreement between the tenant and the lease, and so that would apply, and then, as I said, but many of them do shift to a month-to-month lease at the end of the first year period, but that depends on your

landlord right as the only renter on this committee I'm familiar with the nuances of the lease I would just ask a brief follow-up then I mean and I if you don't know this off the top of your head that's all right but I wonder I wonder what the rental housing stock of the city of Seattle that is on a month-to-month or verbal lease is.

I would actually be curious to know what the number is of folks that aren't entered into a lease that's longer term.

I don't know if it's small.

I don't know if it's large.

I myself have never entered into a lease like that, so I'm just not sure.

I do not have an answer to that question, and I am happy to look into it.

I'm not sure if the information is available, but I will see what we have or what we can find out.

So just to understand the origin of this idea, is there something that triggered it to be introduced this year instead of, you know, four years ago or three years ago?

Is there something that's happening now that sort of calls for this type of intervention or solution?

It's not in my, I can tell you what my intention has been because I was the one who introduced it.

It's no different than any other progressive legislation that my office has fought for.

There's no explanation for why, I mean there's no, explanation of the kind you're looking for for why $15 an hour was won in 2015-14.

I have a political explanation.

We were elected and there was a movement behind us that was willing to fight for it and we won.

So does that mean we didn't need $15 an hour two years before then or ten years before then?

No, of course not.

We needed it a long time before then.

In fact, even 15 is not enough.

The point is that if there are people willing to fight for progressive causes, then it's my job as an elected representative to push for it.

And as I said, this whole question originated from the letter that the City of Seattle Renters Commission released, and that's their job.

That's why, in fact, I'm not sure how many of you are aware, but the creation of the Renters Commission itself was a consequence of the rent control resolution that we fought for and won in 2015. And in 2016, in order to sort of, you know, The movement that was building up for rent control at that time was able to win the creation of the Renters Commission as a concession from the political establishment.

And at that time, they formed it hoping that these commissions wouldn't actually do much but you know just sort of be there but commend it's commendable that the members of the renters commission are doing an incredible job of being independent from the city council and the mayor's office and making independent recommendations and it was based on their recommendation they made They made their recommendation sometime in early November, I believe.

I remember seeing the letter on November 1st or November 2nd, and then as soon as I got a chance, which was, I think, in late November or early December, I instructed the staff to bring it forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So to my amendment, the concept, so this amendment would have the legislation focus on low-income housing, households that we know are low-income because they are benefiting from some city government assistance.

So the low-income housing projects that we fund through the housing levy, for example, through the multifamily tax exemption program, that would focus this legislation on that group because we know that they're, we have verified the incomes and we know that they're low income and in need.

And also it's really the city to walk the talk and to say, hey, we're gonna apply it to our programs that we are supporting financially as a city government.

We're gonna apply it because it's not, this eviction ban does not apply to the city assisted programs currently.

And so, and because this has never been done anywhere in the United States to cast the wide net, immediately apply it to the private market with unattended consequences, focusing it in on who we know to be low income and who is receiving support from the city of Seattle already on which we could impose this restriction.

So that's the purpose.

Happy to answer any questions about it.

Did committee members have any comments?

Well, I have a general comment about this.

I think, you know, as we think about who is disproportionately impacted by eviction in general in this city, it is typically women, it is typically people of color.

We heard Alicia's story about the impact that that has on families, the devastating impact that it can have on families.

And so I think, you know, it is, there's no question that we are in a crisis in this city.

We are in a homelessness crisis.

And I believe that anything we can do to prevent additional people from becoming homeless, we should do.

So, you know, as it relates to this piece of legislation, I think it's really important that we think about ways that we can keep people from getting pushed out.

I think the substitute bill addresses many of the concerns that the smaller landlords have with regard to, you know, being able to Remove a tenant from your home, from living inside your home.

Remove a tenant who's engaging in criminal activity.

So I think those are important things to consider, and I appreciate the landlords coming forward to discuss that.

As it relates to this particular amendment, I think the challenge is that this amendment would eliminate many of the people who are actually experiencing eviction from benefiting from this bill.

Part of the challenge is that people struggle, don't qualify for some of the housing assistance that we offer.

We know that many people are on waiting lists to get into some of these housing assistance programs.

So people who are experiencing eviction, if we are only protecting those who qualify, there's a huge subset of people that we're missing.

We know there are many people who who are in a situation where they don't qualify for that housing or on a waiting list, and they're still struggling to pay rent.

That's why they're dealing with eviction, because wages haven't kept pace and people are unable to make a payment, and sometimes a small payment, sometimes it's larger, but this gives them the opportunity to cure that problem without being faced with having to go out in the street in the middle of winter.

I think it's important for us to provide protection for people to the extent that we can, and this is something that we can do to really make sure that families aren't struggling.

The merit of the amendment, I think it has to be based on what proportion of rental homes are, you know, fulfill the criterion that you have, which is units with city support.

I believe the number, so the overall number, and Ali, you should correct me if you have any more confirmation, but the total number of rental homes is about 174,000 in the city, and about 17,000 rental homes fulfill the criterion of being units with city support.

So in other words, if this amendment that has been brought forward by Council Member Peterson is adopted, it would leave, and the legislation passes, the legislation would not do what it needs to do because it would have left 90% of Seattle tenants unprotected under the ordinance.

I mean, the number, the discrepancy is huge.

And it goes to the point that Council Member Morales made, which is that, as a matter of fact, the problem we face, and that's related to homelessness and the tiny house village investment that we were discussing last night as well, which is there's not enough affordable housing and social housing and city-owned housing, publicly-owned housing to go around.

It's a very small fraction of the total rental housing stock.

Council Member Peterson, why don't you go first?

Sure, so thank you.

Just to respond to that, I guess using those numbers, I think you were using the entire rental stock.

I guess I'm trying to focus in on households we know to be low income, more likely to be at risk of being unable to pay their rent.

So keeping it targeted to that.

So I don't know if it's the most accurate way to compare the proportionality, because we're talking about those who are at risk, who we can identify as low income, and that was the reason to target it to those city programs, where we actually are identifying those incomes, where it's a means test.

We know that people are low income.

So what was the number you were giving?

Yeah, no, I don't agree at all.

I mean, I see, I recognize what you're saying, but I don't agree with the point.

Sure.

Because What you're saying would be true only if it were true that all low-income people or all people who are facing problems with paying their rent are able to find city-owned or publicly-owned housing.

That's absolutely, I mean, the situation is exactly the opposite.

A large number of people who need city-owned housing and affordable housing are stuck on waiting lists for years and years, and this is not just me saying it, this is a fact.

And also, I would say the situation in Seattle has gone far beyond simply talking about whether you're low-income by the standards of the U.S. poverty line, because the rents have gone up so high that there are so many middle-class homes with families with children, who are finding it hard to maintain their rental homes.

And in fact, the Seattle Times reported, I think two years ago, and I'm sure this number has grown since then, that at least 23,000 households in Seattle are extremely rent burdened.

So these are not all technically low income households.

These are people who are probably making middle incomes too, some of them, but are finding it hard to get by because the rents constitute 50% of their income in rent, sometimes more than that.

So I don't think that it makes sense to simply talk about city-owned housing because it is such a small proportion of what is needed for people.

I also wanted to respond to another point you made, Council Member Peterson, which is that, and I'm paraphrasing you, you said it's not the best way to do public policy to be the first city to do something.

I don't agree with that.

Some city has to be the first city.

And I would be happy for Seattle to do the right thing and be the first city to do the right thing.

We have done many things as the first city.

We were one of the first cities to pass Indigenous People's Day.

We were certainly the first major city to pass $15 an hour.

And I'm sure there are other commendable things that happened even, you know, years before, where Seattle was the first city to do that, or Washington State might have been the first state.

I don't think that, I mean, if people are freezing to death on the streets of Pittsburgh or Boston, I don't think that because other cities don't have this buys our city moral absolution We absolutely have to do where there's a solution available.

We have experts in the rental Commission renters Commission who have provided it That's why we're here We have councilmember Lewis and then John right and and these are also I guess Some questions for councilmember Peterson and also potentially central staff but this is sort of in the context of our previous discussion about the types of rental arrangements this ordinance would apply to.

I mean, I'm looking at the website of the Seattle Housing Authority right now, for example, right?

It looks like they tend to enter into 12-month leases with folks.

So to extend the coverage to the housing authority would involve extending it to 12-month leases, which I thought from our previous discussion, this ordinance wouldn't cover.

Is there an extra hook because there's public dollars involved in the housing authority units?

Or did I misunderstand previously when we were talking about the applicability?

So to apply the Just Cause Eviction Ordinance to all tenancies would require a separate ordinance that would be amending the Just Cause Eviction Ordinance in general to the Seattle Housing Authority specifically, it really depends on what that lease agreement looks like and whether or not it terminates exactly at 12 months or if it switches to a month to month.

This Council Member Peterson's amendment is not necessarily applies to all Seattle Housing Authority projects.

It would apply to projects that have city funding, which are often, you know, oftentimes the city is investing in projects and partnering with the Seattle Housing Authority as well as other non-profits, but this also would apply to developers who are participating in the city's multifamily tax exemption program, or if the housing was developed on city-owned land, or if for other reasons the city has a has provided some financial assistance in the past and continues to monitor and regulate those units.

I can't speak to how all of those organizations operate their businesses and what types of lease agreements they have.

I will certainly look into it and sort of to follow up with your other question to try to figure out how to answer that.

I guess in my role of sort of Seeing all sides of an issue, you could look at it in one way as this would be a way to test a policy and see where it applies or does not apply in another approach I had outlined in the email you had quoted earlier would be to apply it to just low income tenants generally.

I think the considerations here were tenants who have already been vetted, who have already been income qualified versus adding a step that the city would have to do in order to income test the tenants before or the courts to determine whether or not this protection or limitation on when it could be evicted could apply.

correct me if I'm wrong Councilmember Peterson.

Well said thank you Ellie.

Yeah well so just to follow up on that too because I actually one thing that I do like about Councilmember Peterson's ordinance is that the means testing is sort of built into it like it is administrable in that respect but I wonder if it were to be If there were to be a means testing that was not hooked to being in a Seattle Housing Authority property, what are some of the tools we would have?

Like, would the person in court in an eviction proceeding, when they're trying to establish their defense, would they need to establish that they are in an earning position that would put them in a low income category that we would establish in the ordinance?

So would the burden be on the person defending an eviction to prove in the eviction court?

And is that how that would be administered?

It would be a defense for the tenant.

So they would have to demonstrate.

It would really depend on, there are a number of options we could look at.

or you could look at, I could work with you to look at, to develop in terms of how you might, what criteria you might set.

It could be an income qualification, and for example, for the city's tenant relocation assistance ordinance, which requires relocation assistance under certain conditions.

Property owner, for example, is redeveloping the property.

They have to apply for a tenant relocation assistance license, and that requires essentially determining which tenants qualify based on their income, and there's a process under which the city verifies that.

I know, I'm not sure if the city has regulations like this, but I know of other areas for certain things.

The tenant qualifies if they receive other types of assistance, so sort of if they're already receiving like food assistance or certain medical assistance, they qualify for other county, state, local programs, that might be the test.

If you qualify for that, you are determined to be low income for the purposes of whatever the...

the regulation is.

So there are a number of ways we could go here.

This one is just because when a unit is under sort of a regulatory agreement with the city, they not only have to be qualified when they move in, but there is a recertification process and the city monitors to ensure that the units that the city invested in, that they are meeting the rent and income restrictions and serving the populations that were intended.

I had Alicia who also wanted to speak, and then John, and then Ted wanted to clarify something based on the discussion.

Hang on.

So we rented from a privately owned corporation that owned our complex.

So would, am I correct to say that we would not be covered under this ordinance?

Or is that?

Right now the ordinance would cover you.

Okay.

The amendment.

The amendment, okay.

The amendment wouldn't, that would not cover us.

That's correct.

So are we having others at the table as well?

What do you mean?

Well, I just didn't know if...

Any small landlord groups are going to join us?

No, it's my prerogative as chair, yes.

Okay, just checking.

But that doesn't change what Alicia is saying about her case.

Yeah, I just wanted to take a step back and understand how you're running this particular meeting.

There's nothing, I do want to say, I don't appreciate you insinuating that there's something problematic about the way we are running the meeting.

It's a renter who's gone through an absolutely catastrophic experience.

because of eviction in winter months.

And I really would appreciate elected officials showing some respect for our constituents, our community members who have gone through so much because the laws in our city do not protect renters who are being exploited and who are being sort of thrown through the cracks.

And we have a representative of that.

That was not my intent.

That was not my intent.

It does come across like that, because I don't go to other council members' committees and question how they're organized, because it's your prerogative as chair.

And if I don't politically agree with something, I will just say it.

But that's fine, and you're free to bring your amendment, but let's have the committee meeting.

Yes, I wanted to just add people to the table, and I'm happy to answer the question, so thank you for the question.

But really, my intent was to add people to the table.

That's right, this amendment would focus on folks who are in homes or apartments funded by the Seattle Housing Levy, MFTE program, Seattle Housing Authority, if they're getting financial assistance.

And the idea is to start the process, to have a law in place that would prevent these evictions, supplement that with funding that we would provide emergency assistance.

To speak to Council Member Morales' point, I agree that this is not, this is just a subset that would be within the eviction restrictions, but we also need to provide financial assistance so that we can, you know, target the money if people have a need to get that money to you.

So I would want to help groups in private market housing.

Okay.

Well, I just wanted to clarify that that the whole idea of mitigation funds, I mean, there are funds that exist and we have had a long discussion about it, but I think it's important for us to recognize that this whole idea of mitigation fund as some sort of alternative to just laws like this one, I mean, this law alone is not gonna protect renters, but it is part of a renter's bill of rights that we need.

We've already done what the law that protects renters, from facing rent increases when they have outstanding housing code violations.

There was a law that we passed despite tremendous opposition from corporate landlords.

We also passed the move-in fee cap and payment plan.

So all of these Individual renters' rights legislation that we've been passing are hopefully part of a full-fledged renters' bill of rights.

And so, you know, no one law is going to ensure by itself.

However, these laws are necessary because this idea of mitigation fund as an alternative to all these legal protections for renters is premised on a mythology.

It's premised on a mythology that renters are willy-nilly refusing to pay their rent or that somehow there is some epidemic of renters not paying their rent, and somehow if we make sure that we have some sort of other alternative to make renters pay their rent, we will be able to solve this problem.

The problem is not that renters don't pay rent.

As John was saying, renters move heaven and earth to be able to make their rent because they know that they don't want an eviction.

And we should also keep in mind that this is not you know, rent-free card or anything.

This legislation merely says you cannot be evicted except for, you know, certain exceptions that Ali already laid out in the winter months.

And so, in other words, this is a question of humanity.

It's a humane law to make sure that people, especially with families, as Nancy Rankin said, the people who are most impacted are women-led families with children.

So it's about protecting the most vulnerable people And the mitigation funds cannot be accessed typically for one or two weeks after the eviction notice is laid out.

And by that time, the family is going to be out on the street.

So it's not an alternative.

And I don't think we should allow the public to think that it's an alternative.

It's actually not.

Go ahead, John.

I want to talk about the amendment and the proposal to only limit this to city-owned property because somehow we should have a means test so that rich people aren't getting evicted.

We don't have any wealthy people at the tenants union coming asking us for help.

These are people who are already struggling.

So means testing, it's kind of built in to the eviction process already, if you think about it, because rich people aren't getting evicted.

What is the point?

This is just another layer of bureaucracy that we do not need.

This is completely pointless.

Why?

There's no point to it at all.

It's true, and also, the study that we actually covered in my committee last year, and some of you, actually, none of you was there, so just very quickly, I will share because you're newly incoming council members, a study by Tim Thomas, I think, a research professor at the University of Washington, he did a survey exactly, you know, that proves statistically what John was just saying, that the people who face eviction are almost entirely extremely low-income and vulnerable people, and in fact within that, It's African-American women who are the most impacted by eviction.

So I do believe John is making a very important point that means testing is built into who gets evicted.

Can I just have Ted come in?

Because I think it sort of addresses one of the questions you raised, which was a very good one.

I just came over to the table to speak to a point that was raised earlier about leases, about the question about people on leases.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but because we've looked into this issue in the past.

So the Just Cause Eviction Ordinance does not help out people who are on a lease at the end of the lease and the landlord doesn't want to renew the lease.

But in terms of if you're in the middle of the lease and you have a health emergency and you don't make your rent, you know, and then this law would apply.

Like if you're getting evicted through, you know, any of those normal, normal things, whether or not you have a lease, this would apply.

It's just that point about renewing leases at the end of the lease that the whole just cause eviction ordinance structure doesn't address.

And just to add to that, I hope Councilmember Lewis that sort of answers one of your questions about leased tenants.

Well, let me clarify a little bit, because my understanding from my exchange earlier with central staff was that if you were kind of locked in to a 12-month lease, the process that would apply would be the process that the state has delineated for, you know, breaking one of the terms of a lease, which would be to provide rent and that the just cause.

You know, if you've entered into a lease as a landlord, right, you can't just break the lease unless the tenant is violating some terms of the, I mean, the tenant has rights if you've entered into a 12-month lease.

I understand how it would apply in a month-to-month or that situation.

I guess I'm just a little unclear still because it doesn't sound like there's really much distinction at all from what the presentation we just heard.

So I was just trying to actually pull up the full text of the ordinance.

I'm having technical difficulties, but the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection's website says, the Just Cause Eviction Ordinance does not apply to terminating lease contracts, written contracts that end on a specific date with no right to hold over.

So I will need to confirm what you are saying, and I won't be able to do that on the fly, but I will confirm that, but how that is actually applied.

So if it is...

If it is a eviction due to something that is not a violation of the lease term, you know, it isn't a month-to-month lease, I need to get some clarification, and so I will follow up with you tomorrow to confirm sort of exactly where the line is, under what tendencies this absolutely does apply, and under what circumstances it would not.

Okay, thanks, because, you know, my understanding coming into this was clearer than where it is right now on that issue, so.

But I do have some other comments, if that would be appropriate.

Yes, absolutely.

Okay.

So, you know, I mean, one thing I do just want to clarify, too, I think for John and Councilmember Sawant is, you know, at least my inquiries, I can't speak for Councilmember Peterson, but my inquiries about the means testing weren't necessarily to imply that, we have this epidemic of rich people not paying rent.

I think going back to a point that Council Member Peterson made earlier, the nature of this ordinance in being a broad new law and not being precedented in the United States does behoove us to think about some of the potential implications of the ordinance.

And I mean, one of those could be, and they've been raised to me, and I'm not saying this would happen, is that because you could be in a position where you are not at risk of being evicted for not paying rent, people may elect to do so.

I do not think that they would, but I just wanted to ask some questions about it to central staff and ask some questions about it to my colleagues just to make sure that we're structuring an ordinance that can withstand that kind of scrutiny where people of means are for whatever reason not paying rent.

Again, I don't think it's going to happen, but I just wanted to clarify that you know, I don't anticipate something like that happening.

And I do completely respect and understand, again, also as a renter, that means testing is built into the eviction process and that this is a tool that is much more broadly used against folks that are on the margins and that do not have opportunity under the current system.

So I just wanted to make that clear and did appreciate your comments on that.

And I think I'm ready to just sort of speak to more broadly in my thoughts on the amendment and the resolution, or the proposed ordinance, if that would be appropriate now.

I don't know if you...

And also speaking to the amendment under question?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's Council Member Peterson's amendment.

Go ahead.

First, I do want to thank Council Member Sawant and Council Member Sawant's staff throughout the process of discussing this ordinance.

I think that you have been, Council Member Swann, have been very diligent in anticipating possible criticisms of the ordinance and adopting it considerably to feedback.

You know, a lot of the things that I had sort of prepared myself to come to the committee today to propose as potential amendments, none were actually covered by the substitute ordinance.

And I just want to commend.

you know, to central staff, everyone on your team for incorporating a lot of those things.

I do just want to kind of make it clear for the record that some of those amendments that were passed earlier and the substitute bill that has been, that is now before the committee did include things like, one of the things that was really important to me as a former prosecutor who's seen a lot of victims and a lot of folks who've had criminal activity occur in,

Sorry, can you say that again?

Oh, sure.

Well, as a prosecutor who has seen a lot of cases where criminal activity occurred in a rental unit or there was an ongoing criminal concern in a rental unit, it was certainly one of my concerns that potentially you could have an ongoing criminal enterprise in a unit that is an exigent circumstance for a landlord.

If someone is cooking meth in a in a unit and you can't evict them for several months, that would be a really big concern.

You know, under the current ordinance that we have just proposed, that would not happen.

And I just want to make that clear for everyone in the audience and for just for the record of the committee.

And I think that that is a really important concession.

In fact, there's eight total exceptions to imposing an eviction on folks, well, to blocking and defending the eviction that we have just approved by amending the ordinance.

So, you know, I do intend for the purposes of this committee hearing to vote to pass the ordinance to the full council I still have some questions and some concerns based on my conversations with with with central staff during this committee and hearing from The members of the committee who I think have made a lot of really good and strong points.

I mean I commend Actually councilmember Peterson, I think has some very good thoughtful questions About some things that I think are still some vulnerabilities of the ordinance that I want to look at potentially with central staff and with your office You know, I would certainly like to look at some kind of a mitigation fund.

I want to be clear about that, not as an alternative to the ordinance, but as some kind of mechanism in a case where it would be appropriate to compensate a landlord if there was a long period of time under, well, where an eviction is delayed until April, where it would be a hardship for a small landlord to absorb that cost.

And I think that some kind of...

Do you mean sort of built into the ordinance?

Yes.

Yeah.

Well, it built into the ordinance for it.

And, you know, I don't know what it's going to look like.

And I'll talk to Ali about how something like that might be approachable.

It's one of the things that Ali did highlight in the memo she sent to us on January 10th of the possibility of looking into something like that.

I'm not aware of the scope of this ordinance.

Based on my questioning earlier, sounds like it would require some potential new appropriation.

But again, I don't know the scale or the scope of how many evictions a year this ordinance would be anticipated to prevent.

And then how many months of I would like to look into that and see what the fiscal note on something like that might be as a potential amendment.

I mean, mostly that.

I think my questions on some of the other issues were fairly, have been fairly resolved, although I am going to touch base probably offline with some other folks to ask a couple more questions.

I mean, I think that we do know, and it is a matter of public record and it's clear, that 78% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck in this country.

A lot of those folks are renters.

I'm the only person on this committee who is a renter.

I've definitely been in situations where I have felt rent burdened.

Earlier in my career, obviously, not as a professional, but previously, 50% of Americans today can't absorb an expense of $500 or more and don't have the savings to cover that.

And that can, in a lot of cases, that emergency can be rent.

and they don't have the adequate money to pay for it.

So, you know, I do appreciate the spirit in which this ordinance has been brought forward.

I appreciate a lot of the proactive changes that were made.

There's other areas I want to look to improve upon, but I think for the purposes of this hearing, I am happy to vote to send it forward.

I would actually encourage to speak to Councilmember Peterson's amendment, I actually do think Councilmember Peterson's amendment would probably warrant the consideration of the full council as well.

And I think we should have this conversation with the rest of our colleagues potentially.

I think Councilmember Peterson would be fully within his rights to reintroduce it when we convene as a full council for the consideration.

I do think that there is some value in talking about a change, a new regulation that is so broad in scope and so unprecedented to advocate for a incremental response.

And I know a lot of folks in the policy sphere don't like incrementalism or see incrementalism as a compromise or a retreat, but just to speak to Councilor Peterson's intentions, I do think, or what I perceive as his intentions, I really do think it is about laying a sound policy groundwork to build on incrementally over time.

This may not be an ordinance where an approach like that is warranted, but I'm happy to continue to have that conversation, and I think there's still a little more work to be done, but that's how I'm gonna be voting tonight.

Thank you so much Council Member Lewis for very apt comments.

On your last point, yeah, the reason I'm not comfortable with the amendment that Council Member Peterson has presented is because most of the data shows that most of the evictions are, you know, where are they happening?

They're happening with private landlords.

I don't know if you wanted to add anything, Jonathan.

Yeah, during this discussion, I was able with some help to from B Seattle to get some data.

We don't have the citywide data on evictions, who's evicting private landlords or.

I can tell you that last year our counsel office partnered with Seattle to do a whole scan of district 3 to look at each building, each landlord, each apartment to see about code violations.

and other things, including evictions.

And what the data shows that in the three years between, this is just District 3, 2016 through 2018, three of the top four evictors by landlord were private developers.

Thrive, with 170 evictions in District 3. Essex, with 163. Lehigh, which is probably mostly low-income, will probably be captured largely by your amendment.

maybe, 143, allied another private corporate landlord with 117 evictions.

And while I don't have the data, Cornell and Associates, I remember, is another name that came up.

And we were doing a lot of house visits around that time around rent control.

So we went out and talked to people in these buildings.

I can tell you they had horrific stories of just neighbors who'd been evicted or themselves haven't been evicted in similar circumstances in their previous rentals and just how difficult it was because you have this layer where you can't deal with the landlord, you're dealing with the property manager and it's all anonymized so that you get an eviction notice and that's pretty much a death sentence you have to move.

So that was at least our experience in district three in terms of the data of who is really driving most of the evictions.

And I would also note, we did house visits on rent control in district four, and the primary culprit there, and again, I don't have data on this, but American campus communities, Maybe you're familiar with them.

Very big corporate landlord.

Serial evictors, especially of students and people who work at the University of Washington.

They are buying properties up and down the avenue in that region, in that area.

And we ran into a lot of stories of students and low- and moderate-income workers at the University of Washington who had faced eviction or had friends who faced eviction at ACC buildings and at other buildings.

in the university district.

And they were not talking about buildings that were publicly owned or MFTE.

They were talking about purely private arrangements where no city dollars touch the property.

And these people obviously would not be covered under the amendment that's been proposed.

Council Member Suwanda, just a quick comment.

And Jonathan, thank you for that.

I just wanted to, I did just want to point out though, like in fairness, because I remembered this article several years ago from Seattle's main paper of Record the Stranger, April 25th of 2018, by Heidi Gruver that detailed, I mean, and I just remembered it because of our conversation today, that Seattle Housing Authority, at least in that article, and I'm happy to circulate this, did have a very high, I mean, and that's just one provider of public housing, but did have a pretty sensational eviction record.

It looks like in the five years prior to the article, 473 evictions initiated, an average of two eviction cases filed per week, sometimes for amounts of money as indigent as just $49, $50, $155.

I did just want to put that into the public record.

And I know that in the aggregate, the private market is much bigger.

Obviously, the private market is going to have far more evictions.

I think that definitely it is appropriate to consider a regulation that would cover the private market, but I did just want to put out there for the matter of the public record today that there is a considerable documented and frankly egregious record from the Seattle Housing Authority of initiating evictions against folks that are completely indigent.

So I just wanted to share that.

Thank you Council Member Lewis and Council Member Morales.

Yeah, I just want to say that in my mind it really doesn't matter if we're talking about eviction by private corporations or if we're talking about eviction of people from public housing or some public entity or some apartment building that has some small degree of public funding in it.

The point is that people are getting put out on the street.

Individuals, children, women, people of color, and that is the issue that we're dealing with here.

And I think we have to remember that these aren't just statistics, these aren't just percentages and, you know, The issue isn't who's evicting more.

The issue is that people are getting evicted during the winter months.

We're trying to protect them from that reality.

And I think we really need to center the experience of people who have been evicted and who are telling us that this is a traumatic experience that is very hard to recover from.

And if we can prevent something like that from happening, then we could potentially keep people into stable housing, repair a relationship, hopefully, between a tenant and a landlord, and keep a family from getting tossed on the street.

So, you know, I appreciate that there is...

more data that we need perhaps to understand the scope of what we're talking about better, to understand the cost of what other programming, what other funding we might need to be thinking about, and that should also come with some real strategies for how we're going to find that money and how we're going to provide it.

But I don't want us to lose sight of the fact that we're talking about individuals whose lives are ruined from being tossed out on the street.

And that is not to say that we don't need to also protect small landlords, but whether it's public or private corporation, what we really need to be focusing on is keeping people safe.

I really appreciate those points, Council Member Morales, and you're absolutely right.

It's about people.

These are not just inanimate objects we're talking about.

And in response to Council Member Lewis, thank you for sharing, actually.

And the stranger did do some good reporting on that.

And I'm just laughing because he said paper of record.

Yeah, well.

In many ways it probably is.

But you're absolutely right.

I mean, first of all, just to echo Council Member Morales, it doesn't matter what kind of landlord we're talking about.

We need to protect families from being evicted in the winter months.

And again, that's all this legislation will do.

It does not provide every single protection renters need.

But on On Council Member Lewis's point, it's actually absolutely accurate what you just reported.

And in fact, there's been a long track record of the Seattle Housing Authority being a very sort of, in many ways, sort of cruel landlord.

And in fact, some of you might remember, and I don't know if Ali, you were here at that time, but in September of 2014, because it's, I mean, the Seattle Housing Authority is not a city authority, it's hard-funded, so it's a federal mandate.

The federal government instituted a program called Stepping Forward, which was going to increase the rents by 400%, and I'm not joking, it actually was 400%, probably more than that.

Some people say 500%.

Anyway, so this was yet another egregious example of how SHA has been as a landlord.

And there have been, actually, we routinely get phone calls from tenants of Seattle Housing Authority who tell us that they're being evicted.

And I don't know if we're able to address every single, we send them to the Tenants Union, of course.

But it seems like there are many cases in which they should not be evicted and they get evicted.

It is true.

I would also point out though that and I think Ali pointed this out that SHA tenants would not be covered under if this amendment passes right because it's not a city funded public housing?

It may to and not maybe not to every SHA unit but oftentimes there is city money in the projects with the housing authority in a variety of ways and so just to just to clarify this amendment it would apply to housing units that have either in the development or are continuing to receive financial assistance from the city.

So that could include housing developments that are funded, that are built by SHA, that are built by nonprofits, and in some cases for-profit developers as well, as well as MFTE units that are in private development.

So it's not just, and the city doesn't really own housing in and of itself, so it is a sort of There's a variety of different types of housing developments that it would apply to.

But it still would exclude, the amendment would still exclude privately owned.

It would exclude privately owned housing that isn't participating in the MFTE, that the units are not MFTE units, those are typically in private.

private development.

So, you know, I would say the majority of housing development that receives financial assistance from the city is probably owned by nonprofits and the Seattle Housing Authority, but it is not a, it's not a bright line that it's only, that there's no, that there would be no housing units that are owned by for-profit developers for, you know, private owners that wouldn't be regulated by this.

Okay, let's put it very precisely.

It would exclude all rental units that don't have any kind of city funding or any of the city connections or anything that you mentioned.

They are units that have received financial assistance and generally have some sort of regulatory agreement.

So MFTE, there is a regulatory agreement on those, excuse me, multi-family tax exemption units, as well as when the city invests in projects, there is a regulatory agreement with conditions under which those units could be rented, which typically includes both a rent and income restriction.

But I don't want, I mean, the way you're saying it, though, it sort of gives the impression that it's probably a significant minority or a majority of rental units that come under this category.

My understanding is they don't, because for the most part, the city funding is, I mean, there's so little funding that you have a smattering of, units that fulfill the category you've said.

I don't want it to be misleading that it's like lots of units.

My concern is that we have to be very clear that this amendment would leave out a majority of renters out of this protection.

So I wasn't trying to make it more vague or anything like that.

I was just trying to clarify that there's not sort of a clear line between non-profit, for-profit, SHA, sort of who the owner is necessarily, but it is the numbers you were quoting previously, it is roughly about 17,000 units that would fall under this category, which is about 10% of the rental units.

Right, thank you.

Thank you for coming back to that point because ultimately that's what is at the crux.

So nine times out of 10, you wouldn't be covered with this legislation if this amendment passes.

Councilman Peterson and then Ted want to speak.

Go ahead.

I feel like you've given lots of air time to my amendment.

I appreciate it.

I think it's been explained well from different angles.

I'm happy to just move it and we can just decide and then take it.

Sure, you'd like to move it?

Sure, I'd like to move this amendment.

Number two.

Second.

Thank you.

All in favor of the amendment, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed, say no.

No.

So the amendment does not pass.

I'm not aware of any other amendments at this point.

So I would like to move So sorry, before I say that, before I call the question, Council Member Lewis, you mentioned several things that you would like to look at.

Would you be okay with my office and yours, with the help of central staff, sort of working on those things before we come to the full council vote, but voting it, but I'm about to call it for vote in the committee.

Yeah, as I said in my comments earlier, I think that that would be acceptable given a lot of the changes that were made in the substitute ordinance.

So, yeah, my intent would be, especially since we have, my understanding is the preferred schedule from the chair would be two weeks instead of referring it on for next Monday.

So, given that there is the two weeks, it might have been a little different if the turnaround was quicker, but given that there's two weeks, I don't actually have an objection to that and gives a chance for, all of our colleagues on the full council to kind of let this sink in a little bit too.

So I would vote to move it forward today.

Okay, thank you so much for that clarification.

So Ali, let me know if I'm not doing this right.

I move to a move council bill 119726 version two for a vote by committee to come to, actually I don't have to say that part right now, right?

correct so you're moving the bill as amended for and recommending consideration at the full council on February 3rd can I get a second second thank you all in favor of the bill as amended and coming to full council on February 3rd say aye aye

All opposed?

I'll abstain.

OK, we have three ayes and one abstain.

So the winter eviction moratorium bill passes through committee.

And we will be working with all your offices to see what additions you want to make.

Thank all council members for their full participation, and once again for coming at an evening time.

And I know it's 8 o'clock, so I wanted to thank you once again.

And thank you, presenters.

Alicia, thank you very much for sharing your personal story.

And John, and please say thank you to everyone at the Tenants Union.

And Ali, thank you for all your work.

And I apologize if I was trying to get it in a way that make sense to me.

But I appreciate you have to be very precise and detailed.

That's your job.

And that's very much appreciated.

And thanks to my staff as well and everybody who came for public comment.

Unless there are any other comments, meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.