Seattle City Council Finance and Housing Committee March 3, 2020

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for joining us.

Today is March 3, 2020, and the Finance and Housing Committee will come to order.

It is 9.34.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the committee.

I'm joined by Vice Chair Councilmember Herbold, Councilmember Lewis, and Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you all for being here today.

We have seven items on today's agenda, four appointments to the Domestic Worker Standards Board, a presentation from the Housing Connector, and a briefing and possible vote on the rent-bidding legislation, and a briefing and update on the Finance and Housing 2020 Work Plan for this committee.

At this time, we're going to take public comments, and then I'm going to have a chair's report, just a quick update on the coronavirus for our viewing public and our colleagues who are here today.

We do have one person signed up.

It's good to see you, Mr. Doug Conrad.

Welcome to the microphone.

Thanks for being here today.

Thank you very much.

Provide a little context for why I'm here.

I'm a citizen.

I'm in the District 6 with Mr. Strauss and also have gotten to know Teresa Mosqueda in another function on the Washington Health Insurance Exchange Board several years ago.

I'm here as a citizen and as a trained economist to comment on some of the affordable housing issues that you're addressing today.

And I'll keep it brief.

My first point is I have strong support for the kind of detail I'm seeing in the agenda and some of the work plan for the housing levy oversight and also the housing and finance efforts.

I mean, that's a platitude, but I think it's serious that you know that there are citizens out there who are supporting what you do.

My second point is I would love to see the council and its committees produce a kind of integrated report, and perhaps you've already done this, but make it very publicly available in terms of the outcomes so far.

The housing levy, for example, that we passed in 2016 had a number of outcomes in it, one of which was to build, I believe, 6,000 new affordable housing units over the decade.

That was a goal that would meet 30 percent of the estimated demand at that time.

So I'm curious how we're doing, and particularly with the new regional oversight that's going to combine the resources and the talent of the county and the city.

It'd be interesting to see if any of that plan has revised or gotten more robust.

It's a big problem, takes a lot of help, and I realize it's difficult, but it'd be interesting for the public to see the outcomes almost every day or every week from Mayor Durkan, from you folks, and whatever sources.

The third point, and this comes more from my economics background and the evidence I've looked at, I hope that in terms of funding, future efforts to make more robust affordable housing available across the board, particularly for the lowest income groups and the more vulnerable population, that instead of looking seriously at a payroll tax or a head tax, as it's often called, on major employers, that a voluntary effort of those same folks in combination with the council, the mayor, I think would be more effective.

And here's a piece of economic evidence on that.

Both the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Congressional Budget Office have published reports, happy to provide information on how to get those, that say most of the incidents, the ultimate bearing of a payroll tax, is on the workers.

It's not on the shareholders.

It's not on prices paid for the goods that those folks produce.

It's rather about 60% of it shifted to the workers, informed either reduced benefits, compensation in other ways, or reduced wages.

Now that may or may not happen at exactly that magnitude here in this region, but there's good reason to think.

that maybe a voluntary approach or alternative sources of taxation that don't have those side effects would be more effective.

So those are the three points I wanted to raise for your consideration today.

Thank you very much, Duggan.

Great to see you again.

Thanks for coming by.

Is there any other person who would like to sign up for public testimony today?

Okay, excellent.

Well, seeing none, that will close our public testimony for today.

I will note there have been a few reports that we've generated.

I agree with you, would love to see more of kind of a dashboard style reporting out on our affordable housing efforts, so we will see if we can integrate that into a future committee meeting.

We did that last year and would love to continue to update, especially now that we have MHA dollars coming in the door.

Councilmember Herbold.

Just want to add, Office of Housing is typically really good about getting their annual reports up online for the housing levy, but it has been a couple years since they've posted their annual report, but they do one every year.

We're looking at the right person out the door.

I see Robin out there.

Her ears are burning from Office of Housing, so we'll make sure to send that around.

Thank you, Doug.

Before we begin today's official agenda, I just want to take a moment again to talk about the coronavirus to provide an update to our viewing public and to our employees in the city and to our colleagues as well.

Want to send our deepest sympathies again to the individuals who've lost lost their lives We started yesterday with the same comments at council briefing as we know now There's six individuals in the region who have lost their lives and a lot of people who I think are Concerned about going in and getting tested.

I encourage people to my sister who I mentioned has MS and a compromised immune system She had a cough over the weekend.

She went in and And I think she's feeling rested assured that she doesn't have a fever and her lungs sound good.

So she has basically a bad cold.

It's important to make sure that people know that they can go in, that it is important for them to get tested if they do show any symptoms.

It is critical that we identify folks who potentially have the virus and also put people's fears at ease if they do just have a quote, common cold or the flu, we want them to get well and rested too.

But in this time, I know there's a lot of fear going around So just want to reiterate that we are going to have a council meeting tomorrow and Councilmember Herbold's special committee public health Seattle Public Health will be their Office of emergency management, and they're going to do a presentation jointly is that correct that is correct and several Additional department heads will be joining us as well Thank you for making time to do that.

Wednesday at 2 p.m., correct?

That's correct.

Okay, excellent.

Next Monday, we'll also have Public Health Seattle's King County in our full council meeting to provide an update.

As the vice chair of the King County Board of Health and as someone who has spent a long time working in public health, we want to reiterate the most important thing that folks can do is wash their hands.

And I saw a video online of what happens every, you know, basically five seconds that you're washing your hands.

You would think that after five or 10 seconds of washing your hands, your germs are gone.

They're not.

It really does take that 20 to 30 seconds.

So if you need to sing happy birthday twice, sing happy birthday two times, and that will help to make sure that you've gotten your full seconds in.

We want to make sure that people know that in addition to washing our hands, these Purell or hand sanitizers are good as a backup, I think you mentioned that yesterday, but not as effective as washing our hands.

And then as we did this morning, thank you to Farida Cuevas and then Council Member Strauss and myself also wiped down our areas, continue to wipe down any commonly used surface areas.

If you have items at home that you feel you need to stockpile, like food and diapers and water, please do so, but also remain calm, right?

We are hoping that folks don't panic, but we do want folks to have items on hand just in case you can't go to the grocery store, don't want to go to the grocery store, or you feel ill, or your grocery store closes.

We want folks to have those items on hand, including toilet paper.

But the thing that we're asking folks not to stock up on is gloves and masks.

We want to reserve those for the individuals who are actually sick and for the medical teams that need those.

So we don't want to create an unnecessary shortage.

Again, if folks want to sign up at alert.seattle.gov, the city's official emergency notification system, you should do that.

Alert.gov.Seattle.

You can get alerts via text and email and social media.

And for information related to the coronavirus, from the media, 206-233-5072.

I want to make sure we provide updates in real time.

I know each of our offices is working to get information out.

And in addition to our offices, the offices that Council Member Herbold is having in her committee are posting regular updates as well.

Council Member Herbold.

And as I mentioned yesterday, I will be collecting questions from council members so that we can share them.

with the executive by close of business today, so they can be prepared to answer them.

But I also just want to say out to the viewing public, if you have questions that you haven't seen answered in the media, feel free to send them to my office, lisa.herbold at seattle.gov.

Excellent.

Thank you.

And appreciate the Seattle Times coverage of how we reach out to the most vulnerable communities, including those without homes.

We want to ward off any unnecessary fear mongering that some have tried to perpetuate on our homeless community.

And at the same time, we need to do a better job of educating those who are living unsheltered in our community.

It is a lack of housing, a lack of health care, and a lack of hand washing and sanitary facilities that we want to take responsibility for as public officials.

And that's the only distinction that we should, I think, recognize.

We have, in many cases, failed to provide the necessary health care and housing.

And so this is, I think, an additional call for urgency on us to make sure that the community that's living unsheltered does have access to those services, especially with any underlying chronic conditions that also we as a society haven't been able to help because of a lack of health care and housing, which is on our agenda for the work plan today.

Lastly, thanks to the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs for preparing and sending out recommendations and information on the coronavirus, translated into numerous languages, including Spanish, Vietnamese, Somali, Korean, Chinese, and a number of others.

You can find that at welcoming.seattle.gov backslash COVID-19.

Ferry de Cuevas, do you mind reading into the record item number one and we will begin our official agenda.

Can we do agenda number one through four?

Items one through four would be great.

Thank you so much.

Agenda item one, appointment one, sorry, 01560, appointment of Jordan Goldwark.

Appointment 01561, appointment of Ethelina Houser.

Appointment 01562, appointment of Candace Fravor.

Appointment 01563, appointment of Bailey Freeman as member of the Domestic Worker Standards Board for a briefing discussion and possible vote.

Well, welcome.

Today we have in front of us Jasmine Ruaha from the Office of Labor Standards and Jordan Goldberg.

Thank you for being here today.

We do not have the three individuals that are also listed on the agenda, but you did hear from them at our February 19th meeting.

Edelbina Hauser, Candace Faber, and Bailey Freeman, others as well, have come forward and been at this table before.

So while they couldn't be here today, we do have their full packets.

So why don't we start with introductions and then, Jordan, you can tell us a little bit more about your interest in serving on this board and any background or experience that you have that you think will be an asset.

Great.

Hello.

Again, my name is Jasmine Marwaha.

I'm with the Office of Labor Standards and the staff liaison to the Domestic Worker Standards Board.

As you mentioned, I'm here to present four appointments to the board, three of which you heard two weeks ago.

And before I turn it over to Jordan, I'll give a little bit of background on the board briefly, although I know you heard this two weeks ago.

So the Domestic Workers Standards Board is committed to improving the working conditions of domestic workers by providing a place for workers, employers, organizations, and the general public to make suggestions to enforce, implement, and expand on the Domestic Workers Ordinance.

The board was initially established last year with eight members, half appointed by the mayor, half by council, half hiring entity representatives and half worker representatives.

And then the eight board members then chose a ninth community representative who was a worker named Victor Lozada.

We're here at the table today because the Domestic Workers Ordinance requires that starting this year, the board increases to a total of 13 members.

And so the council and mayor each appoint two members, each one hiring representative and one worker representative.

And so the three you heard last week fit the bill.

We have Jordan here who's a mayoral appointee from the hiring entity side.

And I'll go ahead and turn it over to Jordan.

Great, and thank you so much.

And I'm really honored to have this opportunity to serve the city.

So I first got connected to this work through Hand in Hand, which is a national network of employers of domestic workers.

And before finding out about Hand in Hand, I really didn't know that such a network existed and really was not very familiar with the situation for domestic workers.

My husband and I have employed a house cleaner for about 10 years now.

We do that through an agency, which is one reason why I became particularly interested in serving on the standards board, is I think that there are a lot of people in the city who employ workers through agencies.

And so it's really important that that voice be present on the standards board and that agencies are going to be held accountable for compliance with the ordinance.

And so I hope that can bring that perspective.

Through my involvement with Hand in Hand, I just started to learn more about the historical reality of the way that domestic workers have been treated and the very racialized history that resulted in them being excluded from so many labor protections over the years.

And then also, you know, the reality of the current day situation with many workers vulnerable to exploitation, vulnerable to harassment, to discrimination and abuse.

And so I was really excited to learn that Seattle has done something to try to fix this issue and to really afford domestic workers the same protections that all other workers get and to try to right these historical wrongs.

And so, you know, continuing my involvement with Hand in Hand, I also have been involved this year on the state level and the effort to pass the Statewide Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.

I had the opportunity to go to Olympia and testify in front of Senate and House committees there earlier this session in support of the bill.

And so, you know, when the opportunity arose to be able to apply for a position on the city standards board, It seemed like a really great opportunity to continue to push for full rights for domestic workers.

And I also was really excited that the board seems to be an example of us centering the voices of those who are most impacted by this issue.

And so for me to be there as an employer and to be able to support workers in the struggle for full rights is something that I've been really excited about.

Thank you so much, Jordan.

And we have the letter of intent that you wrote as well, which is very comprehensive.

Appreciate that.

Colleagues, any questions or comments?

Council Member Herbold.

Just want to thank you for your willingness to serve.

I know there's a lot before the Domestic Workers Board in the next year or so, and really look forward to a diversity of input and perspective.

And I think everybody depending on where they stand in the relationship has a different perspective to share and I appreciate your willingness to do that.

For Jasmine, just real quick, I noticed that the roster has a lot of U's.

for the districts, like six of them.

And just wondering what the status is on getting those updated.

We have not had a chance.

So a lot of their resumes do not include addresses.

And so I just haven't had a chance to ask where people live.

But my plan was to update the roster after the next meeting and get it completed.

So thank you.

Great.

Thanks.

Appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

And I think that's a great point, too.

I know as somebody who also employs a domestic worker to clean my house every month, which we just started recently, it's been so incredible to have that type of work done at our house so that we can do other types of work, especially with a little one now.

Their work makes other work possible and makes the city run.

So I'm so incredibly grateful that we have that employee that we are able to work with.

And I know that she also lives outside of the city due to the cost of housing in the city.

So it might be interesting as you get the information about where the various board members live if there are a number of individuals who are on the worker side who live outside of the city to think about what other solutions, you know, the city advisory board may want to consider as a regional or a state level as you've already done with the State Workers Domestic Bill of Rights.

Any other comments?

Okay, the last thing I would just suggest is I'm really fascinated to know more about the development of this kind of template contract that could be used.

I want it to be seen as something that is empowering for workers.

And given that there's so many workers who are truly independent contractors, they set their own schedule.

They set their own clientele and they, you know, may be separate from those who are working from an agency.

Those who want to continue to be an independent contractor, how do we make sure that the model contract is offered in a way that is empowering and doesn't make somebody feel like they're signing something that they don't, you know, fully understand or maybe intimidates them to sign?

We want this to be a good tool so that they know their rights for rest and meal breaks.

They know their rights from retaliation protection, and then they know their rights to at least the minimum wage, even if they're independent contractors.

I think the language around how we offer that type of template, especially to independent contractors, is going to be really helpful.

So almost like a script or truth testing how this would roll out in the community is something I'd love the board to consider.

Yes, I can speak to that a little bit, but the board has actually created a few subcommittees and working groups, and one of which is on a model contract, and they hope to develop a model contract in the next couple months.

Excellent.

Great.

Well, Jordan, thank you so much.

Any other comments from our colleagues?

Okay, seeing none, what I'd like to do, if you don't mind staying at the table here for a second, is go ahead and move your appointment.

I move the committee recommends the passage of appointments of Jordan Goldwarg, Bailey Freeman, Candace Faber, and Atalina Hauser as members of the Domestic Workers Standard Board.

Second.

Thank you.

Are there any further comments?

Seeing none, all those in favor of recommending passage of the appointments, vote aye and raise your hand.

Aye.

No one's opposed and it's unanimous.

We will bring this forward to our next committee meeting on Monday, March 9th.

You don't have to be there in person, but we will send you the good news if you're not there.

If you are there, that's welcomed as well.

But thanks again for your interest in serving and for being here this morning.

Thank you all.

Yeah, appreciate it.

And thank Hand in Hand for us.

They were such great partners when we worked on the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.

Really appreciate their leadership.

I will pass that on to Erica.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Okay, great.

Farideh, can you read item number five into the record?

Agenda item five, Housing Connector Program for Briefing and Discussion.

Excellent.

And can we be joined?

Hi, guys.

Welcome on up.

Robin Kowski, Office of Housing.

Skelchim Kelmendi, Executive Director.

And Angela Compton, Program Manager, both from the Housing Connector.

And welcome to the table, everyone.

I think we do have a presentation, is that right?

Okay, that sounds great.

And as we get started here, just want to note for folks, this was something that was flagged in one of the mayor's comments.

I believe it was at the State of the City.

And it really perked my interest.

For folks who don't know, you'll get an overview today of the Housing Connector.

But it's very similar to a program that I learned about when I was visiting Los Angeles almost two years ago in 2018. We went down there and they talked about the need to make sure that we were doing, or the need that they had to make sure that those who had vacant apartments were connecting people with those who needed housing.

And in such an incredibly tough housing market, that just seemed like such a great liaison program.

I knew that we had somewhat of a liaison program, and Robin, you can chime in to remind me what it used to be in the past, but as the housing connector was rolled out, we really wanted a chance to hear from you all, from the new program, about how this worked And really, frankly, any ways that we can be helpful, especially as we see a potential recession on the horizon, growing numbers of individuals who are homeless who have jobs.

What they don't have is a place to live.

And we would love to make sure that we're here to help you out.

So we know it's a pilot program, just started six months ago, and looking forward to hearing more about the successes and any areas that you have for how to help us move it forward.

I'm Robin Koski from the Office of Housing.

I think I'll just let Angela and Skelcham introduce themselves, and then I'll do a brief introduction, and then I really want to let them take most of the space here, because they're doing some pretty incredible work.

Excellent.

Yeah, I'm Angela Compton.

I'm a program manager with Housing Connector.

Good morning, everyone.

Skelton Kalmendi, the Executive Director of Housing Connector.

Thank you.

So this project did start out as the Landlord Liaison Project, which I think we had in King County for something close to 10 years.

It was a very service provider focused approach.

And so the city and the county made the decision that they wanted to create a program that was more of a business to business model that would really be a service to property owners.

And so when the EOC was activated in 2017, It became a mission of the activation, and the Office of Housing was put in charge of developing a program and figuring out how to get it to a business-to-business model and launch a new program.

We did pretty extensive program development in 2017. We hosted several different focus groups with landlords to find out what they felt like they really needed and what would really work for them so that they would be encouraged to offer their units to rent to people who are experiencing homelessness.

We worked on that for a while, and then simultaneously, Mayor Durkin's Innovation Advisory Council came to being.

And we had actually been working, Zillow had been involved in the planning for this project for many years.

But they stepped up as a project of the Innovation Advisory Council to create a search tool, a technological platform to make it easier both for social service providers and their clients to search for apartments.

And then on the other end of that, the property owners to actually list.

I'm sure Skelcham and Angela are going to talk a little bit more about that, but it's really exciting.

And that is, I think, where Council Member Mosqueda saw in the mayor's remarks that was launched, I guess, two weeks ago.

And very, very exciting and is providing a lot of, you know, economy of scale and making it a lot easier for the Housing Connector staff to do their work.

So that's very exciting.

So we really thank, deep thank you to Zillow for that.

Without them, you know, this project would be on a completely different scale.

Simultaneously with that work also, the city and the county decided with some philanthropic money to hire a search firm.

to hire an executive director.

And at that same time, the Seattle Metro Chamber ended up participating in the interview process and actually hired Skelcham as the executive director.

Also, big thank you to the Seattle Metro Chamber.

I think housing the housing connector as part of the business community really made it seem like we were serious about the fact that we really wanted this to be a business-to-business approach and that we really wanted property owners to feel comfortable leasing their units through this program.

So I guess I just also want to thank the other partners you know obviously the Human Services Department has been very involved in this and King County, United Way, and Building Changes all were part of what led to this happening.

And I think, you know, unless you have any questions for me, I'm now going to turn it over to Skelch and Mangelo so they can talk about the amazing work they're doing.

It's been incredibly, it's been just a great experience for me to see this come from a program development to actually happen and see them doing work and housing.

I'm going to let them share how many people they've housed, but it is, It's very humbling and I'm very grateful for their work.

Thank you.

Robin really shepherded this to get it to where we are today.

So Robin also serves on our board representing the funders.

Excellent.

And if you could just put your microphone a little closer because these guys are kind of sensitive.

Thank you.

Is that better?

Yeah.

Wonderful.

Well, I want to just start maybe taking a step back and talk about the why for this organization.

why we feel like it's a value add to the community.

I think we all know the scale of the crisis that we're in, so I don't want to spend too much time on that.

But a specific focus in regards to our housing and homelessness crisis is that there's a lot of individuals in our community that actually have the means to afford units, whether it's through a voucher, rapid rehousing, but because of other barriers such as low credit score, past evictions, past debt, can't access the market.

And so that's where we started with this, is to say, okay, how do we figure out a solution that can increase access to housing for those individuals and lower the burden on our overall system so that resources can go to serve individuals that have more serious barriers or might be chronic, experience chronic homelessness?

To illustrate this, I want to tell you just a story about an individual.

There's an individual who was experiencing homelessness for over two years, sleeping outside in shelters.

They had a voucher, but they were unable to get housing.

They applied to over 20 units, simply to be denied because of their low credit score and an eviction that they had.

And that's 20 times to get their hopes up simply to be denied.

I'm proud to say that a few months ago in November, for the first application that they sent in through Housing Connector, it was approved and then they were able to move in.

And that's kind of the, just to highlight the impact that we can have.

So our approach though to make this a possibility is to actually focus and center the property owner as our customer.

So our business model is to partner directly with private property owners and managers and provide them the financial support and risk mitigation in exchange for them lowering or waiving their screening criteria to increase access to the community.

We feel that, you know, as you mentioned, yes, we do have very low vacancy rates, but there are vacant units out there.

And so this model is to say, how do we make this a more desirable option for landlords to rent to individuals that are exiting homelessness than potentially even renting to the private market?

And to do that, we knew that we have to take care of their financial risk and exposure that they feel they have.

So that's on one side of the equation.

And so over the past seven months, since really launching the pilot phase, we have been able to get over 70 property owners and managers, which we call our property partners, to sign on to be a part of this partnership.

That is over 170 physical properties that have been included, which is close to 700 units that have been made available.

How does that compare to the old model under the landlord liaison program?

I think in their biggest year, I think they housed around 550 people.

So it's quite impressive in the short amount of time.

And that was after they had been working for five or six years.

So this is a quite impressive number.

Yeah, and so with you know with those partnerships and the partners there we've been able to house over 525 individuals since August.

I'm proud to say that of those individuals over 70% are in households of color and that was a huge focus for us to ensure that we were not simply.

making it easier for individuals, specifically white households, to access units, but that we're really removing some of the barriers that we know are in existence for families of color.

One of the beauties of this program is that we negotiate the criteria up front so that a family or an individual does not then have to go and try to negotiate that once they're applying.

And so when they find a unit, They can look and not only see whether it matches their preferences, just like you and I, is it a two-bedroom, one bath in this location?

But they also know that that landlord has agreed to waive certain criteria, so when they apply, they don't have to wonder whether they're going to be accepted or denied.

So that's one side of it.

And again, I think we've been super blown away by the landlord community.

I know there's a lot of conversation around landlords, but whether it's the Rental Housing Association, the Washington Multifamily Housing Association, they've all stepped up from day one to support this.

and allow landlords to be a part of the solution in a way that makes business sense for them.

Now, the other side of the equation, because this is a B2B model, is how are the individuals getting connected to these units?

And that's really the nonprofits.

This is a tool, at its core, is a tool for our nonprofit agencies and case managers.

This is not us trying to come in and take over the system.

It is simply a tool in the toolbox for case managers to be able to find units for their clients.

I'm going to turn it over to my colleague Angela who oversees that side of the program and even has personal experience on what it's like to go through that search process.

I have experience as a case manager here locally.

I worked out of the Blaine Men's Shelter, the client services office, and Peter's Place, all serving our most vulnerable neighbors, trying to help them get into housing.

And really I was tasked with working with these individuals and trying to get landlords to accept them.

And a lot of my days were spent literally just trying to get a landlord to lower their credit score by 50 points.

Like, hey, I know you want a 650 credit score.

They have a 600. Can you please accept them?

And that's a really hard place to be as a case manager.

You're like, OK, I know my client is interested in these units, but even with me begging, I can't get the landlord to accept them.

So how is my client going to go and apply to these units by themselves?

How are they going to get approved?

And so we've really taken this and talked to our case managers and found out what they needed.

And we learned that for our case managers to really utilize this tool, it had to be baked into the stuff that they were already doing and to really be an easy access.

And so that's one of the big benefits of that Zillow interface is our case managers already use Zillow when they're doing housing searches.

Now they click one filter and they can see all of our units that have these pre-negotiated reduced screening criterias.

The screening criteria are reduced related to credit score, tenant history, evictions, arrears owed, criminal history outside of the city of Seattle, as well as income to rent ratios, allowing people with a lower income to move into the unit and work with their case manager on gaining that additional income.

We've really seen this benefit our case managers and we've had a lot of case managers reach back out to us and thank us and tell us that they can't even imagine doing their job again without this program existing.

It's been really great to have a case manager call me and be like, hey, I'm working with this client and these are their barriers.

And for me to be like, okay, like give me a minute and I'll call a few landlords and see what we can get.

This is especially important for people who are undocumented.

It's really scary to go and apply to a unit if you don't have all of your documentation.

And so I can field those calls.

And so that case manager knows, like, when they're sending this person with these vulnerabilities to this landlord, that landlord's already been vetted, and they're already going to accept that resident.

And then the case manager knows that if anything happens, we're here to support them through that.

So we help through that lease-up process.

We help through that application process.

And like Skulcha mentioned, we are just here providing this resource.

We're not interacting directly with our vulnerable neighbors.

We're not making them reshare their traumas.

We're letting them communicate with the community that they already know, and we're just providing access to housing.

One of the things that I will add there is when we were designing this, we felt like it wasn't enough just to get individuals into housing.

We wanted to make sure that they were successfully housed.

And so one of the benefits that's both for the landlord as well as for the individual is that once someone moves in, they have our support for two years.

And the reason for that two-year mark is that we want individuals, once they get to that one-year lease, to have an incentive to re-sign that lease, both for the landlord and the individual.

And so if something happens in month 18, let's say the individual cannot pay their rent, that landlord can immediately contact us and we can step in and support them to avoid them going down the eviction path.

You know, we talked about over 520 people have been housed.

We've had three individuals that moved in, moved out so far.

Three individuals.

Okay, three, just three.

Just three, and there have been absolutely zero evictions.

And part of that is we negotiate with every single landlord to avoid going down the eviction path.

And that if somebody is, and we've had it on both sides where it was not a good fit for the resident as well.

that we can say, look, instead of you going down the eviction path and having all the legal barriers that come along with it, let us step in, help you find another housing solution, and then we can take care of what our debt is owed and avoid that going on your record so that you are not going to this program and then exiting with more barriers on your record.

And the other piece that I will say is, you know, one of the fears in designing this is is a resident that is lower income, a riskier tenant.

And that is something that we struggled with.

And one of the things we did to address that concern is we provide $5,000 in damage mitigation to all of our landlords.

What we've seen so far is that we've literally had $328 that we paid out.

$328.

And so again, that fear that we were going to be paying out all this money for damages has not come to fruition.

Where I will say, and you mentioned areas for support, where we are spending the majority of our funding is around rent.

is that individuals who are moving in through rapid rehousing, which is the main source of how individuals are getting connected to Housing Connector, once that funding from rapid rehousing goes away after three, six months, Individuals are often struggling to figure out how they pay rent and that is where one I'm grateful that we're there and can support and extend that time to find solutions But we see that continuing Just given that the rents are still high, you know, even though we're going after units that are on the lower end of the market They're still very high and something that might be particularly of interest to this group is our program is countywide But 50% of our households so far have moved into Seattle, within the Seattle area.

Now, I will say, though, the challenge of finding units within Seattle as opposed to South King County is significantly higher.

And so the resources it takes for us to identify those units is two or three times more than finding units outside of the city limits.

But one of the things in starting this organization is that we wanted to make sure people had a choice in where they lived.

And so we wanted to make these units within the city available as well.

But I'm not going to try to sugarcoat the fact that it is very difficult to find affordable units within the city limits.

Thank you so much.

I'm sure that there's a number of questions.

Angela, do you have something else?

Yeah, I was just going to say that is one of the big differences between our program and the Landlord Liaison Project.

I'd used the Landlord Liaison Project when I was a case manager.

And when the LLP program was running, the way you would do it as a case manager is you would enroll your client in the program and then LLP would send you one or two leads that may work for your client with their barriers.

But they send those one or two leads to 20 other case managers.

And so it was really hard to actually access these units.

Whereas because we're just providing a resource, case managers can access three, four, five units that their clients are interested in.

And that client can go and tour all of those units and then decide what is best for their family.

So that way those individuals experiencing homelessness don't feel like I only have this one or two choices.

They really can see everything that's available to them, which we're really proud of.

One last thing.

That's great.

That's why you're here.

Yeah.

The last two pieces is just again touching on the Zillow aspect.

When we started this last year one of the conversations we had from the start with Robin was we wanted the scale of the solution to match the scale of the problem and us manually doing this work was never going to get us to that scale.

And so with Zillow being there as a partner through the IAC, I think they've invested over 2,000 hours in the last seven months alone to bake in this tool and this capability within their existing infrastructure.

This is not a tool that's on the fringes.

Literally, when you go to Zillow.com, if you are one of our partners, your account is flagged, and then you have access to all of these units without changing the way you use the product.

And so just a huge thank you to them.

And then the other piece, again, as Robin mentioned, is with the chamber.

The chamber kind of took the chance to incubate this.

They provide the overhead support.

They provide the office space, marketing, and all the connections to the business community that have allowed us to focus on the strategy.

of running and starting this organization, as opposed to things like, how do we do HR and payroll and all the other aspects that go into running a company.

I think I'd just like to add a couple things too.

I think one of the things that we had hoped that the Housing Connector would do would be continue our access to the mom and pop landlords who are kind of the backbone of housing people experiencing homelessness for sure.

but also unlocking the larger property partners.

And I think Skeltum has been very successful in talking to bigger property management companies that have access to many different property owners.

And that was kind of the main goal, because we figured if we could get to that, then it would be easier to scale.

And I think that's proved very true.

And so that's wonderful.

And the other thing I think is just that, you know, I think we always recognized that when we added this into the homelessness system that we would need to make some program changes and change some rules so that this would fit because it's kind of a bit of a game changer in terms of access to units in the private market.

So I think we're going to have to continue to press on that.

And that may be an area where we may need some help.

But I think both the county and now the Regional Homelessness Authority and the city are all certainly engaged in trying to figure out what we need to do to make sure that this program works within the system.

Well, this is very exciting, very impressive, and I know we have a number of questions.

I'm going to just throw one out real quick.

So I remember two years ago I went to visit the women's shelter in Belltown, and one of the things that really stuck out from our visit with those folks is the case manager said she just spends all of her days on the phone trying to find housing for folks who do have Section 8 vouchers.

They have a way to pay for housing.

They just can't find housing.

And they can't find housing along transit lines.

And they're, you know, all the way out to south and north King County.

And it wasn't a question of the vouchers at the time.

It was a question of just the sheer stock of housing.

So, Angela, it sounds like similar to your experience.

Do we have a way of sort of mapping where our shelters and case managers are sending referrals so we can see how the distribution across the city or the region is coming to the app and then thus those individuals who maybe are chronically homeless but also at the shelter are getting out of the shelter system and into housing.

Yeah, I would say it's going to be significantly easier to do that now with the technology.

One, we can see where the units are located in real time throughout the county and see the distribution in real time.

But the other piece is seeing where individuals, what organizations are they coming from, what units are they reaching out for, And then ultimately, what units are they moving in?

I would say the data is still just too small to be able to have any trends.

But now with the Zillow piece, we will have the capability to actually track that information.

One of the things that I really, again, as I mentioned, is important to me is ensuring that individuals are moving throughout the entire county and the city, and that we're not simply making units available in just South King County.

And that's the only option.

I'm hopeful that as we get more data and with the Zillow capabilities, we can track this information and report back out.

But where we are right now, we don't have that information on the top of hand.

Great.

I know I'll be very interested in that data when you do have it.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes, just to say, Sculptor, you and I have had many conversations and you know my support from watching the program Open Doors in Atlanta to the Landlord Liaison Project.

I am so invested in your program, I actually poached one of the former landlord liaison managers to be on my staff, Amanda Pleasant Brown, because I believe in your program so much.

And so I really am excited to see that you provide this important insurance to what are perceived as risky tenants, and you're able to dispel myths and keep people housed because we know that it's cheaper to keep somebody housed than it is to rehouse them.

And so my question to you today, it sounds like you have made important changes to allow this program to scale at a much larger rate.

The economy of scale is much larger now.

What can we do to help you increase that scalability and really meet more landlords throughout the county and throughout the city?

How can we help?

Yeah, I think one of the reasons that this has been allowed to scale is the flexibility of the funding.

We are not, you know, when we go and talk to landlords, we're like, look, we're not going to create this huge bureaucracy for you to access this funding if it's necessary.

Again, part of that starts with the belief early on that the amount of funding we will actually have to distribute is going to be way lower than expected.

I think, though, that's a big piece.

The other thing that I will say is one of the foundations of why this is working and why we've been able to get the trust of the landlord community is that we provide for every individual that moves in, we require one year of case management from that nonprofit organization that refers them.

And again, that goes to the point that it's not enough just to get someone in, but we want to keep them stably housed.

That is intended to be light-touch case management, if there's ever an issue that someone can step in.

Some of the programs that we have in our community, it's that somebody graduates after six months, and if something happens month seven or eight, they're kind of on their own.

And we just felt like that wasn't fair to the individual, nor the landlord.

So I would say one of the biggest needs that we have is for continued support around that case management, specifically the light-touch support, so that we can continue making that promise and delivering on that with landlords.

You know, one of the pushbacks that we do hear sometimes is case managers are already really tight on their bandwidth.

And so asking them to go beyond when they graduate someone to still support them is a tough ask.

We have, you know, I think we have over 42 nonprofit agencies that have agreed to be a part of this and are utilizing this.

And that's the trade-off that they're providing is that one year of case management.

So I would say anything we can do around resources for that case management or mediation support.

would be a huge help for the organization.

And just to add to that, it sounds like you said trying to expand the rapid rehousing funding beyond the three to six months.

I think that's a really important piece.

And again, I'm not going to dive into the rapid rehousing because I'm not an expert there.

The intent of rapid rehousing is for it to be available, I believe for 12 months, if it's needed.

It's not, there's not supposed to be a hard stop after six months.

I think though, given limitations and funding and just the overall demand, oftentimes it is run that way.

And so, and then you have, you know, technical issues of how do you reopen a case and re-enroll someone and all the challenges there.

But the way we look at it is once someone moves in, we are there to support them and we're going to figure out how to do it.

And we are very thankful that we have that flexible funding that even if other programs like Rapid Rehousing can't step in, we can step in and bridge that gap and hopefully give that family or individual another month, two months, to whether it's get another job, figure out childcare, whatever it may be, so that one setback isn't leading them down the eviction path.

And is it?

I just want to add a little bit on the rapid rehousing front.

I think rapid rehousing is meant to be approached with a progressive engagement approach so that you're supposed to be evaluating what the family needs at various check-in points.

And I think that in an effort to make sure that people are letting people go, there's been a lot of pressure to say, OK, stop at a certain point.

We knew that we were going to have to do some training and rule changing to make that work with this program.

And I think that it takes some time.

And so we're definitely working on that.

So I don't think it's necessarily a full-scale change of rapid rehousing that's needed.

It's just a need of approach and to make sure that providers get the training that they need to understand.

And then we make sure that we have the technological backup so that, you know, they can use the systems, the homelessness management information system in a way that works with this program.

And so, you know, it's just a, it's a system wide change and it takes a little while for that to stick.

Just to say, I think you are very articulate and accurate in saying that asking case managers to extend their time with a client beyond graduation can be difficult.

Is it at a point where you would need case managers within your own program to help facilitate that bridge?

That is something we're currently exploring right now.

And part of the other aspect of this is we are promising that support for two years to the landlord, but we can only get one year of commitment from the case managers and the nonprofits.

So one of the pieces is how do we bridge that support in the second year whenever there might be a lease violation issue.

We currently have a case manager that we're working with.

But that is something that we're actively exploring to say, how do we take that in-house once somebody is graduating from their original nonprofit or service provider?

How can we still be there to support?

And it might not be a full-scale case management.

It could be just mediation to make sure that if there's any type of tension between a landlord and a resident that we can deploy a resource to have that conversation and avoid an issue getting out of hand.

But point blank, we are exploring that among other things, yeah.

And never hesitate to let me know how I can assist.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Great.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

Excuse me.

I've recently become aware, some of you may have been aware for a while, there's been a study that scholarly bit of work that's been focused here locally through Opportunity Insights.

folks from John Hopkins and Harvard, and they've been looking at what happens when low-income families are given more information about where the city's neighborhoods of opportunity are.

And because people tend to gravitate to neighborhoods they know when making choices about where to live.

And they found that, and again this is here locally, that the intervention that was provided increased the fraction of families who moved to high upward mobility areas from 14% in the control group to 54% in the treatment group.

And the outcomes associated with moving to communities of opportunity are very, very long lasting.

It has impacts on generational poverty.

And so I'm wondering, I really love the fact that this program is innovation, is focused on not just putting people where the housing is, but actually giving people more choices to pick where they can live.

But I'm wondering, is there a way that you've looked at educating the clients or encouraging the case managers that are sending folks to you?

to educate their clients about where the neighborhoods of opportunity are in the region as just some more information that people can use to make those choices.

I'll have one thing on so I actually was working at the Seattle Housing Authority with the creating moves to opportunity Work that was done and one of the things that we have looked and once I started is I actually looked at the opportunity map throughout King County To see where are those locations and again just for background That's not necessarily the opportunity that we might think for example downtown might be a high cost but for families with young kids that's actually not considered an opportunity neighborhood and So we've looked at how do we get units in those areas.

I will say those areas, especially in Seattle, tend to be the higher rent.

And so for the voucher holders, they get an additional bump in their voucher payment standard to be able to afford that.

We, Seattle Housing Authority, King County Housing Authority, are partners.

They utilize our tool.

to help their clients find units.

One of the things that we are trying to do more and more is provide more resources to case management.

So Angela has trainings and lunch and learns for case managers to try to provide more resources.

We, again, as I mentioned, we don't directly get involved with a resident.

So if that is a path that we would go down, it would require us to educate the case managers on those resources.

I will say one thing that I always struggle with in that is also making sure that we're not steering people to certain neighborhoods.

And I understand there's tons of pros in looking at the research, but also making sure that, you know, if a family wants to go to South King County because of family, like we want to give them that opportunity.

So long way to say that is something that we can add to our list as a potential training and definitely work with both SHA and King County Housing Authority, who frankly has the expertise to provide that education to our service providers.

Just a follow-up?

Sure.

You've talked a lot about many of the barriers that the clients that you work with through case managers have.

One of the barriers I haven't heard, though, addressed is the need for larger family units.

How's that going?

Yeah, we have units that are ranging in size from single rooms and homes all the way up to six bedrooms.

Those six bedrooms have both been single family homes as well as apartments.

We are partnered with a lot of the tax credit properties across King County that specialize in building units that are two, three, four, and five bedrooms.

And so it's been really great.

We have five bedroom units posted right now for just less than $2,000, which in King County is incredible.

And so we're really excited for that and to really see that these families are able to get better access.

And as Skelchum had mentioned, we have been doing a lot of these professional development trainings for our case managers, where we are training our case managers to better understand the housing resources that are out there.

Tax credit is super complicated.

So we held a lunch and learn on tax credits where we had a landlord come and work with our case managers and train them on that process.

And so now all of these units that are on that lower end, that are these bigger unit size, now all these case managers are trained on exactly how to get their clients through that process.

That's a great question.

Farideh actually had a question that was very similar.

Did you want to ask about MHA units?

Sure.

Just for your inventory of units that you have available, do you use MFDE units?

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, so we're currently using MFTE units.

MHA units aren't quite online yet, but we did recently hire a outreach manager who's really focused on bringing on new landlords and looking at where those MHA units are going to be built is something she's definitely looking at.

And we've definitely been targeting MFTE units and have a lot of MFTE units on our inventory currently.

And as you probably know, even with MFTE units in Seattle, they're expensive.

I think, you know, a one-bedroom is still $1,500.

And so while a voucher can afford that, it's still a struggle for someone that is in rapid rehousing and doesn't have that voucher to afford those units.

But especially in the downtown core, I would say the majority of our units are MFT and other programs that we're trying to tap into.

And then we are also partnered with some affordable housing developers.

So we do have units posted from Bellwether.

We just helped Mercy Housing with their lease up.

And so we are also assisting in some of those affordable units.

Thank you.

Other questions about this?

Just one following up.

I am currently a renter myself, and I just moved between apartment buildings and was lucky enough to only have to pay one application fee, which was $40.

And you mentioned one of your clients had applied to 20 units.

And just back of the envelope, Matt, that's about $800.

And I know Rob and I had asked you at one of the legislative updates about portable screening benefits.

And I know that it seems as if that That has been resolved for the moment.

And your program is able to dispel myths about how some of these high-risk, potentially high-risk tenants are not high-risk.

Is your program able to use portable screening?

How does that work?

So we are and some of our partners, the larger property managers do utilize that, which is great because then one screening can be used multiple times.

There's still a time limit, I believe 30 or 60 days.

One of the things we're trying to get is more individuals to accept that.

In full transparency, when we started this, we tried to make it as low barrier to entry as possible for landlords.

And so, we did not go to landlords and say, look, you have to do our screening, you have to utilize our, you know, all these things.

We said, if you're doing your screening, great.

Utilize your current screening, but set a lower target.

And part of that was just to get adoption.

We know that with a lot of the local property management companies, they don't accept portable screening.

One of our goals long term is, you know, potentially even with Zillow, because now Zillow offers their own screening within the Zillow platform, is could we in, you know, V2, V3, V4 of this technology, have where somebody does a screening on Zillow, and then they can utilize that with all of our partners.

That's the dream and vision that I want us to get to.

But as you know, with anything, when you're starting a business, you have to build that trust.

And so if we can show our property partners that, look, we're a trustworthy group to work with and that we deliver on our promises, then it's easier for me to say, OK, would you consider accepting a portable screening versus now where we don't have the evidence to go and make that request.

But definitely on our radar, to your point, it is super expensive.

And even if it's the individual's not the one who's paying that, a nonprofit organization is paying it.

So at the end of the day, it's coming out of the system.

So the more we can push our partners to use the portable screening, I think the more effective it'll be.

And from my time working on portable screening, it seemed as if there was a fear that these screens would be manipulated somehow.

And I think that your work being able to dispel myths is really critical here to demonstrate that the goal here is just to pay the screening fee once and to have that accurate data provided to the landlord.

so that we can ensure that the tenant that they're housing meets their criteria.

Yeah, and that's where we're relying on our industry partners at Rental Housing Association and WUMFA to be champions with that.

It's easy for me to say that, but if they're hearing it from colleagues and peers, it's a lot easier to say, okay, this is something that we can go down and it's not as scary as it might seem.

That's right.

Thank you so much.

Robin, did you have something else?

I just wanted to share that Zillow produced a really great video at the launch of their tool, which I'll share with the committee.

It has a really wonderful tenant story in it.

And so I think it would be great for you to watch that.

And then it also has a link to some information on the Zillow website that shows how the tool works.

Councilmember Herbold.

And when you do that, can you also I'm just looking at the website I don't see and I know you're a new program But some just very high level some of the successes that we've heard today 70 landlords, 170 properties, 700 units What do we got here 70% families of color 523 housed only three lost their housing Skelton produce dollars paid out total.

I mean just like some a little a little report I'd like to push this out.

This is this is great information Skelton produces a very nice document every month for the board meeting to show us what how many people been housed in all of the things that you're asking for so I will definitely get that to you

So we want to say a huge thank you, and as I do that, I also have an ask.

As you identify where more clients need additional housing and services based on the requested neighborhoods that you're hearing about, it would be very helpful to have a report back to say, you know, 60% of our clients wanted to live in And they couldn't.

That's an area where we clearly need to have more affordable housing.

That would be helpful, I think, as we think about where we want to continue to invest in housing in our city.

So having that type of statistic would be helpful.

If you have statistics about, hey, we need a lot more single room occupancy buildings so that people can who are working here as individuals or maybe retirees, if they want an SRO and we really don't have those in the city, maybe that's something we want to direct our funding to.

If you get feedback, as we've heard repeatedly, that we need more three and four bedrooms, and that continues to be a high-need area, please let us know.

That kind of needs-based assessment would be super helpful as you get more data.

Robin, I think I've asked this question before to Office of Housing, but could you remind me, per Freddie Day's question, one of the things that we hear about a lot from constituents is, okay, great, we've passed MHA, but where are those units?

And I know a lot of it depends on future investments when we get in-lieu fees.

How soon do you think we'll be able to have a map or a tool that allows for us to see where those units are being created and then have it integrated into an online tool like the one that Zillow has created here?

Well, we already have a map of units that are coming online.

On the OH website, the underdevelopment page, obviously that's not helpful to a tenant because they're all under construction.

But we are moving in that direction.

We're working really hard on tightening up our data at OH.

So I think we're going to have a list of all of the affordable units with addresses.

And then our intent is also to map those.

One of the issues around that is that our occupancy rates are even higher than the private market.

So sometimes it isn't 100% helpful to people to say that these are where the buildings are.

But we certainly are working toward providing much better information.

I think we're going to start the first map that we'll do with the MFTE program because it is hard to tell someone, oh, here are 200 buildings around the city.

Just start calling.

But at least the map, it will help people visualize a little better instead of having them just look at an Excel spreadsheet.

you'll be able to hover over one of the addresses and see what types of units there are, you know, what the rent is, because obviously we have six different MFTE programs now, and so they're all, you know, they're all slightly different, have different types of units.

So, yeah, we are definitely working on it, and I think we'll see, we'll show some significant progress on this over the next two quarters for sure.

Could we put a marker that we'd love to have an update on that type of tool prior to budget?

I think that would be very helpful if we can see how that map or display comes together.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I guess the other thing that I just want to highlight too is that one of the things I think Emily Alvarado has some concerns around is we try very hard to do affirmative marketing where we're talking with community-based organizations.

So people are accessing units that way as well.

We have some concerns around a centralized tool and whether that is also exclusionary and we're, yeah.

So we wanna be really careful about entering into this space because we know that a lot of affordable housing providers have really deep community relationships and we don't wanna kind of interrupt that really great work that happens.

So I think we just wanna be very intentional and very thoughtful about this and continue to build out our affirmative marketing strategies as part of this work.

and at the same time show the community why it was so important to do MHA and MFT programs.

And then we look forward to the updated data once you get it about where some of those referrals are coming from, so we can show the community how folks are moving from shelter and into housing, which is the most critical piece.

Really appreciate you being here.

Robin, I know you're in the throes of the final days of session, so we're excited that you're able to join us today, and good luck in your last nine days of the legislative session.

Thank you both for being here to present on this incredible new asset.

And to some of your partners as well, please extend our thank you.

Zillow, Tableau, Expedia, Microsoft, they have been repeatedly investing in trying to find solutions.

So I think this is a great example of how those experiences and resources that they have can help move folks into housing and appreciate your leadership here.

So thank you for your presentation today.

Thank you for the time.

Absolutely.

Thank you very much.

Okay, so Farideh, do you mind reading into the record our sixth item of business?

Agenda item number six, council bill 119752, an ordinance relating to fair housing regulating rental housing bidding platforms for a briefing discussion and possible vote.

Wonderful, and I see Asha on her way up here.

Thank you for joining us from central staff.

Thank you both for coming, and Robin, thanks again for being here.

So colleagues, this is a continuation of a conversation we've had in my committee over the last two years.

Asha, I will try not to say everything in my opening comments, but I want to remind folks that this is a conversation that we started my first month after being elected.

A number of University of Washington students had come to us and identified that there was a new platform that was being used to basically create eBay for rental units, as you can imagine, scaling up the cost and creating additional competition for rental units, especially in the U District area.

So we asked the question, really, how does this meet our goals to create access to equitable housing and want to make sure that there wasn't any unintended consequences of having this new tool rolled out in our community.

We wanted to know whether or not this was a tool that was violating or not in harmony with our fair housing laws, and we wanted to have some time to analyze how they may impact the cost of housing or create inequities in access to housing or other disproportionate impacts in our communities.

So in 2018, we passed an ordinance directing the Office of Housing to study the impacts and also put a moratorium on it.

Before the moratorium expired office of housing needed additional time.

So in june of 2019, we passed another year prohibition On the the type of rent bidding technologies to allow for more time to be completed And then the report was submitted mid-year last year Gave us some recommendations from the office of housing budget happened I went on family leave and so we're back here trying to wrap up the final conversation around what to do with the recommendations from the office of housing and want to move forward.

So Asha, I'll leave it to you to walk us through sort of any other details leading us up to this point and maybe what's in the legislation in front of us today.

Absolutely.

So Asha Venkatraman, Council Central Staff.

So we're talking about Council Bill 119752. And what this bill does is repeal early the prohibition that would have otherwise expired in mid-July.

And the reason for that is that now that we've had a chance to look at and look a little more in depth at the rent bidding study and look at its recommendations, It made sense to lift the prohibition so that we could actually get some data about how these platforms are working in the city of Seattle.

I think originally the fear was that this was the kind of emerging technology that might rapidly escalate into something like the TNCs, so Uber, Lyft.

At this, so that was the reason for the original prohibition.

So at this point, the idea is to lift the prohibition and then ask the Office of Housing to collect some data about whether rent bidding is actually happening in this city.

and whether it will have that kind of equitable impact on access to rental housing.

And so the bill itself, so creates that ask.

So council asks the office of housing to collect data and then get back to us by July of next year, excuse me, June of next year to figure out if there is that kind of impact.

It also asks the office for civil rights to do some testing around whether there is compliance with all of our fair housing laws, including first in time.

And then given the results of that data, once we have them in June, we can figure out if it makes sense to regulate rental housing bidding platforms.

And we can zoom in on the actual problems that have come up through the testing and the data collection as opposed to regulating them now as we lift this prohibition since we don't know exactly what the issues are going to be.

The other thing I would note is because the fear was that this would, like I said, escalate like Uber and Lyft was, but it doesn't seem to be taking off nationwide the way that those companies have.

And so some of the risk in lifting this prohibition and not regulating immediately would be for that kind of proliferation to happen, but because it hasn't, trended that way nationwide, that risk is a little bit reduced, I think.

And so once we have the ability for the platforms to operate, we'll know if it's going to escalate in that sort of citywide way, if it's going to be a big deal for Seattle or not.

And once we know that, we can figure out what the safeguards are in terms of having their operation in place.

I want to thank Office of Housing for their report here, and I think that they give us some general principles that you will see reflected in this piece of legislation.

Also, you know, this is a great opportunity for us to try to get ahead of technologies, like Asha was saying.

Sometimes we're scrambling to keep up with how it will affect our existing values and laws in the state or in the city.

And this is a good opportunity for us, I think, to get some data and have a really thoughtful approach to ensuring our values are met and then seeing how we can track this type of tool better in the future.

Questions or comments, colleagues?

Okay, so everybody has the legislation in front of them.

Asha, is there anything else related to the council bill that you'd like to identify for us?

No, I think that covers all of the things that are in the legislation.

Okay.

And so the bill itself directs OCR to do the testing.

Yes.

Could you get a little closer?

Oh, sorry.

Just confirming that the bill itself directs SOCR, the Office of Civil Rights to conduct testing, and the other sort of actions that the bill requires as part of us lifting the prohibition.

Can you just go through them real quickly?

Absolutely.

So it asks the Office of Housing to collect data to track whether the platforms are functioning for bidding purposes.

This is just if you're following along on page five of the legislation.

If you have the same copy, I do.

It's Section 3. And then Section 4 asks the Office for Civil Rights to conduct testing to determine compliance with fair housing laws.

And then Section 5 asks that if the data shows that they're functioning for bidding purposes and they have an equitable access, an impact, excuse me, on equitable access to rental housing, that both the Office for Civil Rights and the Office of Housing work with counsel to figure out which regulations to impose that would be most appropriate.

And then what about in your memo, you lift up a recommendation to modify existing laws around unfair housing practices as it relates specifically to rental bidding platforms, not to regulate them out of business but to require that those specific platforms are operating in accordance with our fair housing laws and so are should we be expecting a bill are we indicating in this legislation that we are going to work on such a bill?

So at this point, the idea is to look at whether there are fair housing impacts through the data collection and the testing.

And then once that information comes back in June of next year, we'll look at potential legislation to deal with any of the issues that do actually come up that were identified in the rent bidding study.

If it turns out that before June of next year, we can see that things are escalating out of control and it makes sense to act before then, then that would be a possibility as well.

I mean, post an open housing poster on all platforms.

I mean, that's a knowable thing.

The way this reads is that it says, also recommended that the city should modify the Municipal Code's regulation of unfair housing practices, and then lists seven things that it seems like they're saying are already an issue.

So I think these are identified as potential issues, primarily because the platforms have not been in operation.

So it's mostly a consideration of things that could be problematic as violations of federal or state or local housing law.

For example, the piece around housing choice vouchers, it's not clear how anybody with a housing choice voucher would be able to competitively bid for something on one of these platforms.

And so, but we don't know because nobody with a housing choice voucher has been allowed to be on the platforms because of the prohibition.

So, in the next couple months, if you are starting to move forward and have a housing choice voucher, how does the platform actually address that?

And so when the Office for Civil Rights goes to do that testing and if it may or may not turn out that there is a competitive way for housing choice voucher holders to go forward and bid successfully on a unit, if that's the case, great.

If not, then it gives us the information to be able to say, okay, this is a thing that we need to figure out how to regulate so that the people that are holding those vouchers are competitive.

So it's mostly a matter of getting the data to know which of the issues are going to be a problem, if they are going to be a problem, and then regulating once we have some of that data.

Question about the timing of the report.

So we have much of the data being reported back to us June 1st, 2021. As we've done in the past, sometimes we've informally asked for a interim report from our departments.

Perhaps to Council Member Herbold's point, if we start to see some interesting trends early on, it might be good to get an early report back, I would say quarter three or four of this year, and then we can make some decisions on whether or not the data is so stark that we should act sooner or if they need more time.

Again, to your point, I think that this isn't something that has been rapidly deployed in other cities, and so perhaps two years later, it doesn't seem as maybe urgent for us to get ahead of this one specific type of technology, but I think we have to be vigilant and recognize our access to housing, laws that we have on the books and the principles of the city to make sure that people have access to affordable housing is so strong that we do want to be vigilant.

So I'll just put it out there to our friends from Office of Housing and Office of Civil Rights that it does seem like this committee may be interested in an interim report, but keeping the final date as June 2021st sounds fine to me.

But if we can get that commitment from them after the passage of this, that would be very helpful.

Absolutely, and I can follow up with both of those offices.

Thank you.

Any other comments, colleagues?

Okay, excellent.

Well, Asha, thank you very much for walking us through this and for the past work from central staff on the other two ordinances as well.

We appreciate that.

And to my office, Erin House has been tracking this very closely as well.

I would love, with the committee's indulgence, to move the committee recommendation, I move that the committee recommends the passage of Council Bill 119752. Are there any other comments?

Okay, seeing none all those in favor of council bill one one nine seven five two Please vote aye and raise your hand.

Aye.

No one opposed Thank You Asha the motion does carry and the committee recommendation will be sent to our March 9th full council committee meeting or council meeting for a full vote With that, thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

And let's move on to our last item of business.

Seventh item of business.

Thank you, Farideh, for reading that in.

And Tom, welcome on up.

Great, we have all three folks here, Tracy Radscliff and Karina Bull from central staff.

Agenda item number five, finance and housing 2020 work plan for briefing and discussion.

Excellent, and we do have our friend Doug.

Thank you for hanging out and waiting for this item I know this was of interest to you, so thank you for staying we have our 2020 work plan in front of us Colleagues if you don't want to if you want to go ahead and introduce yourself for the record, and then I'll make some opening comments

Good morning, Tom Mikesell with Council Central Staff.

Tracy Ratziff, Council Central Staff.

Karina Bull, Council Central Staff.

Excellent.

Thank you all for being here.

And as folks know, we have been working really hard to make sure that our work plan is robust.

This is the third of 18 planned meetings for this year, and we have many things to cover that you see outlined in the work plan.

For example, what does workforce and technology changes mean for workers in our city, for businesses and the community at large?

We've talked a lot already about TNCs or the Uber and Lyft drivers, for example.

Last year, we had presentations about how these concerns could potentially be addressed by raising the wages for those TNC drivers.

And we know that this has been something that the mayor has been working on.

with the drivers and the associations.

However, we know that there's a lot of work to be done to make sure that workers actually get a minimum wage, let alone a living wage.

That'd be nice.

But a minimum wage would be excellent, and that's something that is still on our list to do for this year.

We're talking about ending exclusionary zoning.

I know we've talked a lot about that, and I have colleagues up here who constantly remind our community partners that the reason that we're pushing for such incredible density in this city is because it is about equity and making sure people have a place to live.

I'm very interested in our time here as a committee in lifting up our commitments in the past to end exclusionary zoning and the legacy of racist covenants.

And we have in front of us some work to do to carry forward the commitments we put into statute on the racial equity toolkit and the analysis that's been requested of us to make sure that we are updating our outdated and equitable systems of exclusionary zoning.

We also have on our list things to do like MHA cleanup and make sure that things like the rent bidding legislation that we just passed out of this committee have their T's crossed and their I's dotted so that we can see true changes from some of the policies we already put into place.

One interesting area that I think all of you may maybe wondering about is how do we continue to track health issues?

Obviously health and public health is an area near and dear to my heart.

And while our committee doesn't have health in the title, it's something that we're really interested, for example, in potentially looking at antibiotic transparency policies.

We've done a lot of work in the last year with some of our partners who have worked behind the scenes to identify how workers are affected by the high use of antibiotics in meat and meat packing, for example, and how that transfers to workers and to our community and creates more antibiotic resistance in our community, which is really a public health crisis.

So you'll see that on our list here.

One area that we started with at the beginning of the year was Orca for All, and I know that there's a huge interest across the council in making sure workers have access to transit benefits.

So just apropos of the conversation we had about those who are low-income, finding the ability to live in our region is very hard, and wanting to make sure that those who don't live in the city that they work have access to transit to get them into work.

And then lastly, we have things to do to make sure that like the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights that I know Karina had spent a lot of time at this table on last year, that we are doing any follow-up legislation that comes from the Domestic Workers Standards Board.

So thank you all for your input on the work plan in front of us and to our central staff and the staff in my office for working on this.

so diligently.

We wanted to highlight a few of those pieces, and thank you all for being here.

You can tell that we have the best committee.

No offense to all of our committee chairs up here, but by our central staff being here, we can tell that it's a very robust committee.

So thank you all for being here.

Tracy, Karina, and Tom, we'll turn it over to you.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

So I will kick it off.

And we have a game plan to talk about the work plan.

And we're going to break it up into the finance topics, which I'll cover.

And then I'll hand off to Tracy, who will deal with the housing items, and then Karina will address workers' rights topics.

And then within that, so the work plan itself casts a fairly large net over the type of subject matter that this committee will review this year, but there are some really some highlights and some specific pieces of legislation that we are aware of and so we'll touch on those things though as we work through at the list if feel free to stop us and we can go into some of the things that we might Might not touch specifically on so So with that in mind, one of the first items is the capital projects quarterly reporting.

So on the 24th of last month, the council approved resolution 31931, which approves the watch list.

So these are going to be those projects that have a character that makes them riskier or having a characteristic that makes them more necessary to be reviewed by council.

on a regular basis to make sure they stay on budget within the parameters.

And so that will be something that you will see on a quarterly basis.

Next item would be a position list.

So anytime there is legislation that adds or subtracts or otherwise modifies positions, that will come to this committee for review and consideration.

Quarterly budget amendments, so this will be a significant topic.

So this is usually treated as a package of legislation, so that includes adjustments to the annual budget.

as well as grants, so there will be a grant acceptance ordinance.

So the city, what we do is anytime a third party has intended to give us money, they, We will apply for the money and accept it, but the council has to formally accept that money before we can receive it into our coffers.

Colleagues, this is an area that I think will be of interest to you as we think about greater transparency and accountability in our budgeting process.

It's a practice to accept grants as we know, but it'd be very helpful, I think, for our budgeting purposes to know where that money goes, how much has been spent.

I think that is an area of interest that we all have in shining a little bit more light into the depth or the details on our budget.

I believe the plan that I've seen is that we will, just similar to last year, we'll receive one halfway through the year and then we'll have a third quarter transmitted with the budget because those types of adjustments are normally part of the budget adoption process.

They free up resources that are then deployed for the next year and then we'll have a fourth quarter one.

So that is the cadence that I'm aware of.

So two, three, and four.

No first quarter.

Correct.

And it's my recollection, I understand that's the way we did it last year, but that is a departure from previous years.

Is my recollection correct?

in the past years have included more supplemental.

It was a departure last year, and I think the departure shall continue.

So supplementals are not a requirement.

You can operate during the fiscal year without any supplemental budget adjustments.

And so.

But they're an opportunity also.

That is also correct.

And so I guess I would, you know, if the chair is interested, I think I would welcome a conversation.

It does not have to be around this table, but a conversation of the relative merits of foregoing a first quarter supplemental.

You know, I think it's also an opportunity to get information, sort of more real time information, about where we are versus where we were projected to be.

And when we are in a better place than when we were projected to be, it gives us an opportunity to make additional budget decisions.

And so just to the extent that the chair is interested in having that conversation, I would welcome that as well.

Tom, do you think that's something that you could do a quick analysis for us on at some point?

It doesn't have to be immediate, but having sort of that pro-con list that Council Member Herbold just articulated would be interesting to meet as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

So one point with regards to the resource question.

So that is, I think one of the reasons why the second quarter has manifested as the timing when the supplemental comes is that that's consistent with when the city budget office delivers the revenue forecast update.

So prior to that point, they haven't really checked the cash register, so to speak.

And then similarly year-end sort of close out in the accounting side takes place which similarly says we spent less than we thought we were going to last year and so there's available resources so I can certainly look at it and see what that implications what that means but I just wanted to point those two things out.

I can imagine also that the timing of quarter two is helpful to know if there's any additional resources from the state legislative activities but having that analysis I think would be helpful.

Sure.

So, moving down the list, another item that will come to the committee is the Federal Grants Action Plan.

So, covering the CDBG, HOME, ESG, and HOPWA programs.

And so, it kind of looks at the performance from the prior year and then sets the guidelines for the current year.

FAS programs.

So, most FAS legislation or all the FAS legislation, I would say, will come through this committee, which will take a number of different forms.

So there was a statement of legislative intent that was adopted by council and approved through the slide legislation yesterday, CBO 3A2, which requires the city budget office to submit a proposal for a compensation program for boards and commission members.

That report is due by September 28th.

Another topic that has been of council interest and I have information from FAS that there will be information forthcoming is with regards to mutual offsetting benefit leases.

So there are a number of properties that the city owns but they are operated by third parties who provide a public service and then as part of that arrangement the city provides no rent, requires no rent So, the intent is to transfer those properties, which process has been longstanding and still underway, though I do have reports that there will be purchase and sale agreements forthcoming within the second quarter by last I've heard.

And I think that rounds out the topics that I really wanted to highlight in the finance categories.

And over to Tracy.

Excellent, thank you.

Okay, moving to a couple of the key work programs for the housing portion of the committee.

So the first is additional funding for affordable housing.

So I think we know that there may be a We have a proposal or two that might be circulating around for a new funding source for affordable housing.

And just to call out that this is an item that's on this work program now.

Council will need to decide how they want to take up any of these proposals, whether it would be this committee or a select committee.

But I just note that we do have it on the work program.

The second item would have to do with affordable housing on publicly owned land.

We actually have a couple of items that get at this issue of, you know, surplus owned land, both city and public.

This one is kind of the broader scope that involves not only the work that Enterprise is doing as part of the Home and Hope, which provides a wonderful mapping assist, but also some in-depth analysis of some available pieces of property.

And this would be specifically related to any action the council might need to take on some of these publicly owned properties.

One of those potential properties that the council might act on this year or even beginning of next year has to do with Northgate and the acquisition of that property for a current affordable housing, but most in particular, potential future development on that site.

And I think there's an interest in potentially having an MOA of sorts with SHA on what happens to that property, both in the short term and the long term.

So that would be an example of something the council would take up related to publicly owned properties.

And Tracy, is it fair to say this is a continuation of our work on the disposition property bill?

Correct.

Great.

And for anybody who's listening in the halls of Olympia, we still need that follow-up legislation from 1932.

I can't remember the number.

2948?

No, that's a different one.

That's the other one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cindy Ryu is the one you're talking about.

Yes, it was last year, or two years ago, actually.

So we're not lobbying, but we're just communicating to our colleagues in Olympia.

A little cleanup work.

Yeah.

Yes, exactly.

Great.

1923, I think.

I think that might be right.

Moving to the next item has to do with the evaluation of strategies to advance labor and equity outcomes in affordable housing development.

We are expecting a report from the Office of Housing and Department of Finance and Administrative Services that evaluates strategies to advance labor equity outcomes on affordable housing development in Seattle.

I think they're specifically going to be looking at the K site development and lessons learned from that development that had imposed a number of different requirements, particularly around priority hire, but also some things broader than that, and come back with some insights about how that project worked and potential policy considerations as a result of that pilot in particular.

Thank you.

Tracy, in addition to the labor standards list of reporting criteria that we were interested in, did we also have something related to child care in that specific site?

Not in that one.

We had many other things on that site but not that one.

Moving on to the housing levy and levy oversights.

I just wanted to real quickly flag something before we moved off of that one.

I just want to raise the fact that there is a priority hire advisory committee that I think is really important to work any recommendations through that committee as well.

We've talked about applying priority hire to housing projects but in the past and vetting that policy choice through the committee has been a challenge, just put it that way.

I think there's opportunity and potential there, but I think it's definitely a piece of the engagement that is critically important before making changes.

I think that's really well taken, yeah, exactly.

Moving to the Housing Levy and Levy Oversight Committee, I heard the conversation earlier about the reports that OH generates.

They absolutely generate, per our ordinance, an annual housing levy report that very clearly shows where are we on an annual basis and then for the six-year duration in terms of achieving outcomes and goals of that levy.

that information we look at every year.

This year we will actually have them reporting back, OH reporting back on a couple of items that we had wanted them to go and do some community work on.

Council Member Herbold will remember the mutual termination issue as well as the acceptance of deferred payment plans are two of these issues that OH is out having conversations with our non-profit providers about how it is that they operationalize those types of policies, and then may come back with some recommendations on potential policy changes to the housing levy and citywide funding policies as a result of some of that work.

So we will be specifically getting some report backs on those couple of items.

Will you remind me what the timing is of those reports usually?

I knew you were going to ask that.

That's okay.

You know, usually they come in with the annual report in March, but I think we may have given them a little bit longer on those two items.

I'm not positive about that, but I think we may have.

Okay, I just want to make sure we hit that on the committee calendar for a report back.

For sure.

Multifamily tax exemption, we also get an annual report on the multifamily tax exemption.

We specifically added an item that said, should there be any changes at the state level?

And it's possible that we actually will see some changes at the state level that we actually might need to also make some modifications to our MFTE policies as well.

So we will wait to see what happens with this legislative session and see whether we are just dealing with an annual report on progress for that program or whether in fact we have some changes that we might want to make based on the state action.

per the conversation that we had earlier in this first sentence under MFTE, is that provided in a map format so we can sort of see distribution across the city?

Do they do that for us?

Yes, they do.

As part of the end report, they absolutely do.

The other thing I will say, again, having harkened back to your conversation earlier, The mayor actually does have a dashboard up now on the performance Seattle that provides information real time about production of affordable units that includes everything from the levy funded to MHA to MFTE.

You can see a map and broken down by existing units, ones that are under development.

So it's actually quite nifty.

And I was just looking at it as you guys were talking about it because I know that they have been working hard on that particular bit of data.

That is actually up on the performance Seattle website.

So you can actually see that information.

I would love to include that into our next Teresa Tuesday update.

If you don't mind sending the link to us and then we'll also provide that.

It's a great question that was asked earlier.

We'll do it.

Next item of note is so we all know that the mayor convened a affordable middle income housing advisory board.

That board has completed their work.

They have a report that's been issued.

And I think there probably is a reason to perhaps look at those recommendations and see if there are any that we would like to bring forward for discussion for the committee.

I can't think right offhand of any that would cause us to have to take some immediate council action, but at least things to perhaps talk about and hear what next steps might be as it relates to some of those items.

And then finally, issue of note is the strategic investment fund.

So to remind council members during last year's budget process, we allocated $30 million of the Mercer Mega Block proceeds to a strategic investment fund.

And this fund would be used for the acquisition of properties that are intended to achieve multiple community benefits through the development of mixed use and mixed income projects that include everything from housing to childcare, to health services, to community gathering spaces, and so forth.

So the executive is going through a process that we help to direct them towards with community to look at establishment of criteria and selection criteria, and then to review their proposal for the specific sites that would be acquired with that $30 million.

And I expect that we will see a report likely in second quarter, beginning of second quarter of this year.

regarding how we're directing them to those recommendations.

Are we receiving the recommendations from the advisory board prior to the policy being rolled out?

Or how does the council weigh in on how the strategic acquisition funds will be used?

So we gave the executive direction on the types of criteria we wanted them to consider, which had to do with, you know, areas at risk of displacement, some kind of EDI related types of issues of concern.

and ask them to create criteria, draft criteria, that they would then work through a community review team, which they have put together, and they are beginning the process of looking at that criteria.

And they will, in fact, provide response back and recommendations on that criteria.

The executive will then take that criteria revised and then look at the different opportunities that exist and come back with a proposal to that community board about what they would recommend as the sites to be selected.

And that board would have the ability to weigh in on those sites.

So your central staff are actually attending those community meetings.

So we will have firsthand knowledge of the communication and decisions and input that have been provided along the way.

Excellent.

Thank you, Tracy.

You bet.

So I'll be focusing on items in the work plan that relate to workers' rights.

And Council Member Muscata, you already teed up for the table and our watchers the biggest pieces of policy and potential legislation for either establishing a new baseline of worker rights or of strengthening what already exists in the city.

And to review those, the future of work is an item on the work program, and that is about exploring policies to address inequities resulting from the changing nature of work for app-based workers and others in the gig economy.

And at a previous committee meeting we heard, or meetings, we heard from Instacart workers who were sharing their experiences of working in the gig economy.

We heard from Becky Smith at National Employment Law Project and Rachel Deutsch at Center for Popular Democracy, focusing on basic rights for workers regardless of whether they're classified as an employee or as an independent contractor.

All working people should experience stability, safety, fairness, and minimum compensation.

Also, we had a committee meeting about ORCA for All, and that could be a policy that expands the existing requirements of the Commuter Benefits Ordinance to also include requirements for employers.

To provide partial or full subsidized transit passes for their employees also has a component of thinking about city contractors and what they provide for their employees who are providing city services through those subcontracts.

And that would build on a resolution that was passed last year by city council with this exact goal in mind of expanding the commuter benefits ordinance.

Also, worker protections for TNC drivers, and this is an extension of what was already passed during the budget season last year, a transportation network company tax that would go to fund a driver's deactivation center that will be in effect, or the law will be in effect for that in October, and that will establish driver's right to an appeal process for deactivation and arbitration appeals panel.

And OLS will be developing a request for proposals for that center.

And more recent than that, or what's coming up next is the mayor will be submitting or releasing an academic report on a very intensive study on a minimum compensation standard for TNC drivers.

Legislation was passed during budget setting the stage and the foundation for what that proposal would look like, what the study would look like, driver engagement.

That is culminating in a report that's going to be released at the end of March.

And then in May, the executive will actually transmit legislation that will take findings from the community engagement in the report.

to propose a minimum compensation for drivers that would be at baseline the Seattle minimum wage for large employers.

That's $16.39 an hour this year plus reasonable expenses.

And that law right now is scheduled to go into effect July 1 if it passes council approval.

Next is a Domestic Workers Standards Board.

And this spring they will be sharing their topics for a two-year work plan.

And we look forward to that.

And then the actual recommendations for what to do with that two-year work plan should follow in the first quarter of next year.

Office of Labor Standards, this committee will continue to monitor implementation of their contracts with community organizations for worker and business outreach, their enforcement of Seattle's labor standards, their policy developments.

And they have a lot going on this year.

In addition to that Domestic Workers Standards Board and a Labor Standards Advisory Committee, which is focusing on misclassification this year and outreach, they will have a new director.

And our understanding is that the new director, sometime in the near future, will be announced, and that director will be coming before the council for confirmation.

And Office of Labor Standards also has many laws going into effect this year.

We already heard about the Deactivation Rights Ordinance.

There could be a Minimum Compensation Ordinance for TNC drivers.

There are four laws protecting hotel workers going into effect, and also the Commuter Benefits Ordinance, the current version went into effect on January 1. There are many more items on here.

One of them I'll focus on is the review of a response to a statement of legislative intent that was passed last budget season asking Finance and Administrative Services to provide a report on adding questions to Title VI business license regarding business characteristics.

So the example of those type of questions could include how many employees does the business employ in Seattle and worldwide, and that could provide critical information when developing any of these labor standards of impact workers to know how many businesses could be impact if there is a tiered system of requirements based on the business size.

Thank you, Karina.

Any questions for Karina on the labor standards sections?

Okay.

I am really excited about all this.

As you can tell, you know, we have a lot on our agenda, and I'm hoping, council colleagues, that we are able to tackle some of these really challenging issues in a very meaningful way in a relatively short period of time as we do have the budget that's in front of us.

I want to also tee up for our colleagues that will be having conversations with you all soon at the council table about some new strategies for engaging the community, especially around budget and budget transparency.

for example, having North Central South community listening sessions prior to the budget coming out from the mayor's office so that we can solicit feedback from community partners about what their priorities are, and then rolling out some ideas with you all later this fall.

But we'll be in close touch with you and our central staff folks at the table as we think about really creating a community-driven and community-influenced budget that the council is able to take ownership of and feels really proud of.

Council Colleagues, thank you so much.

I think we're done a little early today.

For the good of the record, are there any other items?

Council Member Herbold?

I do just want to quickly give an update on tomorrow's special Public Safety and Human Services Committee meeting that is at 2. Just want to let folks know who is confirmed to join us.

We have Deputy Mayor Mike Fong.

Deputy Mayor Casey Sixkiller.

We have Fire Chief Harold Scoggins.

We have King County Public Health Director Patty Hayes.

We have Office of Emergency Management Acting Director Laurel Nelson.

We have Kuk Vu from the Office of Immigrant Refugees Affairs, the Director of that department.

We have Andres Mentea, the Department of Neighborhoods Director.

Bobby Lee, Office of Economic Development Director.

And Jason Johnson.

the Human Services Department Interim Director.

So I think it's going to be a good conversation.

Hopefully we can find out more about the city and the county's response and get our questions answered for the viewing public.

Excellent.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold, for your leadership on that committee and organizing that special session.

Central staff friends, thank you in advance.

I know that this is a lot, and we appreciate your time, as always, but in advance of everything that's on our 2020 agenda.

And, Fede, your time as well in clerking this committee.

Appreciate it.

Our next committee is going to be on Tuesday, March 17th.

Colleagues, I'd like to start that meeting at 10 a.m., and we'll promise to get you out of here by 1130 still, because I assume you still have a packed agenda.

for the day two weeks out.

We are going to have a briefing on the sugary sweetened beverage tax evaluation, which is coming from our auditor.

We'll have a report to share with you and also hear from the members of the community advisory board.

We'll have two community appointments to the community action board.

Okay.

Advisory board for the sugary sweetened beverage.

Okay, great.

So it ties into that.

And then we also will continue our discussion on the future of work and especially as we think about all the workers that need to take time off due to either being concerned about the coronavirus or the existing flu or potential school closures or work closures.

We want to make sure that all workers really do feel like they can take time off.

And I think that the good questions that we'll be asking at the next committee meeting will be how do we extend some of those protections, especially to gig workers.

And that's a, I think, critical element of public health as well as a lot of us take Lyft and Uber.

We want those folks to feel like they can take a day off when they're not feeling well as well.

Thanks for joining us today.

It is 1119 and the committee is adjourned.

Thank you.