Councilmember Sawant, faith leaders demand 1,000 affordable homes

this case.

Right now, I want Reverend Angela Yang, who is a close friend of New Hope and a close friend of all religious institutions, to come and sort of give you a sense of the partnerships that are around the religious community to help express this case.

Thank you, Reverend Jeffrey.

I am the Reverend Angela Yang, Senior Pastor at Bethany United Church of Christ, and we are here to endorse what the coalition is working on, to make sure that we stop the systemic racism, the economic injustice, and that we have reparations for our black and brown communities.

How dare from the 1960s they steal the land and then basically for nothing try to make sure that all our black and brown brothers are not here.

How dare that the percentage change from 70% black and brown brothers in this central district, the CD that they called home, and to now less than 15%.

It's unconscionable.

And so we stand together with all our clergy here and with other faith leaders of all different traditions to say that, yes, we need reparations for our black and brown communities.

We need to make sure that there's housing, affordable housing, low-income housing, for the poor and the most vulnerable.

and that black lives matter and that all lives cannot matter until black lives matter because black people are beautiful and they are beloved.

Isn't it bad enough that the land was stolen from the Duwamish people and then now to hear that stolen from New Hope Baptist Church right in their midst when they're trying to bring up their children in faith and make a difference in this society.

So we stand with them.

We stand with my brothers.

We stand with our sisters in faith.

We stand with anyone and everyone that knows that we need to stop the systemic racism.

We need to stop the economic injustice.

We know that economics and race stand hand in hand in intersectionality.

And so we stand to make sure that we can build thousands of new homes so that our black and brown brothers and sisters can return to their neighborhood where they belong, where they were to begin with.

Now we also know that this would take funding, and we know that basically the city has the money.

We also know that we have the most regressive tax in this entire country.

Washington State, not in Mississippi, not in Alabama, not in Georgia, here in Washington State.

And now we can change that with the funding.

Right before us at the table, we have Sawan and Morales legislation to tax Amazon and big businesses so that we can fund housing.

So let's make it happen.

We have the funding.

We have the heart.

We know the right thing to do.

And so let us celebrate by being together and making the change because enough is enough.

When you steal from the people, when you steal from black and brothers and you kill them and you put their neck on, you put your knee on their necks, well get your knee off our necks and build houses for us because it's about time we have people off the streets doing something good.

Black lives matter, and we in the city can make it happen.

We just need the funding through good legislation, not legislation that cuts it in half and says, oh, we'll have a sunset clause because, you know, in 10 years, it'll be fixed.

No, we tried to end homelessness in 10 years ago, for 10 years, about four decades ago, and it didn't happen.

So let's make it happen.

not only with tax Amazon and the Suwan Morales legislation before us, but with all our clergy, with all our faith communities, and with Reverend Dr. Jeffrey and New Hope Baptist Church and all the people with Lehigh in this neighborhood, because we need reparations.

We need to make sure justice happens.

We need to make sure our black and brown and all our children have a home.

No more on the streets.

They are beloved.

Let's do the right thing.

Black lives matter.

Black lives matter.

Reverend Seals will now read the letters that we have sent to Mayor Durkin and to the city.

My name is Willie Seals, senior pastor of the Christ Spirit Church.

Many of you have the letters in your possession, but we just want to highlight a few of the items.

As city leaders, this is the challenge to the council as well as Mayor Jenny Durkin's You must acknowledge the existence of the persistent and intuitional racism that has dissimulated the Seattle African American population.

Compared to other racial groups, African Americans have the highest arrest rate in King County, the highest conviction rate in the state.

This is why black lives do matter.

That's why many people have taken to the street to bring your conscience to a level of social understanding that the displacement of longtime African American resident from the CD area is the result of racial policy that originated in slavery, segregation, racial covenant.

We challenge the lone will other faith-based leaders who are present here, along with the New Hope Baptist Church, that we are in possession of over 500 square feet of property in this Seattle area.

The black church is the longest resident that has occupied the CD between 40 and 100 years.

We are not newcomers.

We have been in this area longer than many businesses and homeowners.

The plan that you have before you is because that we are the possessors of property.

We have the property.

We have a plan.

We have a purpose.

Who will profit?

Low income residents.

who have been displaced, single family mothers who are seeking shelter even now.

At Garfield Community Center, they are looking at replacing those individuals at this time to another location.

That's symbolic of the displacement of black families throughout slavery.

We do ask the city council as well as Mayor Jenny Durkee, as Pastor Jeffrey has forestated, to embrace the State House Resolution 1377. You should have that information in your possession.

Amen.

I'm with Corey Anderson, First AME Church, oldest church in Seattle.

I'm Pastor Kerry Anderson of First Enemy Church here in Seattle, and I'm simply here to stand with Dr. Robert Jeffrey and the Hill Baptist Church, along with the Reverend Willie Seal and the Reverend Lawrence Rickey Willis, in the creation for this project to go forward of 1,000 affordable units for black families.

Simply put, if black lives matter, then black Families matter.

If black lives matter, then housing for black families matter.

If black families and black lives really matter, then education for black families should matter.

If black lives matter, then education for black families and black youth should matter.

Simply put, if black lives matter, then affordable housing for black families in the central area, the central area of Seattle, Washington, should matter.

It was Martin Luther King.

It was Martin Luther King who once said, life's most important and urgent question, what are you doing for others?

We're simply asking if we really believe in not the rhetoric, not the slogan, but the fact that black lives matter, then do what's right for what's right.

Thank you.

Thank you, Reverend Anderson.

Reverend, I mean, Brother Hayward Evans is going to come.

First, giving all the honor and glory to God.

I'm thankful to God that we're all here today, healthy, given the pandemic.

My name is Hayward Evans.

I'm with the Washington State Civil Rights Coalition, comprised of over 30 community-based leaders and organizations that work diligently to improve the quality of life in communities of color.

Also, the Martin Luther King Jr.

Commemoration Committee.

And as you know, we just want to keep the spirit alive, keep the knowledge alive, and the spirit of love and peace.

But if anybody looked at an article just recently, according to the Seattle Times, the percentage of black residents in Seattle is at its lowest point in 50 years.

And the rate of black imprisonment continues to grow dramatically.

Monville City, Seattle.

started in 1967 and ran through 1975. It permitted local government to target the central district, African-Americans, and other ethnic minorities for displacement under the disguise of urban renewal.

Now, black folk back then, when you said urban renewal, the black folk called it Negro renewal.

Huh?

Negro, removing black folks from this community.

Seattle government officials declared areas in the Central District as blighted and in need of redevelopment, which they actually knew wasn't blighted.

And as Reverend Jeffries pointed out earlier, seldom did those residents with a practice eminent domain receive adequate or just compensation.

That was seldomly, seldomly done.

Once again, victimizing the vulnerable.

And during that same period, a spike in incarceration of black people.

Let's fast forward to 1991, between 1991 and 1996. Operation Weed and Seed.

Weed and Seed.

The weeds refer to weeding out criminals and drug dealers.

Implicit bias for black youth.

Seed refers to social service programs aimed at nurturing young people.

In actuality, it meant white folks and developers being candid with you.

And once again, during that same period, there was a spike in what?

Black incarceration.

An increased spike.

And this is not me.

Easy to research.

Seattle Times, of all places, wrote this.

For Seattle African-American community, housing discrimination is not new.

Decades of systematic racism and disinvestment, including redlining African-Americans into a neighborhood that was referred to as the CDD until the business district downtown realized they couldn't extend further north or south.

They had to come east.

displacing more black people, people of color.

Now they said, amen, they said in the 70s, in the 70s were 73%, this is the Seattle Times.

In the 80, or excuse me, in the 60s, 80% of this community was black in the 60s.

Fast forward to 2020, 12% and losing 2% annually.

We believe a systematic genocide took place in Seattle's central neighborhoods.

And as Dr. Martin Luther King said, it's never too late to do the right thing.

The right thing is for the city, bless your heart for being here and what you supported, for the city to support and endorse and fund those 1,000 units.

And again, that's just a drop in the bucket.

It means a lot more.

Thank you.

It's important for everybody to understand that the police are used as a tool to enforce racist policies.

And that's why there's so much force going behind what they do.

And we have to stop the racist policies, as well as stop the violence that is being done by the police.

I think it's a both end.

Right now, a friend of this community and a friend of mine, Shana Sawat, City Council representative.

It's so appropriate that we are here on this sunny morning outside the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church talking about reparations for the black community that was driven out of this neighborhood in the midst of a nationwide uprising against racism and police violence.

Because what this recognizes, what our community and our movement recognizes, is that yes, there is the knee on the necks of black people from the police, but The system itself, the entire capital system itself, has its knee on the necks of the black community.

Whether it's about affordable housing, the lack thereof, public education, basic services, the basic humanity that has been denied to our black community.

That itself has, you know, movement is recognizing we have to fight back against that.

And what we've seen, as the pastors have outlined, is a systematic, not incidental or unfortunate, but systematic, intentioned expulsion of African American residents, renters and homeowners from this community.

This decades-long racist gentrification has destroyed the very fabric of our community, forcing people out of their homes, away from their friends and neighbors, their churches, their grocery stores, their community clinics, their parks, and their schools.

And I don't need to repeat what the pastors have already outlined, the devastating impact this has had on young people in every generation.

creating this prison pipeline and mass incarceration which as they have explained is very much part and parcel of the overall oppression related to housing and gentrification that black people have faced.

So I am proud as a socialist as a rank-and-file member of the labor movement, as an elected representative of Seattle's working people, and as an immigrant woman of color, to stand here with the faith leaders, with the low-income housing institute, and with our neighborhood, to demand that the city and its political establishment acknowledge the historic and current wrongs inflicted on the black community and commit to take concrete steps, not words, but concrete steps that faith leaders have outlined in their central area housing plan.

My Socialist Council office wholeheartedly supports all of the nine demands in their letter, just as I wholeheartedly support the demands of the King County Equity Now Coalition.

The faith leaders have called for the funds to create at least a thousand new quality, affordable, publicly owned homes in the central district to bring black families back.

And I want to add my voice to that.

At least that's a bare minimum to seriously address the racist gentrification that has been and continues to be faced by black people.

The faith leaders also call on the city to build 5,000 permanent supported homes and tiny house villages to house another 2,000 people currently forced to live on the street.

They call on the city, and as we have through our People's Budget campaign in my office, absolutely we are demanding that the city stop the inhumane and ineffective sweeps of our homeless neighbors.

and commit to training and construction job opportunities with a focus on young people of color.

To build these homes, to support these programs, which have a tremendous solidarity from the community, I might add, we will need hundreds of millions of dollars of public revenue through progressive taxation every year.

And I will note that the faith leader's letter specifically calls for the city council to enact progressive taxation to raise at least $500 million a year.

And as Reverend Ying said, the city has the money.

What we need is political courage in city hall to actually tax the big businesses and the wealthiest in our community who have benefited disproportionately by exploiting black and brown people and working people in different ways, whether it is skyrocketing rents or exploiting our labor.

I recognize, so that's what the Amazon tax that the Reverend Ying mentioned, which I've put forward alongside Council Member Morales and alongside our movement of thousands who are fighting for this Amazon tax.

This will raise $500 million every year by taxing the largest 2% of corporations.

It will not tax small businesses, medium businesses or working families at all.

It is the one of the most progressive proposals I have seen nationwide and it will especially tax pandemic profiteers like Amazon so that we can begin to make reparations, invest in this community and other working class community and bring working people back.

I recognize that there's another tax proposal just put forward by Council Member Teresa Mosqueda which will bring in less than half the amount that we are demanding through the Amazon tax.

The fact that this proposal has been put forward is itself, we should welcome it because in itself it is confirmation that our movement for the Amazon tax and the George Floyd protest movement is having a huge impact and succeeding in putting pressure on the establishment.

Think of what a reversal this is from just two years ago when remember the majority of the council repealed the Amazon tax and betrayed our movement.

And then last year when corporations and billionaires went to war against the working people in our city in the election campaigns.

But today is a new day.

It's a turning point in our history, in our city, in our country.

But we simply cannot let up the momentum of our movement.

That's why it's important we are here.

Because we know if we stop Then if we stop building our movement, then we will see big business immediately moving in to put a stop to any taxes on themselves.

So while I appreciate the overall thrust of this new proposal as a sign that movements work, I think we all agree that it simply does not do nearly enough, quickly enough, to invest in communities like the CD and put real meaning to Black Lives Matter.

Just as a comparison, the Amazon tax proposal that our community has put forward will build 10,000 affordable homes over 10 years.

And it will be a permanent tax, meaning a permanent reversal of the regressive tax system that you mentioned, Reverend Ying.

That means we can build 1,000 homes in the city plus thousands citywide.

The other proposal, which as I said is less than half of the Amazon tax and has a sunset clause of 10 years, meaning it will disappear after 10 years, meaning we will go back to the regressive taxation after 10 years and it could get watered down further.

Remember, it hasn't been voted on by the city council yet.

will build far fewer homes.

And I must just say, if there's anything we need a sunset clause on, it's racism and gentrification, not taxes on people.

To the members of the political establishment who say Black Lives Matter, I urge them to put actions to the language that they use from our movement, to their sloganeering and their tweeting.

I urge them to not co-opt the language, but to join with us, join with faith leaders, join with the black and brown community without reservation, not base themselves on what's acceptable to big business and the wealthy, base yourself on what we can fight for and win because thousands are on our side.

I urge them to join us, not big business, and adopt a tax Amazon legislation so that we can build these homes and begin to make a real change.

Among the demands of the city that are being made is to permit churches to increase their density to build more low-income housing.

Pastors have talked about that.

We are fully committed in my office to drafting that legislation and introducing it.

Faith leaders have also called for demilitarizing the police and implementing true public oversight.

I support this demand wholeheartedly.

And I want to invite everyone here to join us, including the media, to join us at our upcoming People's Budget Town Hall, which is Thursday next week, June 25th at 6 p.m.

And for those of you who have attended our town halls before, you will know that the People's Budget campaign every year has succeeded in winning major victories for our homeless neighbors, for our black and brown neighbors.

Last year, through the People's Budget movement, we won over $500,000 for restorative justice programs run by the community.

So we know building movements works.

So please join us.

And I will echo, in closing, I will echo the pastors who have made the connection between police violence and economic exploitation.

As Malcolm X said, you can't have capitalism without racism.

And so in declaring Black Lives Matter, we are demanding reparations, affordable housing for all, and living wage unionized jobs for our community members, funded by taxing the wealthiest in our city.

Thank you.

Council members, so why?

You know, I would like to just talk to the rich and powerful in Seattle just a second.

President Obama said, made a statement and everybody ridiculed him.

He said that you did not get to where you are without the help of countless numbers of people who built roads, who are maids in hotels, who do all kinds of things for your company.

Those people need a place to stay.

Those people deserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

You cannot sit on mountains of money and hide behind a system that you say protects you.

while the world goes to hell in a handbasket around you.

You, you are a real American.

You are really true to the Constitution of this country.

You will rise at this time and do the right thing.

Thank you.

I want to ask Reverend Willis now come

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Lawrence R. Willis, pastor of the True Vine of Holiness Missionary Baptist Church, also representing the United Black Christian Clergy of Washington State, as well as my family, my wife, and my community.

As you heard today from so many speakers and the pastors about the systematic and intentional assault on the central area, this was planned.

This was organized as they came into the central area and just plemaged and sent people away not caring where they would go and where they would live.

I thank God today that I'm partnered with the Lehigh organization in sponsoring tiny house villages.

Along with Pastor Jeffries, we have the True Hope Village, which represents True Vine and New Hope, as well as we're sponsoring Othello Village.

I want to make a suggestion on how black businesses were ran out of the central area.

And now they have ruined families.

They have damaged the lifeline of children.

And so we want to bring back black owned businesses into the central area.

Not only that, not only that.

As we're doing the building on new housing and apartments, we wanna use black-owned contractors to do the building on these residents that are coming into the central area.

Not only that, we wanna use black workers to train them, to give them the education, because once you get a trade, you won't lose it.

You can be self-employed, you can work for yourself, earn a good income.

And so we want to challenge, I want to challenge those that have the opportunity, the money, the power to pull together with us because this is a black issue.

And it is black lives matter.

And so as we have this press conference and many more rallies and marches around this city and around this country, we want to focus that, that it is around empowering black lives.

It's about empowering black people.

And as we come together, unified in a coalition of those allies that want to partner with us and make an America great, let's let black lives matter.

Let's let it matter.

So I thank God above today for this, not just moment, but this movement.

Because this is going to continue until liberty is won.

Until black lives really matter in the hearts of this nation.

We really have to push this to the White House, to the governor's mansion, to the mayor, to the city, to let them know this is a movement.

We're unifying each other and everyone together to move forward this initiative that Black Lives Matter.

So I thank God for all of you that are here today.

I thank God for city council now moving in the right direction.

Let's see what they can do in city hall.

And as we unify together with the New Hope Church, we want that land back.

That's what we want at that.

So that is a demand of the city.

Give that property back.

Not only that, all the other property that was stolen from us in the central area.

So we're going to move in that direction.

We're moving on the SVI building.

That's going to be dedicated to the community, as well as we heard that the fire station has been given to Africatown.

We want to continue to move.

in unity and acquiring wealth for African American.

And we want to continue to gather together as we have affordable housing, that we have first homeowners, that black lives can come in to the Central Area and own homes here.

Because we've been priced out of the central area and we got to bring the prices down.

So I say I decree and declare today that will happen.

And that's what we're doing together.

And so thank you and God bless you.

All right.

My name is Asaya Corbray, and I'm a housing developer with the Low Income Housing Institute.

Lehigh and New Hope Missionary Baptist Church have been working together for about six years now, first developing our relationship through a New Hope-sponsored tiny house village, True Hope Village, which to this day houses homeless families and individuals in the central area.

Our relationship is based on a shared mission.

To provide affordable and accessible housing to everyone, but specifically those most underserved in our communities.

To combat gentrification and displacement, and to advocate for a just Seattle, a just United States, and a just world.

As Reverend Jeffrey and others mentioned before me, the central area used to be more than 70% African American families and individuals.

That's mothers, children, the youth, black men, it's extended family members.

And today, less than 15% of the population here is African American.

New Hope Family Housing, will provide approximately 90 studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom units for individuals and families making less than 60% of the area median income.

Those units are for those families.

Those units are to bring the people home.

New Hope Family Housing will serve seniors, veterans, homeless persons, persons with disabilities, and workforce people in our community.

New Hope Family Housing will utilize the City of Seattle Community Preference Policy to prioritize housing for Central Area residents who have been displaced from our community and residents that currently live here and are at risk of displacement.

New Hope Family Housing will be right here at home, just to the south of the church here and across the street.

New Hope Family Housing will bring the residents home and they will keep them here.

It is also an effort to be the first pilot project for House Bill 1377, allowing local governments to grant increased density to religiously sponsored affordable housing projects.

And New Hope is fighting for that.

New Hope Community Development Institute, born out of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, aims to be a key organizer in the development of the central area.

One that will lift up the voices of local residents and work to ensure that the development happening in our communities is led by our communities.

New Hope Community Development Institute is here to hold our city accountable.

and New Hope Community Development Institute is here to bring our people home.

Thank you.

Hi everyone, my name is Renee and it's nice to see everyone here today.

The Central District is my home.

Our family settled here in the Central District in the 40s.

They had to get away from Arkansas where they worked from sunup to sundown and they hardly had any food to eat.

So they came to Seattle, where they worked hard, they thrived, and they built their families, they built homes.

And at one time, our family had 30 homes in this area.

Now we have none, because then the war on drugs came, which was actually a war on us.

It destroyed a lot of families.

I moved away to California, which saved my life.

I came back to take care of Mother Gordon, who's over there.

She's 89 years old.

Her doctor had given her only six months to live.

She's going strong now, but by the grace of God.

The Gordon lives at the Chateau because her sister, who lived around the corner, Doris McCoy, on 18th, she owned most of the property on 18th between Spruce and Fir.

At the greenhouse on 18th and Fir is where my grandfather once lived.

The previous owners of the chateau, that's where she lives and I take care of her now, came and invited her to move into the chateau with her husband.

Next year, her apartment, where she has lived for 30 years, will be demolished.

Wow.

I would love to move her into a home of her own to live out the rest of her years in peace.

She deserves it.

She has spent most of her life helping others, praying for them, cooking, cleaning, and of course, bringing them to her church, God's Pentecostal temple, so that they can save their souls.

She did that out of love.

Now, where is the love?

Oh, right.

Tax Amazon now.

They can afford it.

Tax businesses now.

Stop gentrification of our nation.

It's time for reparations.

It's time to repair our nation.

It's time to stand up and fight back for what's right.

Our great leader Martin Luther King said, The time is always right to do what's right.

And don't remember, and remember St. Mark 836, for what should a prophet, a man, to gain the whole world but lose his own soul?

Thank you.

Peace and blessings to all.

So, if there are any questions, does anybody have any questions?

I have a question for Councilwoman Shama Salant.

When will budget decisions be made by the City Council?

It's a very important question because it comes down to concrete details, right?

I mean, if you don't have dollars on the table for the black community, if politicians are not willing to do that, then they are when they say black lives matter that that's hollow.

And so, you know, usually the city council makes budget decisions in the autumn, and that will happen as well.

But right now, because of the pandemic recession and because of you know because of the pandemic recession combined with the fact that we have the nation's most the most regressive tax system what it means is that as long as a tax system like ours which is dependent on working families paying taxes and refuses to tax big business and the wealthy when working people lose their jobs the tax revenues plummet that's exactly what's happening in this city but it's around the nation what we are seeing is You know, now nearly 45 million American workers have said that they've lost their jobs.

And that means that if you have taxes based on them, on taxing them on their backs, then we have budget shortfalls as well.

So what we are going to see is Mayor Jenny Durkan, who just days ago was allowing police to tear gas and mace hundreds of peaceful protesters, now she is going to turn around and deliver an austerity budget, meaning wealth and great lives for the rich people, but austerity for the rest of us, meaning there will be cuts to the funds for our most necessary social programs, whether it is related to housing or infrastructure.

or services for our homeless neighbors.

Everything across the spectrum is on the table.

Literally, the staff that I talk to use those words.

Every possible cut is on the table because the city is facing roughly $300 million of shortfall.

And in fact, the state just announced that for the next two years, they're facing a shortfall, a tax shortfall, revenue shortfall of over $4 billion.

So imagine if it was already unconscionable and immoral for the political establishment to not have reversed this regressive tax system and tax break business.

Imagine how much more it is true now when our families are suffering tenfold.

We were already facing the housing affordability crisis.

We were already facing homelessness.

and gentrification.

And now, and our public schools were underfunded.

Now, on top of that, we are going to have more major cuts.

That's why it is important that in the next weeks, we really shore up our movement even more than we already have.

So the mayor is slated to deliver her austerity budget, which is going to be shameful, by I think the 23rd or so.

That's the estimated date.

So we have to get organized.

That is why I urge you all to come on the 25th.

Hopefully, we will know the mayor's budget by then.

So join us on Thursday, June 25th at 6 p.m.

We have leaflets here because we cannot accept austerity politics.

We cannot accept them saying that we don't have money.

Yes, you do have money if you are willing to tax the people who have the money.

That's why the Amazon tax really presents a moral question not only about what more we can have in order to improve our lives, but already what we do have is under attack now.

So if we don't want our lives to be on the chopping block anymore, then we are going to have to fight hard.

And I'll just end on this.

It's not only what we see already as attacks, like the austerity budget that's about to come.

We know that's happening.

But something more devastating is going to happen, and we better build our movement to prepare for it and resist it, is when the eviction moratoriums are lifted, what do we think is going to happen?

There will be a massive, massive wave of evictions.

And who do you think will be evicted first?

It will be the poorest and the people who are the most vulnerable, which means it will also be our black and brown working class community.

But it will be massive numbers of eviction.

It is going to be bad unless we fight back.

But it's also important to remember that also presents the avenue for building solidarity among working class people, because many of us are going to face evictions.

So let's bring everyone together, fight racism, fight gentrification, and reject an austerity budget.

How can the letter that was proposed by the ministers get on the City Council docket and how soon and when and how should it be done?

And also, is there any way for you and Teresa, Councilwoman Teresa, to work in collaboration that you guys can present a unified budget proposal related to the housing issues and the taxes?

There's no question that our social council office is absolutely interested in working with anybody who is on the side of the people that we are fighting for.

So in that spirit, you know, so for example, Monday, the bills that came from my office to ban the use and purchase by Seattle police of all kinds of chemical weapons and barbaric weapons.

I mean, this is historic what we just did on Monday.

And this is the first city, we made Seattle the first city in the nation to ban tear gas, maize, pepper spray.

flashbang grenades, water cannons, ultrasonic weapons, all this weaponry that is used against our people and our movements, all of that is banned.

People in all other cities are asking us, how did you do it?

So that wasn't a concrete example of collaboration in the sense that we got a unanimous vote on the council.

But I have to be honest with you, the reason we got there was not because I personally had the ability to convince the council members who were actually trying to gut the legislation.

The reason we were able to stop them from gutting the legislation is because they were met with a ferocious movement of people like us, ordinary people joining together and saying, no, banning chemical weapons is the bare minimum you can do.

In fact, we are demanding that the police department be funded by at least 50% and we tax Amazon and really raise the kind of revenues at the scale that we need.

So I am fully committed and I have always been fully committed to anybody and everybody who is willing to fight alongside our community, but I will always base myself on the strength of ordinary people willing to fight for what's just, rather than trying to make deals with big business.

And unfortunately, a lot of well-meaning elected officials end up using that approach.

In my view, that is the approach that ends up defeating our community and selling us out, even though that might not be the intention.

So we absolutely want to work with every elected representative, but the way we will get them to be on our side is by making sure they know we are not going to give up.

Is that addressing?

Sorry.

Yeah.

And so we into our office, we chair

the Renters' Rights and Sustainability Committee.

So I think one of the first things we can do is have an actual committee discussion on the demands that you all have raised based on the letter.

The letter can be the framework for the discussion.

We absolutely want to do.

And what I will be doing next, also flowing from this press conference, is sending a public letter to the rest of the council urging that they meet alongside you and me so that we can sit, you know, virtually at the table, you know, maybe not in actual life, at the table, and that they hear from you all, just like we are talking here in person.

They can hear from you directly, and why you are urging that we take all these various steps, like building 1,000 affordable homes in the Central District, building more tiny house villages, and really committing to homeless services and permanent supportive housing.

You know, and on that same note, if I may, Senator Bob Hasegawa, out of the 11th District, sponsored the Washington State Investment Trust.

It is to establish a state bank.

Currently, we put our money with Bank of America, Chase, where do they send it?

To New York, to JP Morgan, to invest and loan back to us that we pay interest on.

What the banking industry does not want you to know If we set up our own bank, we get nine to one leverage ourself.

9 to 1 leverage, $1 billion deposited is worth $9 billion.

Come on now, City of Seattle, City of Seattle Investment Trust.

We take our people's dollars and we keep it at home.

No more sending it overseas.

Support Senator Bob Falsigawa.

Call the governor.

Tell him to complete that feasibility study.

Let's start a bank.

And there has been a bank.

Read North Dakota's annual report for their bank.

They're kicking chicken.

I'm really big on education and I came a little bit late to the meeting, but I know you guys mentioned the war on drugs, but I also want to mention like the end of 70s, 80s, they put a push on special education.

And that was like the pipeline to the youth center, and then the pipeline to prison.

And then also, I take care of my cousin who has mental challenges, and I'm having some issues getting him some help.

And I'm really ready to just wash my hands of it.

And I talked to Sound Mental Health today, and the guy told me to just get him a tent and put him downtown.

So I just wanna know, where do I get help for him?

Because if I put him in a home, They're going to get like $10,000 a month to take care of him.

And right now I get $700 a month.

And he's like 24 hours care.

So where do we go to help our family members that have mental challenges and mental disabilities?

What we're talking about is creating housing, but we're also talking about creating self-sustained units.

where all of that stuff is available in those housing complexes like we used to do.

We used to take care of each other.

And that's what we're talking about.

We're not just talking about building places for people to stay.

We're talking about building places where there are holistic systems in place for people to live their lives with happiness.

So that's why we need the city to get on board, to help us do this, to rebuild villages, to rebuild communities so that we can help each other again like we used to.

And so that we can nurture each other like we used to.

So this is not just about sterile housing.

This is about rebuilding a community and having those facilities where we take care of our own.

And the New York Development Institute is going to be a part of education.

It's going to be a part of helping facilitate all that, along with all these other ministers.

First AME does a lot of that.

So we're just going to just, we're trying to press now the case that they need to release the money.

They need to do it now.

And I just, I just think that that's the case we're trying to make and that we are making.

And my thing is, if you say you're an ally, Ally is just a word.

What an ally is, is a person of action.

You can't say you're an ally of mine and I'm in a foxhole fighting for my life and you're standing over there in the field talking good words.

We need people to come join the action and to fight with us to rebuild and reclaim the African American and black community in Seattle.

Thank all of you for coming.

Thank everybody for being here.

Thank all of you.

Thank the press.

Thank you.