My name is Flo Beaumont.
I'm with Catholic Community Services.
I'm one of many people who are here today just to keep our services going.
I'd like to thank Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, Councilmember Lisa Herbold, other council supporters, and you, members of the community, providers, and recipients of services, for coming here in support of keeping our doors open.
for continuing to work side by side to help our fellow Seattleites in their time of need.
We are here to ask the city of Seattle for just the basic foundation of a guaranteed annual inflation adjustment in our city contracts for human services.
Who among us has not needed a helping hand at some time in life?
But what happens when the hand is pushed farther and farther away from you by rising costs?
We can help one another through poverty, hunger, illness, and homelessness with the right support.
Our programs, which are proven successes, don't live on air.
We pay our staff.
We pay the light bill.
We pay rent for our service sites.
We buy food for our clients.
We pay for maintenance and internet service and phones.
All these costs of doing business rise year after year, and if we are to keep our doors open, our services level, we need at the very least to be able to keep up with inflation.
When I lease a copy machine, it has an automatic annual inflation increase in the contract.
When I lease a building, it has written in the lease a 5% increase in rent every year.
That's just doing business.
But we don't have a regular guaranteed increase in our City Human Services Department contracts, yet.
That's why we are here today.
Catholic Community Services' St. Martin-Depores Shelter has seen its costs go up 26% in the last five years.
Our City of Seattle funding has gone up 4%.
How can we keep sheltering and feeding people if the city, our biggest government funder, doesn't keep up with costs?
To tell us more, on more chants, okay.
Thank you OPIU for leading us in more chants.
Let's start with number five.
Human services is our domain.
Adjust for inflation so we can maintain.
Human services is our domain.
Adjust for inflation so we can maintain.
Service providers bring progress.
Our success is your success.
Service providers bring progress.
Our success is your success.
Service providers bring progress.
Our success is your success.
Service providers bring progress.
Our success is your success.
Okay, can we do one more?
Let's do the last one.
Our economy is thriving, so why aren't we surviving?
Thank you very much.
So next to speak, we have Paul Rosenthal from Plymouth Housing.
He's their social services program manager.
Um, hello?
Okay.
So first I just want to say thank you to the OPIU and to the MLK Labor Council, Skitch, and everyone else for having us here.
Like I said, I'm Paul Rosenthal.
I'm a program manager with Plymouth Housing Group.
Thank you.
I help to manage groups of case managers across two different buildings in our portfolio.
So Saturday, I bumped into one of our tenants at a pharmacy and he told me that he has a new case manager yet again.
And he said, I'm sure that she's good, but I don't know her and I don't trust her.
I've had so many case managers.
And then yesterday at another one of our buildings, a young woman there said to me, we've been through so many case managers here, I don't know who to talk to.
And I think that those two moments speak directly to staff turnover.
I'm not going to tell you anything that you don't know.
I'm just a reminder that high turnover cripples an agency's ability to fulfill its mission.
Our mission is to get people off the street and into permanent supportive housing, and after that, we connect them to the resources they need.
But that's difficult without being consistently staffed.
Vulnerable people need consistency in their lives, and we can help with that, but only if we can afford to keep people around.
High staff turnover means that our clients, our tenants, some of the most vulnerable people in all of Seattle have to rebuild those relationships again and again, and that's exhausting.
People give up.
More money can mean more staff so we can avoid burnout and overwork.
We need more money to keep people, to keep consistent connections between staff and tenants, staff and clients, and to provide more basic in-house resources.
Every new case manager means that we have to rebuild client trust, and that takes time.
And if we pay more, then professionals will stay longer.
Vulnerable people can maintain nurturing and consistent relationships.
Can you imagine what it would be like if every time you learned to trust someone, they had to leave?
Some of you here know exactly what that feels like.
And if you compound it with chronic illness, mental health issues, and living on less than $200 a month, We can do something about this, and we can foster those consistent relationships, and it's just going to cost a lot more money.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Paul, for telling us why it's so important that we have just this base funding to keep our programs open to help people.
A couple more chants?
Yeah.
All right.
OK, from the top.
Hear our voice across the nation.
We need adjustments for inflation.
Hear our voice across the nation.
We need adjustments for inflation.
Hear our voice across the nation.
We need adjustments for inflation.
Hear our voice across the nation.
We need adjustments for inflation.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Next to speak, we have Katie Garrow.
from MLK Labor.
Thank you very much, Katie.
Okay, got it.
Thank you.
Good morning, brothers, sisters, and siblings.
How are you?
Hey, listen, my name is Katie Garrow.
I'm the Deputy Executive Director at MLK Labor.
We represent 100,000 workers here across King County and 150 different affiliate unions and worker organizations.
I want to say first and foremost that the labor community stands shoulder to shoulder with all of you and your demand for an inflationary increase to all human services contracts.
The second thing that I want to say to you is that I used to be a case manager at a social service organization before I worked in organized labor.
And one of the dynamics that we often brushed up against was this idea that we had to choose between denying ourselves or denying our clients.
And that's a false dichotomy.
Right?
Pablo Neruda, a Chilean poet, wrote this poem called Ode to My Joy.
Some of you may know him.
He's also a communist or was a communist.
And I want to read an excerpt to you because someone read a piece of this poem to me when I was working in the social service industry.
And it touched my heart and it gave me the courage to fight for myself in our industry.
OK, so I thought that rain had to only drench my clothes in the crimson land of mourning, that if I closed my eyes to the rose and caressed the open wound, suffering my share of everyone's pain, that only then was I aiding my fellow man.
In this, I erred.
I lost my way.
So today, I call on you, Joy.
And I think joy is a good symbol for us, for the idea of fighting for ourselves and our own self-sufficiency.
You know, as I said, it's a false choice to think that we have to deny ourselves in order to serve our clients.
In the labor movement, what we do is we build power.
Is that right?
We build power.
We build power for ourselves and we build power for our clients.
And it is just and right to witness the pain and injustice that our clients face and then to resource that pain and injustice by fighting for professional, well-compensated caregivers who can maintain a presence, a consistent presence in their lives and continue to serve them with the resources and the dignity that they deserve.
So thank you so much for standing up today.
We are here with you.
Anything you need.
Thank you so much, Katie.
We have Willow Maloney, who's a project assistant at the Morrison, to speak next.
Thank you, Willow.
Hello, I'm Willow Maloney, and you can literally see the building that I work at from here.
It's right over there beneath the Smith Tower.
And I've worked at DESC for two and a half years, and I've personally seen the huge difference that housing and community support can make in a person's well-being.
However, in that short time, I've also seen that spending on social services has not kept pace with the influx of wealth in Seattle.
Our clients need reliable access to food, physical and mental health care, and recreation.
If we as a community want to claim that we are properly taking care of our most vulnerable neighbors, we must acknowledge that providing a roof over someone's head is merely the first step.
Moreover, we want to ensure that the homes we are providing are safe and secure.
Maintenance issues account for a huge portion of our budget in support of housing.
One elevator repair alone, which is absolutely necessary for our mobility-impaired residents, is upwards of $1,000.
Even smaller issues such as leaky faucets and pest control far exceed the bandwidth of our underpaid and understaffed facilities team.
This leads into the root of many of these issues, staff turnover and burnout.
None of these resources are relevant without staff to administer them.
We're blessed in the city to have dedicated people working at every level from city council to street outreach to help our clients have a healthy and meaningful life.
There's no shortage of compassion, enthusiasm or skill, only funding.
Burnout and turnover due to low wages and high caseloads is every bit as expensive as it is burdensome on our clients and our community of caretakers.
We are asking for a promise from our city council and the Seattle community that we will not let our investments go to waste.
The investments of the city as a whole, as well as those of clients and social service providers individually.
If we can provide these healthy, safe, fulfilling environments for the most vulnerable in our communities, the positive effects will ripple out to everyone in this city.
And we believe that Councilmember Mosqueda's bill will allow us to do that.
Thank you, Willow.
We have with us today City Councilmember Lisa Herbold, who is one of our partners in justice.
Thank you, beautiful people.
It's wonderful to see all of your faces on this beautiful, sunny afternoon morning.
I'm getting ahead of myself.
So I'm glad that everybody's here today.
I'm so honored to have an opportunity to support the work of my colleague and friend, Council Member Mosqueda, on this important policy work.
I'm honored to have the opportunity to use this piece of legislation to elevate your voices and the importance of the work that you do for our city and the people living in our city.
The most important investment that we can make in Seattle is investment in our people.
Our social service workers in this city make up the fabric of our social safety net to ensure that everyone in Seattle can have access to opportunity.
They're the workers that make up our programs aimed at youth development, senior services, domestic violence response, and interventions for people who fall into homelessness.
This is a workforce that's primarily made up of people of color and of women.
and they provide culturally competent expertise and build relationships that help our institutions be effective.
These are the people who do the work that's necessary and only they can deliver these services in a way that's effective and produces the kinds of outcomes that the city and the public expects from us.
The non-profits that run these programs have to deal with the high cost of operations as every other business in Seattle.
Just because you're a non-profit does not mean you're not a business.
When our city contracts don't keep pace, wages then also don't keep up with cost of living, and then what suffers?
The retention of highly qualified staff.
And then from there, what suffers is the services to the people that are so important for us to help, to make our city stronger.
We've gone over this year after year, budget cycle after budget cycle.
Just in the last budget cycle, we worked to make sure that a 2% inflationary adjustment for contracts was included after the fact.
But even with that one-time increase, will there still be a shortfall for 2020?
This is common sense solution.
We're going to build in the CPI increase so that we don't have to do this every budget cycle.
You should not have to be fighting for your wages during the budget cycle when instead we need to be working together to deliver funding for more services, more housing, more shelter for our public.
Common Sense Policy can support the workers and make sure that they do best in serving the folks who are struggling in our city.
So thank you so much for participating.
Thank you for giving me an opportunity to work with you.
Thank you so much, Council Member Herbold.
Okay, one more chance.
Let's do number two.
What do we do?
What do we need?
Funds to survive.
What do we do?
We help people thrive.
What do we need?
Funds to survive.
OK, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And now, for our last speaker, we have the Councilmember who has been leading us in this struggle to keep our doors open and to keep providing the services that we all know we need.
I would like to welcome to the podium and thank Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda.
Good morning!
It is a good morning because after over a decade of you saying that just like every other worker in the city of Seattle you ought to be able to have an inflationary adjustment because the cost of rent increases, light increases, water increases, and labor should increase as well.
We need to be making you whole so you can take care of our most vulnerable.
We're here to serve you because you serve Seattle.
Ten years in the making to ask for an inflationary adjustment is way too long.
We're talking about workers who take care of our most vulnerable.
You put food on the table through food bank services.
You help seniors have life with dignity.
You make sure that youth get access to education.
You make sure people have access to healthcare as a human right that it should be.
Housing as a human right that it should be.
You are the backbone of what makes our society function.
And we need to have a backbone to get you an inflationary adjustment today!
You know, we can't be shy of the fact that in this capitalist society we often outsource services to try to undercut the actual cost.
We are not in the practice of saying that outsourcing is an effective way to do work.
What we are doing here today is recognizing that we contract intentionally, the city intentionally contracts with all of your organizations because you are the best equipped, the most skilled, have the best relationships.
You have built the trust with community and that is why you deserve an inflationary adjustment to make sure that everyone in your organization can have an increase when the cost of living goes up.
so you can take care of our seniors and our kiddos, so you can help people get housed and get food.
You are the most equipped and we ought to make sure that you at least get an inflationary adjustment.
So let's applaud what you've already accomplished.
And I want to thank Councilmember O'Brien for helping to put this issue year after year on the forefront.
Last year, because of your dedication and your decades of service, we were able to get a 2% inflationary adjustment for all contracts.
And we applaud that and we congratulate you, but that's not enough!
That's just not enough.
And we're not going to be in the practice of begging and asking and groveling every year for an inflationary adjustment for many of the workers who are barely able to get by.
Let's invest in you like you've invested in our community.
Let's pass this legislation today, and let's celebrate that after over a decade of your work, we will get inflationary adjustment not only this year, but every year to come.
¡Sí se puede!
And with that, let's go pass this legislation today, and let's make history so that, like other cities, I hear from Allison, other cities will follow us.
We will follow suit.
We're leading the way here in Seattle, just like we've done on every other labor standard.
Today, we make history because of your work.
Today, our community is going to be healthier because of your work.
Today, our organizations are going to be more stable because of your advocacy.
Gracias por todo.
Thank you for everything you do.
Let's go win this.
Thank you so much, Councilmember Mosqueda.
We are going to head upstairs now to the City Council Chambers to the meeting to discuss the inflationary adjustment legislation.
So, we can chant as we're going up the stairs or taking the elevator, but let's wrap this up and get this done so we can continue to get back to work.
Thank you everybody for coming today.
Thank you.
Woo!