Greetings and good morning.
This is the first committee meeting of 2019. Happy New Year, everybody.
This is the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, and Arts Committee.
I'm Lisa Herbold.
I am the chair of the committee and council member representing West Seattle and South Park.
calling this meeting to order.
It is now 9.36 a.m.
And just to go over today's agenda very quickly, we will begin with public comment.
We'll hear a number of appointments.
One, a new appointment to the Seattle Human Rights Commission.
And then two reappointments, both to the Seattle Arts Commission.
We'll hear a presentation and briefing on a potential proposal to address the need for closed captioning accessibility in public accommodations, as well as a discussion and briefing on a proposed draft eviction prevention resolution laying out a work plan for the council for the upcoming months to address some of the issues that have been identified by the Seattle Women's Commission in their report, Losing Home.
With that, I just want to make note also that our next meeting will be on Friday, January 25th, because of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday on Monday the 21st.
The council briefing place will take place on Tuesday at our regular time.
An important thing to note is that the meeting on the 25th of January will actually begin at 9, I'm sorry, 10 a.m.
instead of 9.30 a.m.
because of the closure of the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the direction from the council president that meetings of the council during that three-week period before the tunnel opens will begin at a slightly later time to allow workers in the city as well as participants in the meeting from the public to sort of commute at an alternative time to the normal rush hour, sort of spreading out the commute.
So with that, we'll move right into public comment.
And we have 16 people signed up.
And I will read two names into the record, both Mike's work.
Keep an eye on Noel.
He'll be keeping time.
And folks have two minutes to speak.
And Noel will let you know both when you have a minute's left time, as well as 30 seconds less time, and finally, when your time is up.
So with that.
Mindy Lee followed by Alex Zimmerman.
Hi, Mindy Lee.
I am representing Puget Sound's Advocates for Retirement Action.
And we are a big group, about 1,300 people across the state.
And I want to thank you for addressing this issue.
It is imperative that we start to do something now.
And it's extremely hard for seniors.
For example, when I had to move my mom out of her house, She actually went into her bedroom and wouldn't come out because when you disrupt, especially seniors, when you disrupt their lives like that, it is a catastrophe and it can really harm their health.
And so when I moved her into an apartment, her memory was going, her health was going, she would forget to pay bills.
She would get letters in the mail that say, if you sign this document, we'll send you $1,000.
And I kept having to say, no, mom, this is not, it will not do that.
So my point is.
If you're going to start looking at evicting people, you can't just do it for no reason.
And that's one of the things you guys are talking about.
You need to look at the reasons why the person has not paid their rent, or if there's a health issue, or, and then once the eviction process starts, the bills start piling up because of the court costs, to the gets the point where the person cannot even pay those bills, and then they are evicted.
And to try to move my mom again would be absolutely horrendous.
I think she would probably end up in a hospital.
And that's not something that we want.
Seattle is not like that.
We're a compassionate organization.
And I really hope that this is the place that it starts is in Seattle, that you and the other council members understand that we need to reform this.
Thank you.
Alex Zimmerman will be followed by Matthew Lang.
Sieg Heil, my dirty Fuhrer, anti-Semite and cretina.
My name is Alexey Merman, and I want to speak about eviction.
In 96, I bring biggest class action housing discrimination in state Washington history, behalf of 500 families.
And I win this after eight years.
Cost company $3 million, not too much.
I have six eviction, and each time I go to court, and each time judge make me guilty.
It's very unique situation, very unique situation.
So I am an expert in this territory for last 25, 30 years.
What is I know?
So my proposition about your resolution is good.
It's good like masturbation.
You know what this mean?
What is you doing every day?
Yeah.
Masturbation is good, but not enough.
It's good for feel happy.
So my proposition for many years, very simple.
We have, for example, right now, 11% empty apartment is approximately from 10 to 15,000 apartment empty staying for months.
So, My proposition is very simple.
You did this many times in different directions.
10% taxes for one month for every empty apartment.
Good?
Good for everybody.
Everybody wins.
Businesses win.
Owners win.
People win, city win, government win, America win, everybody win.
It's stopping eviction, it stabilizes prices, and prices go down.
That's it.
We will finish with housing forever.
Simple.
10% rent.
taxes for every month's empty apartment.
We have a thousand, thousand empty apartments.
This crook need be stopped.
Stand up America.
Clean this dirty chamber from this crook council.
Thank you.
Matthew Lang will be followed by Pauline Ben-Zinus.
Good morning.
My name is Matthew Lang.
I'm the lead organizer at the Transit Riders Union.
I don't often talk about some of the rough times that I had in Pittsburgh after college, but this issue really strikes home.
After the housing crisis, I felt it was necessary to strike it out on my own, so I cut myself off from my family and stayed in Pittsburgh.
In that time, I jumped in with two feet, didn't really have any life skills, and I was evicted three times.
Sometimes I found a couch.
Sometimes I slept in my car.
There was a time that I was sleeping in the attic of a restaurant I was working in.
and one time that I was sleeping in the storeroom of a grocery that I was working in.
I had some support systems in place, but still I found myself unsheltered sometimes.
I've done a lot of work in and sheltered encampments throughout Seattle, and I've seen what happens when the post goes up for encampment evictions.
And it's the same look that I saw in myself in the mirror when I received an eviction notice.
It's deeply traumatic, deeply grief-inducing, and something that paralyzes you.
When 37.5% of all those evicted are moving straight into being unsheltered, we are allowing for a deep trauma to be enacted on people.
We are opening people up to a continued cycle of trauma in the form of encampment evictions and being outside.
We talk about attacking root causes of oppression.
Well, here's one major cause.
I'm glad you're addressing it.
Please pass Council Member Herbold's resolution through this committee so that we can take the necessary steps to end the eviction to homeless pipeline.
and set our city on the right track.
Thank you.
Pauline will be followed by Carolyn Malone.
I think this is more my height.
Anyway, I'm Pauline Bansetas, also from the Transit Writers' Union, and my story is that for a long time, about 16 years, I was renting from a pretty nice place that's like City, and then I lost part of my...
and I was looking for a new place to live.
This was also after the property changed ownership and my rent went up four times in like 14 months, so it became difficult to keep it.
Fortunately, at that time, church friends offered to let me rent a room from their place, so that helped out.
But they eventually decided to split and, I had to find a new place and that's kind of how I wound up with slum landlord housing which eventually got closed down by the Seattle Health Department.
And I'm still kind of in that situation.
Fortunately, I've never actually been homeless, but I'm like, I'd say I'm like three feet or so from being homeless.
So it does kind of touch my heart.
And currently one of my housemates is having a problem.
I think he had some health issues, so he's kind of behind on his rent at our, I've been, trying to console him and tell him, well, if you do come up with some of the money, probably our landlord or manager will probably give you a break as long as you start coming up with some money.
So it's not hard at all to become homeless.
Thank you very much, and hopefully this will pass.
Following Carolyn Malone is Heidi Park.
I'm Carolyn Malone.
After four and a half years of involuntary homelessness, I applied for a Senior Sound Generation apartment in the Belltown Senior Center with referral support assistance from a senior center director.
I applied on September 27, 2018, submitted all necessary documents, and was led to believe I could move in within a week.
But after two and a half months of inexplicable delays, my application was denied.
Yet another individual obtained a unit within two days of the senior center.
This continuous denial of housing is directly related to the fraudulent cancellation of my driver's license and photo ID, to the destruction, impoundment, and confiscation of my VW Beetle, to the blocking of Seattle Times readers from assisting me with housing, to interference in my family contact, to constant threatening phone calls and wiretapping.
To the freezing blocking of my Facebook account.
To the constant threats and bullying from other homeless persons.
I've been attacked physically five times in shelters.
To presently injecting toxic irritants into my extended stay America hotel room causing burning in my eyes, nostrils, and throat to the nonstop surveillance and intimidation daily by corrupt white male CL cops instigated, orchestrated, and executed by Bender, Haskin, and Engstrom who are not in compliance with the Department of Justice.
My four and a half years of involuntary homelessness must end with your help in investigating these cops and others who are nothing less than these domestic terrorists who'd rather break the law than uphold them.
They hate homeless people.
I'm one of them.
I'm outspoken and they hate me.
And this is the Seattle article, May 27th.
2018 of my homelessness front page and yet cops continue to deny me housing.
Heidi Park will be followed by Wong Ting.
Good morning, Councilmembers Herbold and O'Brien.
Thank you for allowing us to speak on the, I'm talking about the eviction reform resolution.
I'm from the YWCA.
Our mission is to eliminate racism and empower women.
We advocate on public policy and budget matters that move us closer to becoming a just and thriving community.
We work closely with organizations like Washington Can, and we support Council Member Bold's resolution on eviction reform, and here's why.
Many of the clients that we serve are amongst Seattle's most vulnerable, including women like the one that you just heard earlier around being homeless and because of evictions.
We work a lot with African American or black women who are at the intersection of experiencing domestic violence or mental health issues or substance abuse issues.
And we just want to talk about how unpaid rent is the leading cause of eviction.
People of color are likelier to be evicted.
Eviction often leads to homelessness.
According to the report that you mentioned, Losing Home, a report from the Seattle Women's Commission and the Housing Justice Project, over half of the tenants were people of color compared to 30% of Seattle's total population, which is very comparable to the statistics that we have at YWCA for the people that we serve.
YWCA supports reducing evictions and homelessness and reforming the eviction process to give a tenant additional time to pay rent, allow courts to use discretion when a tenant fell behind in rent due to an emergency, limit the costs charged to tenants, and allow tenants more time to pay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Wan Ting will be followed by Ainsley Meyer.
Good morning.
My name is Yuan Ting.
I'm a staff attorney for King County Bar Association Housing Justice Project.
I provide legal advice for tenants with eviction-related issues on a daily basis.
During my practice, I'm shocked by how influential the law is to tenants.
I'm shocked tenants are evicted for failure to pay an extremely small amount.
I'm shocked how fast the entire eviction process can be resolved.
I am also shocked how evictions are disappropriately impact on households of color and gender.
I bought some copies of a 3-day notice and a complaint recently received by a tenant who lives in Ballard.
The tenant is evicted for failure to pay as low as $2 in rent.
I'm using this case as an example to show the committee how unfriendly the current law is to tenants.
Therefore, I support the resolution which will provide a more tenant-friendly law.
Thank you.
Ainsley Meyer will be followed by Michelle Dillon.
Hello, my name's Ainsley, and I work in the Advocacy Department for Real Change.
I'm here today to voice my support of your call for eviction reform.
If we as a city strive to be progressive and equitable, we need to look critically at the systems we have in place that contribute to the disenfranchisement of historically marginalized groups.
We know people of color in Seattle are being evicted at disproportionately high rates, and we know women are statistically more likely to be evicted over smaller amounts of money owed.
We know eviction from housing is causing harm in vulnerable communities.
In a survey cited in Losing Home, the Human Cost of Eviction in Seattle, 87.5% of evicted respondents reported they became homeless after being evicted.
As a city, we can hardly provide the care and services necessary for our neighbors that are currently experiencing homelessness.
So if we know eviction often leads to homelessness, we need to do what we can now to prevent more people from suffering.
Real Change supports this resolution and looks forward to fighting together with the community to pass comprehensive eviction reform here in Seattle.
Thank you.
Michelle Dillon will be followed by Dinah Rossio.
Hi.
My name is Michelle.
I've been a renter in Seattle for seven years.
In January 2017, the person with whom I was living left, refused to continue to pay rent on the lease on which they were signed, At the time, I was working four jobs, struggling to stay afloat.
I absolutely could not afford both shares of the rent in my position, so what was I supposed to do?
I knew vaguely of options, tenants unions, small claims court, but did I have the time for that?
Did I have the money for that?
The possibility of eviction loomed if I could not find an extra $1,000 for the next month or the month after that or the month after that.
I was lucky.
I was privileged.
I had a network to help me, friends who needed short-term places to crash who could help with rent as they apartment hunted themselves.
The cruel bind of that being, of course, that if I had had a less understanding landlord, that too could have been grounds for eviction.
My point is that life happens.
People lose jobs.
People have medical emergencies.
People need help.
especially if we're vulnerable groups in a city like Seattle.
We need stronger protections.
As I said, I'm privileged.
Evictions, being a sanction that disproportionately hit the most impoverished and marginalized groups, needs to be addressed now.
Help your neighbors keep their housing.
Protect renters and their futures.
Thank you for your consideration and your help.
Stop the eviction crisis.
Please pass Council Member Herbold's resolution.
Thank you.
Dinah Braccio will be followed by Amy Kangas.
Hi, my name is Dinah Braccio and I'm here from the Tenants Union.
Every day we speak with folks who are dealing with evictions, dealing with credit collections, dealing with the unfair legal system that we have created in this city and in this state around rental housing.
And we are very excited about the resolution today and look forward to working on solving this huge injustice.
Additionally, since I am here, I would like to offer a correction to Eric Gray's resume as it appears in the appointment packet.
As the board president of Emma Goldman Finishing School, I can assure you Eric is no longer affiliated with our organization.
Thank you.
Amy Kangas will be followed by Gina Owens.
Hello, my name is Amy Kangas, and I'm a social worker at the Housing Justice Project.
I previously worked as a property manager here in Seattle.
I'm here today to voice my support for this resolution, as I believe that we need better protections for tenants in Seattle.
There is an urgent need to address the homelessness crisis in Seattle.
As a social worker working with people facing homelessness and facing evictions, I see the detrimental impacts and human costs of these traumatic experiences.
This resolution is one way to address this.
Stronger tenant protections means that less tenants will be evicted, which means that we will have fewer people losing housing and becoming homeless.
Following Gina Owens, is Jason Morris.
Good morning, everybody.
And good morning to Lisa Herbold and Michael Bryan.
Thank you for being here today.
The resolution that is being proposed, I really appreciate it being done.
One of the things that is really true is that I have gone through homelessness myself.
It was in 2001, and I was in a car accident, so I was deemed disabled and no longer able to work.
In the time I was waiting for my social security to kick in, I was evicted.
The eviction process at that time took all of three weeks, less than a month.
And then I was thrown into a homeless cycle in Seattle for two and a half years.
I spent a lot of time in shelters and transitional programs waiting to regain my housing.
For me, it comes down to circumstances that people live through, very extenuating circumstances that are beyond their control.
And for that, the process is very harsh and very fast.
And then they're in this cycle of homelessness for years.
So that's a flaw that needs to really be considered.
And I'm glad that the resolution is coming forward from Lisa Herbold.
I'm hoping that the rest of the city council steps up like Michael Bryan is and supporting Lisa in her proposal.
So I just hope that The proposal is going to be strong enough that the laws will begin to work more humanely for residents and less for the pockets of the landlords and developers.
Thank you.
Following Jason Morris is Xochitl Makovic.
And I also want to just say that this proposal is not only my proposal, it is a jointly developed proposal with Council Member O'Brien, who I'd like to thank for joining me today.
Happy birthday, Gina.
Hello, my name is Jason Morris.
I am a first person advocate for people with disabilities.
I have developmental disabilities myself and language and reading and writing and also attention deficit and also dysgraphia.
So Close Captains is a great tool for me because I get to see the words, hear the words, and get to learn the language a lot faster and a lot better and retain the information a lot better.
And I appreciate you guys' leadership.
And I want to thank you for considering this and moving forward.
And if you have any questions for me, I'm always available.
Thank you so much.
And following Xochitl Maykowicz is Tanya Yesu.
Hi, my name is Xochitl Maykowicz and I'm with Washington CAN and also the Seattle Women's Commission and we are supportive of the resolution because it is absolutely critical to reform the eviction process if we want to actually address the homelessness crisis.
Seattle likes to think of itself as being very progressive and groundbreaking, but whenever we have states like South Carolina that have better options for tenants, and I can say that as someone from the South, when a state like South Carolina has better options for tenants, I think we need to do some serious reevaluating of our system.
And so I urge the council to pass this resolution quickly because we need to take urgent action.
And also just wanted to say happy birthday to Gina.
And Tanya will be our last speaker.
Yes, Tanya Yasu, Seattle Women's Commissioner.
And I want to just say thank you.
Greetings and good day, one and all.
I want to thank you for the immediate response to the eviction crisis, eviction slash homelessness.
I don't think any of us, well, I didn't realize the correlation of evictions to homelessness, you know, the severity of it.
So now, thanks to the report on homelessness, homelessness has a face and is beginning to become humanized.
Even on my way to City Hall this morning, you know, passing by people that were still asleep on the sidewalks, I really felt that, I feel as though hope is on the horizon.
And so I do hope this resolution passes.
And it just really touched my heart and had me very emotional just reading it.
It was just really awesome.
So I just thank you.
Full support.
Anything you need from me, you know where to find me.
All right.
Well, thank you, everybody, for coming out to testify.
Again, this resolution is about setting up a work plan moving forward.
We'll get more into that in a little bit.
And let's move right into Item 1. Noel?
Item 1 is Appointment 1232, Appointment of Eric Gray as Member of Seattle Human Rights Commission for a Term to January 22, 2020.
Thank you, Noel.
Folks can join us at the table, please.
Greetings.
Fantastic.
Thank you all for joining us this morning.
If you can start with some introductions and then we'll talk a little bit about the Hayman Rights Commission and Eric's nomination to come forward.
Introductions.
Hi, my name is Eric Gray.
I'm a local community organizer and activist.
I'm a queer Filipinx born in Subic Bay to a military family.
My father served 25 years as United States Navy Chief dedicated to public service.
I have served as the president of Olympic College.
I have also attended Olympic College, the Evergreen State College.
I've served as the Kitsap County Human Rights Commissioner.
as appointment to Commissioner Charlotte Garrido.
I currently serve on the Seattle Metropolitan Elections Committee.
This gives me a little nervous.
It's been great.
I serve on the Board of Survivor Support for Real Estate from the Sex Trade.
The Real Estate from the Sex Trade is also where I work.
I'm in the National Survivor Network policy team.
We are a group of human trafficking survivors across over 30 different states, over 20 different countries.
Our largest policy team of human trafficking survivors in the nation.
I've launched Youth Care's Jackson Street Shelter at the time of its inception, had 10% stability rates for youth in the city.
At the time of my exit, 47% has stabilized at about 35% average, changing the lives of thousands of homeless youth across the city.
I also am the owner and lead trainer of Queers Uniting to End Exploitation, focusing on human trafficking work.
I train healthcare providers nationwide, having trained hundreds of physicians, doctors, lawyers, district attorneys, and ending human trafficking and human trafficking response protocols nationwide.
Hi, I'm Erika Pablo with the Seattle Office for Civil Rights.
I'm standing in place of my colleague, Marta Itawu, to present Eric for appointment today.
Just to add a little bit more to Eric's resume.
Can there be much more?
I know.
So, Eric attended the Olympic College where they were probably elected the Associated Students of Olympic College President and the Evergreen State College where they continue their studies.
They hope to move forward and obtain a Juris Doctor from Seattle University.
And I'll let Eric talk a little bit more about their interest on the commission.
We just want to thank you, Council Member Herbold, for supporting and speaking at the Human Rights Day this past December.
As you all know, the Seattle Human Rights Commission's role is to advise city council, the mayor, and city departments on issues related to human rights.
They're currently working on the work plan, and they're really excited to present that to you in the next few months, hopefully by the end of the first quarter.
We'll have you back for sure.
I think I'm really most excited to serve and connect communities, having been HIV positive, homeless, and a domestic sex trafficking survivor myself from the ages of 14 to 16. I was in the life and game for 10 years after that.
I have a lot to offer the city and have a long track record of successful projects in which I've already created for the city.
to continue to offer.
In addition, I look forward to connecting interconnectivity of government, you know, from city of Seattle down to the people we serve every day at the drop-in center to the human trafficking survivors who come to my weekly support group all the way up to DC.
Thank you.
And I'm guessing that since you've got a badge, that you've already been attending meetings as a commissioner, even though you're not yet appointed.
We'd love to see when folks who are planning to be appointed dip their toe in and find out what it's all about.
That's correct, Councilwoman Humboldt.
At the time of my submission for this commission, board member presidentship at the Emma Goldman Finishing School, for instance, was actually accurate.
And as you know, things take a long time in government to turn over.
And so since that time, that's no longer the case.
So I'll just let survivors speak for themselves regarding their own past.
But yeah, I've been attending for over six months.
the commissions and have brought mothers and children, other human trafficking survivors, agencies to present.
So better inform Seattle's decision making regarding this issue.
I really believe this is an intersectional issue.
If we can raise down people who are most marginalized from our communities, I believe that we can lift us all up.
And so you've been attending for six months, and this is a commission appointment.
It was the lag just related to the budget process?
It could be, and I'm sorry, I don't know as much background.
Like back when the time when the Human Rights Commission was interested in Eric, we, the LGBTQ Commission interviewed Eric too, we weren't really interested, but Human Rights Commission got them.
But I also think, I'm not sure what appointment slot, it might have been for the other elected position maybe, they were considering, and then there was this open seat for the commission seat, so that's what happened too.
That's really helpful.
And Eric, are you still serving on the Kitsap Human Rights Council?
I am not.
That is a tenure that has long since expired, but it's something that I will look to as a foundational point of support.
And I see, just to address the comments during public comment, I see the professional affiliations to include both current and prior.
So I don't see anything inaccurate about this CV, including the fact that one of the other bullets includes another past affiliation.
So there's some consistency there.
Do you want to just touch a little bit on, you talked about your interests and some of the things that you look forward to working on as a Human Rights Commissioner.
Is there a particular issue that the Commission has been working on that you are looking forward to moving forward in 2019?
Absolutely.
I'm looking forward to the intersectional work between homelessness, gender, and human rights.
One of the things that I work on with another Hopsil system is implementing a human trafficking silent alert for our hospitals.
Something that's been highly effective, not only cultivating human trafficking data, but providing an increase in access to basic needs and basic emergency responses.
In addition to that, also creating a gender sanctuary through healthcare access.
And what is a silent alert for hospitals?
A silent alarm for hospitals would be the way it works for the hospital system I work for is that, say that I'm a human trafficking survivor, which I am, and I come into the hospital and I have someone perhaps with me, which is oftentimes the case, if someone suspects that this is someone who is a survivor of human trafficking or a current victim of human trafficking, then the silent alarm gets hit.
And there's no visible alerts of that, but what happens is the director of nursing is called, She assembles an acute care team that comes in and slowly takes over the care in a very trauma-informed way with the best care possible for that person in that moment, and isolates the person from the abuser, is able then to propose an intervention or any other alternative forms of care, or at the very least establish an exit plan for the future.
But it's not something we currently have in our hospitals.
It is in a process or a structure in a hospital.
I heard you say, but not in all hospitals?
Not in all hospitals.
And this is particular to a specific hospital system, which I don't have permission to represent at this given time in such a public setting.
Nevertheless, kudos to that system for implementing that approach.
Look forward to learning more about it.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
I don't have any more questions.
Eric, you've done a lot of work and really grateful for your willingness to serve on the Seattle Human Rights Commission.
And so thank you for your commitment and your background will bring an amazing perspective.
I'm sure it already has.
And I look forward to hearing more from you on the commission.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Well, with that, I would like to move appointment 01232. Second.
All those in favor, vote aye.
Aye.
None opposed, none abstaining.
And this appointment will move on to the full council on Monday.
Thanks again, and congratulations.
Thank you.
Sorry this took so long to get it done.
Great, and now we have items two and three together.
Agenda item two is appointment 1230, reappointment of Priya Frank as member, Seattle Arts Commission for a term to December 31, 2020. Agenda item three is appointment 1231, reappointment of Quinton I. Morris as member, Seattle Arts Commission for a term to December 31, 2020. Greetings and happy new year.
How's it going?
It's going all right.
Do some introductions, please.
Randy Engstrom, I'm the Director of the Office of Arts and Culture.
Rick Reyes, Racial Equity and Arts Commission Coordinator for Arts and Culture.
Great, thank you both for joining us.
The two appointments before us are both reappointments, and I believe they're both council reappointments, is that correct?
Yeah, they're both council.
You want to just give me, in the listening public, a quick overview of the commission?
We're really fortunate to have both Quintin and Priya as commissioners serving in that capacity.
Priya was actually, she's the Associate Director of Community Programs at Seattle Art Museum, where most significantly she's led their racial equity team and really brought forward a transformation in their programming model that centers communities and artists of color, which is consistent with the Arts Commission and the office's commitments in that space.
She also was just elected chair of the commission at the end of last year by her peers and has really been a driving force in engaging with the arts community broadly.
She's really been a driver of the Mayor's Arts Awards and bringing local artists like AU Collective and Blackstacks in to present to the commission so that we can be in dialogue with working artists in our city who are grappling with the challenges that they face.
Priya's remarkable, we're lucky to have her.
Quentin Morris is also remarkable.
He's a professor of, a tenured professor of music at Seattle University.
He runs his own nonprofit called Keys to Change.
Which I hear about everywhere I go.
Yeah, based in the South End.
He's also the only person I know that's ever sold out Carnegie Hall twice.
He's also a filmmaker.
He's an incredible activist and organizer.
Also has a really great racial equity analysis and is a partner in that work.
And I think as we really try to expand our commitment towards young people into career-connected learning, specifically in the creative fields.
He's a really valuable thought partner in that space.
They're both real treasures of the city, and we're lucky to have them, and I'm glad they're being considered for reappointment.
Also, I just want to say, speaking of treasures of the city, part of why Rick Reyes is up here is The commission is an exceptional group of humans, and our office gets a lot of love for our work in racial equity.
But Rick Reyes has really been carrying an awful lot of the weight for both of those areas of work for the last six months or so.
And I'm glad that you get a chance to meet him because he does a remarkable job.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
Yeah, I'm super excited to work with Priya and Quentin.
I grew up in Tacoma, lived in Seattle for the past six years.
So I feel like the reputation in particular of the Seattle Art Museum has been particularly in terms of representation, like pretty white and male.
But for the past like three or four years to see the work that Priya's done and trying to sort of intersectionalize the art and representation, bring in artists like AU Collective and as like a queer black man, like make it a little bit more welcoming for me to sort of want to go in and see things like Figuring History, the recent exhibit they had on like Indian royalty as well too, was like really cool to see.
So, I mean, I'm excited to work with Priya as the chair and also continue to work with Quentin too.
Great, thank you.
Do you want to talk a little bit about your work?
Yeah, absolutely.
So yeah, totally, totally.
I'm glad to actually finally meet y'all.
So I'd say half of it works primarily as like a project management role for the Arts Commission.
So essentially just making sure that when they do like work planning, when they're doing sort of like future visioning for like 2019 that they actually have the resources and connection between our office and the arts and culture and like what we could provide for them.
And also just sort of know where we're at and what we're doing and just have like a sort of stable line of connection between the two parties.
I love working with them.
I feel like they're a really like awesome group of individuals.
Also, a lot of individuals of color, a lot of women of color who are working in advocacy in the arts.
So it's really cool to have that check on our office as well as the administration to sort of check in and be like, okay, are we actually doing the right things?
What impact are we having on communities of color and art patrons of color?
So that's been really dope to see.
And then in terms of the racial equity work, we are currently working on visioning with like what the city is trying to do in partnership with our office, in partnership with community and trying to streamline those because they've been kind of disconnected in the past.
So that's kind of what I've been working on essentially.
is working with the citywide RSGI strategy and folks in OCR and also trying to stay connected through community events.
In my own experience, just being like out in the field and being from Seattle and Tacoma and just, again, like creating that through line between the office community and the various sort of players in the field, so.
Well, I always really appreciate and value hearing about all the intentionality that the commission brings to its work and both the self-accountability structures that you have in place for your department, but also your efforts to export them to other departments as well.
It's really groundbreaking, critical work.
Thank you.
Rick, when you say partnering with community, the arts community, the broader community, folks working on racial equity?
Yeah, totally.
Well, I think Randy sort of, when I first started, he was like, arts is the how of many different things.
So some of the subcommittees that we work on that heavily involve community and community feedback include the Fed, which is the federal, the Equitable Development Committee.
I always think of like the large fed and it's not that, but they're really focused on like cultural space essentially and looking at how displacement interacts with cultural space and trying to keep cultural space, particularly in communities of color.
So there is like intersection between arts, but also many other different things as well too, whether it be displacement, whether it be public art and representation of artists, or even how we think of public art. whether it be cultural investments and how we're investing and how we're choosing to invest and even like how we've defined culture in the past and how inclusive that's actually been and how we're trying to sort of broaden that up to sort of be in line with our RSGI goals for the future.
Great.
Thank you.
Thanks for your work.
Yeah, totally.
Thanks for having me.
So with that, I'm going to move both appointment 0123 and appointment 01231. Second.
All those in favor vote aye.
Aye.
None opposed, none abstaining.
Please let Priya and Quintin both know that their appointments will be moving on to full council on Monday and thank you.
Thank you, thank you.
And happy new year.
So moving on to item four.
Item four is closed captioning in public accommodations.
Fantastic.
Greetings.
Thank you for joining us.
If we could start with a quick round of introductions, both of our presenter and the folks assisting.
Sure.
Thank you, council members, for inviting me here today.
My name is Eric Scheer.
I am a commissioner for the Committee of People with Disabilities.
Do you guys care to introduce yourselves as well?
The interpreters in their role are Tammy and Mary.
And they are interpreting for the meeting.
Fantastic.
Thank you.
So the Commission for People with Disabilities adopted a resolution back in November to support development of an ordinance regarding use of closed captioning in places of public accommodation.
In the resolution, it notes, in 1996, Congress required broadcasters to add closed captioning for some programming and authorized the Federal Communications Commission to establish a schedule for compliance.
It moves on to note that in 2002, the commission adopted closed captioning requirements for digital television receivers.
And 2010, a similar requirement was added for Spanish language programming.
Eric, as a commissioner, has come to me to talk about the work that he's been doing and the research that he's done about this particular issue.
And I'm inviting him to join us today to talk more about that work and talk more about his and the commission's proposal to address this issue.
Thank you.
Thank you for that introduction.
So just brief history of closed captioning.
Starting way back in 1972, Julia Child on French Chef was one of the first shows that was captioned on television.
Much later, they added far more hours to regular television programming of captioning.
But I wanted to focus on who the people are who use closed captioning.
There are about 20 million people in the United States who identify as deaf or hard of hearing, and those people rely on getting information through and equal access to information through systems like captioning.
Also, people who are losing their hearing in their older age, senior citizens, often rely on closed captioning for information.
People who have moved here from outside of the U.S., for whom English is their second language, will often use closed captioning to support their viewing.
And many people with disabilities who have cognitive processing issues or auditory processing issues or some kind of learning disability or cognitive disability.
Joey?
Joey who is here, such as Joey who presented earlier.
And as well as people with autism often benefit from the use of closed captioning.
And there's actually a good number of hearing people who use closed captioning to catch words that they're not able to hear for whatever reason.
Sometimes that can apply to brand names, large words, technical terminology, that kind of thing.
So it's actually helpful to the general hearing populace as well.
People who are sensitive to sound or noise can often turn down the volume on their television and use captions instead.
And depending on the environment, for example, in a library, you'll not be able to turn sound up if you are hard of hearing or if you're in a bar or other loud environment.
Many people use captions to get information in those environments.
The federal law requires that captioning is provided for any media, must be provided for national emergencies.
So people, when people get that information, it is often impossible for deaf or hard of hearing people to get emergency information when captions are not being appropriately provided.
And how do I use this?
All right, thank you.
So here's a list of what we've been discussing.
I'm gonna talk about Councilwoman, the law that Councilman Herbold has proposed briefly.
And there are four specific laws related to this issue.
The most important thing that I want to focus on is the law in 1990, the ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act.
Title II of the ADA says that no qualified individual with a disability shall by reason of such disability be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of services, programs, or activities of a public entity.
So I believe that we need to have a council bill that requires the city of Seattle, public entities, that includes restaurants, sports venues, bars, et cetera, to have open captioning for public access to information.
And just to wrap up, there are a few cities in other states that already have a similar bill.
Portland, New York, Rochester, New York, Ann Arbor in Michigan, Pawtucket, San Francisco, and the state of Maryland.
Many cities this year are currently working on passing a similar bill for their city or state as well.
Thank you.
Can you talk a little bit about what the components of a bill would be?
They would say that televisions that are in public places would have to have their closed captions turned on.
Does it say anything about sort of public awareness of those requirements?
Do those laws say anything about enforcement of those laws?
Okay, so first the captions will need to be on during business hours, that's the stipulation in the bill.
That covers all public places where people are accessing a television, then the captions must be on the television.
There's some information in the bill is based on the research from other communities that have solved this problem.
One example is, For example, and we've made some adjustments.
We made some adjustments based on some of the issues that other cities, we've seen other cities have.
So for example, one example is when someone is asked to turn on the captions, they turn on captions but the captions are not appropriate.
So they're not able to be read, maybe the background is white or the captions are not correct.
One of those issues is often the background.
So we specified that the background of the closed captions needs to be black with contrasted lettering.
There were some loopholes in some of the existing state bills that we researched, so we tried to cover some of those loopholes in our bill.
But again, for the purposes of the listening public's understanding, this is only, these are settings on your closed captioning.
It's not like anybody's gonna have to go out and do anything to their television.
There are different font and background settings that you can choose on the television itself.
Yeah, all television manufacturers since 1993. on a 13-inch television screen or larger are required to have closed captioning built in.
That's correct.
So all these televisions, public televisions, are newer than that and should be able to have captions turned on easily, yes.
That's correct.
And as it relates specifically to the problem with whether or not you're using the dark font on a light background or a light font on a dark background, that also is a setting.
Is that correct?
Yeah, that's correct.
And the bill encourages folks to follow a particular setting for their machinery.
And so, Eric, you have been doing a lot of research on this issue.
You have begun to draft a proposed bill.
Can you talk a little bit about whether or not you have had any engagement with the broader community beyond the commission on this issue.
One of the things that we had mentioned when we talked was to try to begin maybe gathering some information from public places about what your experiences are with closed captioning on televisions in those spaces.
Yeah, I have been involved with the community.
I've been out to several restaurants, places that have captions.
There's only a few.
I found one or two televisions with captions.
Or they have many televisions where they only, but they only have captions on one of the televisions in the establishment.
And it's actually, I've spoken to people about that they need to actually have captions on each of their televisions.
Because depending on where you're seated in the restaurant, you may or may not be able to access that information from a particular spot.
So that's not equal access if, for example, one of those, only one television has that.
So that's one bit of feedback from the community that I've had.
And most of the businesses that I've spoken with have been very receptive to making that minor change.
And I think that this bill is going to be something that sort of eliminates the excuses and the loopholes that businesses are currently using.
Yeah, I would argue that, and I'd be interested to hear what the Office of Civil Rights thinks, but that the requirement to turn on closed captioning is something that is already required under the ADA, under an obligation of a business owner in a place of public accommodation to allow equal access.
Nevertheless, I think passing an ordinance, making this obligation clear, I think will be a powerful tool, as you say, Eric, to let folks know.
Yeah, people need to be more aware of the enforcement requirements.
And one more thing that I'd like to add in terms of enforcement.
Every city has a different kind of enforcement.
Some do it through penalties, up to $50 to $500.
I would like to leave it to the Council, obviously, and Lisa Herbold to resolve exactly how we would approach that as a city.
Right.
Okay.
Yeah, I know we've begun discussions with Council Central staff working from your draft, and some of those questions have arisen, and we'll continue to work through them.
So as far as next steps, I'm really excited to be working on this.
I think this is really important.
And I really appreciate that you have brought this forward and that you have the commission's support in bringing this forward.
I think this is a great way to start off the new year with a piece of legislation like this.
And I'm hoping that we'll get something before the committee to vote on in the next couple months at the most.
And hopefully we'll get the bill passed before the National Deaf Senior Citizens Conference in Seattle.
Where 5,000 people are attending.
So we should be ready for that.
September 8th through 15th, I believe.
All right.
I think that's a goal that we can certainly meet.
Great.
Council Member Bryan.
When other cities have done this, what kind of education or outreach would be necessary to make sure the owners of all the public televisions are aware so that we could get something up and running by September, for instance.
So we would send out a public notice to all the different organizations, restaurants, associations, hospitality associations in the city, hotels, for example, sports venues.
We would just send out a public announcement to make sure that everyone knows that the bill is coming and start that education process.
I would be happy to be involved in developing some kind of packet or educational material about how to use captions on the televisions that they own.
And this is something that I think we will need to have continued engagement with the Office of Civil Rights on what a public engagement process would look like before the ordinance went into effect.
Or at least enforcement of it.
Right.
Council Member Herbold and Eric, I'm really grateful for you bringing this forward.
And Eric, I really appreciate your highlighting all the different populations that will benefit from this.
And it's another example of how when we create a society that works for everyone, everyone actually benefits from it.
I know I will benefit from this because you've highlighted a number of instances where someone like me would be better off if closed caption were turning on.
So thank you for serving the whole community by coming up with this suggestion.
Thank you for having me today and allowing me some time to speak with you.
Fantastic.
Thank you.
And you know how much I love it when constituents bring forward good ideas that we can put into action legislatively.
So thanks for that.
And more to come.
All right.
Thank you.
And now we have item five.
Item five is draft eviction prevention resolution.
Thank you, Noel.
Folks can join us at the table.
Hello.
Thanks for joining us.
Do some introductions.
Asha Venkatraman, Council Central staff.
Great.
And I think you're going to walk us through the proposed resolution and what it identifies as the council's goals.
I think the way we've really structured this resolution is to be less focused on the identification of particular solutions, but instead working from the losing home report, lifting up their identification of the problems and laying out a timeline for the council to work on identifying the solutions necessary to address those problems.
Yes, so as you mentioned, this resolution comes from a lot of the findings and recommendations that were presented in the Losing Home Report, which was a report by the Housing Justice Project and the Seattle's Women's Commission.
They had previously presented in this committee on September 21st, and so after presenting their findings around the types of tenants that are evicted, from where landlords were evicting tenants, the reasons for eviction, the factors that that tenants were facing and the outcomes of processes, as well as eviction processes, as well as how eviction impacts tenants, the report provided a whole variety of recommendations in three major categories.
So making it possible for tenants to pay rent, improving the landlord-tenant relationship, and then, as they reference it, rebalancing the scales of justice to essentially even out the playing field for landlords and tenants.
So in response to that report, the council took a variety of actions during the 2019-2020 budget process to implement either statements of legislative intent to ask the city departments to respond to some of our inquiries or providing some funding through green sheets to support organizations that assisted tenants in understanding their rights or providing legal counsel.
So with this resolution, does is since that report was issued, we've been working with community members to put together this plan that would set up how council is going to move forward over both the next year and over the longer term to implement some exploration of strategies around the problems that were presented in the report.
And so what the text of the resolution does is goes through and identifies what some of those findings were.
Many of them identify how there's disproportionate impact on people of color, on women, on the LGBTQ community, on seniors, and then look through some of the results of the research that the report presented.
There are additional recitals in the resolution that talk about the specific actions we took during the budget process to respond to the recommendations in the report.
And then the meat of the resolution is...
Before we move on to it, can we just lift up what some of that budget work is?
Because I think it's...
It's a helpful reminder for us to know of the items that the report identified, what things do we have, have we set sort of in motion already?
Because I think there's some good initial work that was done through the budget process to do that, and I just think it's helpful to both remind ourselves here at the table as well as the departments who may be following along on what some of these recommendations are.
Absolutely.
So in response to some specific recommendations around preventing evictions from substandard properties and creating a legal path forward for tenants to enforce their rights in court, the council asked that the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections look at strategies or mechanisms to address the process for tenants to be able to address their habitability issues.
and perhaps look at an emergency system or a type of proceeding in which they could resolve issues regarding habitability when a notice of eviction was filed.
The premise for this was that because it's so easy for landlords to file an unlawful detainer action very quickly after the first of the month or when rent isn't being paid or there's a habitability issue, the council wanted to see whether there was some sort of parallel process that could speed along how tenants dealt with those issues.
One of the next items that the council passed during the budget was to provide funding for contracts with community organizations that are providing tenant services and outreach specifically to low-income renters, communities of color, LGBTQ renters, those with limited English proficiency, as well as immigrant refugee communities, as well as providing funding for legal services for tenants that are facing eviction.
And that was related to the specific recommendation in losing home referred to as increased coordinated funds for legal defense intent outreach.
I think there might be a couple of those.
Yes.
The next one that the council passed was statement of legislative intent that requested a design for eviction prevention, excuse me, rental subsidy programs.
looking at sort of a one-stop shop for eviction services and assessing whether those should be located in the courthouse since that's obviously where court proceedings take place.
And that was in response to the recommendation to centralize the process for obtaining assistance all in one place as well as expanding courthouse-based resources.
The council also passed a green sheet to provide additional financial assistance to prevent evictions and utility shutoffs, as well as to assist with move-in deposits.
That was in response to a recommendation to increase subsidies to tenants that are at risk of eviction.
And one of the other recommendations in the report was to build more housing for low-income and no-income residents, and especially families.
And in response to that, the council passed a statement of legislative intent to ask the executive to look at the feasibility of issuing bonds for affordable housing.
Thank you.
And then the one last piece of that that wasn't specifically budget related but we did include language in the 2019 state legislative agenda to support tenants in response to the recommendations around providing courts with more flexibility to determine if evictions are warranted and increasing the time period to cure the nonpayment of rent as well as strengthening the Just Cause Eviction Ordinance.
So the legislative agenda language includes specifics around supporting state level changes to amend the state-level ordinance that currently limits the city's ability to extend our Just Cause Eviction Ordinance to tenants at the end of their lease term, as well as reforming the unlawful detainer process to allow tenants more time to cure their non-payment of rent.
Yes, both allowing more time to cure nonpayment of rent, but also I think very importantly is giving the courts the ability to stay writs of restitution on good cause.
Currently, the only thing a judge is allowed to look at in eviction court for nonpayment of rent is whether or not the rent wasn't paid within three days.
They are not allowed by state law to take any other circumstances into consideration and that both ties the hands of the courts in considering those things, but also has a profound impact on tenants who might have really good reasons for why they were unable to pay the rent within the three days.
Yes, and that is one of the things that the losing home report talked about in terms of other states' abilities to look at equitable remedies.
So the meat of the resolution talks about what this work plan is going to look like for the next year and longer term.
So over the next year or so, the idea is to look at a variety of specific problems that tenants face that were surfaced in the report.
And I'll go through them, and if you want me to speak in more detail about those, I can do that.
So the first is to look at tenants that are under financial hardship because they experience domestic violence, because they can be held liable for damages that are caused by perpetrators of domestic violence.
The second is to look at the lack of flexibility the tenants have in avoiding eviction when they're faced with emergencies.
So either because of temporary unemployment or because of reduced income, medical emergencies, hospitalization, again, domestic violence or deaths in the family.
as well as looking at the impacts of large rent increases on their ability to pay.
The next item is looking at the high default rate of evictions, because that default rate indicates that there are many tenants that don't understand the process, that don't understand that there are legal resources available to them, that there are, that they have rights, that they have rights that they can exercise.
And the last piece of that is mutual termination agreements, which are often, given to tenants and tenants don't really understand that that means that they are terminating their their rental agreement and so increasing some of the knowledge around what that means when they actually sign off on something like that.
And I also think as it relates to mutual termination agreements, I think we should establish some standards here at the city for when they're used.
Mutual termination agreements can help tenants avoid having an eviction on their record, but they should not be used for things that would not be a just cause for an eviction.
And currently, Mutual termination agreements are used by many nonprofits in the city that we fund to provide affordable housing.
And they're used in a way I've heard in some instances by property managers in a pretty arbitrary way.
So I think giving some guidance for how those agreements are used in a way that actually helps tenants and does not create additional harm.
The next item that council plans to look at is looking at charges that are not actually rent.
So late fees or court costs, attorney's fees.
Court costs and attorney's fees can be passed on to the tenant after an eviction proceeding.
And late fees can add to, late fees in addition to all of these costs, can add to a more substantial burden than perhaps even the lack of rent payment itself.
So it increases the amount that tenants are required to pay to come to, be able to pay off all of their debt.
And so it increases the hardships in not only paying rent, but in all the other charges that they are required to pay.
The next item looks at affordability in that tenants are often living with roommates to be able to afford rent.
Some leases outright prohibit roommates altogether or limit the number of roommates that a person can have.
Landlords often have the discretion to reject roommates without any reason.
It's solely at their discretion.
And they can also impose extra fees or other screening criteria for roommates that can impose additional burdens on the tenant in acquiring a roommate at all.
The next item is looking at the fees for lease termination.
These can often be pretty high, but especially in this market, it's pretty easy for landlords to fill vacant units.
And so it would make sense for landlords to be required to make a reasonable effort to re-rent that unit.
does not happen in some cases.
So we'd be looking at what landlords are required to do to make sure that that unit becomes rented as quickly as possible.
State law places an obligation on a landlord to make an attempt to re-rent a unit where there's been a default on the lease.
But I think what this item is trying to uplift is it's very difficult for a tenant to establish that in the cases that that effort hasn't been made.
And the unit is sitting empty without the landlord fulfilling that obligation to attempt to rerent the unit and giving that tenant a large bill that often ends up in a collection agency.
The last item for this portion of the resolution is one that you mentioned already, Council Member Herbold, about the courts not being able to exercise discretion in preventing evictions.
Even if they have good cause, even if they have all the money that's owed at the time the hearing takes place, the courts just don't have the ability to exercise equitable remedies in that way.
The next section of the resolution talks about the council's intent to explore over a longer term solutions to address the next three issues.
These are to look at how tenants that are in need of additional support because of physical or mental health disorders, because of hospitalizations, can get that support if they don't currently have it.
and what the city can do to help tenants in those situations.
The second item is for tenants living in a unit.
When the tenant that is on the lease dies, there's not any rights for the people that live with that tenant to be able to remain in the unit.
And so exploring what it might look like to provide that right or support the people that are still in the unit once that tenant has passed away.
And the last item is looking at how to negotiate reporting landlord-tenant debt.
So sometimes it shows up in, a lot of the time it shows up in credit reports.
It shows up in ways that make it a lot more difficult for tenants to obtain housing because all of that debt is on their record.
So looking at ways in which those debts could wait for a certain period of time, perhaps, until they are reported on credit reports or looking into how those debts can be addressed so that they don't have such an impact on a tenant's ability to get housing.
Thank you, Asha.
That's a great overview of the work we're signing up to do.
Yeah.
Asha, I'm curious, or Council Member Herbold, You know a lot about this work, too.
So we've heard a little bit in public comment today a comparison to South Carolina saying that they have laws that are more supportive of tenants in conversations with the Housing Justice Project.
I've, you know, heard about how the courts worked in New York City, which sound very different than the courts here.
Obviously, some of these things have state law implications that we won't be able to address directly here, but I am interested in what we know about different systems that seem to be working, because undoubtedly we will hear, you know, worst case scenario, you know, no one will want to be a landlord anymore in our city, but trying to understand what exists in other places and how it works and what the implications are.
Sure.
I think in Washington State, as you mentioned, there are a lot of state-level restrictions about what we can do as a city.
So that provides some problems in trying to even out the playing fields that landlords and tenants are on.
I think in other states, and what we've been looking at quite a bit is New York because of some of the research that is in this report.
There's a comparison I think that was mentioned during the last committee meeting that for somebody, for a landlord to pursue eviction over nonpayment of rent for one month would be harassment in New York.
And here it's a lot more common.
So looking at the state level schemes I think really provides some good basis for comparison about what we're going to be able to do.
And since we've added some things into our state legislative agenda hopefully we can move towards at the state level coming towards more states that are friendlier towards tenants so that we can, as a city, go through and make changes that are more supportive for tenants.
But I think there are laws in all kinds of places.
New York, Rhode Island I think has some helpful laws.
D.C.
is a relatively tenant-friendly city.
And I believe the other one was, did I say Rhode Island?
I did say Rhode Island.
And Massachusetts has some laws that are relatively supportive as well.
So in looking at all of those, trying to look at what those states or cities within those states have been able to do and what we can do given the state-level restrictions for us.
And I think going back to the report put out by the Women's Commission, which was really powerful, It seemed very well-researched and also really eye-opening for me to realize for this population that had gone through the whole eviction process for which they had done the analysis over the course of a year, I believe.
how directly tied eviction was to homelessness, which is obviously a crisis that we're struggling to address in the city.
And looking at, okay, if we're trying to address the homelessness crisis, and clearly eviction is One of the factors that's driving folks into homelessness, how do we address that in a way?
And then, and so there's lots of tools here, too, that are very tenant-friendly, but I'd also argue that You know, if we can make the system work better, it's going to work better for everyone, including landlords, too.
You know, it's certainly disappointing to see this that we got handed in public comment where someone was getting a three-day notice for being $2 short on their rent last month, I believe.
You know, of course, the landlords that I talk to, they go, I would never do that.
You know, that would be crazy.
All I do is just text my tenant.
They would bring over the $2.
It'd be fine.
It's never an issue.
And, you know, I respect that and obviously some people are doing that.
And we know that, you know, the city has programs in place.
We probably need to continue to make them more robust and more resources to keep people in their housing because, you know, the longer folks go without housing, the more expensive, the harder it is, the more disruptive it is to their lives and everyone's lives.
to restore them into housing.
And so it seems like there's a path that says, hey, if we could just take a breath for a second, bring the resources that we have, give a chance for people even just to get aligned with the existing resources that they may not know about, or as we heard from one comment, you know, I'm working four jobs, I lose a roommate, I don't have the resources, maybe even specifically the time to go spend to do all the research to figure out what helps available.
But if we could figure out how to have better systems in place to say, hey, it's in no one's interest to have someone lose their housing if there's a way to avoid it.
That doesn't necessarily have to be on the backs of the landlords.
But we have resources we can bring to this.
We just need a system in place and a little more time to effectuate that so we can stabilize this.
Again, a landlord can keep a good tenant much longer.
you know, have these blemishes on folks' records.
And frankly, we don't have someone that may end up being homeless.
And I think to your point around this, how landlords have their relationships with tenants in other cities, the laws in this state are very geared towards landlords.
But it's not as if in other states or in other cities, landlords have stopped renting.
Landlords and tenants have relationships all over the country, all over the states and cities, with different laws in which they still have safeguards.
Their liability is less of an issue.
And so I don't think that this is going to be or the council's movement on this is going to be a situation in which landlords are suddenly put at all of this risk just because there are more resources.
Yeah, I appreciate that because I, you know, I can be sympathetic to the, you know, extreme examples you'll hear from landlords of, you know, how a situation would be untenable, especially a landlord who has one unit and it's a source of income for them too and they're struggling to figure that out.
But there's a, we have a broader public interest in solving this and not having you know, $2 or, you know, $500 shortages of rents resulting in someone being homeless, which is gonna cost us thousands and thousands of dollars to remedy.
And how we design a system that, you know, probably asks landlords for a little more flexibility, but also where the city, you know, the public steps up and says, hey, we don't expect you to be exclusively responsible for this.
We can bring some resources there to, to limit your exposure and liability and, you know, any shortfalls.
We just need some more flexibility.
And I think one of the tricks is going to be, and I really appreciate working with you, Councilmember Herbold, and, Asha, your work on this, and, of course, the advocates who've been providing us with so much information and examples on this resolution.
And I think going forward is figuring out what, you know, where we're going to need state help, because our state laws are, well, the Washington state laws are different than other states, and they seem to be, pre-limiting and how we can get some more flexibility on what we're allowed to do immediately within current state law and within the city's authority.
Yeah, I think that's going to be the trick moving forward is making a determination of what things we can do now.
I really appreciate the fact that the report itself as well as the resolution identifies what Councilmember O'Brien is mentioning is that there is not only a need for additional flexibility, but there is a responsibility on the part of the city to be doing more also, doing more of its part as far as its infrastructure for providing tenant assistance in a way that it's actually useful and increasing those resources.
I mean, I think we could do a back of the envelope calculation of the number of dollars that was in arrears for these 1,100 or so evictions in 2017 and come up with a pretty handy estimate of what it would have taken in rent assistance funds to avoid that level of eviction and that level of subsequent homelessness.
So this is not just focused on one side of the equation, but I think on all of them.
I think moving forward, I think the identification of the problems is the easy part.
It's the identification of the solutions that will come after this that will be trickier.
conversations with with landlords about this and one of the things that I I heard was You know if there are resources out there for their tenants to use The landlord shares our interest in lining that up and so you know part of that as you mentioned councilmember herbal does on us to make sure that we have the resources and frankly to make sure that we have a structure in place that can respond in a timely matter and And so setting up that systems would be really important, but I think there's a place where the landlords, you know say hey, you know Some communication that like here's a tenant who may need some resource or here's a tenant who isn't Who needs some resources and whether that's communicating directly with the city or a department to do that?
And simultaneously community with a tenant, you know, you should You know, here's a notice for your $2 short on rent.
I'm not sure that that that's a Lack of income, it's hard to tell, but imagine it may just be a miswriting of a check.
But if it's $100, providing the information that here's some places where you can get some resources, and here's the time frame in which you can remedy this.
And again, you need to come up with the $2, and then there's going to be a couple hundred dollars in late fees on top of it.
You take this minor mistake and turn it into, perhaps, a problem that could ultimately result in an eviction.
And that's kind of horrific, too.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I think one of the ideas that has been suggested to deal with the problem we're identifying here is a requirement on three-day pay or vacate notices to give information to a tenant about where to get those resources.
You know, again, you're still stuck with the fact that it's only three days to get to those resources, but I think, you know, The more we can do to piece together some changes, I think the more positive impact they're going to have on tenants and on, again, the shared public interest of the city and everybody in the city to make sure that we're attacking the causes of homelessness from every angle that we can.
So this resolution has not yet been introduced, it has not yet gone through the introduction and referral process that the council sets, but I did want to get it before us to begin talking about it.
I'm hoping to have it at our next meeting on Friday, January 25th.
So I'll be between now and the introduction be happy to consider suggestions or changes as we move forward.
But again, this is, this resolution I think is to, the intent is to get council members on the same page about which, problems they agree they want to address, and then we'll push up our slaves and do the harder work on the solutions to address those problems.
All right.
Thank you, Asha.
I appreciate it.
All right.
With that, if there's no further business to come before the committee, we will adjourn.
It's 11.03.
Thank you.
So,