Good afternoon, everyone, if I can have your attention.
This is the regularly scheduled meeting of the Human Services, Equitable Development, and Renters' Rights Committee of the Seattle City Council.
The time is 2.05 p.m.
We're in city council chambers, and I'm joined by Council President Bruce Harrell.
Thank you for being here.
We have two items on today's proposed agenda.
The Seattle Department of Constructions and Inspection, or SDCI, has completed work on their Renting in Seattle web portal, which is a place that renters and landlords can visit to find information about their rights and responsibilities in the city.
The portal also has a new dedicated phone number that renters can call to report violations and ask for help.
We have been discussing this for the past couple of years and I really appreciate the department's effort on this because their staff are overworked given how many renters need support in Seattle and have needed so in recent years.
We also have time on today's agenda for our central district community members to talk about the tragic shooting incidences that occurred last weekend and on gun violence in general.
Obviously, this is only a very initial discussion on this topic.
But my office decided to rapidly organize it in the last couple of days because we wanted to begin responding to the incidents.
So it will be an opportunity for those of you who are here to make your voices heard and present your ideas for what you think could be done in terms of community-based solutions to address the problem that we're facing.
Over the weekend, my office also spoke to several people who live in the neighborhood, and some of you are here today to present.
Statistically speaking, reducing inequality has the greatest impact on reducing violence and crime, and I'll talk about that in a little bit.
But for now, because we have several community members who have urgently made time out of their schedules to be here, which is greatly appreciated, if there's no opposition from My fellow committee members, I will amend the published agenda to put the second item first and the first item second.
Sounds great to me.
Great.
And because there is no objection, the agenda we'll be voting on would be the initial discussion on community input on gun violence as the first item, and the second item would be the Seattle discussion on renting in Seattle.
If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.
No objection.
Thank you.
The next item in the meeting is public comment.
So those of you who've signed up for public comment will get two minutes each.
And if you haven't signed up, but you wish to speak in public comment, you're free to speak and then sign up.
And Ted Verdone from my office will be reading the names out.
There are four people signed up for public comment.
David Haynes, followed by Kathy Yassi, followed by Demias Durenzan, followed by Ms. Richard.
Renters revolt.
Be a lightning bolt.
Do what you're told.
Renters revolt.
We need city council to make it illegal for King County property assessors to continue inflating the perception of value in the dilapidated rundown rental housing market built on the side of the road back in the 20th century.
Lack of commonwealth quality of life issues have oppressed this city with capitulation to the never ending celebration of supply and demand squeeze housing markets.
While speculators park it on the backs of the working class, sold out to the banks that politicians complain about, yet still pull punches as they authorize more money to non-profits tasked with using money to pay someone else's rent at the same inflated, artificially created cost.
When is the city council going to take the pen and up in the bank's abuse and force the banks to finance a 21st century housing build out?
And when is the Department of Construction and Inspections going to stop capitulating to run down housing, never judged as being the modern third world condition many buildings in Seattle are in?
A perfect example of why Department of Construction and Inspection should be improved is the building in Ballard next to Carter Motors, where the restaurant Senior Moose is located.
It's sent people to the hospital because of the gas that comes up through, and they were never really properly enforced with the first world interpretation.
And yet, the rundown ghetto building buys off the government with yearly property taxes in order to continue gouging and oppressing first world quality of life issues.
Allowing an oppressed tenant 14 days versus three days to still pay the artificially inflated rent isn't enough.
So God bless the renters revolt in the 21st century housing build out.
Kathy Yossi.
Hi there, I'm Kathy Yazzie, I live in the corner of 21st and East Columbia, and I've lived there for more than 30 years.
Raised my family there and provided care to many children at Adventure Daycare there.
In our 30 plus years living in the Central District, we have witnessed gun violence, prostitution, and drug crimes.
And we've also experienced so many benefits of living in this beautiful city.
Our neighborhood has changed a lot, too.
Longtime families and elderly neighbors have been displaced.
Services such as the post office and affordable groceries are being replaced by upscale housing and services.
Our block and the blocks adjacent to ours have seen traffic improvements, too, including parking on the east side of the street, traffic circles, speed bumps, and stop signs.
And the terrible, scary gun violence continues.
Gun violence is a symptom of systemic racism, not of traffic patterns.
I honor and respect the work and effort my neighbors and friends have put into solving this terrible problem.
We all want a safe neighborhood.
I am wondering, though, how can we ensure that the unheard voices of longtime residents and people of color are being included?
I ask that the evaluation of any proposed solutions to the gun violence problems in the Central District include the voices of longtime residents and people of color and that these solutions be looked at through a social, racial, and economic equity lens.
My name is Mr. Ronzon.
I've been before this committee a few times before, last time in February, and at that time I'd asked council members to want to get back to me with their office.
I had commented at that time that Mr. Harrell's office was able to help me with some of my issues.
What I want to address is some of the issues going on with the Human Services Department and their contracts and some of the rental rights associated with that.
I was a previous employee of SHARE.
I've actually been in the middle of a lawsuit with them regarding fair pay, housing violations, and other issues that SDCI and others did not even take care of.
The courts are looking at it in a much different light, thankfully, but with SDCI failing to meet some of their basic requirements for their mission goals and their behaviors, and some of the failures by HSD to oversee their contracting partners, it's made it very difficult for me to be able to maintain stable housing and work with the City to find solutions to my issue.
Again, I'm going to ask if the Councilmember can make a commitment to get a hold of me, as she did last time, but this time actually follow through and have someone actually follow up with me.
I provided my email, again, hoping that I can get in contact to have your assistance in figuring out what's going on in these departments that you have this Chair on a committee for.
I really appreciate your time.
Thank you for the efforts you have made.
It looks like there is some changes hoping to come.
And I know with this election coming up soon, I hope that also you can help me show the constituents what we can expect from you.
Thank you.
Yeah, I like folk looking at me, just like they looked at Fannie Lou Hamer back in the day.
I'm Ms. Richard.
You feel me?
This is human services.
This is just a little bit.
OK, because when the folk that really like to put the word out about what's going on, they like to see evidence, right?
They like to see how black people are really being treated in the United States.
of America and to the republic that we better pray is gonna stand, okay?
For y'all doing what you're doing to us as black people, okay?
And you say, oh yeah, you're always complaining about something, you're always eating from the crumbs off the table, and there's various other things that you could say negative about us because I don't like the fact that there was shootings over there in the central district either Because i'm a product of the central district, although I don't live over there.
Okay So i'm trying to figure out about the equity standpoint That a lot of people are asking for us to have as a people And then we have to come down here looking like we begging for something.
Why should we even be having to live?
in the next generation of Jim Crow, huh?
You tell me that, huh?
You give me an answer and read the book Coretta and when you see me again after you read the book you tell me what that black woman had to suffer as a result of her husband being assassinated here in America was something that you were able to benefit from because he was killed.
And every other single so-called leader, or maybe you think there are some leaders around, okay, that are doing something worthy of getting your little grant money, your little petty change, and this guard here, I dare you for you to do something just because you hear me raise my voice.
See, that's what they do.
It's not only us killing each other, but the police is killing us, too, and you know it.
And we're the scourge of the nation, too.
That's the last person for public comment.
Did anybody else who didn't sign up would like to speak before we close public comment?
Seeing none, we will close public comment.
Our first item on the agenda is a discussion, as I mentioned, on the recent wave of gun violence.
There are a few people my office has spoken to over the weekend who have been available to come to discuss with us, and we really appreciate you all making time.
I also should let members of the public know that my office reached out to several additional organizations and individuals who were unable to come because obviously this was at very short notice.
As I said, this is an initial discussion.
I just wanted to share with everyone that we reached out to the Seattle-King County NAACP leadership.
to Reverend Jeffrey of the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in the Central District and Reverend Harriet Walden who's been a long-time activist and a member of the Community Police Commission.
In fact, she in fact was unable to make it because she's at a Community Police Commission meeting as we speak.
So we will continue our outreach and we will have subsequent discussions.
I think Council Member Gonzalez will have a discussion in her committee where hopefully there'll be a report back from the Seattle Police Department.
So we will coordinate on all those ongoing efforts.
I wanted to share with everyone that our office has been closely following the developments that have happened in the central area in the recent days.
My staff and I send our deepest condolences to the family of Royale Lexing, the young black man who tragically lost his life to gun violence on Friday.
We stand with Seattle's black community in mourning this huge loss, and with all community members who want to end gun violence.
My husband and I hear the gunshots where we live in the Central District Leschi neighborhood also, and one of the recent shootings this weekend took place just two blocks from where we live.
I personally understand and share the anxiety of my neighbors and desire for safe neighborhoods for our families, especially for our children.
We need common sense gun control measures like banning semi-automatic weapons to prevent gun violence incidents like the one that happened at 28th and Jackson in the Central District on Friday night.
Several CD residents have also reached out to us with proposals to address the incidents of gun violence, including concrete changes to public space usage and vehicular traffic, which they believe could have a positive impact and help reduce the incidences of drive-by shootings.
For example, community members are advocating for traffic calming measures like raised flower beds or speed bumps on 21st Avenue where there have been three drive-by shootings during the current school year.
That is alarming.
My office has asked the Seattle Department of Transportation to use their expertise to review and implement these measures and other potentially effective suggestions we have heard and will be hearing in the future.
However, as Cathy Yassi correctly said, we are aware that environmental design and gun control measures will be insufficient if the overarching problems faced by our society remain unaddressed.
Statistically speaking, as nationwide studies have systematically shown, reducing inequality has the greatest impact on reducing violence and crime and improving public safety for working people.
In Seattle, this means the escalating affordable housing and homelessness crisis needs to be addressed with bold policies.
Seattle needs rent control to stem the skyrocketing of rents.
We need to tax Amazon and other big businesses to fund a massive expansion of social housing, which is publicly owned affordable housing, and to fully fund public transit and social services.
To fight the alienation faced by our young people, we not only need for them to have stable and affordable housing, but we also need to tax the rich to fully fund public schools and youth jobs programs.
Young people, regardless of their race or household income, have the right to high quality public education, fully equipped schools with access to art opportunities, after school programs, counselors, libraries, and internet access.
We know that youth violence plummets when teachers have the resources and support they need and when parents are not worried about choosing between rent and medication.
A massive expansion of social housing by taxing big business would also mean a citywide public sector jobs program with priority hire and apprenticeship programs so that young people have access to living wage unionized jobs.
My office, alongside the People's Budget Movement, has successfully fought for and won millions in funding for the Youth Violence Prevention Initiative and Career Bridge, which rehabilitates formerly incarcerated people into jobs and housing and reduces recidivism.
We also fought for and won funding for the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Program, or the LEAD Program, a safe consumption site, and city-sanctioned safe and self-managed homeless encampments with city-funded services like trash removal for our homeless community members.
All of these problems actually have a proven track record in data of working well.
The problem is that many of these programs continue to be nickel and dimed and underfunded by the political establishment.
We need serious funding to address the opioid and mental health crisis also in our society.
Some community members have asked our office wouldn't increasing police patrols or including the central district in emphasis patrols help.
The central district has in reality been one of the major areas already designated for summer emphasis patrols.
I am discussing with community members, especially in the black community, as to their views on the patrols.
However, regardless, the fact remains that the recent gun violence was not prevented despite the emphasis patrols.
Decades of statistical evidence demonstrates that we will not be able to police our way out of this crisis because it is fundamentally rooted in the ills of this broken system.
Seattle is spending more than ever before on increased policing, $400 million per year.
And the United States has the highest prison rate in the world, with 724 people per 100,000 incarcerated.
So with that background, I also wanted to share thoughts from two community members who were unable to be here, and then we will have our speakers at the table.
One is a message from Shirley Henderson, who is the owner of the Squirrel Chops coffee shop in the same neighborhood where these incidences have happened.
She says, I quote, as a small business in the Central District, we are mourning with the community over the loss of life and the impact of violence.
We recognize that the root of this violence stems from deep economic inequalities and the lack of affordable housing and from systemic racism.
Small businesses and working people are suffering under the weight of big business and corporate greed, refusing to actually put money behind real solutions to the problem, instead leaning on increased policing which only moves the violence away to other neighborhoods and does not deal with the root cause.
As a small business owner in this community, I am dedicated to fighting the root causes by pushing for affordable housing and economic justice, taxing big businesses in order to fund livability for all of the community in this city.
This is a letter from Reverend Jeffrey, who was unable to be here.
He says, my name is Reverend Robert L. Jeffrey Sr.
I live at 1914 East Alder.
I have lived at this location in the heart of the Central District for over 30 years.
Like many, I have been for years appalled at the rate and the consistency of the violence that has plagued this community.
This is not a new phenomenon.
This is rather a reoccurring tragedy played out each year for at least the last 30 years that I have lived in this community.
Everything imaginable has been tried to eliminate this horrible waste of human potential in addition to the threat that it poses to those who live and work in proximity to these often indiscriminate acts of violence.
It's my firm belief, after having given over 30 years of thought and having participated personally in countless efforts to stop the violence, that these are some of the underlying problems.
Firstly, we have entirely too many young people in Seattle who have nothing to do with their time during the period when school is not in session.
Many of the summer programs are either not relevant to the needs or desires of the targeted youth or they are too expensive for them to afford.
Young people should be able to design their own summer programs or at least to the schools give suggestions as to what they would like to be doing rather than have these programs designed for them by uninformed professional.
Secondly, many of these young people need jobs, career path jobs.
The city must get serious about seeking help in providing these jobs for youth up to the age of 18. It is my firm belief that every young person who wants to earn money should have access to a job.
Thirdly, existing community institutions need to serve as learning centers for young people who want to go to learning friendly places during the summer.
Fourth, I believe the city needs to reach out to the street leaders, those who have credibility on the street.
They are the ones who have the clout needed to bring peace on the streets.
Finally, I realize that in times like this, there's always a tendency to put this problem into the hands of the police.
I feel like we have hid behind the police question long enough.
It is evident that if they could solve this problem, it would have been solved years ago through weed and seed or by totally dismantling the community and imprisoning thousands of young people, especially black people, on drug charges only to then make the drugs legal.
Don't think that this hypocrisy goes unnoticed among the black community.
This problem must be solved by us, by the community.
Those who are criminals must go to jail.
However, those who are simply innocently caught up in the cross wires of this social crisis must be saved.
Sincerely, Dr. Jeffrey.
I appreciate the community members who have sent their messages, and we will be seeking more input.
For now, we really warmly welcome the people who are here.
If you could please come and join us at the table.
Awesome, yeah.
Yeah, we want as many community members as possible.
Thank you.
On both sides or?
Wherever you would like.
Yeah.
We can have the move if she comes.
Yeah.
I just wanted to recognize that KL Shannon, who's a longtime and dedicated activist, is also here in Chambers.
And we will, of course, be discussing with her and other community members as well.
So just in terms of the way the committee goes, could you all please give very brief introductions of each of you just as a matter of record, and then we can start the discussion.
Ted Redon, Council Member Chavez-Watts Office.
Hi, my name is Garrett Weedem.
I live in the Central District, lived in Seattle since 2000, and I'm a meteorologist.
My name is Emily Lieberman.
I live on 21st Avenue in the Central District, and I've lived in Seattle since 2001. And I'm going to switch sides of the table so I don't have my back to chaos.
Sounds great.
I'm Kathy Yazzie, and I live on the corner of 21st and East Columbia, and I've been there for a little bit longer than 30 years.
I'm Joanna Cullen.
I live just south of Union on 21st Avenue.
I've lived in the Central District since 1977 and in that house since 1985.
So as I said before, I greatly appreciate you all making yourselves available at such short notice.
I know you have families and work obligations.
And I wanted this to be just a free-flowing discussion, so it's not like I'm going to, you know, it's not we have a specific agenda.
We want to hear from you all about, first of all, how you feel it has been going, and also what things you feel the city should be doing.
So just please feel free to jump in.
Joanna, do you want to start?
First, I want to say that there are a lot of people in the community that are concerned.
And it's a very good variety.
For instance, this morning before I came, I talked to a woman who's part of the Desmond Jackson Foundation.
and she might have come except that they were going to Katie's Coffee because there was a meeting with this man named Vernon who's been homeless in the Central District for some time and apparently his situation has gotten much better and so some residents were going over there to meet with him and talk to him.
I've been active on several committees for some time and in terms of the feeling of safety and the environmental solutions, I realize there's only one little piece of it.
Nonetheless, I think we have to recognize that fear and anger really affect everybody's brains, including adults, but ability for children to learn.
So having some feeling and perception of safety and to have real safety in our neighborhoods is essential in order to stem the virus.
about gun violence.
And I would say that this woman that I talked to is as concerned about gun violence, if not more, because her nephew was a victim.
And I would also, I know Yolanda, who Emily's reached out to is also very concerned.
So I would say that all the new residents, all the people who've lived there for a long time have equal concern and want to work on this together.
Yeah.
So I'd like to point out that As she said, a lot of people on the block would be here if they could be here.
I can only be here because I work a weird shift schedule and I happens to work with it.
Some of the points that I've jotted down are mine and some are on behalf of neighbors, both homeowners and renters.
One thing that I think we need your guys' help to fix is to remove the ability to commit a drive-by shooting at Union and then be able to speed fairly unimpeded straight all the way to Cherry.
21st is the only street where you can do that and our block between Union and Marion.
is about two and a half times the length of the other kind of standard blocks around there.
So if you go 50, 60 miles per hour in a few seconds, you're two and a half blocks away from the crime scene, you're scot-free.
And those that kind of plan to have a gun battle, I guess, have clearly learned that this is where to do it if you want a clean getaway.
And so I don't think that this is going to stop until we make it so that you can't do that.
I don't understand your point.
Are you talking about 21st Avenue on this one?
On 21st, yeah, between Union and Marion is a super long block and then you can pretty much go, you can go straight to Cherry and then you're leaving the neighborhood, you're gone.
And all the other blocks between like 17th and 23rd have something stopping them.
I think there's a good chance that if we were to do something there so that you can't speed through, that it wouldn't just move the violence.
I think people would have to rethink or delay and then eventually reduce the violence, because I think this is known as the easy place to do it.
And if we get rid of the easy place to commit a drive-by, then that can reduce violence.
And I can go back to some other points as well.
So we had a first shooting about 18 months ago, but then we've had four more in this school year at that one intersection.
And so we had a first one and we thought we were really unlucky there on our block.
And then when there was a second, we were hoping like maybe the shooters would avoid the area because it would be- Yeah, this is current school year, and then plus one 18 months ago.
Yeah, so yeah, there have been five, including the one 18 months ago, just on our intersection and our block.
That's 21st and Union?
21st and Union.
21st south of Union.
Yep, on the south side of Union, and then to the mid-block.
And so when there was a third one, we thought, you know, maybe the city would see that, and they would do something.
It was this shooting when there were about 15 shots that went from my house and I hit the deck to my stomach and waited out the shots in my dining room.
And then when there was a fourth shooting, we thought, you know, there's going to be a fifth.
And there was a fifth.
And I think, I mean, people just know that that's where you can come out of shooting and get away.
Yeah.
So when Emily sent some of these points about 21st Avenue, we did contact SDOT to ask about that.
And I mean, obviously, it's not a lot of notice, but there's a liaison in SDOT who council can call on.
That person said that They basically said that the people in SDOT have expertise about traffic calming measures for the sake of traffic calming, but in terms of its impact on gun violence and that sort of thing, they don't have that expertise within the department.
So that was kind of the initial response that we got when we reached out, obviously.
And we did ask them to join us at the table here, but they were unable to, but we will follow up with them for sure.
And yep, so please, please go ahead.
Yeah, so I would say, you know, recognizing that there is a very long history of gun violence in the Central District.
I think that these, you know, four incidents on our block in the last eight months, plus I brought actually five articles about the five different events in the last 18 months that have been as Garrett said like all the way down our block with smashed cars and bullet holes and That it there has been a recent escalation in this one specific spot and The shooting last Friday, I don't know the gun terminology, but used some kind of automatic weapon.
They say it was a semi-automatic.
Okay, something that was able to shoot 75 bullets in some very short amount of time, I think is how many bullets they said they found.
So that at this moment, in this one spot, there is this escalation of violence.
And you know, there are various potential reasons for that problem.
And one is that that street, I've been repeatedly told by different people, is like a historical edge of a gang's territory.
And another potential reason is this, that it's the only street between 17th and 23rd that doesn't have physical concrete traffic calming barriers.
So it makes it the one straight shot going south.
And I really appreciate that there are many different ways that we need to work on this problem, many of which have already been addressed.
But one thing that really hasn't been addressed yet is this concept of crime prevention through environmental design, which is a way to seek to prevent crime that has been proven effective, that doesn't involve more policing, which is not welcome to everyone in our community.
And we feel that we have done at this point what we can.
We put, our community put in planters in a spot where people were parking on the sidewalk to sell drugs, and we've put some big beautiful planters with trees there.
A fence was removed so that a security camera could have a better vantage.
A tall hedge was removed to improve visibility and have more of a sense of like eyes on the street.
We have worked with the Healthy Youth Central Area Network to commission a mural that will be painted on our corner.
By there are actually 30 children who live on this block who will work together to paint that mural this June And we've done a lot of advocacy to help make that corner pedestrian friendly including working with the safety routes to school, folks who are going to put in a crosswalk with a flashing beacon this summer, and we put up crossing flags.
So we feel that we have done a lot of what we could.
We have had three big meetings of our community, people on our block and people surrounding, including I put like a flyer on every door on our block.
We've met with local business owners.
We've had two meetings that the police department has come to two times.
Councilmember Mosqueda has been to our block.
We really appreciate the opportunity to come here and speak to you today.
We've raised our concerns at Eastpac.
We have sent many, many, many communications to the mayor's office, to city council members, to the Seattle Police Department.
to SDOT, to Seattle City Light, and other city agencies.
And what we are asking for is for the city to in addition to all of the efforts that you are making, the efforts that our police department is making, to use some tools that aren't policing to address what is happening in this hotspot now.
And last September, they made it sound really easy, like this, the...
This was a start or...
No, the Seattle Police Department, you know, has been in the East Precinct has some new community policing officers.
They're focusing on that effort.
They have trained them to conduct these CEP crime prevention through environmental design.
The CEPTED is the acronym, they've trained them to conduct these SEPTED reviews and they say, you know, all we have to do, the police department says, oh, make it safe by putting in a barrier here or the mayor's office can just pick up the phone and SDOT can do stuff like this.
But we've gotten the same response that you did, which is SDOT says, well, we don't know how to do that, you know.
We appreciated that Seattle City Light came out and put up one new street light in a dark spot on our block.
But the other thing that we are asking for is some kind of traffic calming on our block to prevent this, you know, driving by.
Because all five of the incidents that we are discussing here, I'm pretty certain, have involved some flight down 21st, which is the one you know, clear path going south.
So, I mean, our What we would like is for SDOT to engage with our community, to come out, to speak to the people who've been there a long time, to speak to the people who want to speak to them, to develop some plan about what could make our, if there are physical changes that could make our neighborhood safer or attempt to do so.
Or at least provide like a visual barrier close enough to Union on 21st that it's clear that you can't just fly away down here.
And that was like the concept of the flower beds that you mentioned.
You know, there are different things that different cities have done at different times, whether it's put up a...
Yes, I'm going to pass these all your way.
And I'm sorry, my photocopier stopped on me, so I don't have multiple good copies.
But these are just a few.
Thank you so much.
These are just a few concepts, like if there were a few planters that would create the kind of...
Diversion that every other way down so it can't be just a drive-by.
Yes Yeah that the other blocks around us have built in but the city could just plop down some concrete planters or And not they could you know, divert traffic at the end of the block or they could put, you know, in conjunction maybe with one of those things, put in speed bumps, although I don't know that alone those are going to feel effective.
So the request is for SDOT to come to the table and for the city to direct SDOT to do so and look beyond, you know, policing at other solutions that our neighborhood would really like to engage about and have been asking to do since September.
Right.
And I absolutely, as I said before, my office, my staff, Ted, and other staff members will absolutely be following up with SDOT on that.
Just a bit of question, though.
How has SDOT interacted with you?
Like, to what extent?
Like, have they sent staff members to the block to visit alongside you?
Do you know so I can tell you personally in?
2017 I did some advocacy about safe routes to school and the safe routes to school person came and walked With our middle schoolers to Washington and we said kids go north to meaning So in that case they were happy to come to the block in this case when we've been talking to them about violence reduction They have not come or been willing to come I I an email was forwarded to somebody who wrote back to me saying, well, we're putting in a crosswalk.
I said, well, I know that's been in the works since 2017, but we're asking for more.
And she wrote back and said, well, you can apply for a grant.
And when I replied saying, Is there anything we could do more?
I do want to add something to this.
Sure, please.
So I'm currently interim chair of HICAN, and I've been a member of the Eastpac group for many years.
So one of the frustrations is people talk about the SEPTED, will come and talk to us about a SEPTED, but it doesn't feel like they interact with the Department of Transportation.
The Department of Neighborhoods seems like maybe they interact a little bit with whoever does the SEPTED.
But it always feels like you have one presentation, you try to organize people, and the East Precinct Crime Prevention Group is trying to work with the entire East Precinct.
So unless, if you get a SepTED group to come and give you a presentation, then somebody talks to them, maybe one group talks to them, a small neighborhood, but there's never, And the follow-up between departments to actually accomplish something, or maybe the SEPTED people could actually work with the department, the SDOT, to give them some ideas, some tools.
Maybe they could work together.
Because if they're not working together, then it's up to us to ask for something.
And maybe we won't completely develop consensus on exactly how the street should be diverted.
Or maybe we'll make a mistake.
You know maybe we'll make it so emergency vehicles can't can't enter.
So if it feels like you need people where the department sort of talking to each other and really coming and talking to the neighborhoods but also somebody that maybe can look at the overall central district because as you said it happens on Jackson.
It's been happening in the Pike Pine area and it feels like there's some relationship between all of this.
So maybe if somebody had eyes on the entire area there could be some type of design or at least review of how things could be slowed down, discouraged, because while this will not fix the root causes, the fewer opportunities somebody has to do violence will give them a moment to rethink their actions.
Yes, absolutely.
That's totally rational.
I mentioned this in my initial remarks, but yes, we hear shots and the kind you were describing, Emily, where it's clearly some sort of automatic or semi-automatic weapon, just the pace at which it's going.
It's not just a handgun.
And it is scary.
Yes, absolutely.
There's no question about that.
And I'm glad you mentioned, Joanna, also the sort of clearly what seems to be like we need more better communication between these different departments.
So I would say, I mean, obviously, it's premature.
We should look into this more.
It seems like the first step might be to actually get some staff members from the key departments to come together there and have a discussion with residents.
And like you said, Joanne, it's totally fair if they say from their expertise point of view that, well, this won't work, but this will work fine, but let's have that discussion.
It seems only reasonable to expect that we could have that discussion.
Go ahead, Emily, and then Kathy.
Kathy, do you want to speak first?
Well, it doesn't have to be first, but I do want to say something.
Sure, please, please.
On the block south of Marion, between Marion and Cherry, on the west side of the street are two childcare centers.
And I have been thinking for quite some time now that schools are notified and do lockdowns.
So during this last incident, Garfield was locked down.
I believe Madrona was locked down.
And I think Washington, not Washington, Meany, I think all had some time period of lockdown.
And when I came back from walking my dog, during the shooting.
I noticed that the children across the street were playing in the yard because they didn't know that there had been a shooting and that people were racing down the street to escape from police or shooting or violence in some way.
And we should have a system in this city that notifies early learning and care environments of emergency situations that the children, where the children should be in the house.
Yeah, it seems like a particularly glaring sort of thing that has not been addressed.
Absolutely.
And the state has has taken some very small and insignificant steps toward this effort, but it's very jarring to hear the gunshots and see the children playing in the yard, and then later to see that Garfield had been notified.
Yeah, yeah, so I think that even if the state ever gets around to doing something, we as a city need to do something to protect those early learners.
Yeah, and speaking of big responses versus little responses, like we need to do the things that we can, you know?
And while I support the idea that we should take sort of a systemic look at the, maybe if we think that it might be helpful to look at the traffic patterns in the CD overall and see if there are environmental changes we can make to reduce gun violence, great.
But this is a really process-heavy city, and I don't want, the desire for process to get in the way of the things that we actually could do right now cheaply and quickly.
And I think that on this particular block, where there have been these five incidents of gun violence in rapid succession, escalating in severity, injuries, death, where when that car speeds down 21st it passes these two previously three preschools I mean I think that it's and that should be enough to say okay if we could raise $5,000 for planters or find $5,000 in our budget or let the community raise it and put them on the street in consultation with the neighborhood.
Like, we would like some action now in this spot.
Because we have a critical problem in one specific spot.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
But I would be interested in how the SEPTED could interact with SDOT even on just this block.
Because what if, I mean, if they have a planning tool, why don't they share that with SDOT?
Exactly.
It seems like we need, first of all, we need the departments to communicate with each other, but also, I feel like a very basic first step should be to get the people who have the expertise to come there.
And maybe they don't have expertise directly on how to use traffic measures to address not traffic issues but other issues, fair enough.
But I feel like we should at least have them visit.
And Emily, you mentioned that other cities have done something.
Can you talk about that?
Well, certainly there are studies about the effectiveness of crime prevention through environmental design, and there are specific places where that's been studied, which I didn't print and bring.
I'm sorry.
It's easy to find.
Sure.
But these are just some examples.
I mean, let's not even go outside Seattle.
Let's look at like North Capitol Hill, which has like little turn after little turn.
I mean, there are just things that you can do to make places not feel like a crazy thoroughfare.
And I feel like if there had been five major gun violence incidents on North Capitol Hill or in Green Lake or in Laurelhurst, there would have been a different response than we've seen in the CD.
I appreciate your willingness to advocate for this area.
I think you're right.
Yes.
Yes.
There are inequities, systematic inequities in how different neighborhoods get different responses.
That's true.
We know that's true.
So...
Yes, I always think if Roosevelt and Eckstein were on lockdown as often as Washington and Garfield, there would be a different response.
Right, right.
So yeah, definitely please send me whatever studies there are about what impact environmental design changes have on these issues.
I agree with you, they shouldn't be dismissed in any way.
On the early learning centers, Is it true that there is no effective state law that mandates that?
Like how is it that Garfield High School is able to do that but not?
I don't know how it is set up, but I do know that early learning centers get no notification of
And how do, can you tell me in more detail, how do high schools, how do they, like, what is the process of notification?
Like, do school staff themselves look it up and do it, or?
No, they get notified.
Schools get notified.
Through the police department?
I think so.
One question I would have is that through the school district, and do private schools also get notified?
I haven't heard anything like that.
Washington, the different girls schools in the area.
I haven't heard any announcements or the Giddens.
I haven't ever heard her.
Giddens was notified, but I don't know if they, you know, I don't know if they were tied into a system or if it was an individual that said you need to notify me if they, you know.
So I don't know how it works in the schools.
I just know that It does.
I mean, I get Amber alerts on my phone.
It seems like there should be a way to notify me.
I'm having three kids who are in lockdowns, not infrequently, is that they get notification from SPD and then they are like in consultation with SPD about when they can lift it, that it's SPD that lifts the lockdown.
But they notify it through the district, I think.
I think so too, yeah.
I think it's the school district.
We'll research it and get back to people.
Yes.
Okay, so I was, because we all have limited expertise, we will need other people at the table with us.
And so I just wanted to propose some next steps.
One is, please share with me, and Ted, you should make sure they have your email address as well, whatever information you have, whether it's from other parts of Seattle or from other cities or even other, countries internationally, cities, if there are some best practices we could go by.
that I think the Department of Neighborhoods used to do these SEPTED analyses, and now SPD is doing them.
So, I mean, Seattle as a city has used this process as a way to make environmental changes for some time.
So I will send that to you, but I just also want you to know that Seattle believes in and uses this process.
Yes, it uses it already, yes.
And in fact, also share with Ted contact information of the individuals, staff members that you have been interacting with at SEPTED, also department neighborhoods, people who are already familiar with these issues, if we can quickly get in touch with them as well.
And then what we should try and do is have some sort of community conversation about this.
And I think the most useful thing would be is if we are actually there rather than here.
So our office will work with you in scheduling some time of that nature, but it would be more useful.
Our time would be more usefully spent if we can get some people who have some expertise of some kind, even if it's not exactly what it is, what is needed.
So we will try and work on that, and we will coordinate with you in terms when we can do that.
And who are the, I mean, my question is who can tell SDOT, please make these changes even though you don't feel that it's within your expertise to say that it will reduce gun violence.
So usually if it is not something that requires any legislative like, you know, something would be major enough.
If it's major enough, then we would need an ordinance that would be, have to be passed by the city council and then approved by the mayor.
I don't think we're talking about those things.
Yeah, exactly.
So it seems like these are smaller measures.
What we, I mean, ultimately the departments all, just by the way the city is structured, reports to the executive, reports to the mayor's office, but it is not, But we, the city council as a legislative body also has the ability to engage with the departments and make requests based on community input.
And then they're free to discuss amongst themselves, you know, in terms of their expertise and then come up with recommendations of what would work and what may not work.
So I think the first step is to just get some coordination with the departments and then Find a time that works for you all, probably on a weekday evening or a weekend, I think would probably be the best during the day, obviously, you know, when there's daylight rather.
And then go from there.
When the parking was changed, allowing parking on the west side of 21st, and when each of the traffic circles were installed, it just involved petitioning the neighbors.
It was not a big deal.
You just knock on the doors and say, do you want this?
And when everybody agreed that they wanted it, it happened.
I'm sorry, so there are traffic circles on 21st?
Two of them.
Yeah.
Oh, so I wasn't...
Right, because what they're saying is that there aren't, it's not.
There are two traffic circles.
Except for the two traffic circles.
It's a very long block because Spring doesn't go through there.
Right, I see.
So then it's a very long block and the traffic circles don't seem to have I mean there was a big, I mean I lived there when the parking changed and when the traffic, so there was a big change in the speeding.
People do not speed there like they used to, it has way slowed down.
And at this point during certain times of the day when there's quite a bit of traffic because there's two-way traffic, and people have to pull over, there's not a lot.
But at certain times when there's not traffic coming, suddenly people are just speeding.
Like with a getaway.
Or sometimes, I think some people just speed because they see nothing else coming and they decide that they're going to speed.
It's totally impossible when you get stuck behind a garbage truck on 21st.
We are talking about it being the one straight shot this was my little drawing earlier, but I'm sure you're familiar with the like concrete curb bulbs, so We said between 17th and 23rd.
It's the only There are traffic circles, but that's all, and that doesn't seem to slow cars down too much.
The other blocks have, two of the blocks have curb bulbs that you have to sort of drive in an S shape, and cars have to wait at both ends.
The 20th adjacent to us has two concrete curb bulbs at the roundabout.
So that also really significantly slows traffic.
And then 22nd, one block below us, is the greenway.
So there are bikes that slow traffic and also a lot of speed bumps.
So that's what we mean when we say that our block does not have comparable traffic calming measures.
Thank all of you for coming out and sharing your concerns and on behalf of not just yourselves, but your neighbors and your neighborhood.
So I've heard a lot of very good things.
SEPTED has been around since the 1960s.
It's not a new concept.
It's almost 50 years old and it's somewhat concerning to me if SDOT says or whoever you talk to didn't feel comfortable on that kind of analysis because I think there are many people in SDOT that have quite a bit of expertise in SEPTED designs.
That should almost be a requirement given the fact that it was founded in the 1960s by, I think his name was Jeffrey or something like that.
I just remember reading it myself as a lay person.
So it's not rocket science, right?
And there's some fundamental pillars that one would do.
And so I think that this would be a very ripe analysis to have SDOT and the police department sort of do a deep dive on what makes sense.
The letter that you shared from Reverend Jeffrey's I think nailed the issue as far as I'm concerned that in addition to CEPTED, we need to quite candidly, and I might be a minority opinion on this, we need to actually know who are committing these atrocious acts as well.
Are they coming from other areas?
Are there issues that we have to concern ourselves with?
And we need people, we need to invest.
And I think that's what we need to do.
I think we need to put our budget, our monies into I think other people and organizations that could help with the underlying issues.
Pulling a gun out and shooting someone is not a natural act in my mind.
where the breakdown is, but we have to have an investment strategy that addresses it.
Now, this stuff seems to sometimes come in waves.
In 2007, 2008, we had just a high number of shootings in kids in middle schools, and that's where the birth of the Seattle Youth Prevention, SYVPI, Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative sort of Came out of that and we did some real creative things Some somewhat controversial when you start putting police officers in middle schools My daughter was at Madrona and also in their uniformed officers, but that was one part of a multifaceted strategy It seems like violence is on the uptick right now and again with the letter Reverend Jeffries wrote I think is a strong letter to sort of wake the city up again to revisit this issue.
So I think I The SEPTED is a great strategy.
I think those pillars that Reverend Jeffries pointed out is a great strategy.
And again, we have to get the expertise here at the table to come up with an investment strategy to make sure your homes are safe because no one really needs to, no one should have to live through this kind of fear as far as I'm concerned.
So there have been meetings with the East Precinct.
The police tend to say that most of the people involved in the shootings do not have addresses in Seattle.
So we're trying to address the SEPTED.
But in terms of the larger issue, I would think that you need to engage in some regional planning or some type of regional overview of how it's happening.
And my perception is that A few years ago when I saw, you know, areas where it seemed like there was drug dealing and people hanging out, most of the people were like 30, 40, 50, maybe not as old as I am, but older.
And suddenly I saw more young people in the mix.
And now I notice in the news stories and the police confirmed that more of the especially shooters, have been young people, and that my perception is true.
So I was trying to get to where are they doing the recruiting?
What are the vulnerable areas of recruiting?
Because that seems like one way to start figuring out how to help.
Good point, Joanna.
Yes.
So yeah, I appreciate everybody's comments.
Sorry, we have to, we've kept our next agenda item, people waiting here, so we should get to that.
But yeah, let's make sure we arrange something, you know, in terms of concrete next steps.
I agree with Council President Harreld that we, we should have, after so many decades of work in the city, we should have some expertise.
So it's not enough for them to just say, we don't have expertise.
Let's make sure that we do something concretely.
And it's not ruled out that if the department indeed doesn't have the expertise, although I agree that they should if the program has been there for decades, but if they don't, then let's take concrete measures.
Let's get some export from another city if necessary.
There are ways that we can address this and I don't see why these requests cannot be accommodated to me.
They seem very small compared to, in terms of what it would take to achieve them compared to the larger things that we're working on.
So I feel like let's overcome the smaller hurdles.
And then the other thing I was going to say is, yeah, that we will also look into what to do for notification for early learning centers.
I feel like that should change immediately.
That just seems just absolutely not acceptable, that little children are.
put in potentially harm's way.
It's a problem all over our state, but if we could do something in Seattle.
Yeah, I can't imagine there's nothing we can do.
We could do that.
Yes.
More quickly than it's ever going to take the state.
No, I completely agree.
So we will concretely work on that.
Sorry, Joanna, did you want to say something?
I was going to say the state licenses the daycare, so it seems like they would have the list.
Sure.
No.
Anyway, yeah, I'm not an expert on that, but yeah, we will.
All I'm saying is that it seems very important, so we will look into that as well.
And then the last point I wanted to make before you all leave is along the lines of Reverend Jeffrey's letter and the fact that we have KL here and the fact that this is also the place, I mean the Central District is a historically black neighborhood.
A lot of black community members themselves are being pushed out.
I would also like for us to have a community conversation that includes Africatown and others.
So in addition to having this sort of neighborhood sort of walkthrough with SDOT and SEPTED, let's also do a community meetup, so to say, where we can have a frank conversation about larger issues in addition to these, the specific traffic calming and other issues.
Let's also have a larger discussion on what we want the central district and the city to be like.
You know, we want it to be welcoming and affordable for everyone.
And the funding for public schools and the programs, like Reverend Jeffrey is saying, a lot of the youth are getting involved, unfortunately, in all these problematic situations because they don't have things to get to and constructive uses for their time because nobody's really looking out for them.
So I would like you all also to be included in that conversation.
I know you already are in your neighborhoods, but let's make it wider.
And I would like for my office to be in touch with you all on all these specific questions, if that seems agreeable to you all.
Excellent.
Thank you.
I look forward to both of those meetings.
Thank you so much for your concrete efforts.
Yeah, we'll be in touch.
Thank you both.
And thank you, Councilman President Harrell, for the comments.
So our next agenda item And I also should mention thanks not only to Ted but also Jeff Sims from Central Staff who's gave us some insights into some of the questions that we were looking into for this first agenda item.
Please.
I have to sit way down here.
No problem.
Introductions and please take it away.
Sorry, I should also acknowledge Greg Doss from central staff who has been helping us on this.
Go ahead.
Jeff Talent with SDCI.
I'm the rental programs manager.
Hi, I'm Dulce O'Sullivan.
I'm the lead for the Renting in Seattle Program, SDCI.
Thank you, and please take it away.
Apologies for sitting so far down the table here to operate the computer.
Oh, no.
My apologies.
I had to wait.
All right.
Well, thank you very much for having us here.
We were here maybe six, eight months ago to give you an update on the progress, and so it's exciting to be here and be able to show you some finished products here with this Renting in Seattle effort.
And we appreciate the opportunity to help promote this new program.
We had kind of a soft launch back earlier in the year, but we're now trying to make a very concerted effort to get the word out about this program.
First off, our department's purpose and values.
Maybe the one thing I'll call attention to is equity is in our purpose statement there, and certainly this Renting in Seattle program is a big part of our department's support for the RSJ initiative by reaching all communities in Seattle with information that they need and improving access to services.
So, Renting in Seattle started with a council request, a little bit of seed funding and a council request back in 2017 to develop the program, and thank you for the leadership and support for that.
So, we spent 2018 building out the website, getting a phone line in place and the technology to support that phone line and some other materials, which we'll highlight here.
Earlier this year we started with a soft launch and here we are now in May trying to do a more aggressive effort to get the word out.
We feel like everything's in place and operating smoothly and we want the customers to start coming to us.
Did you have sort of a select group of renters to test out during this off launch?
How did you?
Yes, we've done testing and in kind of a variety of different ways as different pieces came together.
So we had, yes, some renters both from within our department and outside of it.
We had the renters commission, we involved them and they reviewed some of the materials and gave us some good insight into the website and its flow.
We worked with the community liaisons from Department of Neighborhoods to get sort of perspective of immigrant and refugee communities for the non-English portions of our website.
So the key features of renting in Seattle, so it is more than a web portal and a phone number.
I mean, I think first and foremost is really boots on the ground, you know, getting out into the community and helping deliver our message directly to people face to face.
So enhanced outreach and coordination is a big part of that.
We did 38 events in 2018, and we have over 60 planned for 2019 right now.
A couple big ones to feature.
Dulcy here, our outreach lead, did a great job in developing some partnerships.
So for example, we're doing quarterly trainings with Office for Civil Rights for landlords.
And that's been just a lot of work in weaving our two, their civil rights protections and our renters protections together into a single integrated curriculum that helps landlords fill in all sort of gaps of the landlord experience.
Dulcy worked with Seattle Housing Authority to get us invited to their initial tenant meetings as people are receiving their vouchers for the housing authority.
She's able to talk to 8 to 15 tenants every week and give them information about their rights and who to call for if they're having problems.
A lot of other collaboration, some exciting ones, working with the community connectors at the food banks.
And so we've had a couple of events out at Ballard Food Bank and Bird Bar up in the central area.
And SPU and inviting them to come along to some of our events to help promote some of their programs like light bulbs and low-flow toilets and preventing fog oil grease.
We just have a nice connection with other important city missions.
Basically kind of a portable renting in Seattle clinic now.
We can pop up, you can see a picture of our tent there, and we can set up with a couple of experts.
That's one of our folks that staffs our landlord tenant issues group there that can actually answer questions and take in service requests if we actually identify issues there.
And then finally, quite a bit of more coordination between departments.
Since we have several departments that touch on renters' issues, you know, a big part of this whole effort is just getting the departments to work together, come up with some unified messaging, and exchange information.
They help build portions of our website to make sure we're talking to their issues as well as our own departments.
So another key piece was some new infographics and information.
Before now, most of our materials were pretty dense, black and white, kind of legalistic.
So you can see we've given you examples of our new brochures.
We broke it into sort of key parts of the tenant experience.
And they're intended to give you enough information to get you started, but not go too deep, but then point everything back to our phone line and our web portal to get information or help.
I have to say I love the graphics.
Thank you.
And so these infographics are also translated into 14 languages, and they've become a building block.
You'll see in a minute of some of our materials on our website to serve non-English speaking communities.
So then the dedicated helpline, we touched on that already.
So single phone number that people can call instead of having to look through the city directory and find three or four different departments that might be able to help them.
We also had the added problem that a lot of the renters protections are in SDCI and people just didn't think to call the Department of Construction and Inspections.
So branding everything around renting in Seattle with a phone line associated with that is our hope to make this easier for people to know where to go.
Can I ask you, do we have any idea as to what proportion of Seattle's renters are aware that there's a city department that they could?
No, I don't think we have any statistics.
We just know, I think, more from firsthand experience.
We're out in the community talking and people say, I had no idea it's called Department of Construction Inspections.
The other thing we know is from partners like Office of Housing.
Because housing is in their name.
They've got a lot of calls that should have come to us So, you know, they've been pretty good at making these referrals over the years Yeah, so this is hopefully this effort will have all of these calls funneling through our single phone line And then we can work to get it out to the right departments Can I ask in terms of In the past there was a different phone number, you know The the phone number that was on the STCI website for renters to call and we gave
probably hundreds of people that phone number when they called at different times.
And you've been able to help many people.
Is that phone number still active?
Should we be giving people this phone number?
How does it work now?
So that phone number is still active.
That's the longstanding code compliance helpline.
And so that's what people call in if they see some illegal construction or if they have weed problems, things like that.
So we're still receiving calls on that line.
And it's actually the same people answering both lines.
They're expert enough to know, oh, hey, that's a renter call.
I know to route that to the right spot.
So either number is fine.
I think we're trying to really promote this new phone number.
It's also a good way of us sort of isolating just renters' issues and collect data on how many calls we're getting.
So from now on, we should give out this number?
Yes.
OK.
The website, so I think I'll try and jump out of the PowerPoint presentation here and hopefully technology will work with us and show you a few key features of the website.
So the first thing you see when you come in, we spent a lot of debate about this and tested this with several people and decided we really need two doors.
We're speaking to two audiences, renters and landlords.
And to use, you know, accessible language for each of those audiences, you need to write the same information but in different ways.
So if you come in as a renter, you'll see your main doorway for information.
And we organized this around the renter experience.
So starting out, sort of the be prepared, are you ready to rent, moving in, managing the rental relationship, moving out, and then just general resources.
And so if you don't know exactly what you're looking for, this is a way to sort of come in and say, oh, this is about where I am in my rental experience.
And I'm about ready to move in.
What do I need to know?
And if you come in here, you'll learn about, Move-in costs and what's allowed and what's not.
Installment payments and you're entitled to ask for those.
Security deposit checklist, one of the most important things.
So this is less regulatory, but just a really important tip.
Make sure you get that move-in checklist.
Types of rental agreements, there's a lot of agreements out there.
And here's an example of where we're also making a crossover to another department.
So we feature utilities so people know both how to get utilities moved over, but also some of the other utility programs that might be available to them.
UDP and so on?
Yeah, utility.
This one may go into utility discount.
If not, it's mentioned elsewhere.
And let's see.
Let's go.
Other features to look at here.
I think it goes back to the home.
We also, and this is actually specific feedback from the Renters Commission, they said, but I don't want to navigate through all this.
I just need help.
So we created, you know, a couple things to get you right where you needed to go.
So right here is like the top seven-ish issues that we get and exactly where to go for help on those.
Another one to feature here.
Materials in other languages.
So we didn't translate everything in the website.
That's more than we could do right now.
But what we did do was basically sort of inventory and catalog materials we had and new materials we wrote.
So summary information plus, for instance, these infographics you've seen and the videos that we'll show in a minute are all in language on these different web pages.
I think that's the main thing.
One of the things we did in the city was also require landlords to include voter registration info.
Is there any indication there for renters, if I'm a renter and I go to your website, Is there, I know there's a security deposit checklist.
Is there a checklist for the information packet or something?
The information for tenants packet.
So there's definitely links to information for tenants.
I'm going to look to Dulce to say did we have feature when you move in, you should remember to register to vote on the website.
We actually didn't, but we can.
Yeah.
Yeah, that is a great idea.
Yeah, I mean, it's available.
It's attached as part of the information for tenants, but we don't highlight it or speak to it, but we can.
I was just thinking, yeah, in terms of, because renters experience more moving and instability compared to homeowners, obviously, you know, the question of getting re-registered at your new address always comes up.
Yeah, yeah, it's a great idea.
It's easy to do.
Dulcy is the one who will do it, so.
Great, no problem.
All right.
Yeah, one other thing just to feature here.
So for instance, the state just passed some new tenant protection laws, and Dulcy was able to get in right away and just put a short blurb on there.
And then as we start unpacking those, we'll be able to say more about those on this website.
All right, I think we'll go back to the...
I'm sorry, and when you press on evictions, what does it tell you?
Yeah, so a short description of the eviction process and links to some sort of related topics because types, you know, eviction come with different types of notices.
and then some community resources to go to.
Our department doesn't get deep into evictions.
We rely on the legal community to provide that kind of support.
So mainly we're trying to give people enough information to know, hey, this is important, and then help them get connected with the right resources.
I think with the changes in state law, we're planning to bolster this up to reflect the new.
That would be great.
And I don't know if you just mentioned that we sort of in terms of legal concerns, how you would say this.
Do you think it would be helpful to maybe like in addition to this information is very important, but maybe like above or below, like have a bullet point checklist to say if you got an eviction notice other than for these reasons, then could we do something like that?
Oh, so like help people be able to distinguish between types of eviction notices or valid eviction versus...
Yeah, I mean, eviction notices may be legal, but we may consider them unjust, but it may be legal, whereas some may be straight up illegal.
Yeah, I think we can do more.
I think we need to be careful how much we say, because it is such a critical event that you really need proper representation to sort through.
But we'll look at it.
The other thing that was recently suggested to us is a little bit of a flow chart, because it's kind of a complicated process to understand.
So you can just kind of see.
what the steps are and help really emphasize, hey, you need to quickly take action to prevent this from happening.
Yeah, that really makes sense.
And could we also, in the whole flowchart of quickly take action, maybe also emphasize that getting legal help is a good idea.
And obviously, the biggest barrier for a lot of people facing eviction is that they just can't afford it.
But it's worth actually trying to cobble together something, maybe getting a loan from a relative or something and getting some sort of legal representation because the statistics we see are so startling.
I mean, getting, having a legal representation, it's a night or day difference between your outcomes.
So.
And there's.
Emphasizing that, you know.
And there are resources available for people who can't afford it.
So getting them connected with those quickly and having people take advantage of those services.
Sorry, did you have a question?
Well, to that point, if you could, can you click, is that live, the Just Cause Eviction Ordinance?
What happens if you click on that?
Yeah.
So you're going to pull up the ordinance, I take it.
Yeah, so you'll see, yes, I'm helping, like, understand where, what are valid reasons for being evicted or not.
This goes into all 16.
Okay, so I think.
There's another place to be updated.
This is great.
My fear, I thought you were going to pull up the ordinance.
I'm like, no one wants to read an ordinance, trust me.
No, we did quite a bit of work to rewrite almost everything into plain language.
And without going through each one, I think the point the chair's making that I agree with is that it's just got to be so easy, right, for someone to really understand.
Because you have to understand, The person not represented by counsel, they may not be a lawyer.
And I'll look through that on my own, but I just wanted to be so crystal clear that anyone could understand it.
I think the first bullet point is the one that the state just offered.
It hasn't changed yet.
So what we need to do is go through, and we're going to have to have sort of a bifurcated thing saying, you know, July 27.
Yeah, 90 days after the end of the session.
Yeah.
And I think, too, pressing down on the point, could we, would you be agreeable to, rather than saying just cause eviction ordinance, which we know what it means, but most people wouldn't know, would it make more sense to say, when can the landlord evict you?
Yeah, I think that's a good point.
Yeah, so what's nice about a website, it's easily changed, it's nimble, and I think we're in a growing and settling in period.
That's why we did a soft launch and we've worked out a lot of bugs and improved a lot of things, but we're very receptive to recommendations from council, from anybody in the community, if they see things they think could be more clear or are missing, we're happy to take that and we, because it's a nimble website, we can get in and make those changes.
All right, I want to go back to I didn't intend to take it back to the beginning of the presentation there, but let's, okay.
So in addition to the website, we touched on this for a minute.
We created a video and it's a very short video.
It's intended to be 30 seconds PSA length and just enough to just help people, you know, remember that the city has resources and it can help.
It doesn't go into much detail.
I can play it if we can make it work here.
Maybe.
We had technical.
Oh, I've got a tab down here.
Yeah, you've got it queued up in a window.
There's a lot to know about renting in Seattle.
What are my renter rights and responsibilities?
What should I know when moving in?
Who do I contact when there's a problem with my rental unit?
What happens when it's time to move out?
the City of Seattle has many renter protections and resources you need to know.
Visit Seattle.gov slash renting in Seattle or call 206-684-5700 to learn more.
It's going to take us back to the beginning again.
Anyway, very short video, which kind of bridges to social media.
So this video is intended to be easily shared on social media or fill the gaps in maybe on the Seattle channel when they're looking for some filler space.
It's translated into or narrated in 13, 14 languages.
And another good example of partnership, it was the Department of Neighborhoods Community Liaisons who did the narration for us, which is a very cost effective way to just have them work with our vendors who did the video and just walk into the studio and do that.
and actual community members here doing that.
So social media, we're just really getting started on that, mainly us and looking for partners to help spread the word through Twitter.
I guess our department doesn't have Instagram, but Twitter, Facebook, and using the hashtag renting in Seattle to the extent we can to kind of brand everything.
So we've been doing things like sharing this video or getting other tips out.
Do you know if people who are dependent on other languages, like other than English, are also inclined to check social media, your social media?
Do you know what kind of traffic you get on your social media?
I don't think we have a way of knowing.
I can ask that question.
I don't know if we see who's viewing it with a lot of detail.
One of the pieces of feedback that came from engaging with the Department of Neighborhoods community liaisons is that the older generations prefer to communicate by phone, and they prefer to call and speak to somebody, and then the younger generations are all about the social media.
So it's pretty expected.
Kids these days.
All right.
So one other thing here.
So as you know, this year, the council transferred some funding for tenant services and grant funding from HSD to our department.
and added additional funding for legal services.
And so we took that funding and then early this year ran a competitive grant solicitation process that put a request for proposals out on the street and asked basically anybody who had good ideas or was interested to come in and propose ways that they could help serve tenants.
in a variety of areas, you know, outreach, legal assistance, sort of liaisoning with communities.
And so we have now, our review committee has made the decision, selected the organizations, we've notified them all, and we're in the process of writing grant agreements.
with the community organizations.
And it's going to cover a number of things, so eviction defense and legal aid, tenant counseling, door-to-door outreach, know your rights workshops.
And kind of overlapping with that, we're kind of excited to bring in a couple of smaller organizations that are serving immigrants and refugees and also the LGBTQ community.
So we're piling some work with some smaller organizations.
organizations that are sort of reaching communities that we've had a harder time reaching in the past.
And then sort of what's on our plate for this year.
So in addition to getting this launch out and maintaining what we've already built, a couple of big things, the changes to state law that came along, we were very excited about those.
And so we're going to do kind of a short campaign here to help get the word out.
I think landlords are going to be a big audience for that, making sure that they're aware of these new laws.
landlord email list through our Rio program of 19,000.
Landlords are property managers, so it's a good way to get information into their hands quickly.
So as we finish kind of scrubbing the changes in state law and exactly what they mean, we'll end up summarizing that, pushing that out to the landlord community, fold it into the trainings we're doing, and then we'll also do tenant outreach to let tenants know of their enhanced rights as well.
And then the other big thing on our plate this year is to create a renter's handbook.
So the idea is to take the rather dense legal information for tenants, turn it into something that's a little bit more user friendly, isn't just a summary of laws but also has resources and where to go for help and maybe some tips.
Kind of like these infographics but fleshed out a little bit more.
And something that people might want to keep.
So a little bit more durable instead of just a piece of paper of one of hundreds you're handed when you move in.
So that's it for now.
I'm happy to hear any questions.
Just a practical question.
This is great, great work.
I'm very impressed.
It resides in SDCI, this body of work.
I don't know if we thought of that or the mayor thought of that.
still seem like the proper department for this kind of activity to reside.
Makes sense to me, but I really hadn't thought thoroughly through it.
So I think it's in SDCI because a lot of these tenant protections grew out of land use codes.
And so I think it's just kind of a legacy of that.
As part of a write-up we did for council in response to a request you gave us in 2017, we analyzed some other options, like creating a standalone renter resource center.
The consensus of the people we talked to within the city departments and some of the community members is let's not build something new, at least right now.
This should be more about kind of a virtual center and many of the things we talked about here, just enhanced coordination between the departments to make sure we're talking to each other and better materials and better outreach.
Right now, most of the tenant services or tenant protections are housed between us and Office for Civil Rights.
And we approach things in different ways.
We have a different body of laws.
It's a little, it would be a little bit hard to mesh them together right now.
So just more coordination between us seem to serve the need.
Okay.
Just curious.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
And yeah, please keep us apprised of updates.
And I agree, really, really good work.
And also, please thank everybody, other staff members at STC.
We're always impressed with your work and also just the dedication of all your staff members in helping.
Repeated experience has been really helpful.
All right.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
So, failing any other points be adjourned.
All right.
Thank you.