Seattle City Council Sustainability & Renters' Rights Committee 4/27/21

agenda.

I'm eager to get started.

Good afternoon.

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

Today is Tuesday, April 27th.

It's 2.02 p.m.

I am the chair of the committee, Councilmember Kshama Sawant.

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

Councilmember Sawant?

Present.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council Member Morales.

And Council Member Lucas.

And I'm going to call Council Member Morales again, because I just.

Thank you.

Yes, here.

For a present.

Thank you, Ted, and thank you, council members, committee members for joining in.

In today's committee meeting, we will be discussing two renters' rights bills.

One of the bills closing the Just Cause loophole was on our committee's 2021 work plan and other of which the banning the school year evictions of school children, families with school children and educators has been brought to our attention by educators and a member of the Seattle School Board.

Today is a discussion with a set of great community panelists who have generously given their time to come and share their stories.

At the next meeting of the Sustainability and Inventors Committee, I hope we can take amendments and possible votes on the various bills.

And at the upcoming committee, which I believe will have to be, we will have to set a date and we will coordinate, my office will coordinate with the offices of the other committee members to make sure we have a date that works for everyone because it will be, it will have to be We will have a special committee meeting.

And at that meeting we will also have the just cause bill from the office of councilmember Morales.

As I mentioned in the city council briefing yesterday, I would like to co-sponsor this bill.

Councilmember Morales asked that we hold off on discussing her bill today.

And I've agreed to that, of course.

And we will be working, as I said, to find a good time to schedule it.

Our two just cause bills both aim to close the current loophole that landlords have exploited, but they take somewhat different technical approaches.

And as we go through the discussion today and beyond, I look forward to working with Council Member Morales, other council members in this committee and the city council itself to pass a unified bill, the strongest possible bill that closes the loophole without exception.

That is what renters urgently need, and that is our goal.

And most importantly, as we know from our experience of many years of winning renters' rights, to win this, we will need renters to get organized.

And that's why it's really important that we have renters who have been directly affected by the crisis that unfolds when we don't have renters protected today to share with us.

I also wanted to share with you before we open up for public comment, two important numbers.

One number is 64. That is the number of days remaining after today before the end of the current eviction moratorium.

The clock is ticking.

We hope our movement can pressure Mayor Durkin into extending the current moratorium beyond June 30th, but that task has been made much more difficult last week when the Democrats in the state legislature joined with the Republicans to vote to end the moratorium statewide on June 30th.

That is extremely unfortunate, but that is what the state's political establishment decided to do.

In the last week, our office has heard from a number of tenants who are desperately struggling in the wake of COVID and loss of income and jobs.

They fear the end of the eviction moratorium.

To quote one of them, John from Northeast Seattle told us, quote, after seven years as an excellent tenant with on-time rent improvements to landlord's property, I was informed that my lease would not be renewed at the end of June 2021, end quote.

It is, of course, important that the council has placed some temporary protections post moratorium, including giving tenants a defense to eviction if they've suffered economically due to COVID.

But we know that they are temporary protections and that renters are justifiably apprehensive about the coming months as those additional protections expire.

We know nationally the trends are showing a pretty scary scenario unless renters get organized and fight back.

That is why it's important we pass these bills and other tenant protections before the moratorium expires and keep organizing.

And so our movement needs to be very mindful of this number 64 and the urgency it underscores.

The second number I wanted to share with you today is 3.5%.

That is the average Seattle apartment rental price increase in just the last month, according to a report just published today by the industry research firm, apartmentlist.com.

Again, that is an every month rent increase of 3.5%.

Compounded, that comes to an average annual rent increase of more than 50%.

That is downright mercenary.

That is almost double the national average, according to the report, and among the 100 top U.S. cities, the Seattle rent increase was the fifth highest.

As the apartmentlist.com authors enthusiastically announced their report to their corporate landlord clients, quote, the days of plummeting rents in pricey coastal markets are officially behind us, end quote.

So it really shows how the interests of corporate landlords and property management corporations and the banks that underwrite these real estate deals are completely opposed to the interests of renters, something that they are celebrating.

It spells the death knell for renters, and that is why we have to really push back against this.

It is an absolutely stunning admission by the captains of the real estate industry.

After seeing the rents drop in the last year due to COVID and the capitalist recession, corporate landlords see a glimmer of economic improvement and are wasting no time, zero time, to exploit Seattle renters.

For anyone harboring illusions that corporate landlords will allow tenants to gently ease back into life after COVID, this rental increase figure is a brutal reality check.

The pandemic profiteers are wasting no time to exploit the vulnerability of Seattle working class renters, and it is our job to urgently move these bills forward to put renters' rights before corporate profits.

First, this afternoon's committee will discuss our bill prohibiting the eviction of school children, their families, and educators during the school year.

Last week when the bill was formally introduced, my office hosted a press conference to unveil the school children eviction defense bill.

In other words, banning the eviction of school children and educators during the school year.

We were joined by members of the Seattle Education Association, the union that represents public school educators, a public school student, and by school board director Zachary DeWolf.

This bill prevents the evictions, as I said, bans the evictions of school children and educators during the school year.

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

Just imagine trying to focus on your schoolwork while facing the kind of housing instability that comes with getting evicted.

For example, the Losing Home Report found that, quote, of evicted respondents with school-aged children, 85.7 percent 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.

In 2018, the state found that nearly 4200 Seattle public school students 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 during 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 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 only 14 and 12% respectively of Seattle's public student population.

Preventing school year evictions will reduce at least this one form of systemic racism that affects students.

During the community panel, my staff will review these staggering data in more detail.

These facts underscore why we need to pass this legislation.

This fact that the eviction of children from their homes happens in one of the richest cities of the world, it's a damning indictment of capitalism.

But at the very least, we should immediately stop this during the school year.

I'm also excited to announce here that the Seattle Education Association has endorsed this bill.

Earlier today, our office received a message from the SEA president, Jennifer Matter, who told us Last week at our monthly representative assembly Seattle education association overwhelmingly supported a new business item or a resolution to advocate for the creation of and support existing legislation designed to couple protections against evictions for school-age children with similar protections for educators and school staff during the school year.

including child care workers and pre-K educators.

Thank you for bringing this legislation forward to affect change at the city level.

Please let us know what more we can do to support this important work.

The union support is crucial here and I applaud the members of the SEA for their advocacy and determination to win this renter protection.

And once again wanted to commend them also as one of the forces that really fought alongside us and Washington Community Action Network to win the move in fee.

A cap and payment plan, which has been one of the it's one not one of the most sexiest one of the sexiest titles for renters rights law, but it is one of the most impactful as far as renters rights is concerned.

After this bill, the committee will discuss a bill from my office to go close the fixed term lease loophole in the just cause eviction ordinance.

We will hear from a community panel of renters who have been adversely affected by this loophole and from renter organizers who will describe what this loophole means for tens of thousands of renters in Seattle and why we urgently need to close this loophole before the eviction moratorium expires.

This issue was also discussed at our last committee meeting where we were developing the legislation and as I've noted here, It's an issue we put on our work plan for the year.

The fixed term lease loophole has created a situation where landlords can refuse to renew a tenant's lease without any cause at all.

Last week, my office organized a petition to hear from renters about this issue and within 24 hours, 443 people signed the petition and 77 people sent us their personal stories.

In the last couple of weeks, my staff and I have been directly talking to dozens of tenants who are working with us to close the Just Cause loophole, including some of them whom we will hear from this afternoon.

The bill from my office follows the model of the legislation passed by a grassroots movement in the city of Federal Way, which gathered signatures and won the Stable Homes Initiative.

which created just-cause eviction protections in a federal way and included renters on fixed-term leases.

Now, of course, there's the added urgency to do this in Seattle because of the state eviction moratorium ending in 64 days.

And as I've said before, I'm really happy that Council Member Morales' office has also brought a bill forward and that my office is really happy to work with Council Member Morales on a united bill.

We know it will take a movement building approach for an issue that's crucial for tens of thousands of renters.

And that's what tenants who've been in touch with our office have been calling for.

We need to make sure our movement wins closing this loophole.

We've seen unfortunately repeatedly how an approach of insider negotiations can either fail us entirely or result in a watered down bill that does not protect all renters and does sort of the divide and conquer type of thing.

that we see often.

We also just saw with State House Bill 1236, which we're really happy enacts just cause rights statewide, but then leaves gaping loopholes for corporate landlords to exploit.

Finally, today's committee will hear from climate activists about organizing for a Green New Deal in Seattle and building the movement against the giant fossil fuel companies to create the green infrastructure we need to stop climate catastrophe.

We need to rapidly electrify our city's infrastructure and ultimately break the power fossil fuel companies have on our society.

At the last committee meeting we heard a report from Seattle's Office of Sustainability and Environment about Seattle's total greenhouse gas emissions and It should surprise nobody to learn that the city is nowhere near where it needs to be to prevent catastrophic climate change or at least Seattle share of the work because obviously this is a global crisis.

The graph of what is actually happening with greenhouse gas emissions in the city compared to what is needed is such a stark difference that it visually literally looks like the edge of a cliff.

It will require a massive investment in green infrastructure that can only be funded by substantial increase in the Amazon tax.

And for that, we will need a movement.

So I look forward to that discussion also.

And I apologize to committee members in advance.

We have three agenda items, which we will, with the cooperation of an understanding of all the panelists, try to move along as efficiently as possible.

But I appreciate everybody's patience.

And now, We have public comment, and then we will go to the agenda items.

I will read the names and make sure that the people who are signed up are ready to go.

Because we have 25 people signed up for public comment, and I want to include everyone, we will have one minute for each person to speak, and then we will get to our agenda items.

So our first, and if you are- Madam Chair, before you start, it's Council Member Lewis, it's one to let folks know that I am now present.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you for joining us.

So the first, I mean, I'm looking at this spreadsheet just to let people know that if you're not showing us present, you need to make sure you're signing up from Sorry, or you're calling from the same phone you signed up on.

I know that yesterday some people had problems with public comment on that direction.

So we want to make sure everybody's aware of that.

So first speaker who I show is present is Angie Gerald and after that, Blythe Serrano.

Go ahead.

Hello, my name is Angie and I'm a small housing provider in the Ballard-Sinney area and a member of Seattle Grassroots Landlords.

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

This relentlessly volatile landscape is particularly impactful for small mom-and-pop landlords who provide some of the most affordable and flexible local rental housing.

Astoundingly City Council has done no follow-up landlord research or analysis.

We are all in the RRIO database and easy to reach.

But you continue to exclude local housing providers from committee meetings presentations commissions and other outreach and analysis.

It is pejorative and misleading to refer to fixed-term leases as loopholes.

Your policies are creating advantages for deep-pocketed corporate investors.

City Council is actively stoking a more expensive and restricted Seattle rental housing market.

To improve conditions for renters you need to collaborate with small businesses who serve them not willfully exclude and diminish us to the benefit of large corporations.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Blythe Serrano followed by Hannah Svoboda.

Go ahead Blythe.

Hi my name.

Hi my name is Blythe.

I'm a renter in Mount Baker and I'm calling to urge the Renter's Rights Committee to prohibit evictions of children families and educators during the school year and expand just cause protection against evictions to all tenants.

The Rights to Council legislation that passed last month is a crucial victory for our movement, but renters are still facing a housing crisis.

Evictions inflict severe consequences on children's learning, education, and mental health, and nine out of 10 times result in homelessness.

Couple that with the fact that over 40,000 students in Washington state already experience homelessness, and you can see just how urgent passing this legislation prohibiting school year evictions is.

The Renters' Rights Committee must also expand just cause protection against eviction to all tenants.

Seattle has had Just Cause protections for tenants on month-to-month leases since 1980 but most Seattle leases are term leases which are not covered by Just Cause protections.

This means that tenants can be evicted at the end of their leases for no reason at all giving corporate landlords free reign to gentrify the city and displace entire neighborhoods as they please.

The Renter's Rights Committee must pass both pieces of legislation now and with no loopholes.

Thank you.

We have sorry we have Hannah Swoboda followed by Margo Stewart and then Gwendolyn Hart.

Go ahead Hannah.

Thanks.

My name is Hannah Swoboda and I'm a renter in District 3. I urge all council members here to vote yes on council members who want legislation prohibiting evictions of children their families and educators during the school year.

Our school communities have been in crisis since the start of the pandemic.

Students, parents, and teachers have been bearing an enormous burden for over a year now.

No child should ever be economically evicted, especially not in the middle of a public health crisis.

We also need a unified bill to expand just cause protection.

Seattle renters on fixed term leases are not covered by these just cause protections, and this means that they can be evicted at the end of their leases for no reason at all.

This is the reality for most renters in Seattle.

Our movement, composed of renters, socialists, homeless activists, and many more in our community, has won crucial renters' rights victories, like the ban on winter eviction, the right to council legislation, because we united and fought for them.

But renters are still facing a housing crisis, and we need to win much more.

Thank you.

We have Margo Stewart, followed by Gwendolyn Hart, and then Kate Rubin.

Hi, my name is Margo.

I'm a renter in the Central District, also calling in support of Council Member Sawant's resolutions, both to prevent evictions of families with school children and educators during the school year and to close the loopholes around the Just Cause evictions protection.

Even with the eviction moratorium in the past month or so, I've seen people in my neighborhood be harassed into self-evicting without clear cause.

And we know that 90% of the time this ends up with them on the streets.

And especially now that the statewide moratorium is set to end at the end of June, it's more urgent than ever that we provide comprehensive protections for tenants from unwarranted evictions, both those currently happening and the wave that will no doubt come over the summer.

We're still battling this pandemic, and the housing crisis in Seattle precedes the pandemic by many years.

And again, to emphasize, the landlords serving these evictions without legally supportable cause are predominantly large corporate profiteers who are eager to capitalize on the housing market opening up again by needlessly turning out low-income renters and raising rents again.

So I'm urging council members to put forward the strongest unified effort for the strongest bill possible and tying that to the renters and tenants' rights movement to fight back against the landlord lobby.

Thank you.

Gwendolyn Hart followed by Kate Rubin and then Kevin Witz Wong.

Go ahead, Gwendolyn.

Hi, I'm Gwendolyn Hart.

I'm a voter and a renter in District 7. I'm calling today We urge the City Council to vote yes to expand just cause protections against evictions to all tenants and prohibit evictions against families and educators during the school year.

The COVID pandemic has caused the greatest wave of unemployment the U.S. has ever seen, and retroactive protections are going to be crucial if we want to keep people and families in their homes.

Seattle has had just cause protection for years, but these are only applied the month-to-month leases.

We need to apply these to all leases if we want to prevent another wave of homelessness after the moratorium ends.

The pandemic has already interrupted the education of children across the entire country.

And family evictions will only exacerbate the damage that's been done if we allow these to continue without protection.

Thank you.

Kate Rubin, followed by Kevin and then Jeffrey Flogel.

Go ahead, Kate.

Good afternoon.

My name is Kate Rubin.

I'm the executive director of Be Seattle a representative of the stay house stay healthy coalition and a renter in District 2. We ask that this committee support and recommend passage of CB 120057 to the full council.

This legislation sponsored by Council Member Morales and co-sponsored by Council Member Lewis was developed by community stakeholders including our organization in order to close the fixed term lease loophole in the just cause eviction protections.

I would also like to urge the committee to vote yes for Council Member Sawant's legislation preventing evictions of families of school children and educators during the school year.

Both pieces of legislation are absolutely necessary in order to keep our community housed.

Thank you.

We have sorry Kevin Bitswong then Jeffrey Flogel and then Camille Camilla Walter.

Go ahead Kevin.

Kevin you appear to be muted.

You need to hit star-6 to unmute.

Thanks.

Thanks very much.

My name's Kevin.

I'm a member of Seattle Education Association and a renter in Fremont.

With the eviction moratorium set to expire on June 30th and the pandemic still claiming lives and shuttering businesses it's crucial that the council pass legislation to protect families and renters.

As was said earlier there are over 40,000 students homeless across the state and 7 percent of students in Seattle homeless.

Disproportionately students of color.

So the draft legislation from Council Member Sawant is desperately needed.

I would like to thank my union and other movement leaders for supporting this legislation.

In addition, I urge Council Members to close the loophole that allows de facto eviction of renters on fixed-term leases.

If a landlord wishes to evict a tenant, they should be able to point to an actual reason why, regardless of whether this is a month-to-month or fixed-term lease.

Just cause protections should apply to all tenants, period.

Thank you very much.

Jeffrey Fogel followed by Matthew Lang followed by Camilla Walter.

My name is Jeffrey Fogel.

I'm a registered voter in D3 and own rental properties in D3 and D7.

I'm commenting on both agenda items.

I view my small portfolio of rental properties as a small business and the City Council's increasingly costly regulation is no different than restricting a restaurant or grocery store's ability to collect payment for food.

Do you view housing as a human right?

You no doubt view food as a human right, so the analogy is germane.

I also view the city council's recent upcoming agenda on our protections as win-lose, the kind of conflict resolution that always results in negative unintended consequences with no compensation to landlords.

I recently converted one of my rental properties to an Airbnb, where in stark contrast to Seattle's rental regulations, guests pay up front and have the opportunity to leave a review on guests as an incentive for them to behave and respect the property.

Another option is to sell to owner-occupants, Both options remove family-friendly rental units from the market, forcing renting families to look elsewhere for housing.

Renters will lose in the long run as small landlords exit the business, leaving only corporate apartments and government housing or homelessness as options for renting families.

I encourage the Council to work on win-win regulation that focuses renter-landlord communication and collaboration instead of protecting one side against the other.

Good examples are notification time requirements for rent changes or protections on evictions, but these protections for landlords for repeat violators can be moved along on a reasonable timeline.

At the data point, can you, sorry.

Sorry, that was over time.

So unfortunately we had to cut off, but please send your comments to the committee in writing.

We have Matthew Lang followed by Camilla Walter and then Tram Tran Larson.

Go ahead, Matthew.

Hi there, Council.

Thank you for having me today.

My name is Matthew Lange.

I am an educator, the lead organizer of the Transit Writers Union, as well as the Climate Justice Chair of Standing Against Foreclosure and Eviction.

I want to speak today especially around the issues of child homelessness, right, and the issue of educators becoming homeless and being able to teach our children in an effective way.

Two years ago about 10 percent of the Seattle Public Schools student population of 54,000 was unhoused in one way that whether that was living out of a vehicle or doubling up or other ways.

And that has deep effects on the education of our children.

Additionally so often we don't we need to make sure that not only teachers here are made to.

see that their sacrifices that were made during the pandemic were worthwhile and that they won't be kicked to the curb after the eviction moratorium ends.

And that we take care of contractors that work in education settings, staff, admin, janitorial, facilities workers, everyone who works in the education setting.

has had a great sacrifice that they have gone through this year with the pandemic and need to find that they will not be finding themselves in homelessness at the end.

Thank you.

We have Camilla Walter followed by Tam Larson and then Sonia.

Go ahead, Camilla.

My name is Camilla Walter and I'm the Development and Communications Director for Real Change and I'm a renter.

We strongly support the legislation prohibiting evictions of school children, their families, and educators during the school year, and thank Councilmember Sawant for bringing this important legislation forward.

Reducing housing insecurity will support the well-being of children and families.

We are very excited about this critical work to close the eviction loophole.

Real Change supports Council Bill 120057, sponsored by Councilmember Morales, as a piece of legislation developed with ongoing community support.

We ask that this committee as a whole support and recommend passage of this bill which was developed by community stakeholders to the full city council.

Thank you.

We have Tram and then followed by Sonia Poonat and then Madeline Olson.

Go ahead Tram.

Tram you appear to be muted.

If you hit star six you'll unmute yourself.

Good afternoon.

My name is Tram Tran-Larsen and I am the Community Engagement Manager with the Housing Justice Project.

We support Council Bill 120057 sponsored by Council Member Morales and co-sponsored by Council Member Lewis.

The Housing Justice Project along with other community groups from the State House Stay Healthy Coalition have worked closely with Council Member Morales' office to develop this legislation.

This loophole has left many Seattle residents vulnerable to discriminatory landlords who have used this to circumvent the city's just cause protections.

Seattle has the second highest number of no-cause evictions in all of King County as a result.

We know Council Member Sawant also deeply cares about closing the fixed-term loophole, so we are requesting she co-sponsors and supports the legislation our organizations have worked on with Council Member Morales's office.

We ask that this committee as a whole supports and recommends passage of Council Bill 12057 to the full city council.

with the moratorium coming to an end, we need to act quickly to protect renters from retaliatory behaviors from landlords and flooding our court systems with eviction filings.

Thank you.

Sonia Ponat, followed by Madeline Olsen and then Sebastian Stockpile.

Go ahead, Sonia.

Hi, I'm Sonia Ponat, and as a working mom of two teenagers and a landlord myself, I support Councilmember Sawant's legislation, and I urge you to pass it without delay.

I think it's absolutely unconscionable to evict someone with no justification, especially school children and their families.

As mentioned before, Seattle has had this Just Cause protection for tenants on month-to-month leases since 1980. This is really directed at these corporate landlords and slumlords who use every trick in the book to exploit any loopholes they can find.

This doesn't mean if you rent out part of your house, you can never evict them.

You just have to have a legitimate reason.

And making landlords state these reasons for evictions and being ready to back them up in court has deterred countless evictions over the years.

Thank you, Council Member Long, for introducing this necessary bill.

I believe that we really need to build a mass movement of renters to close Seattle's Just Cause loophole and fight the looming eviction crisis.

Thank you.

Madeline Olson, followed by Sebastian Stockpile and then Brogan Thompson.

Go ahead, Madeline.

Hi there, my name is Madeline.

I'm a renter in Green Lake and today I just want to speak in favor of no evictions for children, their families, and their teachers during the school year.

You know, we all know evictions are incredibly traumatic for any person, but for children this is clearly amplified.

Not only are they being disrupted from their education, but they're also being, you know, removed from their community of peers and teachers who would be there to support them.

I also want to ask the committee to please support expanding Just Cause protections for renters.

When I moved, I was totally shocked to find out that landlords in Seattle can evict tenants without any legal proof or reason, unless you're renting once a month.

You know, this sounds like a common-sense policy, but we know that big corporate landlords are going to lobby to stop these tenants' rights because they have the most money to gain and they are the most evicting landlords.

So I'm just asking everyone to you know, protect community over profit and support children and renters from unjust evictions.

Thank you.

Okay, we have Sebastian Stockpile followed by Brogan Thompson.

Good afternoon.

My name is Sebastian Stockpile and I'm a staff attorney with the King County Bar Association's Housing Justice Project and I'm a renter in District 4. We support Council Bill 120057 sponsored by Council Member Morales and co-sponsored by Council Member Lewis as a piece of legislation

Sorry, can staff please figure out what's going on?

I think it's on his end, so we will.

Maybe we can come back.

How about we just come back?

Sebastian, if you can hear, maybe you can try again.

Just in the interest of time, let's go to the next speaker, Brogan Thompson, followed by Carla Davis.

Yes, hello, my name is Brogan Thompson in Seattle.

I own a small fourplex, and both myself as a housing provider and my tenants like the stability of fixed term leases.

Several of my tenants, I've given these COVID rebates on my own, and I've been working with them through this whole COVID era.

Also, it has been puzzling that you seem to, in the city of Seattle council meetings, have no housing providers during the draft of your discussions.

Even this meeting, there's no presenters at this meeting from the housing providers or previous meetings.

And I wish you would include us a little more in the beginning of such things.

So I definitely don't like either of the proposals and hope you will know.

Thank you very much.

Bye.

Carla Davis followed by, sorry, I should check.

Sebastian, if you're still there first, let me see if you want to go ahead, Sebastian.

I'm not hearing anything, so let's go to Carla Davis.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, yes.

Excellent.

Sorry, I had to change.

Yep.

Yep.

All right.

Good afternoon.

My name is Sebastian Stockpile.

I'm a staff attorney with the King County Bar Association's Housing Justice Project, and I'm a renter in District 4. We support Council Bill 120057, sponsored by Councilmember Morales, co-sponsored by Councilmember Lewis, as a piece of legislation developed with ongoing community support.

We at HAP and part of the Stay Healthy Coalition have been working with Morales' office, with Councilmember Morales' office, and ask that Councilmembers want to honor the request of the community with the work that they've been doing with Councilmember Morales' team.

We ask that this committee as a whole support and recommend the passage of Council Bill 120057 which was developed by community stakeholders including the Housing Justice Project to the full City Council.

Too often lawmakers have historically moved forward with passage of laws intended to help communities without first getting meaningful input from community members to ensure a protective effective law is passed.

With the moratorium coming to an end we need to act quickly to protect vulnerable renters in Seattle from retaliatory behaviors from landlords.

and the flooding of our court systems with eviction filings.

Renters should not be facing homelessness as a result of loopholes and for no reason.

And Council Bill 120057 will address that loophole.

Thank you.

We have, sorry, we're at Carla Davis followed by Mindy Lee.

Hello, my name is Carla Davis.

I am also with the Housing Justice Project and I want to express my support for Council Bill 120057, sponsored by Council Member Morales, co-sponsored by Council Member Lewis.

Every day the Housing Justice Project hears from individuals and families who face arbitrary and unjust eviction threats.

The fixed term loophole is especially concerning as it evades the justice the just-cost provisions that the City has enacted in protection of tenants.

Knowing that Council Member Suwant supports an end to the lease termination loophole, we hope that she co-sponsors and supports this legislation.

We also ask that representatives of the State House, the Healthy Coalition work together with Council Member Morales' office to continue showing up for renters who face significant power imbalances.

We also ask that the full committee support and recommend passage of Council Bill 120057 to the full city council.

This piece of legislation was developed by and for committee members, and we ask that you honor those voices.

Thank you so much.

Mindy Lee followed by Laura Lowe Bernstein.

Sorry if I'm mispronouncing.

Yeah excuse me this is Mindy Lee and I'm a member of the Transit Riders Union and I work in the school system for 40 years and of course that was before COVID and I saw the devastation of these kids when they were moved from house to house.

In fact, it was so important during that time that we were actually required to go and bust them from their new location, wherever it was, if it was outside of the school district that they were in, and bring them back to the schools that they were used to going to, because we know how stability helps with these kids' education.

And we've been working for years to get the teachers to live and policemen to live in the districts that they're in.

So we want to keep everybody together as a family.

So it's imperative that we keep these kids in their homes and not evict them.

And as I said, this was going on before COVID.

So you can imagine that now during this eviction time, and which is another thing, I think we need to extend this moratorium or certainly pass this legislation as quickly as we can before the moratorium runs out.

Thank you.

Laura Lowe Bernstein followed by Violet Lavadie.

Hi, my name is Laura Lowe Bernstein.

I'm a D7 renter.

a member of the Transit Riders Union, founder of Share the City's Action Fund, and part of the Stay Housed, Stay Healthy Coalition.

We support Council Bill 12057, sponsored by Council Member Morales and co-sponsored by Council Member Lewis.

The eviction crisis is a public health crisis.

Tenants need help.

We need to stay housed.

That is staying healthy.

Share the City's Action Fund also wants a well-funded tenant opportunity to purchase acts and expanded tenant relocation assistance ordinance that does not just apply to the most low-income residents with easier access for tenants that are being displaced due to their apartment being developed.

And we urgently need statewide rent stabilization and we want the city to risk a lawsuit to get tenant rent control in Washington State.

Thank you.

Violet Levitae followed by Katie Wilson.

Go ahead, Violet.

Violet, you appear to be muted.

If you hit star six, you'll unmute yourself.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

Hi, thank you, Council Member Shamosawan.

My name is Violet Labatai and I'm the Executive Director of the Tenant Union of Washington.

And I am excited that this bill that Shama Sawan has put forth to protect families and children from being evicted.

It's what's needed in right now in this day and age.

I'm also calling in support of Council Bill 1257 brought forth by Council Member Morales and co-sponsoring Lewis on this bill.

This bill is important.

It's voices from the community, voices from just stakeholders who knows the disparities that are happening in our community.

And so we're asking you full council to support this bill and pass it.

the legislation is so important and so needed right now.

And so thank you again, Council Member Chau and Sawant for supporting this bill too, and Council Member Morales and Lewis.

We have Dan Cavanaugh who was signed up earlier in his presence.

So Dan Cavanaugh, go ahead, and then Katie Wilson, and then followed by David Haynes.

Go ahead, Daniel.

Um, hey, my name's Dan.

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

And I'm calling because, you know, council members really need to pass, council members who want legislation to end the just cause loophole and the bill banning evictions of school children and their families during the school year.

And I wanted to thank Shama Sawant for putting these forward and for, um, and for announcing that she's co-sponsoring Morales' bill because she supports all efforts to close the Just Cause loophole.

And I think it's really positive.

I think we need a united movement and a united bill for the strongest possible bill.

And I just want to push back on some of the things I've been hearing from small landlords.

These bills aren't targeting small landlords.

Most small landlords who know their tenants, don't want to screw them over, you know, and there's a reason that the teachers union voted overwhelmingly in support of the legislation Sean was putting forward.

Teachers know how much of a burden the housing crisis is on their students, and so we need the strongest possible bill to defend renters and working families.

We have Katie Wilson followed by David Haynes.

Go ahead, Katie.

Good afternoon Councilmembers.

This is Katie Wilson.

I'm a renter in District 3 and I'm speaking on behalf of the Transit Riders Union.

Last fall when our membership began discussing what to work on this year, the rental debt crisis quickly emerged as a top concern.

We reached out to community allies that have been organizing with renters for many years, including the Tenants Union, Washington CAN, B-Seattle, the Housing Justice Project, among others.

Together, we built a broad coalition, Stay House, Stay Healthy, to win stronger protections for renters, including strengthening Seattle's Just Cause Eviction Ordinance.

In January, we approached Councilmember Tammy Morales, knowing that of all the districts in the city, District 2 is likely to be hardest hit by the eviction crisis.

Since then, and alongside South Seattle-based groups like El Centro and Wablock, whose communities are deeply impacted by this crisis, we've been working with her office on legislation to protect renters.

T.R.U. strongly supports Councilmember Morales' legislation to close the fixed-term lease loophole, Council Bill 120057, which has been developed in collaboration with the Stay House Stay Healthy Coalition.

We also thank Councilmember Lewis for co-sponsoring the legislation today.

I hope all members of the committee will support its passage so these protections can go into effect before the eviction moratorium ends.

Thank you.

David Haynes, followed by Isaac Organista.

Go ahead, David.

David, you appear to be muted.

If you hit star six, you'll unmute yourself.

Thank you.

We need to take back the power of greedy corporate landlords discriminating against veterans and non-veterans required to make three times the rent.

I've been discriminated against by every corporate leasing office in Seattle with newer apartments.

It's like thank you for your service, military service, but we don't want you living here with bad credit or no credit, even with Veterans Administration assisting with move-in costs and short-term rent.

The thing is, that's more bothersome is a greedy new company took over the 112-year-old Loman building in Pioneer Square, where it's totally unsafe, run down with bad lighting, broken elevator, and something black all over the bathtubs.

Yet the so-called affordable housing units are more expensive than certain newer studios, and yet they still want you to pay utilities separately, even though the lighting is first in a jail.

Now, hold on.

Give me a second here.

We can't let abusive landlords of corporate and affordable housing get away with ripping off renters anymore.

God bless the renters revolt and the robust 21st century first world quality housing and commercial build out to alleviate the oppressive abuse by banks getting away with dilapidated inflated rent.

We need real equity known as home ownership.

Thank you.

We have Isaac Organista, and then Rene Ballou, sorry if I'm mispronouncing it, and I think an earlier speaker, Kayla Nicholson, is here.

So, Isaac Organista, please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Isaac.

I'm a renter in D2 and an organizer with Washington CAN, and I'm calling to ask that this committee as a whole support and recommend passage of Council Member Morales' Strong Venture Protection, CB 120057. which was developed by community stakeholders, including Washington, Ken.

Yeah.

So we saw that the court's decision on the Federal Way Initiative as well supported the policy, demonstrating there's deep support for these protections and their application.

So Ken, I just want to thank customer Morales and their office for the creation of these lines of provincial protection.

So please support CB 12057. Thank you.

So our last two speakers are Renee and then Kaylin Nicholson.

Go ahead, Renee.

Hello my name is Renee Ballew and I'm a staff attorney with KCBA's Housing Justice Project as well as a Seattle renter in the Ballard neighborhood.

I am calling to express my support for Council Bill 1257 sponsored by Council Member Morales and co-sponsored by Council Member Lewis.

This bill is a really crucial step in rental protections for Seattle tenants because it would close the lease termination loophole under the current Just Cause Eviction Ordinance.

The loophole currently allows landlords to deny lease renewals and to evict a tenant for no fault of their own if the lease agreement does not expressly provide for a month-to-month tenancy.

This loophole runs completely counter to the policy behind a just cause eviction ordinance.

Imagine building a home and expecting the option of a lease renewal and being denied seemingly based on the whims of the landlord, whims that are sometimes motivated by racial bias.

Landlords should appreciate grave responsibility that comes with providing someone with a home.

And despite grievances I'm hearing from landlords today, rental housing is actually shockingly under-regulated.

The property rights of the landlord should not be emphasized over the human rights of the tenant.

Thank you.

And our last speaker is Kayla Nicholson.

Hi, my name is Kayla Nicholson.

I am a renter in district five and a working parent.

I just want to first express support for both of the pieces of legislation that Council Member Shama Sawant has brought into this meeting, both the ban on evictions of school students, their families and teachers during the school year and then also the Just Cause evictions legislation.

I also just wanted to thank council members for hosting this community meeting and for inviting ordinary renters like myself to be a part of this discussion and to weigh in, not just on this legislation, but over the years, the strategy of inviting ordinary renters and really trying to mobilize the community to weigh in and be a part of these fights has helped us win countless pieces of really strong renters protections.

without the types of loopholes that are seen in most cities.

We have a lot of really precedent-setting legislation as a result of this strategy.

If I remember correctly, Council Member Sawant indicated at the beginning of the meeting that she has offered to co-sponsor the legislation from Council Member Morales that a number of the other speakers have mentioned in their comments.

I'm just a little confused, I guess that she has already offered to co-sponsor that.

I would be interested to hear from Council Member Morales

Sorry.

Please, for speakers who had to be interrupted, I apologize, but please send your finished comments to the committee absolutely always.

And I really appreciate everybody who signed up in public comment.

And I do want to, yes, confirm what the last speaker was saying.

I have offered to repeatedly to cosponsor Councilmember Morales' bill, because of course my office supports all efforts to close the just cause loopholes and we have learned through experience that it does not help for the, for at least from my standpoint, I have always used my office to build a rank-and-file movement of renters and workers because that is the only thing that gets the goods.

So in that sense, it does not help the renters movement for there to be divisions.

And so absolutely, I have offered to co-sponsor.

Of course, it's up to Council Member Morales to respond to that publicly.

And I will definitely look forward to that.

That in the conclusion of public comment, our first agenda item begins.

We, as we discuss our two renters rights bills, we will first hear from city council central staff to explain the proposed legislation.

Then we will hear from a community panel, which is renters and advocates to discuss the problem that this specific legislation addresses.

And then finally staff from my office will summarize where we are and next steps and we have a lot on our plate today and we already had.

I wanted to accommodate everybody at public comment, which we did, but that did take up quite a while.

And we have three agenda items.

We should not forget we have a GND renewal item as well.

So I would really appreciate all presenters keeping sort of everything sort of efficient.

And so the first item here in terms of those banning the evictions of school age, school children and educators during the school year, we have a presentation from Asha Venkatraman and Ali Panucci and city council central staff on this legislation from my office.

And so I will have them come in and introduce yourselves for the record and then begin whenever you're ready.

Thank you in advance.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Council members Swann, committee members, I'm Ali Panucci of your council central staff.

Good afternoon, Asha Venkatraman with council central staff.

Thank you.

We'll just go ahead and dive into the beginning of the presentation.

So we are here today to discuss two bills, Council Bill 120046, related to evictions during the school year, as well as Council Bill 120056, related to fixed term leases and the just cause eviction.

Ordinance next slide please before so we'll first take up just the first bill council bill.

120046 that relates to the school year evictions.

However, before getting into describing what that bill does, I thought we would just start with describing generally what the Just Cause Eviction Ordinance does, but I will keep it brief as Council Member Swant has done some of this, and I know there have been previous presentations.

But generally speaking, Seattle's Just Cause Eviction Ordinance requires landlords or property managers to state one of the approved reasons listed in the ordinance in order to proceed with an evictions.

And that includes noticing requirements to tenants prior to filing a unlawful detainer to take the tenant to court.

It also provides a defense to evictions in those proceedings for an unlawful detainer.

And what that means is it doesn't prohibit the landlord from proceeding with issuing the notice and taking a tenant to court, but it offers a tenant a defense in those proceedings, which their attorney or they themselves can raise when they are before the judge.

And here on this slide, I've listed at a high level described what those defenses are, including requiring, like a defense would be if it would result in the tenant having to vacate at any time between December 1st and March 1st, as well as some temporary regulations that are in place that apply specifically to the current public health emergency.

So with that, we will move into describing Council Bill 120046. This bill would amend the Just Cause Eviction Ordinance to provide a defense to an eviction that would occur during the school year if any member of the household is under 18 or enrolled in school, is the parent or guardian of such a person, or is a school employee.

And so I'll just pause here for a minute to say this is where, what I was just describing, which it offers a defense.

So again, It doesn't prohibit the landlord from initiating eviction proceedings, but it does offer a defense for the tenant when they are in court.

Next slide, please.

So key to this bill are the definitions and who it would apply to.

As I've already described, it covers any household with a child or students.

That's anybody under 18 or is currently enrolled in school.

The definition of educator is a bit broader than I think some people initially understood.

It includes employees or independent contractors of schools, it's governing embodied, and that includes teachers, substitute teachers, paraprofessionals, substitute paraprofessionals, administrators, and the list goes on here on the slide.

But it is a broad definition of anyone who is supporting the school, the educators, the students in being able to succeed in that environment.

Next slide, please.

And then in terms of school, this applies to any childcare, early childhood, education and assistance programs, Head Start facilities, and public and private or parochial institutions that provide education for all grades or age groups up to and including 12th grade.

And then the school year is tied to the academic year set by the Seattle School District.

So that is at a high level, a description of what the amendments to the Just Cause Eviction Ordinance would do in Council Bill 120046. And we had intended to keep our description pretty brief.

And with the chair's direction, we don't have a lot more to add here, but happy to answer questions.

I'll just note the next steps here.

As Council Member Sawant had already described, we are happy to work with committee members to develop amendments if requested for consideration at the next committee meeting where I think the chair intends to take up additional discussion and potential vote at that meeting.

Thank you.

I'm sure there are questions to be directed to you all, Ali and Asha, but I wanted to invite the community panel because I know that several of them, at least two or three of them, have time constraints.

So I wanted to make sure we call on them.

So to begin with, we have the community members who are speaking to the ban, ban school, ban the evictions of school, sorry, it's a bit of a mouthful, ban the evictions of school children and educators during the school year bill.

So I wanted to start with Matt Mailey, then Julissa Sanchez, and then Ariana Laureano.

I'm just reading the names out in order just so that there's not time wasted in awkwardness because people are waiting for each other.

And I know that at least one of them, Matt Mailey, is an educator who's taking time out of his workday, you know, school hours to come here.

So I wanted to start right there very quickly.

So welcome, Matt.

And just for the record, introduce yourself with a sentence or two, and then go ahead and do your presentation.

And then we'll have Julissa.

Good afternoon.

As was stated my name is Matthew Maley.

I am a substitute teacher in Seattle Public Schools and a member of Seattle Education Association.

I also rent and work in District 3 of Seattle.

I would like to start by thanking the Office of Council Member Sawant for bringing these important pieces of legislation forward.

I'm speaking mostly to the eviction protections for school-age students.

But I also strongly support a united movement for the strongest possible just cause protections for renters.

Passing eviction protections for students, educators, and families of school-aged students would have an immediate impact, a positive impact on both students and working families.

As has already been mentioned, I'm proud to say that I voted for the resolution which was put forward in front of SEA, my union, and passed in support of this evictions protection.

The lack of quality affordable housing is not a new challenge to students and their families but has been exacerbated by issues of the pandemic remote learning and lack of access to adequate technology and high speed Internet.

Before the pandemic upwards of 20 to 30 percent of students in a given school might be homeless or housing insecure qualifying for the federal McKinney-Vento program.

And we've heard some other statistics already today.

On top of that, students who have returned to in-person classes now face transportation issues, as we've heard from the Teamsters local representing bus drivers in the district.

This includes insufficient numbers of bus drivers and a lack of transit for many students who need it most because their parents can't afford to take them to and from school in the middle of the day.

This is why I support implementing protections for educators, families, and school-aged children, like the council bill being considered today, and I urge all council members to vote yes for it as they send it to full council.

The problems of housing instability are real and devastating for children and families, but they have solutions.

We've heard a few of them today.

I also want to thank council member Sawant for her office's leadership and other recent victories like winning eviction defense for renters being brought to court.

Finally, so like we know the impacts of this pandemic are immense, and so I'm not going to speak to the Just Cause loophole wholly, but as a renter, I've lived in five different housing situations in my eight years in Seattle, and at least two of them I've been evicted at the end of my fixed-term lease for no good reason other than the landlord.

didn't want to let us fill an empty room in the second time because my landlord planned to turn it into an Airbnb, which we've also heard some of in the public comment.

So like I said, I can't stay on very long.

I'm in my vehicle on break.

So thank you so much to Council Member Sawant again for her leadership on these bills.

And I urge all city council members to support both of the bills being presented today and for the most united possible movement of renters and working people in the city of Seattle.

So thank you so much.

Thank you, Matt.

Really appreciate you taking time out of your workday as an educator.

And if you can stay around, stick around for as long as it's possible, please do, because I know there will be questions or comments.

And I know I have some questions, but I want to make sure that I invite our next speaker, Julissa Sanchez, followed by Ariana Laureano.

And if you all, just like Matt, wanted to make comments on the other Just Cause bill as well, so also please, please go ahead.

That's totally fine.

You don't have to be all restricted.

Go ahead, Julissa.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Julissa Sanchez, a community organizer and tenants rights advocate and educator with the Tenants Union of Washington State.

As a Tenants Union representative and firm believer that housing is a fundamental human right and They're for a child, right?

And as an educator, mother, and human who has lived through displacement, especially the one we know in the Central District in the early 2000s, I can assure you that evictions and displacement ruin lives.

and ruins community and community connections.

I work predominantly with the Latinx and the undocumented community.

And I want to focus on their experiences in being displaced as they have already came from a totally different country and migrated here and created a community and a home here.

and for undocumented children to be displaced again in a country where they are recreating their lives while in school, while learning English, while learning a new language and a new culture and a new forming their own identity within this country and because there was a global pandemic that has affected the undocumented and Latinx community in really devastating ways.

To find yourself as a child being evicted and not understanding what that process is like or why even that process exists, why we allow that to even happen to children.

and their families or to anyone really, right?

But as a child, how do you, how do parents explain to children that they are being evicted and that they will no longer be in their school and in the world that they have recreated and the space that they are trying to grow and become citizens of the world in, right?

Children have endured so much under the pandemic and have demonstrated to us adults and to our society how incredible resilience they carry.

had a hard time staying on top of assignments and staying on top of homework during online learning because he doesn't have the connection to his friends.

He doesn't have the connection to his community at school.

Now, imagine being evicted during this whole process while you're trying to go back to normal way of life, right?

So as children have already showed us that resilience, we need to show up for our children, and we need to protect them and keep them in their homes and keep them safe, especially Black, Brown, undocumented children who disproportionately suffer from housing injustices and who are witnessing their peers being murdered at the hands of the police.

How traumatic is it for them to try to understand the unjust world that we live in?

and we must pass this legislation to make children and their families feel safe and protect children and their families from homelessness.

Having a stable home supports children's mental, social health and education, and of course, their future.

And I want to thank you, Council Member Chalma, for putting this bill and putting children and families first.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Julissa.

And I especially appreciate the sharing of your own child's experience.

And not only as a renter's rights advocates, but as a parent, that is really valuable.

We have Ariana Laureano.

Next, go ahead, Ariana.

And please introduce yourself just for the record, and then go ahead.

Hello, my name's Ariana Laureano.

I'm a tenant activist here in Seattle.

So evictions are breaking up our communities and networks.

We've heard here today we have roughly 1,200 evictions per year, 90% of which result in homelessness, with over 52% of tenants having at least one child.

We have one in 14 children experiencing homelessness during their education.

I'm sorry, my computer just, oh boy.

I'm so sorry, Peter just completely failed on me.

I don't know what happened.

Don't you worry at all, Arianna.

This happens to all of us.

How about I go to the next panel, and then we come back to you?

And I know you're going to do the whole issue anyway.

Is that OK?

Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

Great.

Of course.

We have Shirley Henderson, who is a small business owner and renter.

Go ahead, Shirley.

And please, all of you, as I call on you, please say one sentence, introduction for the record, and then go ahead.

Go ahead, Shirley.

Thank you so much.

My name, as Sharma mentioned, is Shirley Henderson.

And I'm here today as a renter and a queer small business owner to support both of Council Member Sawant legislation but we'll be speaking specifically on closing the loophole in Seattle's Just Cause ordinance.

I've had my own experience with unjust evictions.

After years of managing an apartment building on Capitol Hill my partner and I were told that the management company was no longer going to have on-site managers.

So after caring for the building and the tenants for over six years we were given two weeks right before Christmas to find a new place.

because the company wanted us out before the new year.

Well, it wasn't an eviction in the technical sense, right?

We were still forced to leave at short notice.

We'd been managing the apartment building so we could actually afford to live near our place of business.

And managing the apartment building was also in no small part the reason we could afford to open a small business in Seattle in the first place.

And trying to find a new home in the crazy expensive rental market during the holidays was horrific and we were forced to move further from our place of business and from our community.

So while closing the loophole may not have protected my partner and I from getting heartlessly evicted by her corporate management company, I can absolutely relate to folks who have been evicted without cause.

who are then left struggling to find a new home when they don't have the time or the money for deposits on top of having the emotional stress of just being evicted.

So many tenants are effectively evicted from their homes through this insidious loophole in Seattle's tenant laws to prevent evictions without a justifiable reason.

As others have talked about, on average, Seattle landlords evict about 1,200 tenants every year according to court records.

And this loophole is thoroughly exploited by corporate landlords and slumlords, as I have personally experienced and also witnessed in being a manager.

And it's about to become an even bigger danger because, as others have talked about, the Washington state legislature, Democrats and Republicans alike, have just voted to end the statewide eviction moratorium on June 30th of this year.

And that's just around the corner.

And we know that many tenants are still struggling economically as a result of COVID and the capitalist recession.

Without just cause protections extended prior to June 30th, we can see landlords start to file eviction notices against term lease tenants as their leases expire beginning in July.

Nationally, even the pandemic and eviction moratoriums have not stopped corporate landlords from filing evictions.

And we know that corporate landlords are the ones who are and will be doing the bulk of the evicting.

As a small business owner, I can tell you that this eviction crisis affects small businesses too, whether it's owners who are struggling renters or employees who are at the mercy of landlords when their lease term is up and a new lease term is forced on them.

And employees from small businesses are absolutely struggling renters.

as a majority of the service industry jobs ended during COVID due to business closures.

It's time that we close the loophole and ensure all of Seattle's renters have the just cause protection from eviction.

That's why I'm joining council members from Wants Office and the housing rights activists to fight for the strongest possible protection for renters from getting unjustly evicted.

I think it's a big positive also that Morales is working on legislation And I'm excited about the possibility of Council Member Morales working together with Council Member Sawant's office on this legislation for just cause eviction as there's more strength in working united together.

And also Council Member Sawant's office has proven to be the most successful fighter for renters protections and housing justice because of her office use of movement building with renters and workers to empower them to get organized, And that's exactly what we need and what's most important to win the strongest possible legislation without loopholes.

So I just want to thank everyone who's here today and council members from law office for working on this important legislation.

Thank you, Shirley.

And I'm going to try and Bring in the speakers.

I know from what we've been informed are very short on time because they have to go to their jobs and families.

So I want to call on Ana Maria Campoy, who's a renter and who has signed our petition.

Ana Maria, if you're here, can you please say one sentence in introduction for yourself and then go ahead with your comments?

Buenas tardes.

Good afternoon.

My name is Ana Maria Campoy.

I'm an arts educator and artist.

and a mutual aid volunteer and a renter out of West Seattle.

From 2011 to 2014, my partner and I lived in Lower Queen Anne in an apartment building that was relatively small with 13 units, privately owned.

We had multi-generational families, young professionals, and elderly all living in the building.

Our previous landlord, who was a sweet elderly gentleman when he died, his buildings were sold to a corporate business partner rather than another private owner.

They honored our lease that we had, but there was no effort or help to make it sure that it would get renewed.

They told us that things were going to change.

They lifted the rules around pets, which it being Seattle, we were very excited.

Half of my neighbors got cats and dogs.

Then in the spring of 2014, we went to a family wedding.

When we came back to Seattle, we found in our mailbox a letter from our new corporate landlords.

They had been waiting purposely.

for the last lease in the building to lapse and all the rules changed.

All our rents went up over 30%.

We thought this was insane.

We thought this has to be illegal to spring this on people.

Being from Southern California, I'm not unaware of like injustice of corporate evictions, but I still thought this was too much for Seattle.

And I was incredibly heartbroken and disappointing to find that so long as tenants have a 60 day notice, that their corporate landlords can raise it pretty much as much as they want.

So I just also want to take a notice to some of the comments that were said earlier that we have 64 days.

That means in four days, there'll be corporate landlords sending out notices to people raising the rent over 30%.

We had some neighbors whose rent went up as far as 43%.

There was absolutely no updates to make our building more disability accessible or anything else beyond slapping a new coat of paint to justify all the raises of our rent.

If you wanted to stay month to month until you found a better place, you had to agree to the higher rent.

And then they decided to ban all pets from the building after allowing us there, including those of us who had goldfish.

So all of us who had just had gotten animals had to move out of the building regardless.

The entire building became a ghost town in three weeks.

Everyone was running around stressed.

Some people were unable to find a place to live, moving out of Seattle or moving into other housing with friends or family.

One couple in our building was eight months pregnant.

They had no resources to call a moving company for them.

I remember seeing her struggling, carrying their mattress to their moving van.

We left the building within less than three weeks.

Our building manager was crying every single day we saw her.

The only way we found an apartment was because I, at the time, had a job that allowed me to be flexible with my time so I could find a home.

My partner was not in the same position as me and was not afforded any time off to come look at the places where we wanted to live.

Many of my neighbors, as well, were not in the same position.

And finding a home suddenly, when you don't have the savings or the time to find a new place, meant that they had to take the time off of work.

And it felt unnecessarily cruel that this new burden of losing money to then find a new place to put a bunch of more money into it was being put on them.

I now live in West Seattle, but I also haven't escaped that sense of a corporate landloader.

I've spent over a year in my current rental being told to be ready to move and that our house will be torn down and turn into condos for over a year.

My housemates and I had to schedule our work around city inspectors, construction companies, and consultants who were working to come out and take a look at our home to get us evicted out of our home out of their convenience.

I had to schedule my work for me to pay rent for people to come and inspect whether or not the soil was good enough for condos to turn us out of our own home.

This does not contribute a sense of security in one's housing, especially when you have no notice and you come home with a giant sign outside your apartment building saying it will be torn down.

I pay rent and I pay my taxes.

I vote.

I volunteer in my community and I live here.

I wonder again and again when this happens to me, why is the status quo is that we allow companies to pull a push around renters?

I am sharing my experience as a mixed race light skin Latina.

I know there is systemic racism in our housing sector in Seattle.

These issues surrounding the lack of equity and protection to renters in the city creates further realms of harm to our fellow citizens who are Black, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, other Latinx people, working class, immigrant, undocumented or not, and trans.

Renters are a significant portion of Seattle's citizens, and we deserve rent control and protection from being pushed into this cycle of high cost and low housing security.

We are your teachers.

We are your artists.

We are your nonprofit workers.

We are your baristas.

We are your restaurant employees.

We are your university employees.

We are your essential workers.

These are the communities that are holding you and all of us together during this time.

We deserve housing protections and rent control.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you so much, Maria.

And as you pointed out, it's really the workers who make the city run, who are facing the housing crisis and who are the vast majority of renters.

And I think that was really, really important to point out why this is so important.

Next, we have Terry Anderson, who is...

Sorry, I'll just let Terry introduce himself.

Go ahead, Terry.

Hi, I'm Terry Anderson.

I'm with the Tenants Union of Washington State.

I'm the director of our Spokane office, but I also lead our statewide organization in our policy work.

And I was asked to just briefly explain what happened at the state legislature.

Everybody keeps saying that just cause pass the state legislature and it closes the Seattle loophole, which, by the way, was probably the biggest barrier in getting it passed through because the landlords were just adamant that they wanted to keep that loophole intact.

So just as how, you know, when legislation is enacted, there's compromise from both sides.

And so amendments were taken on this amendment, I mean, on this bill.

And the one amendment that I think probably impacts the Seattle tenants is the probationary period that they put on fixed term leases.

So the bill that just passed in Olympia, House Bill 1236, sponsored by the prime sponsor was a representative Nicole McCree and it it does provide.

Just cause and ends the no cause notices for month to month renters in the state which is huge as a statewide organization we hear from tenants all across the state who still get 20 day notices and have to move within 20 days.

And in the city of Spokane, where our vacancy rate is at 1% or 1.1%, that means that tenants have nowhere to go when they get those 20 day notices.

So for that reason, the bill was very helpful and we're very excited that it passed.

But the probationary period might still be troublesome for Seattle renters.

And that was the one that we had trouble with.

What it means when House Bill 1236 is signed into law, landlords can elect to offer perpetual probationary periods.

So that's the part I don't really like.

But what it does allow a landlord to do is if they first offer a one-year lease to a tenant, then for that first year, they can issue a 60-day no-cause notice that notifies a tenant that their lease is not being renewed after the term lease expires.

So in that way, there will still be no-cause evictions in Seattle if a tenant can't find a place to move to within 60 days of receiving that notice.

Now, if a landlord decides to renew the lease at the end of that probationary period, they can offer up to a one-year lease, six months to a one-year lease, and then continue perpetually at the end of that period, offering a 60-day notice of no cause that would end that term lease.

Or it would convert automatically into a month-to-month lease, I mean, month-to-month rental agreement, which would protect tenants for just cause eviction, but if you are a month-to-month tenant, then you are at risk of receiving a 60-day rent increase notice.

And we know, at least in Spokane, we're seeing 50% rent increase notices, so they're drastic.

So that's where the bill is right now.

If you were to close the BAT loophole, it would mean to end that probationary period And my understanding is Federal Way and Verian have already ordinances that never included a probationary period.

And this probationary period was cooked up at the state legislature.

So the other cities that have enacted it do not have a probationary period.

So that's the one, I think, drawback that I think impacts what will happen in Seattle.

You will now I guess we'll all have the same thing in the state, so we're all going to have that loophole.

We don't know how sophisticated landlords are outside of Seattle, if they'll remember to issue that 60-day notice.

I'm kind of hoping a lot of them will forget, because if they don't issue that 60-day notice, then that term lease would either convert into month-to-month, which then the tenant would have just cause, or the landlord would have to offer to renew the lease.

So I hope I explained that.

Thank you, Terry.

And we definitely will have questions for you.

I myself have questions I know council members will do.

So if you're, are you able to stay for a bit?

Yes, yeah, I can.

Yes, I can stay for a little bit.

Thank you.

I'm just requesting that so that we can have speakers who are maybe in a rush to go to their day job.

So I believe Ariana's computer is fixed now.

So Ariana, did you want to go ahead?

Yeah, we can try this again.

Sorry about that.

So as we've heard today, we have roughly 1,200 evictions per year.

And with over 52% of tenants having children, we have one in 14 children experiencing homelessness during their education and development.

This doubles the chance of dropping out for at least 561 children per year.

When a child is not directly experiencing the trauma of housing insecurity, often they're witnessing that trauma occur to a member of the community.

Friends disappearing, neighbors no longer there.

Even if the evictions don't hit their families, often it hits their friends.

These evictions harm our kids during their development and they damage our sense of community.

I may not have grown up in Seattle, but this problem permeates our nation.

I moved almost every year when I was a kid because I was raised by a single mother.

The impacts of that have echoed through my life.

Most of my friends moved every year.

We need to work towards a more consistently stable housing situation for renters, one where your neighbors aren't constantly changing and instead they become familiar, and one where your kids can grow up with other children and not lose friends to evictions.

It's actually my belief that evictions and the rental market's brutality are large contributors to the destruction of the American community.

And that leads me into this loophole.

So the loophole in Just Cause impacts my household and community directly.

Throughout the pandemic, we fell behind on rent, and although we're caught up now, there's negative sentiment between the landlord and my household.

Our lease expired during the pandemic, and even though we're caught up on rent and paying, we'll likely still face an eviction once the moratorium is lifted, unless this loophole is closed.

Our landlord told us we should be grateful.

He did not apply fees for the months we have been month to month throughout the pandemic.

My building is at 50% capacity, and of the four tenants remaining, two of us have expired leases and will not be protected by Just Cause.

My neighbor is a single mother, and she fears eviction not because she's behind on rent, but because she's complained about the living conditions and her lease expired.

My landlord's a slumlord who keeps his units in very poor conditions.

He habitually rents them on short-term leases, six to eight months, so he can evict as often as he needs.

without just cause.

So I really wanted to thank Council Member Morales and Sawant for working together to pave the way towards a brighter future for tenants.

And I believe that both of these bills contribute towards that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ariana.

And I think, Arianna, you made a note of a very important point, which is the case of renters getting eviction notices or not having their leases renewed as a way of retaliating against them for complaining about substandard conditions.

We hear that all the time.

I mean, I don't have statistical numbers off the top of my head, but anecdotally, just the number of times we hear from renters that that has happened and renters then are afraid to say things because then they feel like the landlords will take action.

And as you said, some lords are the most notorious for that, but corporate landlords as a whole will do that.

So appreciate you pointing that out.

Next, we have Jordan VanBost, who is, Jordan, you should introduce yourself, but just to let committee members know you're speaking on behalf of your brother and you'll explain that.

Go ahead, Jordan.

Jordan, you are muted.

Sorry.

Good afternoon.

My name is Jordan Van Vost.

I'm speaking on behalf of my older brother, Henry, who has mental illness and is facing eviction at the end of his 12-month lease extension for no justifiable cause.

The landlord has merely stated that he wants the space for his business partner.

I invited my brother to be here today, but due to the impact of the stress on his emotional health, he has understandably declined.

I believe that Henry, as someone who lives with mental illness, is being targeted due to his condition.

The building that he lives in has four units.

The landlord claims that he has contacted all the tenants, though clearly he has identified Henry as a candidate for eviction, despite his assertion that he is seeking other options to ensure, quote, no disruption to current tenants, unquote.

I requested to meet with him on Zoom or by phone and discuss options, including renegotiating the lease, but his answers have been short, evasive, and noncommittal.

Henry has lived at his apartment building longer than any of the other tenants for eight years.

The rent has never been laid.

Henry was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 19 and has experienced profound emotional trauma and social expulsion in his life.

It's difficult for a person who hasn't directly experienced mental illness to comprehend the depth of rejection and oppression that frequently occurs from mainstream society.

Finally, at age 64, he's beginning to heal his past and feel a sense of dignity and personal empowerment.

He reads the Bible every day.

He is an artist and has donated paintings to many area hospitals and psychiatric clinics.

The cafeterias at Swedish Cherry Hill and Swedish Ballard both have several of his paintings hanging.

He lives only one mile from where I live with my father, wife, and daughter, and regularly walks over to visit us and share a meal.

If he is evicted, of course, it would be difficult to find anything affordable within a five-mile radius.

And as someone with mental illness living alone, he will be plunged again into expulsion and extreme isolation.

Stable housing is essential to everyone, but especially for people with mental illness.

How many of the thousands of people in Seattle with severe and persistent mental illness who lack family and or economic resources are evicted without just cause and then end up on the street, causing their mental or emotional well-being to deteriorate further, creating net suffering and expense for the community as a whole?

Landlords shouldn't be able to treat human beings like mere numbers in a business equation.

It's inhumane, unjust, and doesn't need to be this way.

The COVID pandemic has given us an opportunity to build a compassionate world where no one gets left behind.

As Chief Seattle said, we are all connected.

It's sadly ironic when settler landlords doing business on stolen land use their legal authority and power to treat another human being like they are a piece of property to own or discard as it suits their bottom line.

We are no longer living in medieval times, and human civilization is already facing the consequences for our collective moral ignorance.

It's time for us to wake up and acknowledge our interdependence.

If one person is suffering and isn't safe, then we are all affected.

Unless we can build a world based on compassion and equity, there is no hope to solve the climate emergency or any of the other complex social, ecological, or racial crises that we face.

Council members, please work together to advance legislation, closing the just cause loophole in term leases for tenants.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Jordan.

And I just wanted to point out maybe some members of the public are only listening on the phone.

Those of you who are watching would have at the.

good fortune to see some of the paintings that Jordan was mentioning that his brother Henry has on display at the Swedish Cherry Hill and the Swedish Ballard campus cafeterias.

And in addition to the moving story that you shared, Jordan, it was really important For everybody who was able to see this meeting on video to look at those paintings, we will post it on our council office website as well, just so that people can enjoy them.

Next, we have Jacob Shear from the Book Workers Union.

Go ahead, Jacob.

Hello.

Hi.

Thank you so much for having me.

My name is Jacob Shear.

Yeah, and I just wanna start by thanking Council Member Salon for having me.

Thank you, as always, for your unwavering commitment to renters and for fighting to make our city a place where renters and working people actually have a chance to live.

And thank you to the renters and advocates who have fought so hard over the past year for crucial victories, like right to legal counsel and winning an eviction moratorium and extensions.

And also want to say thank you to the Stay Healthy Coalition and the work they're doing with Council Member Morales's office, which I'm really proud to be a part of.

So I'm a renter, I live in Wallingford in District 4. And I'm also an organizing member of the Book Workers Union, which is an independent rank and file led union, which represents the workers of the Elliott Bay Book Company on Capitol Hill.

And yeah, I want to talk today about the importance of Just Cause for renters.

So I myself am a term renter, and I've traditionally signed one-year leases at the basement apartment that I live in in Wallingford.

I really love my apartment, and I've lived here for almost seven years.

I'd probably be considered a long-term renter, and I sometimes joke about living here for the rest of my life.

Yet, you know, despite years and years of paying rent on time and being a responsible tenant, and I have the good fortune to have a pretty kind landlord, there does always exist that sense of uncertainty every August when my lease is up, when I know that there is the possibility that I could simply have the place that I've made my home taken away from me.

So people deserve just cause in every area of economic life.

And as we've been bargaining for our first contract at Elliott Bay over the past year, securing just cause protocols for terminations and discipline has been one of our primary objectives for ourselves and our fellow workers.

Being protected by just cause on the job means that workers can't lose their jobs simply due to the whims of the boss or some subjectively applied disciplinary criteria.

And it's a vital step towards democracy in the workplace.

When workers know that the boss can't simply fire them for no good reason, It reduces the power imbalance between boss and worker and gives workers the opportunity to hold management accountable for ensuring that the workplace is safe and respectful and rewarding.

And we've seen firsthand the impact of not having this cause.

And I've had coworkers, including a long-term LFA employee, be fired without evidence in the midst of a pandemic.

You know, someone who's subjected to the whims of management without any consideration of the years this person has been contributing to our workplace.

And I think it's really clear how analogous the connection between workers being fired and tenants being forced in their homes is.

Because in both cases, you know, the total power of bosses and landlords result in people being unable to create a sense of security in their work and at home and brings the very real threat of suddenly losing things that we need for our immediate survival.

So closing the Just Cause loophole so that it extends to term renters like myself and my fellow workers.

We know that the majority of renters in Seattle are term renters.

It's a really vital step towards creating a city where renters can actually live and thrive.

So that's it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Jacob, and thanks for pointing out the very important, the analogous situation that exists between the situation of workers and the workers having to get organized to make sure the bosses don't exploit them, and similarly, for renters to get organized as well.

And that bosses use divide and conquer against workers, and similarly, corporate landlords will also do that, and they have been doing that in the Just Cause.

Loophole is an example of that.

Next, we have Sharon Crowley.

Sharon, go ahead.

Hi, I'm Sharon Crowley.

I'm here as a renter in Seattle's District 6, a member of the Seattle Renters Commission, and also a member and organizer of UAW Local 4121, which my background clearly advertises we're in bargaining right now.

So I'm showing our regalia freely.

Yeah, so our union is made up of about 6,000 academic workers at the University of Washington.

We not only make the University of Washington run, we are also doing the majority of research on life-saving measures to deal with COVID and other kinds of illnesses.

And yeah, so I'm here to speak in strong support of both pieces of legislation, but I'll speak specifically to the legislation to extend just cause eviction protections.

I urge all of the council members to support and enact this legislation now before the eviction moratorium expires and we face a tsunami of evictions at the end of June.

I also want to thank Council Member Sawant for bringing this legislation forward and also for inviting me to speak today.

And thank you also for the powerful remarks you delivered in support of my union yesterday at our bargaining rally.

So as I said, I'm a longtime Seattle renter.

I've lived in several different Seattle neighborhoods.

Every lease I've ever had in Seattle has been a term lease.

And I've never had one except for one that rolled into months to months.

So I always had to renew with another term lease.

So including the unit I recently moved into in Ballard, So given that rents in Seattle are already starting to rise in anticipation of the eviction moratorium expiring, I'm nervous about the prospect of possibly being evicted at the end of my lease here if my landlord decides they want to raise the rent beyond what the law allows.

So the vast majority of my fellow 4-1-2-1 members are also renters.

When we move to Seattle to further our education, we commit to programs that can range from four to five years for an undergraduate program and five or more years for a PhD program.

So when we move here from out of state or even from outside the country, we search for a place to rent and most or all of us end up signing term leases that make it legal for a landlord to evict us for no reason when the lease's term ends.

At the same time, the majority of our members are rent burdened, with many paying over half their income in rent.

We are already living close to the bone.

Many of us have to take out huge student loans to make ends meet because living in Seattle is so damned expensive.

The prospect of piling housing vulnerability on top of both immediate and long-term economic precarity is nerve-wracking at a time when what we need most is housing stability.

It is hard enough to be in school without having that stability.

Besides which, eviction is expensive and it's extremely disruptive.

Being evicted could potentially drive an undergrad or grad student out of school, along with being driven out of their home.

This precarity disproportionately affects our BIPOC, LGBTQ, and undocumented members, and the 40 percent of our members who are international scholars in the U.S. on temporary visas.

This is unacceptable.

Nobody should be subject to eviction without just cause.

It's not right that some renters have that protection while others don't.

As a 4-1-2-1 member, I and my fellow union members would not accept a situation where some members have protection against being fired without just cause, while others could lose their jobs for no reason.

In a union contract, just cause protection applies to everyone, and if management tries to take it away, we fight, because we know it's super important.

And just let me take a moment to express solidarity with Jacob and his fellow union members at Elliott Bay in this fight.

And yes, just cause protection is always a key part of a union contract.

So we won just cause protection by joining together in solidarity and fighting as a group to make this and other improvements to our terms of employment.

We're currently in bargaining with the university.

Our contract expires Friday.

And some of what UW is proposing would erode the just cause protections in our contract.

As union members, we're not standing for this.

And as Seattle renters, we won't either.

Forming a union equalizes the power relationship between union members and our employers.

Being part of a union means that I and my fellow union members have the power to make our employee listen to us and negotiate with us.

They can't make unilateral changes to our work.

Before we had a union, it was easy for UW to ignore one person alone.

They can't ignore all 6,000 of us standing together.

We've seen that tenant organizing works too, and Shawna has been there to help tenants in Seattle organize against eviction.

But the law as it currently stands is tremendously lopsided in favor of landlords.

By being here today and making our voices heard in favor of this legislation, hopefully we can change that.

Enacting just-cause protections for Seattle renters would be an important step toward equalizing the power relationship between renters and their landlords.

Enacting the right to counsel last month was also a big step toward leveling that playing field, but we can't stop there.

We need just-cause protections just as much as we need the right to counsel.

They go hand in hand.

It's imperative that we close this loophole and extend the right to protection from evictions without just cause to all Seattle renters.

Thank you again Councilmember Swant for bringing this legislation forward and for always fighting with us to make Seattle a better place to live work and learn.

Thank you very much.

And again please enact this legislation.

Both pieces.

Thank you so much, Sharon.

That was really powerful.

And thank you for having the UAW regalia in the background, because it is really incredible what is possible when workers get organized and the rank and file are empowered, as you all have done consistently in your union.

It's a really shining example for the labor movement as a whole.

And in fact, your members like and you like yourself personally you have been on the front lines of the housing justice struggles as well you you've been part of the Amazon tax movement as well.

And so it's really just quite inspiring for both workers and renters the example that you have shown.

I wanted to.

quickly say that we were hoping that we can move the Green New Deal item by four o'clock.

And my most sincere apologies for the delays in getting to that to our presenters.

But last but not least, our community speaker is Sean Butterfield.

And Sean, again, as always, as everyone has done, introduce yourself in one sentence, and then, you know, talk about your experience.

Welcome.

Hi, so my name is Sean Butterfield.

I'm a member of SEIU 775. I'm a caregiver for my disabled partner, Charity, and we live together in a rented apartment on Capitol Hill.

I want to speak from the perspective of people with disabilities.

about the loophole under discussion today, allowing landlords to end your tenancy for any reason at the conclusion of your lease, even if they are going to just turn around and rent it to somebody else after you move out.

So a little about my particular situation.

My partner, Charity, has a progressive disability.

That means she can't stand or transfer from her bed or wheelchair without assistance.

That used to mean some balance and positioning help, but for the past few years, it has meant a caregiver lifting her entire body weight and moving her between surfaces.

After years of effort on my part to have DSHS install a ceiling lift in our apartment, this request was finally granted a few years ago.

This has meant that we can hire any caregiver and not limiting us to those with the strength to lift her.

Like most of us, she ain't getting any lighter as she gets older.

And crucially, it has also meant that we can move her safely without the added risk of injuring her or ourselves.

However, as these years have gone by, we have become more and more reliant on this lift as her disability has progressed.

And we have realized just how reliant we are on our continued tenancy in this apartment, and therefore how vulnerable we are to eviction.

Each of the past 10 years, our lease has thankfully been renewed.

But each year brings a palpable fear that we will be forced to move and go without this vital piece of assistive technology, which is installed in our home and potentially for years until DSHS will reinstall it in a new apartment.

From which we could just as easily be evicted after six months or a year.

And I really want to be clear, it's really not just us.

Anybody who uses a wheelchair or requires specific amenities due to disability already has an incredibly difficult time finding and keeping housing.

Beyond the deficit of ADA compliant apartments in Seattle, landlords here often do their level best to remove disabled tenants for a bevy of reasons, but often because of the accommodations they sometimes require or because wheelchairs can cause scuffing of paint and units and hallways.

Charity's previous landlord had refused to renew her lease specifically because of this kind of minor wear and tear.

But of course, they never needed to defend that flimsy pretext in court at that time.

And they wouldn't still today, because when landlords do decide to evict disabled tenants, they do so using loopholes exactly like the term lease eviction loophole we're discussing today.

This kind of eviction is incredibly disruptive to all renters, but particularly to people with disabilities who must struggle to find new housing in a deeply unaffordable city with few accessible units.

People with disabilities often rely on friendly neighbors for small favors or to fill gaps in formal caregiving services.

It takes months or years to build the kind of rapport and comfort with neighbors that allows people with disabilities to ask them to come help them pull their pants, retrieve an important object that rolled under the bed or get back in their wheelchairs in an emergency.

These kinds of relationships are the very fabric of community and every eviction tears a gaping hole in that fabric.

Renters like us desperately need protections from this abuse of the balance of power between tenants and landlords.

the Just Cause legislation before this committee today, advanced by Council Member Sawant, would give us some semblance of long-term security.

And I hope this committee and the whole Council will vote to pass our legislation into law before the expiration of the eviction moratorium and the avalanche of evictions that are sure to follow.

I'd like to especially thank Council Member Sawant for inviting me to speak here today.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Sean.

And I know that other members of SEIU 775, like yourself, are in similar situations where they're providing care for a family member, like you are, or your partner, and the struggles that you all are facing.

And I've heard from 775 members often about how being in-home caregivers means that you don't have a workplace where you come and meet to get organized.

And that's always a challenge as union members.

And I think similar isolation, yeah, is experienced by renters as well.

And that's why we have to counter that by getting renters organized.

And that's why it was so important to have all these voices.

And I think especially, I wanted to thank everybody who spoke, but especially Sean and Jordan for bringing in the voices from our disabled community members.

Because as Sean, you said that they're especially vulnerable to the imbalance of power between renters and corporate landlords.

That's much appreciated.

I wanted to quickly open up for questions, and I apologize in advance to council members.

As I said, we have our GND presenters also waiting, and we've struggled to fit everything in one committee, and we had to cancel the last time, and I don't want to do that today either, because today, again, because the presenters have made time, and I wanted to respect them.

and I wanted to apologize for delay.

So please go ahead and raise your hand.

I had some questions, but I'll wait for other council members to go ahead.

Governor Morales, go ahead.

Thank you.

So I just want to be clear that we have done both community panels, right?

So there's the two issues, the I want to make comments about both.

Regarding council bill 12046, I want to thank you councilmembers for this.

I think it's really important we make sure we're protecting children and their families.

At Hawthorne Elementary, where my daughter goes, I think it's one in 10 children lack stable housing, are either experiencing homelessness or are in a shelter.

And over 50%, close to 60% are on free or reduced lunch.

So we know that there's a lot of need in the community.

And then just quickly, I do want to address some of the questions or comments that came up regarding the Just Cause Eviction Ordinance.

Colleagues know that we will be discussing my bill, Council Bill 12057. takes a slightly different approach than the bill that we're hearing about today from Chair Sawant.

So I want to thank you for the opportunity to hear my bill later.

I want to thank Council Member Lewis for co-sponsoring and the members of the Stay Healthy Coalition.

And I do want to acknowledge and thank Council Member Sawant for her request for a sponsorship and would at least accept that my hope is that we can schedule a special meeting between today and the next regularly scheduled committee so that we have a chance to hear from the community members that we've been working with on the bill and look forward to the opportunity votes.

Here both bills and take about I think May 25th is the next.

committee meeting after that.

So I know we're trying to get to the next panel.

I will work with central staff to see if we can have kind of a side-by-side of both bills.

The last thing I do need to note is that the summary and fiscal note for our legislation has been updated.

That should be on Legistar, and it includes additional language on the summary portion of the bill.

So I did want to make sure to get that noted for the record.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And thank you for your comments, Councilor Morales.

And yeah, thank you for responding.

to my point about co-sponsoring your bill, which I'm happy that we are co-sponsoring that.

And yes, as I said before, my staff is, I know, working on scheduling a meeting between today and the 25th, because we don't want to wait till the 25th.

So we'll be doing that.

And we want to, of course, have more discussion on the bill to ban the evictions of school children and educators.

during the school year and as our community members today have expressed so eloquently, this is extremely important.

Unfortunately, we don't have our educator who is here, Matt Mealy, and also some of the students that we've talked to today, but we will make sure that that will happen in the future.

Obviously, it's hard to have a community member show up in, who are in school, sorry, especially to show up during school time.

And we don't want to disrupt school children's learning any more than can be helped.

And in fact, these are children who are already experiencing disruption.

I had a couple of comments quickly if I am looking, I'm scanning to see if council members have, questions, I'll wait.

Go ahead, Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Swan, and thank you for structuring this so that it was a briefing and discussion today and not a vote so that we had time to hear from everybody that you brought here.

Thanks to everybody for showing up today and giving us your testimony.

I'm glad that Councilmember Morales and you were able to work out how to work with your bills together.

And then in terms of the two bills before us, the 46 about schools and then 56 about the term leases and just cause, should I just ask, I wanna ask central staff some questions so that they could flesh out their memo.

I'm assuming they'll be doing memos for the next committee meeting, is that the idea?

So it's really just things I'm hoping you can explore when you draft your memos.

You don't need to answer anything today.

I just want to sort of get out a couple of questions.

Is that okay, Chair Sawant?

Yeah, that sounds okay.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

So for central staff, just going over 120046 about schools, I heard references to the San Francisco, California ordinance.

I guess that was in 2016, it was adopted, and then there were some legal challenges in 2018 that survived those.

of course state law in california is different than washington state law but i wanted the hope in the central staff memos could look at um what what were the results there sort of the before and after results um curious as to whether um because landlords can still evict during the summer months i believe and so just wanted to know is there a spike in evictions that occurs in the summer is that just you know concern that didn't actually happen.

It seems like we would have some data on that now after a couple of years.

I'm curious about the issue of school employees versus the smaller universe of educators who have that education relationship directly with the students versus just school, you know, school children protecting the school children and their families.

Sort of the different, the universe getting bigger and what the pros and cons of that are.

Regarding the, and I might have more questions later, but that's just off the top of my head after hearing from everybody today.

On the next bill, 12-0056, I've been supportive of several of the tenant protection laws, the winter ban.

We did amend the right to free counsel and then I ultimately supported that.

And we've had a lot of relief programs for tenants during the COVID pandemic that I support.

I am a little concerned about the 12-0056 because we've been following HB House Bill 1236. I think one of the speakers talked about that as well today.

It seems that HB 1236 allows landlords after the end of the first year, as long as they give 60 days notice, that that can end as agreed.

And so I'm just, I'm trying to reconcile.

My understanding is that state law would preempt the local law.

So I just want to understand more about that issue since that bill is going to go into effect, but then we're proposing something.

This bill locally is proposing something different.

So just concerned about that.

Also concerned about the, The impact of small landlords, we've heard those landlords, some landlords calling in.

I know in the winter ban, we define that as those owning four or fewer units.

I know there's concern about corporate landlords.

And I just don't view the smaller landlords in the same way.

And they don't have the economies of scale.

They seem to try to work with tenants.

And so just concerned about applying this so broadly, this 120056. So wanted to see if there are any other cities that have a similar law, even if it's outside of Washington State, and whether they have exemptions for small landlords.

So those are just some thoughts for central staff when you're crafting your memos for the next round of discussion.

But again, thank you, Chair Swan, for giving us the space to sort of throw out ideas and ask questions of central staff.

Thank you.

Thank you for all those questions, Council Member Peterson.

I think those are all useful for all of us to get clarified.

And I, yes, as I said, in the interest of time, I really appreciate you being okay with having the memos prepared, which central staff would do anyway, because they always do that.

But I don't want to not give them any time to respond at all right now.

So, and I know that Ted also has some information about San Francisco, stuff on the school age bill, and he can add something.

I'm just saying that, again, you know, sort of apologies to the Green New Deal presenters that we will go a little bit, a few minutes over, but as you can see, we're struggling to make sure that you all don't have to wait for too long.

So, Asha, Ali, Ted, you know, please go ahead.

I could just respond briefly.

Thank you, Council Member Swann.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson for the questions.

And we certainly will follow up.

I just want to set some expectations in terms of what we're committing to producing for the next committee meeting.

I think some of this information might be useful and necessary for Council Members to have.

in hand in advance of future discussions depending on when the vote is scheduled so we will do our best to get you some information in advance of sort of committee materials uh being available um just so i just wanted to to let you know that but it may not come in the form of a memo immediately but we'll try to get you information sooner rather than later as it might inform your decision making in terms of amendments And then also just want to note that we can follow up and get more information.

I have been reviewing the San Francisco legislation.

I will just note it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison because how that how that regulation applies and under what conditions.

It's not an apples to apples comparison, so we can see what information is available, but it won't be fully applicable to this proposal because this provides greater protections for tenants, I think, than the then the tenant, then the San Francisco law.

And then just quickly on the state law, I just wanted to confirm, we are looking at that carefully and are working on sort of a side-by-side look at both what that is doing.

That may have other implications for the city's Just Cause eviction ordinance, generally speaking, as well as helping sort of highlight the differences between Council Member Sawant's proposal and Council Member Morales' proposal.

Thank you, Ali.

I really appreciate that.

Asha, did you want to add anything before?

OK, I see Asha shaking her head, so I will call on Ted.

Go ahead.

So I can speak very briefly about the questions about the results from San Francisco and also the the question about why the bill is crafted to cover all educators, all employees of schools.

The bill in San Francisco does cover all educators, all employees of schools.

And for, on a personal note, I used to be an educator.

I used to be a teacher and have some experience with this.

The school, all the staff of the school are, really work together to make a culture and a team within the school, a culture of learning.

And there are all of these best practices in schools that really do involve all the staff.

Things like school-wide positive behavioral support and interventions is a program that involves all staff.

I mean, that's just one example, but there's many, many things like this that really do involve all staff.

And all the research shows that turnover of school staff has a big impact on the education of students, a big impact.

So, and some of that research is included in the recitals of the of the bill but also wanted to speak to the results from San Francisco so there is As Ali Panucci explained, there's a huge difference between these two bills.

The bill in San Francisco is quite limited.

It only covers certain no-fault evictions, so things like if the landlord wants to renovate the apartment, that can't happen during the school year.

Approximately, about nine out of 10 evictions in Seattle according to the Losing Home Report, are for non-payment of rent.

And so that nine out of 10 is not covered by the San Francisco bill.

So the reality is their bill covers a very, very small fraction of evictions and probably too small to show meaningful results.

Our bill covers Basically, almost all types of evictions except for certain types of evictions that are required by by law like if the building is condemned and the city or state requires people to leave, you know, that sort of thing.

And oh yeah, the one other question was about House Bill 1236. There were, both in the Senate and in the House, there was attempts by Republicans to add in language to make it preempting, to make it preempt cities, and those amendments failed.

So that's a good legislative record that it does not preempt the city, that that's not the intention of that bill, to prevent the city from creating stronger defenses to renters.

But I'm not a lawyer, so you'll have to ask lawyers about that.

Thank you, Ted.

And Terry, I wanted to invite you, if you wanted to add anything, especially about the state house bill, but in general about, you know, from your knowledge about these things.

Yeah, I was going to say the same thing.

There is no state preemption on just cause.

And there were two cities prior to the state enacting 1236 that already had taken the included term lease in just cause.

I think that an easy way to do it would be to just remove those probationary periods.

I share concerns about that.

In fact, in Spokane, where we're working on a suite of tenant protections, that is the one thing that we will be talking about here too, because it seems to me that landlords would just issue a term lease and then 60 days before the end of the lease, just issue a no cause notice and that keeps it pretty much the same as it is right now.

And if originally it was just for the first year that they would get that probationary period, which I think most of us objected to, but there were legislators that wouldn't support it without it.

And But then when they added the ability to kind of extend that probation into perpetuity, the only thing that really protects is rent increases, because if they were just to allow those to go to month to month, then those month to month tenants do get just cause eviction.

And I'm hearing that the majority of renters in Seattle are term lease renters.

And I think that's interesting because of the loophole.

In Spokane, where we don't have any just-cause protection for month-to-month renters, obviously you can see most of the renters over here are month-to-month because landlords can then do a rent increase with 60 days notice.

So, anything that incentivizes, or I guess, for us, our concern was that landlords would, if they would only offer month-to-month, That was a real barrier for tenants with vouchers that are required a one-year lease for the initial lease period.

So we kept that first year as a year.

So this would be good for tenants with vouchers.

But other than that, I don't see that this state bill is very helpful for tenants in Seattle, I'm sorry to say, except for month to month.

Right now, Terry, I think you stated in very accurate terms.

And in fact, incidentally, you answered the question I was going to ask, which is that, why is it that corporate landlords are so adamant against closing this term lease loophole in Seattle?

But you answered that question by saying, in cities where there's month-to-month leases are the majority, corporate landlords go after that.

And they don't want protections for them

Exactly.

Yeah.

And yeah, well, it's term leases are the majority.

And so there you go.

They don't want to close that loop.

Right.

Because if they didn't do that, then they could, they would have have to, you know, they would have to give just cause protection for those month to month tenants.

And they prefer.

And in fact, my, my feeling is that Seattle landlords kind of get the best of it because they also get the longevity of a year-long tenant, a tenant paying a year's worth of rent.

So it doesn't seem fair that they lock you into paying for a full year and then can terminate so easily.

So I support whatever you all do in Seattle and when we would like to use it for a model for other cities in the state.

Well said, I completely agree with you.

Thank you.

And in fact, the point you made, Terry, I think was made by somebody in public comment about, well, if you're a small landlord, and a lot of small landlords have told me, in fact, some of the small landlords are union members, because they're one unit.

It's not like they're rich people, you know, they're one unit.

that they can rent out.

And it's, you know, small amount of income that they get.

And they always say that, actually, term leases are better for landlords who are not looking to exploit renters, because that kind of longevity is actually going to go and seek renters all the time.

Exactly.

But I think corporate landlords have a completely different equation.

They don't want renters to feel comfortable and empowered in any way.

So higher turnover is good for them.

And of course, right now, given the state law, they're also able to increase rents.

And so obviously, we need rent control as well.

Yeah, oh, totally.

I was gonna say the same thing, that anything, because on the one, you know, you see the dilemma of a rent increase or a fixed term loophole.

Either way, the landlord has the balance of power in order to either terminate a tenant or, you know, make them so that rent, you know, is so unaffordable that they will, you know, voluntarily evict themselves.

So anything, I mean, any rental relocation for economic displacement would also be helpful in lieu of the fact that cities can't enact rent control because of the state law.

Absolutely.

And Terry, I am so glad that you also mentioned that.

I don't know if you're aware and we should definitely connect with you.

My staff will connect with you because a couple of years ago we did.

My office actually has this ready legislation for economic assistance for tenants who are economically evicted, meaning, you know, because it went up and you end up self evicting as you said and in fact we don't even have numbers we don't have statistics for the number of renters who end up leaving because they, as far as I know, simple stuff to correct me if I'm wrong, because the rent went up and.

And so we brought forward a bill, not that we formally introduced it, but we really want to build a movement around it to win this because we know that landlords will absolutely oppose it.

And at that time, even just talking about it publicly through a press conference and an organizing meeting, I know already elicited corporate landlord anger.

that landlords should pay, you know, economic assistance to the tenants who are forced to move because they chose to increase the rent.

And it's punitive because of the amount of rent they're able to increase.

Completely.

And I think that it's also retaliatory for tenants that have just cause protection.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

That's totally right.

So Terry, thank you so much for being here today.

We definitely are hoping you can join us in future committees.

And as I said, my staff will contact you offline about the other bills as well, because we really need input and we need sort of this kind of thing where different activists in different cities are collaborating and building movements together because that is what actually will help us

Oh, totally.

Thank you.

And thank you for your leadership.

And thank you for your right to counsel bill that you have in Seattle, which is awesome.

Better than what the state did.

So We look to Seattle for leadership in the state as well.

Thank you.

And really, the bottom line, Terry, the reason we won is because we organize the renters.

When you have politicians just doing insider negotiations, that's what happens.

Then they give in to corporate landlords, and we don't want to let that happen here.

That's why my office always insists on organizing renters, because that is the thing that the corporate landlords fear the most.

And you know, and I think that's what we have have been hoping, you know, we hope that now that just cause has passed, that month to month tenants will be organized as well.

That has totally prevented them from getting involved with a lot of organizing activities because of the fear of a 20 day notice that that's a, that's a huge fear.

Absolutely.

And likewise, Terry, please let the renters and activists in Spokane know that if my office is out there ready to help you all there, because whatever you can win only helps renters in Seattle.

So, you know.

Yes, thank you.

We don't want any intellectual property on either vaccines.

Oh, no, no.

We just want solidarity and working together and moving forward.

And I see that happening.

So thank you.

Thank you so much.

Yes, absolutely.

Solidarity and working together.

Yes.

Thank you all so much.

And I appreciate council members engaging on both bills.

And thank you for all the questions that came up.

And thank you to central staff members, Ali Pinocchi and Arsha Venkatraman.

With apologies to everyone, I wanted to quickly turn to our last but extremely important item because we're talking about the climate crisis that faces us.

And as I said before, we need to be sober about the fact that Seattle, like the rest of the world in this epoch of capitalism, is completely failing at this moment to make the investments needed to address the impending climate catastrophe and not for the lack of ordinary people Wanting it to be addressed and that's why I really thank our presenters were about to speak.

We know we need to rapidly electrify our cities infrastructure and we know it is going to require big investments in green infrastructure.

that can only be funded by substantial new big business taxes.

And I'm really hoping that this discussion, even though it won't encompass all the things we need to talk about, it will be a discussion that will be part of hopefully ongoing discussions, but not just discussion, but discussion followed by action and organizing.

Many of the presenters here, of course, are themselves very experienced with being organizers and leaders on the streets, street movements.

And I personally have worked with many of them So I wanted to welcome you all.

We have Matt, Rachel, Debolina, Deepa, and Jess.

I wanted to welcome you all together.

If you want to all, you know, each of you introduce yourself and then do your presentation, I wanted to leave it to you.

Welcome.

Thank you.

We'll go ahead and do quick introductions.

And then I believe Ted, you'll be running the slide presentation for us.

My name's Matt Remley.

I live in District 2 in South Beacon Hill.

And I am the co-founder of Mazaska Talks.

I sit on the steering committee of Stop the Money Pipeline and was recently nominated to sit on Seattle's Green New Deal Advisory Committee.

And very happy to be here.

And if I can deviate just quickly, it made my heart feel so good to see, I don't know if she left, but Terri Anderson speaking on here, her and I.

worked together back in the 90s and early 2000s on some regional environmental justice issues, bringing together tribes, farm workers, and urban communities to fight on this very issue that we're talking about today.

So saying hello to Terry.

So I'll pass to Devalina, Deepa, Jess, whoever wants to go next.

I can go.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I'm Debolina Banerjee.

I use she, her pronouns.

I'm a policy and research analyst with Puget Sound SAGE.

And I was with the city's Equity and Environment Initiatives Committee, so the Environmental Justice Committee, completed a full term over there for three years, and now just recently nominated and confirmed for the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

And I pass it on to Deepa.

Thank you, Devalina.

I'm Deepa Subrachan.

I use she, her pronouns, and I'm the Washington Policy Manager at Climate Solutions.

Thanks all and hello.

My name is Jess Wallach.

I use she her pronouns.

I live in District 6 and I'm also an organizer with 350 Seattle and recently appointed to the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

Thanks for having us here.

I should have mentioned, Rachel, unfortunately, could not be here with us today.

She too was recently nominated to sit on the Green New Deal Advisory Board.

She works with the Culture Department with the Muckleshoot Tribe, but she had other obligations.

Apologies on behalf of Rachel.

Thank you Councilmember Sawant and to all the other Councilmembers for the opportunity to share a little bit about the super important necessary work of moving forward with our Seattle Green New Deal.

I am honored to be working alongside the other presenters here today who are going to touch on kind of the variety of The different kind of subject areas or that we need to, to look at while addressing the green new deal, ranging from transportation, housing, you know, council member already mentioned electrification and as well as the need for mass investment into the Green New Deal.

We don't really need to spend the time going over the sort of details of where we're at with the climate crisis.

I think we're all quite knowledgeable in that area at this point.

We saw from OSC last council, last time we gathered that Seattle's emissions are actually going up.

And so we need some bold action in moving forward to meet our goals to reducing Seattle's greenhouse gas emissions.

And I think I'm gonna start off with Deb Alina is gonna kick us off in energy justice.

Thank you, Matt.

And I want to acknowledge the fact that we are not a whole board over here.

So speaking for myself, whatever I talk about today will mostly be some of the learnings that Sage had through our work and the priorities that we have been working on up to hearing from communities.

So We energy, you know, its source form and and the energy industry has always been a major piece in addressing climate change and, you know, last year 2020 brought out the injustice in the energy sector out in the open for a lot of people who are not plugged into these.

conversations and in the movement.

We at SAGE started working on energy justice since 2019 through our research with the community members to explore what it means to do energy policy in a racially just way.

To us, it means we lead with what is important for our people.

It means we don't get distracted by fancy new technology, but start by addressing the disproportionate energy burdens and historic inequities first.

It means we think of democratic processes to lay out energy policies, not chase after false solutions like fracked gas that could only worsen our problems and instead think about energy policies in terms of transportation justice, housing justice, food justice, economic justice, workers' rights, ultimately a just transition funded by progressive revenue.

And what you see on this slide is some climate concerns that have stayed the same since our first research on climate in 2015. And the priorities have all stayed the same.

And then we've listed some recommendations over here that we heard from the community members.

Can we go to the next slide, please?

So here, the communities that we talked to in our research powering the transition are a majority BIPOC and mostly non-English speaking.

They came from households within the income bracket of 10K to 50K per year, while in 2018 the AMI for Seattle was 95K.

And we also had 35% community members who were disabled.

That means they were constantly relying on energy for assistive devices or medicines, all of that.

We conducted surveys, listening sessions and interviews to collect the data.

And what we learned is rising energy prices.

So people are really concerned about that.

And low-income households, they seek to cut down on their necessities, whether it's rent, mortgage, food, medicine, to afford their energy bills.

They face so much of barriers in benefiting from the low-income energy assistance programs.

And this is not just Seattle.

It is South Seattle and South King County.

I just wanted to be transparent about the geographic area over here.

Some of the things that we learned is that, you know, increasing enrollment 200% of eligible households is really important right now within Seattle.

I think we have like 75% or so, increasing that 200% increasing all the bill assistance programs accessibility.

Improving community outreach and also expanding energy efficiency retrofit programs, pairing them with anti-displacement policies as well were some of the recommendations that we heard.

Next slide, please.

And we can't talk about energy justice without talking about transportation.

It plays a huge role.

Energy plays a huge role in transportation and then also to housing, which Jess will talk more about.

And what we heard is that People really wanted the city to focus on public transit.

Single occupancy vehicles and electric vehicles, which again, single occupancy ones, they featured last on their priority list.

So shifting our focus from individual vehicles to mode choice, offering mode choice was important.

Electrification of public transit, reducing public transit pairs to improve accessibility, increasing more options, as I said, and again, pairing transit investments with anti-displacement strategies.

Because you see, We cannot reduce greenhouse gas emissions if we are talking about it, if our people who are mostly transit dependent are pushed outside of the transit areas, places where we have more transit options, and they end up driving.

So that is not a logical step.

Increasing more transit options is what we should be thinking about.

And that's what we heard from our community members.

Majority low-income community members tend to 30,000 per annum.

income, they were the ones who relied mostly on transit.

And with this, I'll pass it on to Jess.

Thank you.

I think Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, you're up, Matt, you're up back to me.

Thank you.

My apologies.

Oh, no, no, no need to apologize at all.

And In keeping along the theme of energy and deep is going to go a little bit deeper into electrification here shortly, but one of the things that I know for those of us here working together and with within our.

kind of broader coalitions that we really hope in as Seattle moves forward with its efforts either at electrification or towards meeting its greenhouse gas emission reductions that it take a sort of intersectional analysis approach to its policies.

So for example currently The fracked gas that Seattle gets through Puget Sound Energy, Puget Sound Energy purchases, and this is according to Puget Sound Energy themselves, the bulk of the natural or fracked gas that they purchase comes from fracked sites predominantly in British Columbia.

and Alberta, and to a lesser extent, into the Rocky Mountain region.

And so in the pictures that you see on there, the top photo are fracking sites coming out of British Columbia.

The majority of these fracking sites up in BC and Alberta take place on or near First Nations communities.

And so this is kind of what we mean in terms of an intersectional analysis that it's not just that the oil, or excuse me, the gas that we use here in Seattle contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, but it has a direct impact on the communities from where Puget Sound Energy is purchasing from.

I encourage, especially when we move into looking at the fossil fuel study that will be discussed, I believe in a few weeks, that we also look at Canada's inquiry that they released a number of years ago into the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

I would like to acknowledge Council Member Juarez for all her leadership and work on this particular issue.

But these very same fracking sites that we're getting our gas from are highlighted in this inquiry as sort of epicenters for the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women.

The photo right below that fracking site, those are man camps.

And that's actually one of the man camps located up in British Columbia near the fracking site.

And these man camps are notorious for the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Go ahead, Ted, and go to the next slide.

One of the things, as Council Member Sawat mentioned, is the need to look into investments into green infrastructure.

I've had the privilege to be sitting on the design team with Seattle Public Utilities for their 50-year Shape Our Water Plan.

And this is something that that SPU is absolutely looking into.

And we came across this innovative a company out of Oregon who has developed water turbines.

And we've got a short couple minute clip here just to mix things up.

I don't have the video cued up.

I apologize.

We'll have to do it in the future.

No problem.

Essentially what it is, and feel free to copy and paste the link and watch on your own, but they are turbines that you install directly into drinking and or wastewater pipelines.

And what you're seeing in that top picture is the turbine itself, and you have yourself a 24-7 source of renewable greenhouse gas free energy that can be put onto the grid and hopefully phase out the, I think, I believe Seattle's at 30% of our energy comes from fossil fuels.

Places like Portland, up and down the west coast from Oregon through California have begun installing these in their water pipelines and other countries around the world from South Africa and some European countries.

So go ahead and go to the next slide, Ted.

And lastly, as has been mentioned a few times now, you know, everybody knows kind of the issue, the problem.

We know we need to reduce Seattle's greenhouse gas emissions, but there really needs to be an investment into the the infrastructure, whether it be renewable energy sources, transportation, housing, etc.

So as Council Member Sawant already mentioned, you know, an increase into the Amazon Jumpstart Tax.

This slide was from when it was passed over the summertime and currently nine percent is slated for a Green New Deal.

We We know we're absolutely going to need that and more to meet Seattle's goals of greenhouse gas emissions reduction.

And I'll pass over to Jess.

Thanks, Matt and Dabalina.

Ted, if I could get the next slide, that'd be great.

Maybe while it's switching over I just want to acknowledge that yeah we're not a whole board here today so I'm speaking on behalf of 350 Seattle and lifting up priorities and solutions that we're excited to dig into the full Green New Deal Oversight Board when we begin meeting this summer.

But as you all can see from the slide I want to talk about affordable housing.

Seattle's housing crisis is pushing folks out of the city and all this extra driving is literally driving up our climate pollution.

As we heard from OSC last month transportation is already our number one source of greenhouse gas emissions and it only gets worse as folks are displaced.

And that displacement is not equal across the board.

People of color and low-income folks are pushed out first and furthest.

And overwhelmingly young people who stay are rent burdened with over 40 percent of folks under 35 paying a third or more of their income in rent.

A history of racist policies like redlining and exclusionary zoning have concentrated this displacement risk in communities of color.

And just like the climate crisis Seattle's housing crisis hits communities of color and poor people first and worst.

So that's where we're starting.

If I could get the next slide please.

The good news is it doesn't have to be that way.

When we can all live in the places where we work go to school shop and connect with our communities we drive less which means our climate pollution slows and our climate resilience grows.

This bar chart on the left shows how for San Francisco, which is a city of similar size to Seattle, urban infill or building more housing has huge potential to reduce climate pollution.

It's an essential climate strategy.

And when we invest in citywide union built affordable housing, we can create thousands of good jobs and build for our clean energy future.

Perhaps most importantly, we reduce our climate pollution while building resilience.

That's because keeping communities in place protects the community connections that can make a life or death difference through crises like COVID-19, but also heat waves and wildfire smoke that keep coming back year after year.

That said, as Dabolina talked about in the community-based research that Puget Sound SAGE and Got Green have done, it's not enough to talk about housing alone, because affordable housing, if it displaces communities, that undermines our efforts to reduce pollution and build resilience.

So we also have to be talking about anti-displacement strategies whenever we're talking about affordable housing.

Things like community controlled development and land trusts that keep folks thriving in place.

And we want to couple housing with community-led investments for healthy resilient neighborhoods so that our neighbors can meet their basic needs.

Things like food child care community connection places to play and shop getting to work or school and do that with an easy and safe walk bus or bike ride.

These are all things that reduce our climate pollution and they make our lives better.

If I could grab the next slide.

Oh, that's interesting.

It looks blank for me.

And we had a transition.

How fancy.

Cool.

So y'all can see this is a great graphic from the Sightline Institute and showing how Portland innovated to make more and more affordable options for housing.

Portland is just one of many cities that's tackling climate pollution and the housing crisis by expanding what's possible.

We can learn from what worked when it comes to rezoning in cities like Minneapolis, Austin, and Vancouver, BC.

And we can also learn a lot from community-led development projects like the Homestead Community Land Trust here, or the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative in Oakland.

I also wanted to share this as a great example of what affordable housing could look like and how many options we have for density if we think about filling in existing neighborhoods in addition to the upzoning or building up model that we have right now with the urban villages.

So I just want to close out and share from my own experience as an individual as well as a representative and community organizer for 350 Seattle and what I'll be bringing to the oversight board.

I'm a renter like 54 percent of Seattle residents I live in Green Lake near the commercial center and what my roommates and I jokingly call the up house like where this old falling down house that's surrounded by big new apartment buildings that rent for double what we pay.

And when our house inevitably gets sold for development we'll have to leave the neighborhood where we've been rooted for years.

This is my home but I live here with this lurking question of how long can I stay.

And I'm not alone.

The Seattle Times reported recently that 45 percent of Seattle Millennials think they'll have to move somewhere cheaper to afford the life they want even though nearly all would prefer to stay in Seattle.

So to bring it all full circle when young folks when poor folks when folks of color move out of the city because we can't afford to live here we still come back for work for school for our families for our communities.

And all that extra driving is driving up climate pollution.

And it makes us less resilient in the face of climate chaos.

Things like heat waves and wildfire smoke because those critical community connections have been displaced and disrupted.

The choices that we make today will shape our city for decades to come.

Seattle needs housing and a citywide build-out of affordable housing coupled with strong anti-displacement measures and investments in healthy resilient neighborhoods is a powerful Green New Deal solution.

I'll pass it over to Deepa.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

And thank you, Ted, for moving to the next slide.

Yes, so first, I just wanted to mention that I, as well, I'm actually not on the Green New Deal Oversight Board, so I will be speaking on behalf of Climate Solutions.

So I just wanted to finish by kind of tying everything together into a specific issue.

You know, we heard from Evelina about energy justice and from Matt about the dangers of direct gas and from Jess about affordable housing.

And building electrification is one of the ways in which we can address some part of all of these issues.

Since once we build housing that is meant for folks of all communities to be able to live in, we also want to know that those buildings are clean and safe for them to stay in.

So first off, building electrification is responding to the fact that we need to stop using fossil fuels to heat and power our buildings.

As you will have heard from the Seattle GHG inventory, The building emissions have been rising per year and we're currently not on track as a city to meet our goals for reductions of building emissions by 2030. Buildings are the second highest, as you can see in this graph, the second highest source of emissions in Seattle.

They're also the fastest growing source statewide.

And that's largely due to the use of fossil fuels like fracked gas and oil that do continually heat and power our buildings.

We also have the benefit in Seattle of having really, really clean electricity.

Seattle's light has 95% clean electricity and offsets the rest by purchasing allowances.

And in Washington as a whole, we are moving towards cleaner electricity sources because of the 2019 Clean Energy Transformation Act.

So it's really crucial that we stop using these fossil fuels and shift over into the source of energy that is actually going to be clean and renewable.

Next slide, please.

And similarly to what the Molina mentioned at the beginning, air pollution is a big concern for using fracked gas in our buildings.

And this is true both indoors and outdoors.

Combusting gas releases dangerous pollutants that I've mentioned here, which have a number of respiratory, cardiovascular, neurological impacts.

So some of the stats are that children who grow up in a home with a gas stove where pollutants are coming and harming our indoor air pollution, children who grow up in those homes have a 42% increased risk of experiencing asthma symptoms.

And this pollution, of course, is also contributing to outdoor air pollution.

Washington's residential appliances released more than two times as much nitrous oxide as all of Washington's gas power plants combined.

There really are significant impacts.

Firstly, I want to frame this in saying that air pollution disproportionately impacts Black, Indigenous, Asian, and Latinx communities, as well as low-income communities due to, as some of the folks have mentioned, historical legacies of redlining and segregation that have force these communities into areas with worse air pollution.

Those communities also have less access to the health care once they are experiencing health impacts from air pollution.

And this has only gotten worse during the COVID crisis, where we've all heard about the disproportionate burden of COVID on those communities, and where small increases in exposure to these pollutants is actually correlated with a higher death rate from COVID.

This last year, I think, has been a stark reminder of how much we need to make sure that our pollution is reduced.

Next slide, please.

There's also the safety risk, and I have some stats here, but I actually wanted to, I think there's a really interesting framing if you think about what Matt was saying about man camps and the fracked gas sites and methane flaring.

a way to think about safety along a whole gas pipeline, you have those risks and also risk to the workers themselves of working in fracked sites that start at the point of extraction.

Then you have the transmission of gas through these huge pipelines that go underneath First Nations and indigenous communities and have risks of leaks that can contaminate the water supply.

You have the risk also at the fractus site of earthquakes.

And then you have the risk at the point of use when gas goes into distribution pipelines and has risk of leaking or causing fires or explosion in neighborhoods.

So, excuse me.

We've heard, you know, we recently had a fire underground in the Central District that caused required evacuations to make sure that everyone was safe.

In Seattle, we had the Greenwood explosion in 2016. And I also want to note that we're always at risk of another gas leaker explosion, even though we hear about kind of the individual cases where that happens.

We looked at the 911 records that are openly available for Seattle and a resident calls 911 an average of every three days about a suspected gas leaker odor, which is especially remarkable considering that most gas customers would call their utility first and would only call 911 sort of in an emergent situation.

So gas really is an issue of safety and earthquake risk also makes us particularly vulnerable because highly pressurized gas pipelines run a risk of exploding during earthquakes And on the other side of any kind of disaster, electricity is much easier to restore than a broken pipeline in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

Next slide please.

So the good news is that electrification is a solution that provides a lot of benefits.

It includes technologies that are readily available in the market these days and that are more and more affordable.

And this study from the Rocky Mountain Institute shows that all electric buildings in Seattle can save money, both upfront and across the life cycle of 15 years and can save, in a new home, 28 tons of CO2 emissions over a 15-year period.

I also want to tie this back to what Debolina was saying at the beginning about energy burdens on residents, especially who live in homes that have not been weatherized or have appliances that are not efficient.

Currently, electricity is more expensive than natural gas as an energy source on our bills.

The appliances that we have, the high-efficiency heat pumps and heat pump hot water heaters, save so much energy that we are going to be seeing savings on our energy bills, and especially that'll go down even more as more and more people come onto the grid with all-electric homes.

And finally, the Clean Energy Transformation Act also requires that low-income folks can receive assistance for their heating bills if they use electricity, while gas customers don't have any similar protection.

So there's a lot of great good news in terms of the costs and how we can save money.

This is mostly speaking about new buildings.

There's going to be different conversations certainly for existing buildings, but even for existing buildings, those energy bill benefits will hold.

Next slide, please.

So I just wanted to finish talking a little bit about some of the policies and current efforts of electrification.

In California, we've seen a number of cities who have passed ordinances to require 100% clean new buildings.

And of course, Seattle, we are really pleased to note that Seattle passed a commercial energy code update in January that did this essentially for commercial and large multifamily buildings, but we need to make sure that's extended to all new buildings.

We need to make sure that public utilities have the ability to offer incentives for switching from gas or oil to electricity.

That's actually currently a state level problem but we're really happy that the city of Seattle has continuously advocated for that at the state level.

And the big question we need to think about funding for existing building retrofits because There is, we are going to need to provide direct support probably to our BIPOC and loan communities to be able to fund those.

And we're also going to need to think about incentives or rebates for other homeowners who may be able to afford it, but we want to incentivize them to do so.

I'm going to skip the rest of these because I know we're short on time, but there is a lot of movement happening on restricting gas and electrifying buildings.

At the same time, we need bolder action.

We need to make sure that we are on track to actually meet our building emissions goals that we set years ago.

So I'll just close there.

Thank you so much for the time.

Thank you all.

I'm really impressed by the amount of ground you all covered in such a short time.

And those were very, very well laid out slides.

And we're going to be really delighted to share it with you know, broader group of people who may not be tuned into this committee right now because it's during work hours, but who would be very interested in this information.

And I think you all have acknowledged very important aspects of how climate crisis touches people's lives in different ways.

And just one of the points I appreciated was from Debolina about how, you know, public, Focusing on public transit is not only an energy justice and a climate justice issue, but when you look at the statistics, focusing on expanding public transit is what's needed to address the climate crisis as a whole.

And so clearly, it shows that those two goals are not in conflict with one another.

Addressing the climate crisis as a whole goes very much hand in hand with focusing on energy justice, because that's where the most immediate problems lie.

And there's no question that that needs to be done.

And in fact, it is really about scale.

I mean, it's not about having to question, I mean, having to convince ordinary people they need to use public transit.

We've seen through the statistics that actually people want to use it.

The question is, what are the options available?

And so it has to be expanded.

And I really agree with Matt and others that we need bold solutions.

And one of the things I just wanted to also draw out, which, of course, our present presenters know that what we learned from the greenhouse gas emissions report that which the committee reviewed last month that Matt referenced, that gas, such as fracked gas and oil, account for 45% of energy used to heat and cool Seattle buildings.

So that's good.

But they account for a staggering 91% of building emissions.

And that was reported by the Office of Sustainability and Environment.

And the OSC report also noted that Seattle has to reduce building transportation and other forms of pollution.

at 17 times the current reduction rate over the next nine years to be able to reach the city's 2030 pollution reduction goals, which are not ambitious.

I mean, they're the bare minimum that's necessary.

I mean, I think in the beginning it used to be talked about as ambitious, but we're talking about survival here.

So this is the bare minimum that's necessary that needs to be done.

And so I think all of this is pointing towards the scale at which the solutions need to happen, bold, as you all have said, and as I completely agree.

But the problem is that it's not happening right now.

And it's not just the city of Seattle.

On the state level, the failure to act is the same Democratic Governor Janesley has talked loudly about combating climate change.

But we now know that statewide greenhouse gases increased in 2018 and remained essentially level in the last decade.

And so you've shown a number of important priorities here, very exciting, really, and something that will actually unite community members, working people together.

But given the reality that greenhouse gases are not declining right now, and the fact that we are headed not in the right direction, but over the climate change cliff, tell us a little about the scale of bold action that you think our movement needs to be demanding, both from the city and the state.

who should pay for the necessary investments.

And again, this is not both a question of justice, but also a question of what is actually going to happen.

Like if you want to reach the scale of the action we need, then who needs to pay for it?

And then specifically, what is the responsibility of Amazon and other major corporations, but not just Amazon.

I mean, there's many other profitable corporations who have reaped millions during the pandemic.

What is their obligation to pay for the investments we need?

And how do you think, in your view, how can we begin to get there?

Is somebody planning to respond?

That's a tough question, which I think is why we're all sitting here.

And I don't mean to put you on the spot.

Obviously, it's a matter of discussion, obviously.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'll just chime in and say that I think I don't have an answer necessarily on who has to pay, although it absolutely cannot be community members who are in the communities that are most at risk.

It has to be support from the government and through some kind of progressive revenue.

But I do think that having a number of paired policies that are addressing these issues of affordable housing and anti-displacement together and weatherization and electrification and solar ready houses like all of these things have to be going together because they are all they're all similar goals and we have to make sure that they're not pitted against each other.

I think one of the things that we faced in conversations around electrification is is builders saying well that'll mean we can't build a vertical house.

because the costs of buildings are going to rise.

And we need to stand firm and say, you know what, the benefits of a house without gas need to be there for affordable units as well.

We can't have these be priorities that are pitted against each other.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you, Deepa.

Oh, and I'm sorry for jumping in, but yeah, we in terms of the financing and funding, I think we are all super conscious that it does it.

the burden can't be placed on working families, period, and that progressive revenue in whatever form that can come.

I mean, I personally would love to see an increase of the big business tax.

I apologize, I'm still at work, so we got our janitorial certain in the background if I'm getting drowned out, but, you know, that would be one potential solution to look at.

And I'll add that I think we have opportunities to continue, um, you know, making sure that any federal stimulus funds, specifically for infrastructure investments, um, or economy building priorities, like as that moves to local governments that we're making really strategic investments that are at the intersections of like everyday needs in our communities and reducing climate pollution.

I think everything we've talked about here tonight, whether it's energy justice or affordable housing, or just making sure that the air that we breathe every day is clean.

These are all things that take care of our communities now and like build up build towards a healthy climate future.

So, you know, thinking about how do we maximize those investments as we see federal stimulus funds is going to be really important.

And I think a near term opportunity for Seattle.

Just echoing what everyone said, and I also wanted to elevate what Matt said around progressive revenue.

Currently, at least in Washington state, low-income communities are paying more than their share.

We have a sales tax, we do not have an income tax.

and it is disproportionate to say the least.

Echoing also the stimulus funds and where they need to go, which targeted communities they need to actually be invested in, that needs to be looked at.

I had another point in my mind and I'm totally blanking out.

Yeah, I'm totally blanking out, but yeah, I will remember later on.

Absolutely.

Oh, yes.

Oh, yes.

Oh, yes.

Now I remember.

So there are quite a few policies that come to us, EJ communities.

And a lot of those policies suggest revenue systems which are based on the same extractive mechanisms as Very publicly, Puget Sound Sage has come out against the cap-and-trade policy that got passed in this state, and we do not think that that's again a system where revenues will be collected by extracting, letting fossil fuel industries get away with polluting, and then bringing that revenue into investment in other infrastructure, right?

Thinking about progressive revenue systems over those kind of extractive revenue systems is something that would be more important for me and for SAGE.

Absolutely.

I think that's very important.

We need progressive revenue systems, not be extractive.

And I think the terminology really captures the difference.

in how the extraction and exploitation that the most marginalized communities and working people as a whole face is on so many fronts.

I mean, it's our natural resources, it's the land, and, you know, the same thing is happening in so many countries.

This isn't, obviously, it's a global issue, but you can see the land grab happening in so many countries.

communities in India, for example, you know, our home country, it's so many communities have been devastated because the places where they've been for generations have been taken away from them because of the need to extract.

And it's an endless need under capitalism to extract natural resources over and over again, and it never ends.

And that A picture that you had, Matt, of the fracking sites, that was really evocative.

And the connection between that and the man camps and just the horrendous situation that women and girls especially, but the indigenous community as a whole is facing, all of that is sort of bringing that together also with the public safety issues with having gas plants.

I mean, it's stunning.

I mean, we've heard, and you all have heard me quote this because I used this in the last committee, but one of the workers who inspects the gas lines has told us personally that it is scary for the workers there also because a lot of this is not maintained because a profit I mean, a company that is prioritizing profit wants to do the bare minimum and they maybe don't break the law, but the fact is they don't do anywhere near enough that they need to do to keep things safe in general.

But of course, even if they were doing the most perfect inspections and replacements and redundancy, whatever, which they are not, even if they did, just the idea of having gas lines is pretty, I mean, it's really scary.

And so the The advocacy for full electrification is so crucial.

I want to ask, I want to respect everyone's time.

I know we've been here for a while and I wanted to also invite council members to ask or make comments, but just one other question before.

Before I call on council members, we should also, of course, meet and you all have talked about just transition.

Obviously, we need to talk about the Green New Deal in the context of jobs as well.

And I'm not saying that I'm not expecting that you should have an answer today.

And, you know, obviously, as I said before, this is a question of, you know, really having a discussion in our in our community, in our movements.

But would your organizations, and maybe Deepa from Climate Solutions, maybe this might be something that you might be able to provide some insight in addition to Sage and others is, would your organizations be able to develop an estimate of how many jobs could be created or supported if the city were to move gas customers onto electricity?

Yeah, I can, I can take that first.

Um, I think that actually we have some some great information from the from OEDs fossil fuel transition study that just came out.

I can't remember if it's actually estimated the number of jobs that would be created and that's certainly something that we could look into.

I do, I think that they had some really great conclusions about both on recommendations in terms of how to how to make this transition just and on how to increase access for for people of color and women in the workforces of clean energy because the clean energy jobs that are being created now are disproportionately white men that are occupying them.

And so, yeah, there's a way that we need to be able to ensure access to both retraining and apprenticeship opportunities for folks of color and folks and women.

I'll just add too that one of the things to think about in regards to workforce development is how many I think when we think about workforce development, we think specifically of how many jobs are going to be lost from fossil fuel industries, how many are going to be created from clean energy jobs.

But the job losses from the impacts of climate change are not accounted for.

And so we really need to think about this holistically and think about how much of an impact climate change is already having on our workers and our residents.

But yeah, to answer your question, I think, yeah, that's something we can look into, certainly.

That would be really great.

That would because that's a concrete thing that we can present.

And I think I don't know if we can do the similar thing with the point that I think it was just a bit, but maybe I'm mistaken.

One of you talked about in terms of housing when the contractors will tell you, well, if you electrify, it'll increase the cost.

I think, obviously, the question of profit versus people is the question.

But I think there are studies that show that actually on the whole, It really, if you look at the, if you, if you don't treat environmental causes and externality but as as the actual cost of the community.

In fact, it is much much better to do electrifying it's I mean that that that argument from contractors that reminds me of.

bosses who say, you know, well, we can't have our workers unionized because our costs will go up.

Well, too bad.

Maybe your profits will go down.

But we need to do this for workers.

Similarly, for the community, we need to electrify.

This needs to be done.

And the cost should not be put on working people.

who maybe rent or if they're well off enough to buy an apartment, but they're not billionaires.

So I think those points are important.

And the statistics that you can get us, Deepa, that would be really beneficial.

Go ahead.

Yeah, thank you.

I did want to let folks know we will be presenting the fossil fuel study report in my committee.

We had hoped to hear that report.

I think it was in March, maybe even February, but we realized or the department realized that.

There was a sector missing from the study on the impacts of jobs and what kind of jobs should be included.

So we had to kind of send them back to the drawing board on that.

But we will be hearing that in committee May 18th, and I'm looking forward to being able to draw the lines, connect the dots here for some of the things that you've been talking about.

I was also wondering if you are able to make your presentation available.

It's not on the agenda and we'd love to be able to review it and get back to you with more questions.

We'll definitely put it up as well and make sure that that happens.

And yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

I don't see a hands up or virtual hands up by other council members.

Obviously, this is a huge issue and I have lots of questions and comments and, you know, points for discussion, but I don't want to hold people up endlessly.

Presenters, did you all want to make some closing comments before we close?

Sure, I'll be brief.

Just thank all of you for the opportunity to share today and I look forward to working with all of you on some of these bold ideas and efforts moving forward.

Thank you.

And we look forward to connecting with you both offline and in the upcoming committees of the Sustainability and Renters Act Committee.

And I think concrete things of what to move forward.

And I think Deepa, you made an important point that it should not be this.

We don't have the time to be sequential.

We need a lot of these things to be moving very quickly.

public transit expansion, electrification, all of that, affordable housing expansion, all of that is necessary and urgent.

I really wanted to thank you all for your patience, especially you presenters, because you had to wait for the other items to be done.

But obviously in my mind, they're not separate because renters' rights go along with climate justice as well.

And just you talked about being a renter yourself and how it's always looming on the horizon for renters that we don't have housing stability just because of the way things are.

That does relate to the climate crisis because then you get pushed farther off.

And then that leads to carbon emissions and in the face of not having full public transit expansion.

So there's these tentacles everywhere.

So I really appreciate you all for your patience and for all the knowledge you've shared.

And I appreciate council members.

Staying through the whole committee.

I know it was not the shortest committee, but sometimes this has to happen because these are important issues to discuss.

And I look forward to coming back to some of these items.

And I wanted to end by saying that we need those bold solutions urgently.

Really appreciate everyone's time and patience.

And there are no other comments.

I will go ahead and adjourn the meeting.

Thank you all so much.