Seattle City Council Sustainability & Renters' Rights Committee 5/25/21

We are recording.

Good afternoon, everybody.

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

Today is Tuesday, May 25th, 2021, and the time is 2.01 p.m.

I am the chair of the committee, Council Member Kshama Sawant.

Would the clerk, Ted Verdone, from my office please call the roll?

Council Member Sellot?

Present.

Council Member Morales?

Here.

Council Member Peterson?

Here.

Council Member Lewis?

Present.

Council Member Juarez?

Or present.

Thank you, Ted.

And I'll also share with members of the public and the committee that Council Member Juarez has informed us that she would not be able to attend today and has been excused.

In today's committee meeting, council members will discuss and hopefully vote on three renters' rights bills.

First, we will discuss for a possible vote the legislation from my office banning the school-year evictions of schoolchildren, their families, and educators.

As I have said in previous committee meetings, housing instability has devastating impact on the education, development, mental health of young people.

The fact that children are evicted at all in a city with so much wealth is a damning indictment of capitalism.

But at the very least, the city council has the power to stop children from being evicted during the school year and must absolutely use the ability to stop these school year evictions.

And that is what this legislation will do.

And as I've informed Committee members and members of the public before the Seattle Education Association's representative assembly voted on a resolution in support of this legislation and that resolution passed with an overwhelming majority.

This morning, Council Member Peterson sent the committee four amendments to this bill.

Each of those amendments will reduce the legislation scope, protecting fewer children from eviction and from having their education damaged.

Unfortunately, I have to say Council Member Peterson waited until this morning after the committee agenda was published to send out those amendments.

So they are not on the agenda for the public to see.

I just wanted to make sure the public is aware of that.

many times amendments come out late because there's no opportunity to develop them sooner just because of the way discussions go.

However, in this case, this bill has been discussed in committee for over a month and I have repeatedly asked all council members for several weeks, including at the city council briefing yesterday morning, to let my office know what amendments they are bringing so that we can make them available to members of the public, especially struggling renters to review and comment on.

While my office has been able to review these amendments this morning, I am extremely concerned that Council Member Peterson has effectively hidden them from the public by holding them until the last minute.

I did post them to my Council Office blog and Council Office Facebook page this morning after we received them to try to make them as accessible as possible under the circumstances.

members of the public who are following along with this committee at home, who want to see the text of the amendments that Council Member Peterson has proposed, you can go to salwans.seattle.gov and see those amendments in full.

Next on the agenda, we will discuss four possible votes, the legislation from both my office and Council Member Morales' office and co-sponsored by Council Member Lewis, creating the right of first refusal so that landlords must offer their current renters a new lease before looking for a new tenant unless there is a just cause, legally approved just cause not to do so.

As I mentioned in the council briefing meeting yesterday, This bill is being jointly proposed by my office and Council Member Morales' office as one united bill.

Over the past months, our offices have proposed previous drafts of this legislation, and as many have heard me say over the last couple of months, I've repeatedly requested in public meetings that our offices join efforts into one united bill, and I'm really pleased that this bill represents a united effort.

So I'm hoping that we are able to vote on this bill as well.

This is a long time coming.

We know that, I mean, I know from my own office's experience that for the last seven and a half years, we've been wanting to close this loophole.

I know previous council members who are no longer in office were interested in doing that.

I know many community members and renters rights organizations have been wanting to close this loophole.

This draft of the legislation, this new draft of the legislation establishes a right of first refusal for renters to sign a new lease so that their landlords cannot kick them out for no reason.

60 to 90 days before the end of the lease, a landlord would have to offer a new lease to the tenant or present a legally allowed just what's called a just cause for refusing to do so.

And the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections is empowered to enforce that requirement.

And I just wanted to make sure members of the public are following because you know the term just cause can be quite misleading.

When we say just cause it means that the landlord has to has the right to bring eviction notices on a tenant.

only for approved causes, approved reasons, approved by law.

And this law has been on the books for decades.

And so when we talk about just causes, expanding the number of just causes is not what our goal is.

Our goal is to make sure that we minimize the excuses that corporate landlords use to evict renters, evict their tenants, and therefore What we want to make sure is here in this case, we want to close the loophole that allows corporate landlords and landlords in general to evict tenants that are on fixed term leases, like if you have a six month lease or 12 month lease.

The goal is for renters to have the opportunity to be able to resolve any issues and get a new lease far in advance of the end of their old lease.

If this bill is enforced well, renters should never need to have to defend themselves, you know, to be forced to defend themselves in eviction court against an unjust end to their lease.

Finally, we will discuss for possible vote legislation from Councilmember Morales' office, which I support and have co-sponsored, creating eviction defense for renters facing rental debts arising during the COVID emergency.

Councilmember Morales will, of course, speak more to that item when we get to that point in the agenda.

Today, as this committee meets, tens of thousands of Seattle renters are on the edge, facing the prospect of economic eviction As the rents resume their upward swing and gentrifying corporate landlords take advantage of every opportunity to exert their power over tenants in our city.

All of us know friends and neighbors who have been pushed out of the city in recent years.

That is why we urgently need to strengthen renters rights.

Just two months ago, our movement won a historic breakthrough with the council's approval of the right to counsel legislation, which is guaranteeing tenants legal representation when their landlord seeks to evict them.

The Right to Council win was built on the foundation of other grassroots wins in our years-long movement to demand a full bill of rights for renters.

That is how my office, organized renters, and community and labor organizations coming together have won many renters' rights over the last years, including the move-in fee cap and payment plan, a ban on landlords raising rents if they have housing code violations, which has also been called the Carl Haglund Law, named after the notorious landlord, easier voter registration for tenants, and last year's historic winter eviction ban.

Each and every one of these took a fight and took building a movement of renters, activists, and socialists.

As I noted six weeks ago in an op-ed in the South Seattle Emerald, renters must get organized to win just cause and other protections against eviction.

I'm glad to report that as of this morning, 685 community members have signed our community petition to City Council demanding action to secure the rights of term lease renters, which is now the unified bill that Council Member Morales and I are jointly prime sponsoring and which Council Member Lewis has agreed to co-sponsor, which I warmly welcome.

We'll need a similar movement to win our full Bill of Rights for renters, including legislation that is before the committee today.

Let's be clear that while all these bills address different parts of Seattle's municipal code, they are all pointed in the same direction, putting renters' rights before the profit-seeking interests of mainly corporate landlords and prioritizing housing stability over gentrification.

In general, it's along the lines of putting people before profit.

Let's also be clear that these bills are not meant as fixes to patch over temporary challenges that have emerged during COVID.

For Seattle's renters who constitute half of the city, the housing crisis was bad even before COVID.

Locally, before COVID, 46% of Seattle renters were officially what are called rent burdened, paying more than 30% of their income in rent, and more than one out of every five renters were severely rent burdened, meaning they were paying more than half of their income in monthly rent.

More than half of Seattle renters who were hit with eviction notices owed one month's rent or less.

So in other words, people in financial dire straits that are being targeted for evictions.

Nearly nine out of 10 tenants who are evicted wind up homeless.

And we know that the entire eviction system is fundamentally racist.

Evictions fall disproportionately on women, on people of color, with black renters three times more likely to be served with an eviction notice compared to other renters, according to data from the Housing Justice Project.

As Seattle's residents begin to recover from the pandemic and recession, they are experiencing landlords once again raising rates well above the rate of inflation.

The industry analysis forum apartmentlist.com found that between January and April 2021, rents across the board in Seattle for apartments of all sizes increased by 9%, an annualized rate of more than 40%, putting rents on track to more than rebound in a very few months from the temporary 2020 drop and to continue soaring at pre-pandemic crisis levels.

The real estate investment consulting firm Meshvisor notes, for the landlords in 2021, quote, Seattle real estate investors are continuing to enjoy a good return on investment on rental properties.

Although affordability continues to be an issue for local residents, it does have a positive aspect for Seattle real estate investors.

Owning a rental property in Seattle does mean high demand, which translates into good occupancy rates and cash flows.

In other words, they're openly acknowledging that the interest of the real estate investors, the very rich, are not in line with the interests of renters.

This corporate landlord profit-seeking practice that is part and parcel of the for-profit housing market is what is driving displacement of Seattle renters.

Today with these bills, we hope to stabilize housing by protecting school children, their families and educators from school year evictions by ensuring that people in term leases have a fair opportunity to renew their leases and stay in their homes and that renters who have lost income due to COVID won't find themselves evicted.

The renters' rights movement needs to continue to fight for these bills and also the entire renters' bill of rights that we've been fighting for all these years, but also the new bills that we have announced at our rent control press conference.

a few weeks ago, including the resolution that is coming to City Council from my office on June 7th, calling on Mayor Durkan and Governor Inslee to extend the current eviction moratoriums to at least the end of this year.

We know this is necessary.

We know we are not the only ones.

We know organizations like the Washington Community Action Network have also spoken out, saying that the eviction moratorium should be extended to the end of this year.

But of course, We cannot stop there.

We also need to ban the latest form of legalized discrimination by barring landlords from using credit checks in rental applications.

We need to prohibit onerous, undemocratic, or abusive lease terms.

We need to allow rental history screenings to be transferable from one application to the next.

We need to extend relocation assistance to people who are effectively economically evicted by rent increases.

We need to protect renters from default evictions We need to cancel rent, mortgage, and utility debt for people who have lost income due to COVID.

And most prominently, we need to build our movement to win rent control without loopholes, both for residential tenants and for struggling small businesses, which means commercial rent control.

So we will be discussing many of these bills at our upcoming committee meetings.

Right now, before we begin our items for today, we have public comment, I will read the names because we have 42 people signed up for public comment.

We will have people speak for one minute each.

I know that's not very long, but please try and stick to time and get through so that we can get through everybody who is signed up and then go on to our agenda items.

So I will read the names out and if Ted is ready.

Our first person who has signed up is Blythe Serrano, and after Blythe, we have Laura Lowe.

Go ahead, Blythe.

Hi, my name is Blythe.

I'm a renter in the Central District, and I'm calling to urge the Renter's Rights Committee to vote yes on Council Member Swann's legislation banning school year evictions of children, their families, and educators without any of the amendments put forth by Council Member Peterson this morning.

I want to particularly draw attention to the amendment that would exclude school workers who don't hold professional certification as educators.

Under this amendment, the lowest paid workers who are at the greatest risk of eviction would be excluded from the school year protections.

This is incredibly elitist and insinuates that teachers' aides, cafeteria workers, and bus drivers are not essential to children's education and therefore not deserving of eviction protections.

The other three amendments, adding a sunset clause, allowing landlords to own fewer than five properties to continue to evict children as they please, and limiting the types of evictions these protections prevent, and introducing heat testing, are also shameful and a real betrayal of the Rectors' Rights Movement.

Peterson knows this, which is why he tried to hide these amendments from the public.

Again, I urge you all to vote yes on Council Member Suan's legislation in its original form now.

Thank you.

Laura Lowe, followed by Grayson Van Arsdale.

Go ahead, Laura.

Hi, my name is Laura Lowe, and I'm the founder of Share the City's Action Fund.

We're part of the Stay Housed, Stay Healthy Coalition.

We support Councilmember Morales and Councilmember Sawant.

Incredible advocacy for tenants that is long overdue in Seattle.

If we had had the protections that they're putting forward 10 years ago, we would have less displacement, less homelessness, and a more equitable city.

These renter protections are long overdue.

We fully support the work that they're doing.

We do not support Peterson's amendments and we can't wait to see what's next for a tenant's bill of rights in Seattle.

And thank you so much all of you including Council Member Lewis for being tenant champions.

We need more of you in elected government around the country.

So thanks for your work and we can't wait to see all of these protections passed.

Thank you so much.

Grayson Van Arsdale followed by Kate Rubin.

Go ahead Grayson.

Hi, I'm Grace and I'm a renter in D3 speaking in support of Councilmember Sawant's legislation banning evictions of school children and educators during the school year.

I'm also the son of two educators who needed this legislation 20 years ago, not just for me and my siblings, but for their students.

School year evictions are hugely burdensome for students and their families and have academic repercussions that follow students their whole lives.

I also want to say that the four amendments from Council Member Peterson are completely Machiavellian.

If these amendments were to be added, the legislation would be unable to protect the very people who need it most, and it would sunset in 18 months.

This is part of a really weird pattern from Peterson on progressive legislation, where instead of just voting no, he introduces poisonous amendments.

We see you, dude.

This pro-eviction maneuvering is not slick or clever.

These amendments are transparently cruel and anti-renter, and if Peterson won't retract them, the rest of the committee should vote them down harshly.

Lastly I'm in full support of unified legislation from council members Sawant and Morales to close the just cause loophole.

Seattle needs a strong and unified housing movement to fight through the affordability crisis and win a real renter's bill of rights.

Kate Rubin followed by Emily MacArthur.

Go ahead Kate.

Good afternoon.

My name is Kate Rubin.

I'm the Executive Director of Fee Seattle.

I'm calling in support of CB 120077 the sound home defense sponsored by Council Member Morales and developed with the stay house stay healthy coalition.

This defense is absolutely vital to keeping renters who have faced hardship during the pandemic housed after the end of the eviction moratorium.

The rental protections recently passed by the state legislature do nothing to require that landlords work with their tenants to obtain rental assistance instead of evicting.

Renters need more time to get caught up.

I would also like to voice my support of CB120090 closing the 6th term lease loophole and adjust cost tenant protections jointly sponsored by council members Morales and Salant and co-sponsored by Council Member Lewis as well as CB120046 in its original form ending school year evictions of school children their families and educators sponsored by Council Member Salant.

Thank you.

Emily MacArthur followed by Margo Stewart.

Go ahead Emily.

Hi, my name's Emily.

I've been a renter my whole life, and I'm a member of the Stay Housed, Stay Healthy Coalition.

I'm calling in support of two bills today.

I'm totally excited about this joint work between Council Member Sawant and Council Member Morales that closes the loophole in fixed-term leases.

I think this is totally essential, and I look forward to winning it.

I'm also calling in support of the original version of council members to launch a bill to end school year evictions.

I think this was a problem the issue of students facing homelessness far before COVID hit.

You know it was really shocking to hear that 1 in 12 Seattle Public Schools students had faced homelessness throughout the school year and this was again before COVID hit.

But through COVID of course we've seen students face full amounts of mental health pressures.

And it's unconscionable to introduce the sunset into this.

So please reject the nasty amendments from Alex Peterson.

Margo Stewart followed by Brett Frank Looney.

Margo, go ahead.

Hi, my name is Margo.

I rent and work in the Central District, and I'm also calling to urge council members to support Council Member Sawant's bill to ban evictions of schoolchildren and educators.

Without any loopholes, end dates, means testing, or other pro-eviction card out, council members should also support the unified bill from Sawant and Morales to close just cause eviction loopholes.

Well, the eviction moratorium is ending next month.

You know, COVID and the economic crisis are not just ending magically, and neither is the housing crisis that's predated this pandemic by some years.

And so I think these anti-renter amendments put forward by Councilmember Peterson are all shameful.

You know, in particular, dividing educators by certification, implying all school workers are not essential for teaching and caring for students throughout the school year, and any sort of means testing or affirmation of poverty.

for families that are already unable to pay rent.

You know, this bill is looking to mitigate the traumatic effects of evictions on children.

And so any measure designed to allow these evictions some of the time fundamentally undermines that.

So we need this.

We need a full renters bill of right with measures like rent control.

And we need a movement of renters and workers to win that.

Thank you.

Next is Brett Frank Looney, followed by Corey Brewer.

Go ahead, Brett.

My name is Brett Frankluni.

I'm a third-generation minority housing provider.

I'm providing comments to ask the Council to better engage small housing providers in the development of policies like the ones before you today.

I've recently been able to meet with some of the co-sponsors of this legislation.

I reached out after seeing these recent proposals, and I'm not aware of any outreach that was done with small housing providers before these drafts were introduced.

It is important that the Council has all stakeholders at the table before passing such sweeping housing measures.

We would like to collaborate in creating solutions that increase housing access for all, but often feel like it tends to harness the power of large landlords often impacts the family run or small providers that are still operating in Seattle.

I've heard council members refer to proposal before you as an end of lease loophole.

That's a misnomer.

We're talking about contracts that each party enters into knowing there will be an expiration, the option for extension desired by both parties.

Additionally, the state just passed robust just cause protection for tenants to be approved of that bill to be implemented.

And there's desire to expand the city's just cause protections.

Both bills before you today have passed.

We'll only continue to decrease the supply of quality affordable housing in Seattle.

I'm encouraging you to vote or release a delay on the bills at hand today.

Thank you.

Corey Brewer followed by Angie Gerald.

Go ahead, Corey.

Hi, thanks.

I've spoken to you all before about the alarming rates at which single family houses or rental houses are disappearing from Seattle.

We saw a 48 percent increase in 2020 compared to 2019. And these are not corporate landlords that we're talking about.

This leads directly to displacement, instability, and gentrification.

I'm concerned today about your lack of awareness regarding Washington State House Bill 1236, which passed earlier this month, granting just cause protection to tenancies statewide.

An additional layer in Seattle would be redundant and confusing.

Speaking as a concerned citizen, isn't it interesting that the very people you're trying to help with the school year proposal, families with children, are the very people you're hurting with this legislation by pushing single family rental houses out of the rental market.

There are long term a shortage issues that you need to consider.

I'm asking you to delay any vote on these measures today so that you can properly engage all stakeholders.

We need at least a full day housing summit with the entire city council and every stakeholder is owed a seat at that table.

I believe we all share a common goal for a thriving housing community in Seattle.

We need to collaborate towards effective solutions.

Thank you.

Angie Gerald followed by Charlotte Thistle.

Go ahead Angie.

My name is Angie and I'm a small housing provider in the Ballard Finney area.

I'm calling to ask that this committee postpone voting on any landlord tenant legislation.

In the past five years, you have created a tsunami of new regulations without any framework for including small landlords in the process.

Your policies are creating big advantages for deep-pocketed corporate investors and many unintended impacts for renters.

City Council is actively stoking a more expensive and restrictive rental housing market while excluding a major stakeholder, small local housing providers.

The early impacts of city legislation were noted in the 2018 rental housing study.

Council has fully ignored the primary recommendations of that report with no follow-up outreach or analysis.

I re-watched video of the 2018 Council meeting and Council's focus was almost entirely on how to disregard the comments of more than 4,000 small providers, none of whom have been invited to any meeting center since.

To improve conditions for renters, you need to collaborate with people who provide housing.

You need regular reporting on the impacts of your legislation.

Thank you.

Charlotte Thistle followed by Hannah Swoboda.

Go ahead, Charlotte.

Charlotte, you need to hit star six to unmute yourself.

You're still showing up as muted in the Zoom list, so you still need to hit star six.

Charlotte is still muted.

Maybe we should, just in the interest of time, go to Hannah Svoboda.

We'll come back to Charlotte.

Hannah, we'll be followed by Matthew Smith.

Go ahead, Hannah.

Awesome.

Hi, my name's Hannah Svoboda, and I'm a renter in District 3. I'm calling in to urge all council members to vote yes on several urgently needed pieces of renters' rights legislation.

First, the bill brought forward by Council Members Sawant and Morales to close the six-term lease loophole in Seattle's Just Cause protections for renters against eviction.

Second, Council Member Sawant's bill banning evictions of families with school-aged children and their educators and school staff.

And finally, the bill from Council Member Morales, co-sponsored by Council Member Sawant, to defend renters who are facing debt from evictions.

Unfortunately, as several others said, just this morning Council Member Peterson brought forward four amendments which would seriously weaken the legislation banning those evictions of school children and staff.

Most egregiously, one of Peterson's amendments seeks to exclude school workers who don't hold professional certifications as educators.

This would exclude the lowest paid workers who are at the greatest risk of eviction.

We're talking about classroom aides, bus drivers, janitors, the bulk of school staff.

Last I checked, the people who make our schools run.

And also, Peterson has put forward a sunset clause.

I'm urging all council members to vote no on those dangerous amendments.

We have Charlotte, are you able to unmute?

Can you hear me?

Yes.

This is Charlotte Thistle.

In the last five years, housing providers in Seattle have been impacted by no less than 15 significant pieces of new legislation.

In our group, Seattle grassroots landlords, we have a family with children who can't pay the mortgage on a house they own because the tenant has stopped paying rent.

And we have data showing a 48% increase in the sale of rental properties in Seattle belonging to small housing providers like this family in the last year due to similar circumstances.

Yet housing providers have been excluded from the political process.

This meeting is a perfect example.

There are three pieces of profoundly significant legislation on the docket with only one minute for us to speak on all three.

We have meetings scheduled with committee members this week and next to share stories, data, and legal opinions, and we call for the votes on all three of these proposals to be delayed at least 30 days so we can engage in the democratic process and for each item to be considered at a separate meeting to allow thorough public discussion on each issue.

To do otherwise is undemocratic.

Thank you.

We have Matthew Smith next, followed by Jeffrey Flogel.

Go ahead, Matthew.

Hi, my name is Matt Smith.

I'm a renter in District 2. I'm very happy to see this united bill from Councilmember Salwant and Morales to close the Just Cause loopholes.

This is one of just a whole list of renters' rights legislation that is critical to pass in Seattle.

I'm really happy to see the council members continuing to provide leadership on this alongside the movement of renters in Seattle.

I'm also really happy to see this bill to ban school year evictions for students, teachers, and parents.

I agree with two previous speakers.

This is something we needed 10 years ago.

It's something we needed 20 years ago.

So the council should not delay on this.

They should pass it with council member someone's original legislation without these prohibition amendments by council member Peterson.

And we need to go on and fight for more for rent control for cancellation of that caused by COVID.

It's great that the Seattle Education Association has endorsed this.

ban on school year evictions.

Our teachers know better than anyone I think the effect that eviction can have.

So please pass this urgently.

Thank you.

Jeffrey Fogel followed by Max Hudson.

Go ahead Jeffrey.

Jeffrey you are still muted.

You should hit star 6 to unmute yourself.

There we go.

Sorry about that.

Okay.

My name is Jeffrey Flogel.

I'm a voter and resident of Seattle District 3 and a small housing provider.

I'm speaking about proposed legislation CB120090.

First, I want to point out that no one wants to evict tenants.

It's time-consuming, costly, and it disrupts both us and the lives of our tenants.

Landlords simply want tenants to pay on time and respect the property.

Limiting a landlord to ending a tenancy only by just cause eviction will lead to more just cause evictions.

Think about that for a moment.

This legislation removes all motivation to work with tenants to resolve disputes and yes, tell them that the lease may not be renewed if the situation doesn't improve.

Landlords will simply move to evict under just cause and with no point waiting for the end of the lease, they'll do it much sooner than they do now.

Those of us in the industry know that problem tenants are practically in constant violation of their leases for one reason or another, so it's not hard to do that.

It's hard to imagine how more and earlier evictions are good outcomes for anyone, tenants, landlords, or the city.

I ask the committee to delay voting until all stakeholders, including landlords, are brought to the table for more than one minute at a time.

Thank you.

We have Max Hudson followed by Sonia Ponatch.

Go ahead, Max.

Do we have Max here?

Max is no longer present.

Max and Sonia are shown as not present.

So we'll go ahead with Mindy Lee followed by Leslie Hogue.

Go ahead, Mindy.

Hi, Mindy Lee.

I am, um, a member of several organizations and I am here to talk in favor of the proposals.

I was at a, uh, Merrill candidate form the other day, and they asked all the people that were there where they live.

And when they got to the president Gonzalez, she looked really sad because at this time, she doesn't really have a place to live.

And I thought that was a, a really good example of what it's like to be in the situation where you have to move.

And you may have been in that same place for a long time, and kids that are in school will have to move.

It's a really difficult thing to do.

And I understand what these small renter organizations are talking about, about having a meeting so we can all discuss it.

But we've only got 30 days left.

And in 30 days, I just don't think any more meetings to come up with a resolution is going to happen.

We need to do something about it now.

So I'm in support of these bills.

Thank you.

We have Leslie Hogue followed by Max Savishinsky.

Go ahead, Leslie.

Do we have Leslie?

She wasn't here.

Hello.

Sorry, it wasn't it wasn't working.

Sorry.

My name is Leslie.

My husband and I rent out for apartments in district six.

We're asking you to postpone the vote on fixed term lease ban and the school year eviction ban.

Small housing providers provide close to half the rental housing, often at way below market rates like we do, and we've been excluded from input into policy.

We're actually allies.

We're not greedy profit mongers, as has been alleged.

If you want to maintain affordable housing, please include us.

You have not a good idea how we operate or the obstacles we face.

And outside of public housing, mom and pop landlords are about the only groups still offering affordable housing.

create unintended consequences like an actual loss of affordable housing.

We are older, semi-retired, we depend on the rental income.

We love being able to provide affordable housing and our tenants are our friends.

But restrictive legislation is forcing us to reconsider owning rental property and offering these well-maintained properties at very, very low rents.

Thank you.

So Sonia Ponath is now showing us present.

So Sonia, go ahead and then after Sonia will be Max Savishinsky.

Hi, this is Sonia Ponath.

I'm a working mom in District 3 and I am a small landlord and I do support council members who want school age children eviction ban and I urge you to pass it without delay.

And I also strongly support council member Morales' bill as well.

And I'm speaking against this amendment from Peterson, Council Member Peterson, calling on landlords can be exempt if they own fewer than five.

I mean, I don't think that truly protects small landlords, the ones who are really struggling.

In fact, many corporate landlords set up separate companies for each of their buildings, and then they pretend they're actually separate landlords.

So it's a typical big business size behind small business, and we can see right through that.

And it only ends up benefiting a few big landlords.

I appreciate the people who are struggling and providing, as I do, this kind of housing.

But I urge you, if you're a small landlord, you can contact Council Member Sawant's office and get involved.

You've had months and months to do this.

So rather than blaming those of us fighting for ordinary people, you need to get yourself involved and work with us.

Thank you.

Max Savishinsky followed by Logan Swann.

Go ahead, Max.

Hello.

Thank you, Chair Swann and members of the committee.

My name is Dr. Max Savishinsky.

I'm the Executive Director of Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility and Advocacy Organization, representing hundreds of health professionals all across our state who urge you to protect public health by closing the fixed-term lease loophole and supporting the sound-at-home defense legislation.

Our members see the downstream health impacts of economic insecurity, housing instability, and homelessness every day in clinics and hospitals all across our state, and many of our members work on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.

They are deeply concerned about the public health consequences that will follow the end of the eviction moratorium if comprehensive tenant protections are not enacted right now.

Housing insecurity and the threat of evictions are serious threats to renters' ability to pay medical bills, afford medications, and bear the cost of critical life-saving emergency care.

It's easy for anyone to imagine the severe mental health impacts that directly and all too commonly result from this specter of financial hardship, eviction, and homelessness.

A wave of evictions would not only threaten the health of the thousands of Seattle renters who are on the precipice of homelessness, but also stymie public health efforts to control the spread of COVID.

We know from recent research that there is a direct connection between increased evictions and increased coronavirus cases and community spread.

Closing the fixed lease, please.

Sorry, Max, please send us your full comment.

We would absolutely want to hear from your organization.

Please email it to us.

We have Logan Swan followed by Tram Tran Larson.

Go ahead, Logan.

Yeah, my name is Logan Swan.

I'm a Rangipao Union ironworker out of Local 86 in Seattle and a renter in District 2. Yeah, I'm just really surprised hearing all these landlords call in.

I didn't know they cared so much about me.

You know, usually I just give them thousands of dollars every month and hope nothing breaks.

But yeah, I'm calling in support of Council Member Chema Swan legislation and the support the bills that Morales has collaborated with Iran to defend renters who are facing debt from evictions.

And yeah, we need these bills to pass.

I mean, I just I can't believe that, you know, we're having to fight to stop the eviction of, you know, teachers and school staff and children.

And that, you know, this creep Peterson's trying to introduce you know, an allowance to do it a year from now.

It's just really disgusting.

Tram Tran Larson, followed by Esther Little Dub John.

Go ahead, Tram.

Good afternoon.

My name is Tram Tran Larson, and I'm the Community Engagement Manager with the Housing Justice Project.

I'm calling in support of Council Bills 120057 and 120077 to protect renters in our city from losing their homes.

In a city that is home to eight billionaires, we should not have a housing crisis and thousands of unhoused individuals.

While the wealthy have accumulated more wealth during the pandemic, our frontline workers and most marginalized residents have experienced the highest rates of contracting COVID and loss of income.

Renters want to be able to pay rent and keep a roof over their heads, and these bills can increase their chances of doing so as our city begins to reopen and recover.

Landlords having to learn new laws is an inconvenience, while weak protections cause evictions, homelessness, and sometimes death.

Let's not discard the frontline workers that we applauded and said implement permanent renter protection.

Actions speak louder than words.

Seattle leads the county in the most eviction filings, and our court systems cannot handle that amount increasing by even double.

Contrary to what has been said, HB 1236 did not solve the fixed-term loophole.

I would encourage those individuals to do further research before spreading false information.

Thank you.

Next, we have Esther Little Dove John, followed by Sebastian Stockpile.

Go ahead, Little Dove.

Hi, I'm Esther Little Dove John.

I'm in District 2. And I'd like to, I'm calling to be in support of Kshama Sawant's and Council Member Morales' bill.

And I want to say that black, indigenous and children of color need protection, extra protection, because they have the shakiest school performance, and they need to maintain their performance and do better.

So I would say that you have to protect those children especially from eviction.

Thank you very much.

We have Sebastian Stockpile next, followed by Kevin Bitswong.

Go ahead, Sebastian.

Good afternoon.

My name is Sebastian Stockpile and I am a staff attorney with the Housing Justice Project.

I'm calling in support of Council Bills 12-0057 and 12-0077 to protect renters in our city from continuing to lose their homes to a no-cause eviction based on the existing loophole.

Seattle is home to continual economic growth and should not have the dearth of affordable housing and the housing crisis with thousands of unhoused individuals that it currently faces.

Throughout the pandemic, marginalized renters have experienced the highest rates of contracting COVID and loss of income and even loss of housing.

While some protections such as the statewide and Seattle-specific moratoria provided some temporary protections for renters, they are going to expire and there's no cancellation or forgiveness of rent.

An already terrible housing crisis in Seattle is set to become exponentially worse, especially without these sorts of additional renter protections.

Recovery of renter health in Seattle is not going to be immediate.

A council bills 120057 and 120077 provide renters with long needed important protections that increase the likelihood that they can continue to pay rent and stay housed.

I encourage this entire committee to support and recommend passage of these bills as drafted to the Seattle City Council.

We need renter protections that go hand in hand with the right to counsel and give renters and their attorneys who represent them a fighting chance to keep renters housed in Seattle.

Thank you.

We have Kevin Witz Wong next, followed by Jordan Quinn.

And I just wanted to say, just in reference to one of the previous speakers, that it's totally fine and correct for speakers to be passionate about social justice.

But let's just refrain from using any personal name calling to any of the elected officials.

I would appreciate that.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Kevin.

Thanks.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Great.

Thanks.

So I'm a renter and a member of the Seattle Education Association, which voted overwhelmingly in support of evictions for students and teachers.

And as an educator, it is clear to see how students who had to move unexpectedly during the pandemic struggled the hardest.

Academically, your mental and physical health are shocked by such an event as losing the roof over your head.

And council members know that families of color are evicted at much higher rates in Seattle, and that 9 out of 10 evictions result in homelessness.

The four amendments that were introduced this morning by Councilmember Peterson are a late poison pill, which is a very cynical move that flies in the face of the spirit of this legislation.

These amendments should be voted down as they exclude uncertified educators.

Why make teachers a protected class and leave nearly every one of their coworkers vulnerable?

And also this talk of stakeholders is really something.

The public comment during council meetings happens in the middle of the day when workers are working.

And is there a stakeholder more impacted by evictions than working renters who have faced disproportionate economic hardship this past year?

I really don't think so.

So landlord income and...

Jordan Quinn followed by Daniel Kavanaugh.

Go ahead, Jordan.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Great.

Hi, my name is Jordan.

I'm a renter in District 2 and a member of Socialist Alternative.

I'm calling to urge the Democratic Council members to pass the unified proposal from Shama and Council Member Morales to close the Just Cause Protection loophole, to pass this bill to defend renters facing COVID debt, and to pass Shama's legislation that would ban school year evictions for families and educators without any of the anti-renter, anti-student corporate loopholes being proposed by Councilmember Peterson, like the 18-month sunset clause.

Corporate landlords are already gearing up for an eviction tsunami once the eviction moratoriums end.

And some landlord lobbyists here today in the public comments even made similar threats if these protections pass here.

And this is because the private housing market requires evicting working families to defend their profits, but the council doesn't have to let these bullies kick us out.

please pass this legislation without any of the corporate loopholes.

Thanks.

Daniel Cavanaugh followed by Michelle Omar.

Go ahead, Daniel.

Hey, my name is Dan.

I'm a member of Socialist Alternative and a renter in the CD.

I want to strongly support the United Just Cause bill put forward by council members Sawant and Morales and the bill protecting school children.

We need a tenant's bill of rights at the white office has fought for over a year and for the small landlords calling in the culprit of evictions are overwhelmingly corporate landlords so if you wouldn't affect school children or teachers during the school year you shouldn't be concerned about this bill you should join our movement to defend your neighbors again uh...

uh...

corporations watering down or delays would mean families being put out on the street that's not acceptable uh...

but that would also be the same product of peterson shameful pro eviction amendment one of them exempt non-teaching staff, for example, cleaning staff, who have risked their health during COVID, giving kids a safe learning environment.

Apparently, Peterson wants these essential workers and their families to be put out on the street.

Another creates a major loophole, allowing corporations to skirt the ban if they set up shell companies, posing as small landlords to reject these disgusting pro-eviction amendments from pro-eviction Peterson.

Michelle Omert, followed by James Satterberg.

Is Michelle here.

Michelle you appear to be muted.

If you hit star-6 you will unmute yourself.

Hello.

We can hear you.

Hello.

Okay.

Thank you.

My name is Michelle Omar.

I'm a public school teacher and a mother of two small children ages 3 and 5. I'm calling to say that I oppose this legislation to end 6-term leases and ban evictions during the school year.

These policies have the power to devastate small housing providers.

In addition to teaching high school I own a single-family residential as a rental property.

I can personally testify to the crushing financial burden of an eviction ban on my family and the need for small housing providers to be able to terminate a lease at the end of a fixed term.

I can no longer pay the mortgage on my rental due to non-paying tenants who are also blatantly violating their lease agreement and are refusing to move out though their fixed-term lease has ended so that I can sell.

I am not the very rich.

Like most other small housing providers I cannot continue to carry this financial burden and will be selling the property as soon as the moratorium allows.

Under an eviction ban that spans the entire school year many families like mine and myself are the same.

I absolutely support helping the families of the children most in need and this can and should be done without placing the economic burden solely on housing providers like my family.

Small housing providers have been crushed by the recent punishing combination of housing policy.

This policy follows a pattern of city councils which is creating short-sighted policy without considering its unintended consequences.

Thank you.

James Satterberg followed by Katie Wilson.

Go ahead James.

Hi, my name is James Satterberg.

I'm a staff attorney for Housing Justice Project, and I'm currently a renter in District 4. I am calling in support of these bills today, including Council Member Morales and Sawant's bill to close a fixed-term loophole that has long allowed landlords to circumvent our city's just cause protections.

In a country where most people cannot afford to pay a $500 surprise bill, asking tenants to choose between paying thousands in unexpected moving costs merely because their landlord won't renew their lease or else face eviction is an impossible situation for tenants.

It makes it incredibly difficult for our organization to do our part to keep Seattle residents housed.

Throughout the pandemic, I have seen landlords use no-cause basis for evictions such as this as a workaround to evict tenants for what would otherwise be unlawful reasons.

In the same way, this loophole puts tenants at great risk of displacement and homelessness by placing them outside the scope of our city's just-cause protections.

Closing the loophole makes these protections truly meaningful.

I also support the sound at home defense to protect renters from losing their housing as our city begins to recover.

Without these bills, many of our neighbors will suffer severe harm for no good reason.

I urge this committee to pass both of these bills and reject the proposed amendments.

Thank you.

We have Katie Wilson followed by Val and Solomon.

Go ahead, Katie.

Hello, Katie Wilson here.

I'm a renter in District 3, speaking on behalf of the Transit Riders Union, which is part of the Stay Healthy Coalition.

We strongly support Council Bill 12077. Passing this legislation will help to ensure that landlords work with their renters to access the available rental assistance programs instead of evicting them over pandemic rental debt.

We also strongly support the legislation to close the lease loophole and provide just cause protections to all renters jointly sponsored by Council Members Morales and Sawant and co-sponsored by Council Member Lewis.

A previous speaker, Corey Brewer, portrayed this legislation as duplicative of the state bill 1236, but in fact that bill exempts many fixed term leases from protection.

Lots of renters, including me, are on fixed-term leases.

When a renter leaves at the end of a lease, the landlord just has to find a new tenant.

When a landlord terminates a lease for no cause, the renter loses their home and may become homeless.

This legislation will help to address that extreme imbalance of power and will bring Seattle up to the standards already set by Auburn in a federal way.

I ask that this committee as a whole support these two important pieces of legislation.

NTRU also supports the school year eviction ban without weakening them and recommend passage of all of them to the full city council.

Thank you.

We have Valen Solomon followed by, sorry, Elizabeth Kelvin.

Sorry if I'm not reading that properly.

Valen, go ahead.

Hi, my name is Valen Solomon and I'm a renter in District 3. As an attorney working to protect low income tenants day in and day out, I've seen significant harm that evictions have on individuals and families, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now is the time if there ever was one to close Seattle's just cause eviction ordinance loophole.

Although Seattle does have a just cause eviction ordinance, studies have found that it still had the second highest number of no cause evictions in King County, largely due to this loophole.

As someone who works closely with individuals facing eviction and in connection with the Stay Housed and Stay Healthy Coalition and Council Member Morales' office to develop this legislation, I strongly urge your support of these necessary steps to help mitigate the onslaught of evictions that will come once the moratorium is lifted and that will undoubtedly hit communities of color the hardest.

Thank you.

Next, we have Elizabeth Cohen, followed by Marilyn Yim.

Go ahead, Elizabeth.

Hi.

Hi, my name is Elizabeth Cowan.

I own a duplex on Capitol Hill.

I just want to know what your provisions are if you want to prevent people from being evicted during the school year.

Is the city going to step up and pay any small landlord, pay for their mortgage, their utilities, their repairs, their maintenance, all of that while that is going on?

Because otherwise, you're shifting the burden onto private citizens, which is not right.

Not only that, as small landlords, we do not have deep pockets.

We do not have the resources that corporate landlords do.

If that happened to me, I would go into foreclosure.

I would lose the house.

They would lose the house.

So you really need to understand basic economics here and address that.

If you want to put that into action, you need to have a fund that pays for them.

Marilyn Yim followed by Barbara Finney is showing as not present.

So after Marilyn comes Ian Randall.

Go ahead, Marilyn.

Hi there.

My name is Marilyn Yim and I'm a small mom and pop housing provider in D6.

Small mom and pop like me provide affordable housing, which should be protected by the city.

This legislation has proceeded without any data on current trends.

We are seeing an alarming reduction in locally managed family sized rental housing owned by small housing providers.

This outcome was predicted in the 2018 UW study that found that 40% of landlords were considering selling as a result of Seattle's harsh anti-landlord legislation.

The city council needs to pause this legislation to collect data on changes in the rental housing stock and ownership profile away from small housing providers and update the 2018 study to account for additional legislation and COVID.

We also need to be included as a stakeholder after being systematically excluded from significant legislation like this for the last five years.

As an example, all of the renters calling in today seem to have seen Councilmember Peterson's amendments, while nobody else in public comment has.

60 seconds of public comment is completely inadequate for the proposals that we're seeing.

Small housing providers have been crippled by the pandemic.

Don't kick us while we're down.

Stop this legislation, collect data, and include us.

Thank you.

Before I call on the next person, I just want to read the names of the people who are shown as not present.

So if you are able to hear me and if you think you're showing present, I just want to let you know you're showing as not present, which is Max Hudson, Glenn McDonald, Michael Malini, Kate Martin, Storm Chandler, and Barbara Finney, and Jack Francis.

You're all showing as not present.

So next we have Ian Randall, followed by Rene Ballou.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Ian Randall.

I'm a healthcare advocate, clinical faculty at UW, and also a small non-corporate landlord with three homes in Seattle.

I'm asking that you postpone this vote and return to the democratic process and actually listen to the very providers that supply housing and keep rents lower than they otherwise would be if we passed this misguided legislation.

If you decide to move forward without any input from the very providers that supply rental units in the city, then I would urge you, please urge you to accept Councilmember Peterson's amendments to limit the short and long-term damage from this legislation.

As a political progressive, I share the concern many of you have about the short- and long-term effects of the punitive eviction laws that have been passed.

But it's clear that in your zeal to drive us out of the market, you will be reducing the number of rental units available to low- and middle-income renters, as current housing providers are forced to sell, usually to owner-occupiers, and no new units are developed for low- and middle-income tenants in this treacherous business environment.

Please, let's return to the democratic process and avoid the impending shortage of housing that this legislation would cause.

We're going to run out of housing units in the future, and it's going to be your fault.

Thank you.

Rene is next, followed by Barbara Serr.

Go ahead, Rene.

My name is Rene Ballou, and I'm an eviction defense attorney with KCBA's Housing Justice Project, as well as a renter in District 6, and I am calling to express my support for Council Bills 1257 and 77 as drafted.

The rental housing market is one of the least regulated markets despite the fact that most people consider shelter to be a basic human right.

Ultimately there is nothing unjust or unfair about providing protections for basic human rights especially where so few existed in the first place.

I'm hearing landlords talk about quote unquote problem tenants but what we as a society fail to realize is that we condemn quote unquote problem tenants to housing instability and homelessness through a violent eviction process, and that is a severe punishment for not being able to pay rent on time, or for any of the other reasons landlords evict tenants.

Ultimately, tenant protections are going to make it more difficult for landlords to evict.

That is just an unavoidable truth.

I've said it multiple times, and I will say it forever until I see it translated into policy.

The property rights of the landlord should not usurp the human rights of the tenant.

Thank you.

Barbara Sayre followed by Chris Hill.

Go ahead, Barbara.

I'm Barbara Sayre, a member of the LGBT Allyship Board and on the organization's senior housing Committee.

Decades ago, I came to Seattle to follow and write about a little startup company called Microsoft.

I was successful for a while in Seattle's economy until I apparently shattered a human vow.

I accepted myself as a woman that I had known all my life.

Suddenly, few wanted to accept me.

Years before COVID-19 kept us at a social distance, society kept me at a distance.

I lost my job, I lost my family, I lost all opportunity.

The most damaging loss for me was winding up with no roof over my head.

When you don't have a job or a friend with benefits, housing instability breaks out and only you will, you know, you lose your will to recover, but more importantly, your will to live.

I support Councilwoman Morales.

Stay Healthy Coalition and NCB 120077.

Chris Hill followed by Kathleen Myers who will be our last speaker unless those who are not present show up in that time.

Go ahead, Chris.

I'm Chris Hill, a child music educator from Sammamish.

I urge you all to support no evictions for school children, families, and school workers.

Alex Peterson's Amendment 4 is especially bad out of the amendments.

It undercuts the whole point of the help provided by this legislation by making it about no-fault evictions, such as renovations, or making the tenants sign a declaration of poverty when we're talking about the children being protected, not the adults.

That takes the focus away.

I was once awarded Big Brother of the Year in 2001 by Bellingham Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Did a lot of behind-the-scenes work advocating for a young Native American boy in the education system.

He's now an adult married and found full-time work.

If however he had become if however he had become homeless I do not think that he would have remained in school at all let alone succeeded.

Children are our future for good or bad.

Thanks.

That's all.

Kathleen Myers, go ahead.

This is Kathleen Myers.

I'm in support of Shama Sawant's bill to prevent evictions of children and their educators and their families.

Education is necessary and fundamental role of government and society aspiring to democracy.

It's a challenge in an unequal society such as ours, and it's hampered and made more unequal by the pandemic.

We're still suffering.

We can't let the difficulties already experienced unequally be compounded by a lack of protection from evictions.

Don't let the education of the least advantaged be sacrificed or further challenged.

I support the bill to protect.

Thank you.

And thank you to all who spoke in today's public comment period.

I really appreciate council members allowing me that time so that we could cover all speakers, even though it was just one minute for each.

I want to reiterate that my council office has been and always is open to meet with landlords.

And in fact, we've met with and been in touch with a number of landlords in recent years, including at least one of the landlords who spoke in public comment and said that we have not been meeting.

So that's not actually a fact.

And as a matter of fact, my office has solicited feedback from small landlords in developing the various legislation over the many years, including the legislation before the committee today.

Some of the people who testified and also have written to us are truly small landlords that are struggling and are really appreciate Sonia from public comment saying that small landlords who are struggling should actually get involved in our the momentum that we're trying to build for renters' rights and for people who are struggling to pay mortgage in the post-COVID era.

But some who called in and who said they're a small landlord, they're not actually small landlords.

Like one of the people who called in is a Wintermere real estate vice president.

I don't think by any reasonable definition that can be considered a small landlord.

Wintermere is a major real estate corporation.

So we need to be clear that the crisis facing renters demands actions.

One of the public speakers who described themselves as a landlord expressed frustration that she did not know about Council Member Peterson's amendment and nor had she had a chance to review them.

I agree though on that count that it's disappointing to get these substantive amendments at the last minute, but that's not something my office was not able to decide the timing on it.

They don't appear on the official committee agenda because they weren't submitted in time when the agenda was published and in fact that is why I posted them on my blog which is available for everyone to see so if you go to my council office blog you can see it for yourself as I mentioned before just go to salwans.seattle.gov and you can see all the amendments and I also want to do I call renable who said just now quote the property rights of the landlord should not take precedence over the housing rights, but then in court.

So we will now begin our first item on today's agenda which I will read into the record council bill 120046 and ordinance relating to the termination of residential.

rental tenancies, providing a defense to certain evictions of children, their families, and educators during the school year, and amending section 22.206.160 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

This is the legislation from my office banning the eviction of school children, their families, and educators and school staff during the school year.

It is common sense, but there's also a mountain of evidence, research evidence, showing that when children are evicted, it has devastating impact on their academic achievement, development, and mental health.

Imagine as a child trying to focus on your schoolwork while losing your home.

For example, the aptly named Losing Home Report found that, quote, of evicted respondents with school-age children, 85.7% said their children had to move schools after the eviction, and 87.5% reported their children's school performance suffered very much because of the eviction, end quote.

In 2018, the state found that nearly 4,200 Seattle public school children were homeless at some point during the school year.

That is a staggering 7% of all public school children.

In practical terms, that means that in an average class of 30 students, two will be homeless at some point in the school year.

This is a racial justice and Black Lives Matter issue.

Just as Seattle landlords evict Black tenants at much higher rates than other tenants, we also see that Black students and other students of color disproportionately face homelessness.

The 2018 2018 state data found that fully 40% of homeless students were Black and 23% of homeless students were Latinx, even though Black and Latinx community members constitute much smaller proportions of Seattle's overall populations.

For the high school graduating class that year, the Seattle PI found for the class of 2018, 55.2% of homeless students graduated on time compared to 84.5% of students who were housed.

These are staggering data.

And of course, as I've said before, but I'll say it again, the reason we're talking about banning evictions during the school year to help address homelessness is because of the enormous causal link between evictions and homelessness that we found in studies that 9 out of 10 evictions result in homelessness, which is also staggering data.

We know housing stability has a devastating impact on education, development, and mental health of children.

And we need to do something about this.

And at the very least, the council has the power to stop children from being evicted during the school year, which is what this legislation does.

I'm really thankful that we have Jeff Sims from city council central staff here to walk us through a memo detailing the legislation and proposed amendments.

Jeff, will you please introduce yourself for the record and then begin?

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

For the record, Jeff Sims, Council of Central Staff.

Because the committee has already heard some outlines of the bill in a prior meeting, as well as receiving my memo from a previous week, I won't go into extensive detail.

And I will, at the end, try to briefly describe the provisions in each of the four proposed amendments.

So Council Bill 12046 would provide a defense against eviction.

The first group, the first piece to cover is who would be covered by this.

It would be all children under the age of 18, even if they were not yet school age, and then anyone that was a student as defined in the bill.

Furthermore, anyone that has legal custody of someone who is a child.

And then finally, educators, which is defined broadly as anyone either that is an employee or a contractor of the school district or the school and the institution.

The time frame that this defense against evictions would apply would be the calendar that is set by the Seattle School District.

So currently, that would begin on the first Wednesday of September and would extend until mid-June.

So you're looking at a defensive against eviction that would apply for approximately the entire year except for 10 to 11 weeks per year, something like that, so over the summer.

For comparison, if you look, for example, at the Winter Evictions Bill, that was limited to a narrow time frame of only 10, about 12 to 13 weeks.

So that's who would be and when the defense against eviction would apply.

There's also a limited number of circumstances in which an eviction would be able to proceed despite the defense or a defense would not apply.

The first is any time a code violation occurred.

a requirement to remediate the condition.

So if a unit was not up to living standards, if the number of inhabitants far exceeded the number of people able to be in the unit.

In addition, if there was...

If there is criminal activity by the tenants, such as operating an unlawful business or other criminal activity, then the defense against eviction would not apply.

And then finally, I'm just covering again in broad terms, but also if it wasn't...

Sorry, just point of information, Madam Chair, I think the recording just stopped.

Yeah, I was about to interrupt Jeff actually.

Okay, sorry.

ID team, do we need to pause?

Standby.

Okay, thank you so much.

Go ahead, Jeff.

Okay, so the- Recording in progress.

Okay, we are re-recording, thank you.

Okay, thank you, go ahead.

I'll go back one point just to make sure that the recording captured everything.

I was covering the circumstances in which the defense against eviction would not apply.

Broadly covering them, they're listed in the actual bill.

The first would be any time that there's a code violation, so a dwelling that was either too many inhabitants or not suitable for living in.

The second would be if the tenant was engaging in criminal activity.

And then the third would be if it was an owner shared dwelling and the, in that case, and the owner actually is occupying it with the tenant as well.

And that would apply to ADUs that are on the same property.

For comparison, because there's been a lot of parallels drawn with the ordinance that was passed by San Francisco and then was also modeled and passed by Santa Monica, there's two primary differences between the bill that's presented to this committee today and what was passed in San Francisco.

Primarily, the San Francisco bill only applies to no-fault situations.

So a circumstance where conceivably the landlord would be able to plan around like the renovation of a unit or selling it, something along those lines.

But it does not cover, in San Francisco, it does not cover situations like the non-payment of rent or not complying with the terms of a lease.

Similarly, in San Francisco, the protection, the defense against evictions, I should say, does not kick in unless it is a tenant who has occupied the unit for at least 12 months.

That's a minimum qualification to become eligible for the defense.

So that broadly, as the committee already knows, the components of this and the provisions of this bill.

I want to briefly go through a description of the four amendments.

I will leave it to Council Member Peterson as the sponsor to go into more depth on each of those and just give a high-level summary.

Sorry, Jeff, just to organize the discussion, if I might just move the bill before you start talking about the amendments?

Absolutely, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

I move Council Bill 12046 for a vote.

Second.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Jeff.

Thank you.

So briefly, in the four amendments, first one cover would establish a time limit so that 18 months after the effective date of the ordinance, the defense against eviction would no longer apply.

So it's essentially action would have to be taken to restore it at that point.

The second would narrow the definition of educators to align with what is in the Washington Regulatory Code, similar to the definition of a teacher or a classroom instruction.

The amendment would use the phrasing, a person who holds a professional certification and is employed in a position for which such certificate is required.

whose primary duty is the daily educational instruction of students.

So it's seeking to focus in on those whose regular educational interaction with the students is likely to result in the harm that's greatly outlined in the recitals of the bill, resulting in impacts on student well-being and educational attainment, things like that.

The third would establish an exemption for small landlords.

Any landlord operating four or fewer units would be exempted from this defense against eviction.

And lastly, the Fourth Amendment would largely move to mirror what San Francisco has in place so that no false circumstances would be protected.

However, an eviction could proceed.

if there was failure to pay rent, or not complying with the terms of the lease agreement, or habitually having to be given notice that those conditions or the payment of rent had to be made.

There's some nuance to this bill, which I want to make sure I highlight.

For educators, that would be, for those who are defined as educators in the bill, they would not have a hardship protection.

It would only be if they're a no-fault protection.

However, for children and their legal custodians, in a situation where there is non-payment of rent or a regular problem with receiving rent, they could self-declare or self-certify that there had been hardship situations that had prevented them from being able to pay the rent.

and therefore they would be able to retain a protection against eviction or raise a defense against eviction.

I hope that's helpful and I'm certainly turning it over to you, Madam Chair, for further questions or comments.

Thank you so much, Jeff.

First, I would like to ask council members, committee members, if you have any questions about the Just the base legislation and then we will.

And then please feel free to ask those questions to Jeff.

And after that, we will move into the amendments.

So are there any questions?

I don't see any, so let's move to the amendments.

So amendment one, all the amendments are from Councilor Peterson.

The first amendment is about the 18 month sunset.

So I will hand it over to you Councilor Peterson to talk about it.

Thank you, Chair Sawant.

And I just want to say that I'm in agreement with you generally that these evictions present hardships for children and families and no one wants to have this disruption that leads to learning loss and instability for children.

I would like to see more prevention of evictions, especially due to nonpayment of rent during the COVID pandemic.

I have voted in favor of numerous tenant protections during the past year, including the winter ban on evictions for low and moderate income residents, free legal counsel for those in need and facing eviction.

and the payment plans for those impacted natively by the COVID pandemic.

Before joining city council, I helped to build and preserve tens of thousands of units of affordable housing, and I worked at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, allocating billions of dollars to address homelessness.

I believe providing a more targeted, direct, and efficient solution would be funding the tenant assistance for those in need rather than adding additional regulation at this time.

That could be illegally challenged because it leaves one party, the provider of the housing, bearing the costs.

And so funding rather than regulating would be my preferred approach, however, I see the importance of this legislation, and so my amendments are meant for discussion purposes.

I think it's appropriate to have amendments at the committee stage.

It took a while to craft a couple of these, so I appreciate your patience in getting these before the committee today.

If it's okay with you, Chair, I'll try to move each one, and then we can discuss each one, or have people ask questions on each one.

I could take it one by one if you'd like, Madam Chair.

Yes, let's do one by one.

Did you want to go ahead and move it, Councilman Peterson?

Yes, thank you, Chair Sawant.

So I would like to move to amend Council Bill 12046 as presented in Amendment 1. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

And so I feel Jefferson's described it very well.

Happy to answer questions or direct your questions to Jeff.

Council members, did you, I have some comments, but I'll wait for other committee members to speak.

I'm sorry, Jeff, could you remind us on which one the first amendment is that Council Member Peterson is bringing?

Certainly, Council Member, this would impose an 18-month limit after the date of enactment.

So 18 months after it going into effect, the defense against eviction would end.

All right, thank you.

I don't have any questions.

Council Member Morales, did you have any comments?

No, thank you.

Okay.

I just find this amendment just completely unacceptable.

The fact is, I mean, just if you look at the facts, corporate landlords are already gearing up to carry out what economists predict will be a tsunami of evictions once the eviction moratoriums end.

I mean, this is not a matter of opinion.

This is mainstream economists are predicting that.

And we just don't believe that any school kid or educator family should face eviction at any time now or in the future.

And by inserting this sunset clause, essentially, any politician who supports this amendment would say it's OK for profiteering corporate landlords to resume evicting school children, their families, educators, and public school staff beginning in 2023. I mean, why should it end in 2023?

That protection should continue across time.

And I mean, Council Member Peterson, you presented this as a benign question of a pilot project that the council would review in 18 months, but the reality is that the council can always review legislation.

That is the nature of legislation, and that is the nature of elected legislative bodies.

A future legislative body in the city can decide what it wants to do.

And council can always pass new amendments changing the laws.

And if Council Member Peterson, if you just wanted this reviewed, you could have proposed adding a whereas clause stating that the council intended to review the legislation after 18 months, which would be fine.

This amendment does not require the council to review the issue that this amendment makes these protections of school children end after 18 months, which there's totally two totally different things.

Reviewing is totally different.

than ending the protections in 18 months and it is by no means neutral because winning these renter protections, and if we do win it will have required community organizing and a real momentum by rank and file renters by unions like the SCA.

And when progressive legislation sunsets, that means we will need to wage the same battles again and again and again just to keep from losing what we had won in the past.

And in 18 months, in the next 18 months, I want renters and labor unions and community organizations to be building the movement for rent control, for economic displacement, relocation assistance.

And what's looming large is the need to cancel COVID debt, both for renters and homeowners, struggling homeowners, and also include struggling landlords and small businesses.

So we need all of that.

We need an elected civilian oversight board with full powers over the police.

We need a Green New Deal.

So we face so many crises, including the need for universal health care.

It just seems gratuitous that council members would want ordinary people to have to wage the same battle over and over again.

So I will be voting no on this amendment, which is a prohibition amendment.

Chair, may I interrupt?

If it's assistance to you, I can share my screen so the public may can see the amendments as they come up, but I didn't want to interrupt your comments.

That's a really good idea.

In fact, I was going to ask you and then I forgot.

So thank you so much, Jeff.

And of course, council members, if you want to speak, let me know.

Go ahead, Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Council Member Swan.

You make your points very well.

And, you know, I wanted this here for discussion purposes.

We've had a discussion we heard.

from central staff on it.

That was the intent, really, to set it up as a pilot.

I personally view these as substantial changes to the regulatory relationship between housing providers and tenants.

If this bill advances out of committee, Perhaps my office could work with yours to insert the whereas clause that you're talking about.

Just circling back and reporting on how the ordinance is going.

What is the implementation?

Are there any unintended consequences?

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Peterson.

Obviously, I agree that these are substantial changes, but I think it's a political question.

You know, I think these substantial changes are needed and they're needed urgently.

It's unfortunate that they haven't been in place since before, as somebody in public comments said, you know, that they are in their 20s and they could have used this because their parents faced eviction and homelessness when they were young.

So as far as the whereas clause, if you want to do that, instead, absolutely, my office will be happy to work with you in inserting a whereas clause to do a review.

I think it's really a good practice to review the impact of laws in general.

In terms of the amendment, I think the motion has already been made, so I believe we have to do a vote.

Yes, happy to vote on it.

So Ted, as clerk of the committee, can you please call the roll on the vote?

Council Member Selma?

No.

Council Member Morales?

No.

Council Member Lewis?

No.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

One in favor, three opposed.

Thank you, Ted, and thank you, Jeff, for describing that amendment.

Amendment number two, Council Member Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Solant.

I would like to move to amend Council Bill 120046 as presented in amendment two, which is the definition of educator.

Can I get a second?

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Solon.

So as Jeff Sims described this amendment, it is to define, as I understood, one of the intents of this bill was to provide additional protections for for educators.

And so this defines that as teachers, substitute teachers and curriculum specialists, as defined in the revised code of Washington state law.

It's meant to to target this toward toward teachers.

So that is the purpose of this amendment.

Happy to answer questions or have Jeff do it.

Jeff, did you have anything to add?

No Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Council Members?

Go ahead Council Member Morales and then Lewis.

So I I'm realizing, you know, you just stated that this was in alignment with Washington state law.

I think part of my confusion around here is some of some of the this seemed.

I thought these were both intended to be aligned with the San Francisco ordinance.

And that ordinance as it relates to the definition of educators is very different.

You know, it is very broad to include school nurses and administrative staff and even custodians, teachers, aides.

And I think that is, That is the way we should be thinking about educators in this particular circumstance, because what we're really talking about are the people who support our students and their ability to learn and keeping them housing stable is also important for the benefit of our young people and their education.

a specialized degree or diploma should be a means test for having protection from possible eviction.

So I won't be supporting this amendment and just wanted to get that on the record.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I appreciate this amendment coming forward for discussion purposes for some of the same reasons Council Member Morales just indicated, which is that there are some scope differences between what we're considering here and what the, I wouldn't say model legislation, but the precedent legislation from San Francisco included.

I think it is also relevant to conversations around how we structure this ordinance to survive ultimate legal scrutiny and there are concerns around scoping.

I still think that this amendment as presented by Councilmember Peterson, It does not, it is too narrow.

I think it narrows it more than would be required.

And as council member Morales implied, right?

I mean, this amendment is narrower than the San Francisco ordinance, while the base ordinances is perhaps a slightly more expansive or words things slightly differently.

So, you know, I think this is a, a prime area to examine as we're going forward to discussing this at full council.

But I can't support this amendment today, given that I think it narrows the scope too much.

And I do think there's a lot of really critical school employees.

I mean, I could think of, you know, like counselors, for example, where it is important for that counselor to not be displaced and be in a position where the kids that are on the caseload for that counselor I don't have to switch out multiple counselors in a given year or lose a counselor they have a good rapport with and other support staff.

So I won't be voting in favor of this amendment, but I do think, you know, it is still an area where, you know, I would anticipate some discussion at full council.

And I think this is a conversation to have.

As Council Member Morales said, language that we developed for this legislation from my office.

We obviously took the San Francisco bill as the starting point.

And it was important that that precedent was set in San Francisco.

But the point is to take the best example set by whatever is existing and then make it better where possible.

And so if there was a place where the San Francisco bill fails to protect renters and that should be improved, And obviously we should not make things worse or not.

And it's also not acceptable to not try to make it better.

So we want to take the best example set by the San Francisco legislation and make it better where possible.

And, you know, in this case, we took the San Francisco example and, you know, we examined it for ourselves.

We talked with educators and with teachers, that is, and they themselves were very clear.

They were 100% clear that you cannot exclude any of the school workers from the protections that this bill offers.

So in that sense, this amendment, in my view, cynically, there's nothing benign about this amendment.

It's cynically true and also nothing new.

We've seen a lot of examples of this kind of divide and conquer where some people get protection, some workers get protection and others don't, which sort of, you know, it's right in the demise of the public assistance in the bill for the public assistance itself.

And I don't accept that.

And so this amendment cynically tries to divide teachers from other school workers and insinuates, effectively, whether you say it in words or not, insinuates that other workers like teacher aides, cafeteria workers, and bus drivers are not essential to the education of our children and not worthy of protection from I mean, for example, this amendment includes special education aides who have to develop a trusting long-term relationships with their students to be effective.

And already we know that the phenomenal cuts to public education are already, you know, they've already cut to the bone the budget that's public schools have to have these support staff on call, you know, and so they're already struggling.

and they are not paid adequately.

And on top of that, to deny them this protection that other workers or teachers will have is just unconscionable.

It all excludes translators, for example, who are overwhelmingly educators of color and also have families that are struggling to pay rent themselves.

I'm not at all clear what Council Member Lewis means in terms of examining this.

I mean, I don't know how you would come up with an amendment where you will exclude some from protection and include some for protection.

I mean, on what basis will Council Members decide which workers are deserving of this protection and which not?

I mean, we know they're struggling.

We know public education, workers are struggling to pay their rent.

In fact, in the 2015 teacher strike, and this was not even support staff, this was teachers who were paid better than other workers in the public school system.

The thing that I heard the most was not even about the contract that they were on strike for, which obviously was the principal issue, but the fact that they are not able to pay their rent and they're getting pushed out of Seattle.

And are facing increasingly facing eviction.

So I think that given how big of an issue this is, and given the overwhelmingly strong support from the Seattle education system.

Uh, education association, I think this is extremely important that we don't accept this.

And, you know, and and I think, you know, as Dr. Morales was alluding to education is a wraparound social good, and it's not just a metaphor that it takes a village, it actually takes the whole support structure in the public school system to educate and provide them what they need at that age.

The teachers instruct in the classroom, the cafeteria workers nourish, the bus drivers interact with the kids and get them to and from school safety, so school safely every year.

In fact, we heard so much about what bus drivers do when the Teamsters 174 were on strike for a few years ago.

The counselors, they guide the students, the aides and the coaches encourage and mentor the students.

So ultimately, how are you going to decide who is not worthy of being considered part of the village that educates our school children.

In my view, none.

So I will not be supporting the amendment.

Council Member Peterson, if you wanted to close it out and then we can move to a vote.

Thank you.

I just appreciate the discussion.

I'm glad that we had this amendment on the table to discuss and ready to vote when you are.

Thank you.

Ted, will you call the roll?

Council Member Sawa?

No.

Council Member Morales?

No.

Council Member Lewis?

No.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Three in favor, sorry, three opposed, one in favor.

Thank you.

We move to amendment number three.

Council Member Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Solan.

I would move to amend Council Bill 12046 with Amendment 3. Amendment 3 is the one that would exempt small landlords.

And I can speak to this one moment.

So we heard a lot from those who own for fewer units and this would exempt those.

We exempted those for the winter ban on evictions.

I supported the winter ban on evictions.

We exempted small landlords from that.

They have been experiencing an array of regulatory changes.

I do not see them as corporate landlords.

I see them as those who are providing housing.

It provides a diversity of housing options for renters and want to make sure that as these changes are layered in that small landlords don't end up giving up, taking their rental housing off the market.

And so this would exempt those owning four or fewer units.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Did you get a second?

I'm not sure if I heard anything.

I'll second consideration of the amendment.

Do council members have comments?

I don't see other committee members wanting to comment.

I will comment.

I won't be supporting this amendment.

This bill is about protecting children and their education and mental health.

Children suffer from eviction, particularly during the school year, regardless of who their landlord is.

This amendment especially brings to light what Renee said.

in public comment where the human rights of renters, and here we're talking about the human rights of children, have to be paramount.

So effectively, by supporting this amendment, council members would say that this is to protect small mom-and-pop landlords, but there's a real problem with that because, in fact, many corporate landlords set up separate companies for each of their buildings and falsely claim that the management company of each of their buildings is their own separate landlord.

We have seen this happen over and over again.

And in fact, my office gets calls from renters all the time who say they can't figure out who their actual property owner is, which the corporation is, because There's so many layers to the ownership papers.

And it's basically a corporate shell game.

And it is being deliberately conducted as an underhanded mechanism for big business to use to evade their responsibilities.

We have to defend all school families and educators against eviction, not just some.

And on the winter eviction ban, I did not support that amendment from Council Member Peterson.

It's unfortunate that other council members supported it, but I don't think we should be replicating what I consider bad precedence.

I mean, just because it was passed in the winter eviction ban situation does not mean that council members should again vote.

I mean, if you had voted yes on that, it is perfectly fine and correct for you to vote no this time, because we want to protect all children from eviction.

So if council members don't have any comments, and I'm watching the Zoom screens, then I will have the, sorry, Council Member Peterson, you should close it out.

Thank you, Chair Swan.

I have no further comment on this proposed exemption.

Okay.

So Ted, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Szelak?

No.

Council Member Morales?

No.

Council Member Lewis?

No.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Three opposed, one in favor.

Okay, now we have amendment four.

Council Member Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Solon.

I'd like to move to amend Council 12046 with Amendment 4. Amendment 4 would be, and Jeff will help me out here from central staff, but Amendment 4 essentially would make this proposed new law similar to San Francisco when applying that to the educators.

But it would be more It would be more expansive than the San Francisco law, remain more expansive for the children and their families who are students.

So I'd like to ask for a second to discuss this.

Oh, so I meant literally to get a second on my motion to continue discussion, but if that's not there, then I'm happy that we were able to at least get this on the table.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

For lack of a second, we will have to move on.

I have motivated this bill and I generally made all the comments that I wanted to make.

None of the amendments have passed.

Are there general comments from council members on the bill as a whole before we call the question on the final vote?

I don't see any council members showing interest in speaking again.

So Ted, please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Sorry, sorry.

Will it be invalid if I don't read the council bill?

It was read into the record at the beginning of this discussion.

Okay, go ahead then.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Peterson?

No.

Three in favor.

1 opposed, which is a divided report.

So this would be scheduled to go to the city council meeting on June 7.

Okay, thank you, council members for engaging in that discussion.

And thank you, Jeff, for the very well laid out information.

Really appreciate the work of central staff always.

And as Ted indicated, this bill, which has passed through committee, will head to the city council for a final vote on Monday, June 7th.

Our next agenda item is the right of first refusal for renters facing eviction.

I will begin by reading it into the record.

It is Council Bill 120090, an ordinance relating to new residential rental tenancies, giving a tenant a right of first refusal of a new tenancy after the expiration of a tenancy for a specified time.

requiring a landlord to have just cause for declining to give a tenant the right of first refusal, requiring notice in advance of asserting just cause, creating a private right of action for the tenant, providing a defense to eviction when a landlord fails to give a tenant a right of first refusal, allowing a tenant to rescind a termination agreement, and amending section 7.24.030, 14.08, .050 and 22.206.160 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

As I mentioned earlier, this is the legislation.

I will say a few words and then invite Councilmember Morales who is a joint prime sponsor and Councilmember Lewis who is also co-sponsored to state some introductory remarks.

This issue has been discussed for the last three meetings of this committee and through those discussions and technical feedback, it has become clear that what renters really need in these situations is the right of first refusal where a landlord is required to give the current tenant the first chance to sign a new lease before offering that lease to any other tenant, prospective tenants, unless there is a just cause for eviction.

Renters need a new lease long before there's any question of eviction.

Few renters, this is just reality, few renters who are told by their landlord that they will not have their lease renewed will refuse to leave just because Seattle law says that they cannot be evicted in that situation.

Because in real life, renters, working people who are struggling on different fronts would start looking for a new place to live even if they know that it is unjust and they cannot be evicted because they understandably do not feel confident to have to potentially fight it out in court.

Our new bill puts the right of first refusal into the part of Seattle's law, which is chapter 7.24 of the Seattle Municipal Code, that the Seattle Department of Construction Inspections has the power to enforce.

That means that if a landlord does not offer a new lease and does not have a just cause 60 to 90 days before the end of the lease, then The Department of Construction and Inspection has the power to follow up, investigate and tell the landlord that they either need to offer a new lease or present a just cause not to.

STCI can issue a citation or a notice of violation and start issuing fines if a landlord refuses to follow the law.

And all this can happen before the lease ends.

So ideally these issues can be resolved and the renter can get a new lease without anyone going to eviction court.

Just a few other details.

The bill also includes a private right of action so that renters do not solely need to rely on STCI to enforce their rights.

It includes a provision in Seattle's Just Cause eviction ordinance that states that a landlord may not bring the tenant to eviction court if that landlord has failed to follow this right of first refusal law.

In other words, if the landlord does not follow the right of first refusal law, then they cannot turn around and benefit from the law by evicting someone.

This is consistent with other parts of Seattle's just cause law that enforces the duties of landlords.

For example, a landlord may not evict a renter from a unit that is not registered as a rental housing unit in Seattle.

The bill also creates structures for when and how a mutual termination agreement can be rescinded, and the bill amends Seattle's first-in-time law to clarify that the first-in-time provisions are only related to searching for a new tenant, so they take effect only after someone does not agree to renew their current lease.

I really appreciate The work of Roger Wynn and Clara Park from the city attorney's office.

The work of Asha Venkatraman from the city council central staff, who's also here with us today to answer questions.

And Ted Verdone and Devin Silvernail from my office and Council Member Morales' office for working to get this legislation ready for introduction last week and over the weekend.

So I'll open it up for Council Member Morales and then Council Member Lewis.

Please go ahead.

Thank you.

I really want to start by also appreciating everybody who has worked so hard to bring this forward and to make this legislation possible, especially the Stay Housed, Stay Healthy Coalition, who we've been working with to form this since earlier in the year.

I specifically want to thank representatives from the Housing Justice Project, El Centro de la Raza, Washington CAN, be Seattle, Wablock, the LGBTQ allyship, Transit Riders Union, Union of Washington, Real Change, Share the City, and lots of landlords with solid ground, and Lehigh.

and so many others who have helped really pull this together.

And also want to thank my staff member, Devin Silvernail, who's really been a rock star shepherding all this through.

And thank you to Council Member Lewis for always supporting this push from our office to expand protections and to Council Member Sawant for agreeing to jointly sponsor this.

I think we are really pulling the best elements of our two bills together to create some important legislation that can really provide a powerful fix to the city's just cause eviction ordinance and ensure that all tenants, regardless of where they are in their lease term or what kind of contracts they have, that they'll be protected from a threat of no fault, no cause removal from their home.

As Councilmember Sawant noted, the new bill provides tenants a right of first refusal to either stay in their home on a new lease, or for a new month-to-month agreement, or to voluntarily leave on their own, and also allows landlords to pursue a removal.

I want to say that again, allows landlords to pursue a removal.

if they have a just cause reason to do so.

And lastly, this legislation strengthens tenants' bargaining power by allowing them to rescind a mutual lease termination in the case that they were pressured into signing something if it wasn't signed in the presence of an attorney or caseworker or a mediator.

As the recovery is near and our emergency tenant protections are lifted, as is planned at this point at the end of June, tenants deserve some stability and they deserve to live their lives without the threat of losing their homes over situations that they cannot control, like something as colossal as a pandemic or something as simple as a landlord not liking them.

I'm really proud of this legislation.

We've spent nearly five months working with community stakeholders, with our law department, central staff, with our council colleagues, and the Department of Construction and Inspection to bring the strongest bill possible.

And I just want to say again, thank you to everyone who's helped us get this far, and I'm really eager to get this legislation onto full council.

Council Member Lewis-White.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I will be brief in my comments here.

I appreciate the chance to co-sponsor this successor legislation to the earlier pair of bills dealing with functionally the same issue in slightly different ways, and appreciate that this new composite bill responds to recent changes in state law and extensive advice from our legal department.

to make sure that this protection will tangibly and effectively protect runners from facing what we know is coming and has been characterized by Madam Chair as a tsunami of coming evictions, and really making sure that we have all of the protections of the Just Cause Ordinance protections in place.

Not that Just Care isn't also important in related issues around housing insecurity and homelessness.

But making sure we have all the protections of our Just Cause ordinance in the event right now of the termination of a lease and that gap between the termination of a lease and the entry of a new one, I want to take advantage of this opportunity to address a couple of concerns.

that my office heard from a group of small landlords who we made time to talk to yesterday to hear a number of different issues they had with the legislation and a number of potential concerns.

I mean, we're going to have to agree to disagree on a number of different areas, including passage of the underlying bill.

But I did want to at least clarify some of the concerns that were aired and do it on the record here.

Parker Dawson on my staff will also be distributing those comments or this response in writing.

So the first one was there was concern that We are passing a regulation that is impacting landlords in the private sector, but exempting landlords who are based in social housing or low income housing.

Central staff could correct me if I'm wrong here, but there is no such carve out.

These just cause protections impact people regardless of the nature of housing providers.

So if you are a low-income housing provider, you're still covered by the Just Cause Eviction.

You're still covered by this new bill, Council Bill 120090. So this is not just targeting folks who are on the private rental market.

And Asha, could you maybe confirm that?

Sorry, maybe I should just move the bill and then, because I feel like we've moved into discussion, we just don't know.

Oh, I'm sorry, yes.

No, no, no, no, no, that's not a problem at all.

Let me just, for the record, do it and then we can start a discussion.

I move Council Bill 12090. Second.

Thank you.

Yes, please go ahead and Asha, yeah, please introduce yourself for the record and begin.

Good afternoon, Council Members.

Asha Venkatraman with your Council Central staff.

Yes, Council Member Lewis, that is my understanding of this bill.

There aren't any carve-outs for any specific types of landlords, including social service providers or affordable housing providers.

appreciate that.

So I do just want to make that clear.

You know, we're holding the private sector to the same standards that we hold providers that receive public subsidy.

The important thing is to is to make sure that everyone can be a renter with dignity.

And and of course, we know that publicly subsidized landlords can can be problematic too in some cases.

So I certainly want to just make that clear in terms of scope.

There were also concerns about how this interacts with House Bill 1236. Katie Wilson from the Transit Riders Union did a good job in public comment, I think, addressing this.

But just to put that on the record and echo Katie's statements, The council bill before us deals with the prospective successor tenancy rather than deals with continuing and providing just cost protections at the end of the current tenancy that lapses and continues.

Katie said it more eloquently earlier, so I'll rest mostly on citing.

I did want to state that on the record that this is categorically distinct in looking forward to offers of entering into a successor tenancy and tendering an offer and a right of first refusal to an offer to start that new successor tenancy.

landlords who are occupying the premises as per the current just cause ordinance clause to state that as a reason to decline to offer a right of first refusal new tenancy.

So if you live in the same unit, like if you're renting the bedroom next to your bedroom in your own house, you would still be able under this ordinance to state that cause in not making the first refusal offer.

So in essence, that does mean that this does not apply to circumstances where you're essentially, you know, roommates with someone and you're like renting the bedroom because it's an owner-occupied kind of situation.

because that is one of the existing just causes in the ordinance.

And I might let Asha jump in if she wants to, it looks like you wanted to maybe clarify something there or.

Yeah, I just clarify the, so the bill itself does apply.

So the notice requirements around those apply, but you can assert the just cause of shared occupancy.

Right.

Yeah, exactly.

So so that like I think functionally and the the people who express this concern to my office can reach out.

But functionally, I think that solves the issue that that that particular constituent was concerned about.

So I did just want to put those on the record.

So finally, I mean, I'll just say I, you know, having.

Put on the record those concerns that I did hear from folks yesterday state, of course, that I am comfortable voting for this bill without any further additions to it.

I'm proud to co-sponsor this legislation, and I will just rest my comments there.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Peterson, go ahead.

And also, sorry, just Arsha, we should of course go, if it makes sense still, you should go through your memo and make whatever comments you feel will be useful for the discussion.

Go ahead, Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Sawant, and appreciate the hard work the sponsors have done on the two bills that have been combined into one.

They appeared on our introduction referral calendar yesterday, and we're hearing them today.

I think that because we heard the other two bills previously, it kind of makes sense, but for the public that's tracking this, there were two separate bills that combined into this one, Council Bill 12090. And I know this hard work was going on at the time that the state legislature was also working on House Bill 1236, which the governor signed into law.

It's my view that the state law preempts this.

and I think it's pretty, I personally think it's pretty clear.

I do also want to thank State Rep Smackery, Fitzgibbon, Frame, Chop and many others who worked on House Bill 1236, but I believe that preempts this, so I'll be voting no on this.

Council Member Lewis and Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to state that I do appreciate Councilmember Peterson's comments right now just about the nature of when this council treads into areas of protecting tenants and expanding tenant protections.

You know, I certainly think, you know, nothing is ever a slam dunk when we do it in this area.

Certainly the original Just Cause eviction ordinance wasn't a slam dunk.

Certainly any of the number of other tenant protections we've passed forward haven't been.

You know, I do want to say that, you know, the city attorney's office, the litigation team there, you know, the leadership that Pete Holmes has shown during his time as city attorney in focusing in on this area, you know, has led to tenants statewide benefiting from the trail that we've blazed by passing things that sometimes are on the edge.

by queuing things up as long as we are careful in planning how we position and build our ordinances and really making, in some cases, landmark state law.

You know, I personally think that based on the work that we have done with this, despite there still being looming questions, and I'm sure there will be challenges, that this could be a vehicle again to try to carve out a bigger space for protections of tenants You know, I'm sure that it's going to represent a lot of hard work, and I'm sure that the litigators and the team that Pete has assembled for these kind of cases are, you know, are going to be busy.

But, you know, I do appreciate the track record that we've had.

I think that it is our job in times to push the envelope with things that are close on the margin.

that is the only way you get progress.

I appreciate that there is always a balance of envelope pushing and risk aversion.

I am certainly one of those members of the Council that wants to make sure that we are in a place where we are structuring things so that we are not just going out there completely foolhardy, but that we are crafting it with a theory of the case.

And I think that this falls in with, you know, another good example being the right to attorneys in evictions, where we did a similar process that, you know, I think it is certainly worth a try to expand our social contract in the rights that people who rent have, and as someone who for most of my life has been a renter, It's important.

It's important to do.

Thank you.

Um, well, I just want to first, um, reflect, react, um, to the notion of, um, 1236, um, preempting this, you know, our understanding, and we've had lots of conversations.

I had a conversation with representative Macri last week is that the intention was, um, was to allow for, uh, municipalities, um, not to be preempted, uh, with that language.

And they were, very careful about trying to craft it in such a way that municipalities would not be preempted.

And as Councilmember Lewis said, I think we have to balance our own risk aversion with some of the risk aversion coming from our landlords as well.

You know, in public comment, we heard a lot from landlords referencing this UW study from 2018, for example.

And one of the things that that study revealed is that there is just a general rejection from the landlord community of ordinances that are intended to provide protections.

I think this study found over 80, about 89 percent of the landlords who were surveyed when offered a menu of potential policy options rejected all of them.

whether they were intended to increase affordability or increase housing supply or increase protections for renters.

And we know that we are still in a housing crisis, so we have to do these things because we have a lot of people who are at risk of experiencing homelessness, who can't afford to find a place to live in this city, whose communities are being disrupted because they're getting pushed out.

I think on balance we have to understand that some people just don't like change, some people are fearful, and we can certainly have a conversation.

It sounds like all of us have had conversations with small landlords and understand that there is some resistance, but we also know that people need to be safe in their homes and to be protected from getting pushed out.

I feel very confident and comfortable moving forward with this and I look forward to voting yes.

Thank you.

Councilmembers Morales and Lewis, I will just add my points and just to concur with what Councilmember Morales just said.

When the Democrats in Olympia passed House Bill 1236, they promised that it would not preempt the cities across the state from passing stronger rental protections.

And in fact, the same legislators that Councilmember Peterson cited told us that House Bill 1236 did not preempt local action and both the Senate and the House, as a matter of fact, rejected amendments that would have made preemption explicit.

So that legislative record is clear.

It's undisputed.

But days after it was signed into law by the governor, the courts ruled that it has preempted Burien from having stronger renter protections.

This is another example of how many obstacles working-class people have to face.

to win just the bare minimum, just laws.

So, and my office has worked closely with attorneys to prepare legislation that avoids the legal problems faced by violence just cause law.

And we've had two offices doing this.

Obviously, there are never any guarantees.

The question is, are we prepared to fight?

And it's not a neutral question by any means.

I mean council members talk about risk aversion.

I mean think about the enormous financial precipice that working people are always under especially the vast majority of renters who are struggling.

Every month is filled with enormous amounts of risk but it's not of their own making.

It's because that's how life is under this system for most people and it's our job to make it easier for them and Also, our job to understand that actually not all the landlords were saying that they are facing problems.

We saw this today.

I mean, some of the people who said they are small landlords are actually representatives of large real estate corporations.

But yes, as Councilman Morales also said, we've talked to many small landlords.

In fact, some landlords have small landlords have signed our petitions for renters rights because you know, they agree that the human rights of renters, especially families with children comes first.

So I also feel comfortable moving ahead with the vote, unless council member Preeti said, I mean, obviously, if council members want to say anything more, it's totally fine.

Okay, I'm not seeing any council members wanting to speak, so I will have Ted Verdone from my office call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Oh, but we haven't had Asha's memo.

I just remembered again.

Asha, did you want to go ahead?

Yeah, so I wasn't able to prepare a memo in time for committee today.

And so you just have the text of the bill in front of you.

I think, Chair Silent, you had talked through the main provisions of that bill.

So I don't think there's anything you missed in terms of the main provisions.

So unless there are specific questions that I can answer, I won't repeat what you've already described.

OK, thank you, Asha.

I appreciate that.

Ted, will you please call the roll on this bill?

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Peterson?

No.

Three in favor, one opposed.

So like the previous bill, that's a divided report, and we'll go to the city council meeting on June 7th.

Thank you, Ted, and thank you Councilmembers.

Before we close out this agenda item and go to the next one, I wanted to especially acknowledge the community members who are part of our growing renters' rights movement who have begun discussions with us, who began discussions with us more than two years ago when the federal way renters with the leadership of organizations like the community of Washington Community Action Network began working on protecting the just cause rights of renters in that city and who built on the foundation of our and the renters who also built the foundation built on the foundation of our winter evictions ban victory last year and our right to counsel victory this spring to bring this bill to where it is today.

Also back in 2019, some who are watching this might recall, our office worked with tenants who were facing eviction in exactly this kind of situation.

We organized a very prominent press conference and a community petition to reverse the landlord's attempt to render the tenants homeless.

Those tenants happened to live in Skyway, but it reignited or at least helped reignite the movement.

conversation in Seattle about closing the Just Cause loophole, which we are finally able to do with this legislation.

And also, by the way, I'm happy to report that right after we did that press conference, the landlord rescinded their attempts to evict the tenants.

Among movement members who deserve recognition, and there are many, I wanted to note the 685 community members who signed our Just Cause petition in recent weeks, and the community members who spoke out at our two previous committee meetings.

SEA member Matt Mailey, SEA member Bruce Jackson, B-Seattle activist Ariana Laureano, Tenants Union organizers Julissa Sanchez and Terry Anderson, small business owner and renter Shirley Henderson, homeowner Jordan Van Vost, speaking on behalf of his brother who is a member of the disabled community and who is a renter and who was Facing exactly a similar situation Starbucks barista star Willie Chateau apartment tenant activist Rene Gordon drivers union and stagehands union member Jake laundry renter and union member Sean Butterfield from and he's a member of SEIU 775 book workers union co-founder Jacob sheer.

UAW 4121 organizer Sharon Crowley and renter Ana Maria Campoy.

These are some of the many people who work to bring this legislation to fruition and I'm happy that we have been able to vote on this in committee.

Our final agenda item is council bill 120077. the legislation from Council Member Morales's office, which I support and have co-sponsored to create a defense against eviction for renters facing rent debts, rental debts during the COVID emergency.

I'll just read it into the record and then turn it over to Council Member Morales to motivate it.

This is Council Bill 120077, an ordinance relating to the termination of residential rental tenancies, providing a defense to eviction for rent due during the city's COVID-19 civil emergency, and amending section 22.206.160 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

Council Member Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you so much, Chair Sawant.

I want to just start again by thanking, again, all the organizers and members of the Stay Housed, Stay Healthy Coalition for continuing to push us to increase tenant protections and for holding all of us accountable to the renters in our city.

According to the National Equity Atlas COVID Rent Debt Study for King County, King County renters owe an average of $4,900 in back rent, and that's the highest in Washington State.

And in King County, we have an estimated 44,000 households who were facing financial hardship that's been brought on by COVID.

That's more than double any other county in the state.

And here's what we know.

We know that over a third of Black, Latino, and Native communities are burdened with rent debt.

We know that Native, Black, and Latino households whose work often requires the increased exposure to COVID are also disproportionately uninsured.

And we know that a medical emergency during a pandemic is going to significantly affect people's ability to pay rent, pay for food and childcare and other bills.

These are the essential workers who have kept our city going over the last year.

So following an extreme public health crisis and the closures of all of our workplaces that's been brought on by the pandemic, we saw those numbers skyrocket.

55% of all people facing a pandemic related financial hardship are low income already.

62% are people of color.

71% lost their employment related income in the last year.

When you couple this with the fact that in just over 30 days, the eviction moratorium will end, you can understand the urgency to provide a defense for eviction for renters who've fallen behind on rent because of a financial hardship.

This avalanche of evictions that is looming is more than just an issue of money.

This is a systemic issue that's been brought on by generations of disinvestment in communities of color, by racist housing policies that haunt us to this day.

And it is really an issue of equity that has deep classist and racist roots that we have to solve.

In order to do that, we have to take some bold measures.

So the bill that I'm proposing would allow tenants to assert a financial hardship defense any time after being signed into law.

If you're a renter who's faced or will face a financial hardship during the civil emergency, you will be protected.

If a landlord does serve an eviction notice based on non-payment of rent, they have to include a statement that notifies the tenants of their right to assert a defense based on non-payment of rent during the crisis.

At that point, renters must self-certify, and they can do that by attesting to financial hardship, and that can happen when they're accessing their free legal counsel, which they are now afforded thanks to the Right to Counsel legislation.

I do want to emphasize that landlords have resources available as well.

King County Executive recently announced that King County will be offering $150 million in rental assistance to tenants and landlords.

And here at the city, we're offering over $20 million, with potentially millions more coming with federal ARPA funding.

I do want to encourage landlords to take advantage of these resources.

Almost $200 million worth of rental assistance is available right now.

So it's important that landlords take advantage of that before going the eviction route.

I also want to say that this bill directly addresses the issue at hand, which is that nearly 44,000 people in King County cannot pay rent because they suffered a financial hardship on the COVID pandemic.

Our neighbors find themselves caught with a growing mountain of debt and a looming deadline for when that debt will come due.

If we don't do something to protect vulnerable renters now, we will face depression-era levels of homelessness in the city.

Our system is already overburdened and underfunded, and if even a quarter of the renters who currently owe rent fall into homelessness, our entire system could collapse.

We have to respond to this impending humanitarian and social justice crisis with the gravity that it deserves.

We have to take action now so that renters who have faced a financial hardship during the pandemic don't face eviction too.

And I am eager to have this discussion and look forward to my colleagues' support.

Thank you.

I see Council Member Peterson wanting to ask a question.

Council Member Morales, did you want to go ahead and move the bill?

I move that we pass Council Bill 120077.

Second.

OK.

Maybe we should take Council Member Peterson's question.

I think it's something you might be able to answer, Asha.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Swan.

I would love to hear from Asha first and then I can, I'll probably direct my question to Asha if she doesn't answer it already in her presentation.

Okay, thank you.

I'll just go briefly through the memo on Council Bill 12077. As Council Member Morales mentioned, this creates a defense to eviction if the tenant was not able to pay rent during the civil emergency because they suffered financial hardship and the basis for the eviction is the failure to comply with a 14-day notice to pay or vacate or the tenant failed to pay rent and that resulted in four or more pay or vacate notices within a 12-month period.

It would require that any notice to terminate the tenancy contains a statement that notifies the tenant of their right to use that defense and it also requires that Um, as long as, oh, sorry, it doesn't require that, but the, the, the effect of the defense is that as long as the tenant remains in the rental unit, um, during the emergency, um, their defense to eviction based on non-payment of rent applies.

And so if it turns out, um, If the tenant failed to pay rent at any other time, so outside of the COVID-19 emergency, they could still be liable for eviction on failure not to pay rent during that time period, just not during the COVID-19 emergency.

I'd note that this bill does provide a defense, but it doesn't mean that the tenant themselves are not liable for the rent due, just that they can't be evicted based on that.

So a landlord would be able to sue them to collect rent in a separate civil proceeding, just not through the eviction proceeding.

In comparing this with the current eviction protections, a question that's come up is how this is different than what the current eviction protections do, given that we have both a state and city level moratorium on evictions at the moment based on a variety of reasons for eviction, but also the failure to pay rent, as well as a bill that this council passed last year that provides a defense to eviction for six months after the end of the civil emergency.

And the distinction here is really about what the what it is that the bills are preventing.

So the moratorium, the six month defense after the civil emergency bill, those are all about the timing of the physical removal of the tenant.

So they limit when the actual physical removal can happen, but they don't eliminate the basis upon which the landlord is able to file for eviction.

So in other words, the landlord has to wait to file the eviction until the operative time of the moratorium or the bill is over.

At that point, the tenant can then excuse me, the landlord can then file for eviction and remove the tenant.

In this case, it's not the applicability of the.

timing of the defense that is at issue, but rather the basis for the eviction itself.

And so in the existing protections, the basis for eviction remains.

If the tenant failed to pay rent during the time the moratoria or the bill, the six-month defense was operative, that failure to pay rent is still the basis of eviction at the end of those, when those protections expire.

For this bill, there is no time at which the ability to assert the defense itself expires.

Instead, the defense is always available that the tenant was unable to pay rent during the civil emergency.

So when the moratorium and the moratoria and the six-month defense bill expire, a landlord would be able to file for eviction on any other basis, but with the protections in this bill, the tenant would always be able to assert a defense.

So in essence, it's not about when the physical removal will happen, but when the failure to pay rent happens.

And so that's the main difference between this bill and the protections that are set out in the moratoria and the other six-month defense bill.

And so if there are any questions, I am happy to answer them at this point.

Thank you, Asha.

Council Member Peterson, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Swan, and thank you, Asha, for the presentation.

I wanted to follow up on one of the things you said about the timing.

So the legislation before us seems very tied to the COVID pandemic and hardship emanating from that.

And I know with some of our recent legislation, which I've supported, such as the payment plans, they apply that six months after the civil emergency is lifted.

But with this legislation, could you clarify there's no time limit

That's correct.

The time limit doesn't affect the ability to assert the defense.

It only affects the when the payment of rent was due.

So the limitation is around.

the time at which the rent came due.

So if it was during the COVID-19 emergency, the person wasn't able to pay rent due to financial hardship, that is always going to be a defense against eviction.

So in three years from now, for example, assuming that there aren't other limitations on when a person could, when a landlord could file an eviction, in three years from now, if a landlord were to file an eviction and say, it's because the tenant didn't pay rent during the COVID-19 emergency, the tenant would still be able to assert the defense that because they had financial hardship, they weren't able to pay that rent.

Again, it's not saying that the tenant themselves don't owe the rent.

It's just that they wouldn't lose their housing because they still owed the rent.

Does that help?

May I follow up, Chair?

Yes, absolutely.

Thank you.

So just to play out a different scenario, if somebody is, the COVID emergencies, if the COVID emergency has been lifted and we're past the six months of the payment plan legislation, which I supported, if somebody's paid up all their rent, but then they have a hardship that's tied to COVID in some way, Are they able to assert this defense five years from now and say that it was COVID related?

So mostly no.

And that's because it's for as long as the civil emergency lasts.

And so if the person ended up having issues that are related to COVID that occurred after the end of the civil emergency and wasn't able to pay their rent, this defense would not apply.

The defense is specific to the period of time during which the civil emergency, because of COVID, is in place.

Thank you.

Thank you, Arsha.

Any other questions from council members?

And Arsha, did you have anything else to add?

Nope, just the proposed amendments, if you all are ready to move into that discussion.

I think, yeah, we should move to that.

I will share my screen, but these are, so there are two proposed amendments, both proposed by Council Member Peterson.

The first would limit the applicability of the bill to landlords that have an ownership interest in more than four rental units.

So it would essentially exempt landlords who have four or fewer units.

Give me just a moment and I will share the text of that.

Can you all see that?

tell if it's shared properly.

Okay, I'll turn it over to Council Member Peterson if you have any more comments.

Thank you.

Chair, is it okay if I speak to this amendment?

I can.

Yes, good.

Sure.

So this is similar to the amendment previously.

Also, the same similar to what we approved the winter ban legislation, which is to exempt those smaller landlords and own few four or fewer units.

Again, the.

The main point here is that these housing providers are also struggling.

And a better way, I think, to address this would be to provide additional rental assistance as needed rather than a regulatory change here.

I am concerned about the fact that this there's no time limit on this, and so I'll address that in a second amendment.

But this amendment is just, this first one is to exempt small landlords.

And Council Member Swan, if you'd like, I can attempt to move it.

Yes, please go ahead.

I was about to ask you to do that.

So I would propose to amend Council Bill 12077 as proposed in Amendment 1 here on the screen to exempt small landlords.

Could I get a second?

It seems like we're not getting a second.

Council Member Peterson, are you okay moving to your second amendment?

Yes.

Thank you, Asha, for showing the second one.

This amendment would have a time limit of 18 months.

And while it's not specifically tied to the ending of the COVID pandemic and grace period a long grace period after the ending of the civil emergency it does enable us to be more closely tied to the time period of the COVID pandemic and not have it go on in perpetuity as the current legislation is written.

And it's something that, you know, within 18 months, we could revisit it and extend it if it turned out that the data was showing that we needed to do that.

But this puts a time limit on the legislation, which is tied to, which would presumably be similar to the timing of the end of the COVID pandemic with a grace period beyond that.

And so I will attempt to move this, to move to amend Council Bill 120077 with Amendment 2, which would have a time limit of 18 months.

Could I get a second?

That was quick.

I appreciate the chair at least letting us talk about it briefly here today.

Absolutely, sure, it's your right to move amendments, but we haven't got any, yeah, for the lack of a second, we will have to stop the discussion.

So if I will just open it up again for any further comments on the bill as a whole.

Councilor Morales, go ahead.

Yeah, well, I just want to reiterate one of the things I said before, which is that there is rental assistance available for landlords, 150 million from the county, 20 million at the city for now, with the potential for more coming.

So I think, you know, The challenge here is that we do risk people attempting to evict instead of taking advantage of that assistance that is available.

And so I think we need to make sure that folks are protected.

And even if the tenant has lost their job or because of COVID is not able to pay their rent, that doesn't mean that the landlord doesn't have an option for getting their rent paid.

So I just want to remind people of that.

And again, the preference is for folks to go that route rather than trying to evict people.

But if they do that, then there needs to be an eviction defense, a defense to that kind of eviction that is based on the financial hardship that people in the city are experiencing.

And I'll just add a few points in closing before we have the clerk, call the roll for the vote.

I just wanted to note that this is both an economic justice and a racial justice bill, because of the endemic racist racism in the capitalist system communities of color, unsurprisingly, face far have in this pandemic situation faced far greater, greater COVID-related debt burdens on top of the pre-existing debt burden that comes from the endemic discrimination and therefore are at far greater risk of eviction once the eviction moratoriums end.

I appreciate Council Member Morales bringing this forward and I'm, as I've said before, happily co-sponsoring it.

Last September, just on the question of the racial justice issue, last September, industry analyst apartmentlist.com reported that 31% of renters had unpaid rent.

And the report went on, quote, The share of white renters with unpaid rent is well below the overall rate at 24%.

Meanwhile, black and Hispanic renters are far more likely to owe unpaid rent with rates of 48% and 41%, respectively, and food.

I mean, these are, again, this is a real estate website analyst that has conducted this study, and these numbers are dire overall.

Having 31% of renters with unpaid rent.

And on top of that, if you look at break it down by the racial demographic how acutely the black and Latino communities are facing this crisis of unpaid rent, which is basically rental debt is just stunning and.

While supporting this legislation, I think we also need to be clear that, as Asha explained, it doesn't eliminate debt, which is crushing working-class households.

We all know that it's happening.

And that's where the tsunami of evictions is going to come from.

I think community members would agree with me that we have to build on this by actually also going ahead and fighting for debt cancellation and rent control.

By debt cancellation, I mean cancellation of rental mortgage and utility debts for households who have lost money and been financially devastated due to the COVID pandemic.

And yes, by mortgage debt cancellation, I'm including the cancellation of mortgage debt for struggling landlords.

Obviously, it also includes struggling homeowners, you know, in the middle class and the working class, who we know in the Great Recession in 20, the fallout of the Great Recession in 2008 meant that in 2011, we had, America had just a stunning foreclosure crisis with at least six million foreclosures happening.

And who was it?

It was working class people, middle class people who lost their homes.

And this is what happens under capitalism.

The banks, the big banks got bailed out.

and ordinary people got sold out.

And I think that principle applies to the question of canceling debt this time around, because when we say cancel debt, who is going to pay for that debt?

It has to be not working people and renters and struggling small businesses or small landlords, but it has to be the real estate corporations.

It has to be big banks that underwrite real estate deals.

It has to be property management corporations and big landlords.

So it's really important for the committee to be considering this bill.

And so I would invite Ted to please call the roll.

Ted, are you there?

Yeah, sorry.

I was muted.

Council Member Sellers?

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Peterson.

No.

Three in favor, one opposed.

So again, this is a divided report and this legislation will go to the city council meeting on June 7th.

Okay, thank you, council members for engaging the committee.

And Ted, am I right that all the bills are now, because they were divided reports, are going to Uh, the full council on June 7th.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate all committee members, all the community members have engaged today and before in previous committees.

Thank you, Arsha and Jeff from central staff and really appreciate Jonathan Rosenblum and Ted Verdone from my office for helping through this committee.

If there are no further comments, I will go ahead and adjourn the meeting.

I don't see any, so I will adjourn the meeting.

Thank you, council members.