Seattle City Council Sustainability & Renters' Rights Committee 5/12/21

We are ready when you are.

Ready.

We are recording.

Good afternoon.

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

Today is Wednesday, May 12th, 2021, and the time is 2 p.m.

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

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

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Five present.

Thank you, Ted and thank you council members.

In today's committee meeting, we will be discussing bills to close the just cause loophole in the just cause eviction ordinance of our city and a bill to ban school year evictions of school children, their families and educators.

As with our last meeting on April 27th, today is a discussion only with a set of great community panelists who have generously given their time, many of them during their workday, to speak to us at the next meeting of the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee on May 25th.

I'm hoping that we can take up amendments and vote on the bills.

We have two just cause bills before the committee today as committee members already know.

One that my office has introduced and another introduced by Council Member Morales, which Council Members Lewis and I are also co-sponsoring.

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

As we go through the discussion today and beyond, I'm looking forward to working with Council Member Morales and other Council Members in this committee and on the City Council to pass a unified bill, the strongest possible bill that closes the loophole without exception.

This is what renters urgently need and that is our goal.

And most importantly, to win this, we will need renters to get organized.

After we hear from our community panel, which is our first agenda item, Asha Venkatraman from City Council Central Staff will present on the two Just Cause bills.

And given that Council Member Morales has put forward one of those bills, I will, of course, invite her to give her opening remarks before Asha's presentation in agenda item two.

We meet today just 50 days, less than two months from the end of the current city and state moratoriums on evictions.

As you all know, the mayor's moratorium declaration ends on June 30th.

And last month, Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature directed that the state moratorium end on June 30th as well.

There's no question we hope our movement can pressure Mayor Durkin to extend the current moratorium beyond June 30th, but that task has become much more difficult with the state legislature's action.

This is extremely unfortunate, but this is what the state's political establishment has done.

Unless Mayor Durkin and Governor Jay Inslee act to extend these moratoriums, then on July 1st, thousands of Seattle renters and the 150,000 renters throughout Washington state who are behind on rent, according to the U.S.

Census Bureau, will be in greater jeopardy than they are already of losing their housing.

This is why it is urgent that we act to pass not only the closing of the loophole in the just cause eviction ordinance, but also the other renters rights legislation that my office has announced.

We know the corporate landlords are gearing up to file huge numbers of evictions against struggling tenants as soon as the eviction moratoriums end.

And this is the appalling news that our council office has been hearing from renters who have been reaching out to us in greater numbers in recent weeks.

They say that corporate landlords are claiming that as soon as the moratorium is lifted, they will go to court to file evictions, even though renters are still struggling from the unprecedented crisis of this past year.

Patty from District 5 wrote to us, quote, I am an 85-year-old low-income senior whose rent has gone up yearly So, so high it takes up 90% of my social security income and with $125 a month increase due when the COVID moratorium ends, I don't know how I will pay it." Leslie told us, quote, as a property manager in the greater Capitol Hill area for the last 20 years, I've seen firsthand relentless rent increases, which are done just because the owner can. For the last 10 years, I ran that business. So I know the profit loss annual breakdown granularly. With a rental income of roughly $80,000 a month, less salaries, maintenance, insurance, property taxes, the profits are still enormous. I was subjected daily to the owner's avarice by being told that she did not have enough money for whatever is needed to be done. quite frankly, I am glad that I was laid off in December because the first thing she's going to do when the moratorium is lifted is evict the few that are behind in rent. I lend my full support to these measures that Councilwoman Sawant has put forward." These and other community members we're hearing from are frightened, but as is obvious, they're also organizing.

They're joining up with our office, with renter advocates and with socialists and fighting back.

More than 560 community members have signed our community petition calling for the city council to close the Just Cause loophole, including 100 people who signed just this morning when they heard about this afternoon's committee meeting.

I really appreciate community members being engaged.

Let's be clear that the problem lies almost exclusively with corporate landlords.

This is not rhetoric.

This is nationwide data that indicates this.

And this is a matter of both economic and racial justice, as Black and Brown tenants are subjected to eviction threats at much higher rates than other tenants.

You might think that with local, state, and national eviction moratoriums in place, that corporate landlords would have halted eviction filings, but we would be wrong in thinking that.

As the corporate watchdog group Private Equity Stakeholder Project recently reported, even with state and national eviction moratoriums in effect, private equity firms and other corporate landlords are still insisting on evicting families during the pandemic, particularly families of color.

We have more data that I will go over later.

But we know that even in Seattle, the situation is no different.

According to the Housing Justice Project, landlords have filed nearly 400 eviction notices since COVID began last year.

So we have absolutely every moral and political obligation to stop the corporate landlord eviction tsunami.

So I'm really grateful to the community panel of renters who are going to be here today to describe how it is affecting them, why this loophole should be closed.

And I'll also add, as I did the last committee, that my staff and I have directly spoken with dozens of tenants who are working with us to close the loophole, including newly activated tenants.

And I'm really happy that we have council members Morales and Lewis both having publicly stated support for closing the just cause loophole and that we are going to be discussing both the legislation today.

And this is what tenants have been calling for.

We have seen that we absolutely will need a renter-led movement to make sure we win closing this loophole.

We have seen repeatedly how an approach of insider negotiations can either fail us entirely or result in a watered-down bill that does not protect all tenants.

We just saw this with the State House Bill 1236, which enacts just cause rights statewide, which is important, but then leaves gaping loopholes for corporate landlords to exploit.

Also this afternoon, we'll get a report on the bill that my office has introduced banning school year evictions for school children, families and educators.

And I will describe that bill in more detail when we come to that agenda item.

But I want to make sure we get to the public comment as soon as possible, which is something we will go over before we begin our agenda items.

I will read the names of the people who are signed up for public comment in order of their signing up.

Because of the numbers of people who have signed up, we will have One minute for each speaker to be able to make sure that we get through at this moment.

My hope is that we get through all the speakers.

We have 32 people signed up, although not everyone is present at this moment.

I'll make sure to call everybody who's present.

So I hope public comment, sign up.

People have heard that you all have one minute to speak.

Our first speaker is Daniel Kavanaugh.

Please go ahead.

uh...

amenity and i'm uh...

renter and a member of socialist alternative and i want to thank council members to want for fighting for a united approach to open uh...

you know to close the loopholes uh...

and just cause addiction protection uh...

uh...

you know proposing her own bell uh...

but also uh...

co-sponsoring morality spell and i think uh...

you know we need an approach that can win the strongest protection to get the fiction and i'm a bit as weak when it's divided and prominent united So I really applaud council members to want and I want to urge council members to pass the strongest possible version of these protections supporting both bills before you today and closing the loophole fully.

And I also want to urge council members to support the bill banning evictions of school children and their families during the school year that has been supported unanimously by the Seattle Education Association.

Or nearly unanimously.

Thank you.

We have Angie Gerald next followed by Margo Stewart.

Go ahead Angie.

Thank you.

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

No presentations outreach or analysis despite clear recommendations in the city's 2018 rental housing study.

Your policies are backfiring with many negative impacts for renters.

In April Council President Gonzalez was quoted on Seattle Channel saying she's not aware of any studies or statistics that support the theory that increased tenant regulations depletes rental inventory in our city.

Ask SDCI and local real estate agents how many small community based rentals are disappearing from the market.

While you rail against greedy corporations, your policies are only creating advantages for them, stoking greater inequity and fewer options for local renters.

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

Council should not move ahead with the bills under consideration today.

To improve conditions for renters, you need to collaborate with local housing providers.

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

Thank you.

We have Margo Stewart next, followed by Blythe Serrano.

Go ahead, Margo.

Hi, my name is Margo.

I'm a renter in the Central District.

I'm also calling to support Council Member Sawant's resolution to close the term lease loophole in the Just Cause Evictions Law.

I'm pleased Council Member Morales has also put forward a bill and that Council Member Sawant has co-sponsored that bill.

I think that's the kind of unified approach, you know, we're gonna need to win victories for renters And that's also going to mean organizing directly among renters and tenants and looking to bring our movement into City Hall as Council Member Thawant has done.

But, you know, closing this loophole, and that's what it is, is going to be crucial to keeping people housed in the midst of this ongoing crisis, especially this summer as corporate landlords, who are the primary evictors and who have been raising rents at double the national rate locally, are looking for ways to jack up rents between leases now that the eviction moratorium is ending.

But this is also a longstanding housing crisis.

So we're going to need other measures to fight it.

You know, like six months notice for rent hike, barring legalized discrimination through credit tax, canceling debt, and fighting for universal rent control, both for tenants and small businesses.

So I'm excited those measures are being fought for by Sawant's office.

And I'm also looking forward to fight for them with other renters at the rent control rally on May 27th.

Thank you.

Blythe Serrano is next, followed by Michael Malini.

Go ahead, Blythe.

Hi, my name's Blythe.

I'm a renter in the Central District and I'm calling to urge the Renters' Rights Committee to close the loophole in Seattle's Just Cause protections.

It's really urgent that we close this loophole now before the eviction moratorium expires on June 30th.

Many tenants are still struggling under the dual crises of COVID-19 and the economic recession.

And without Just Cause protection, many of them could find themselves evicted just because corporate landlords want to increase their profits by further gentrifying the city.

There are currently two bills under consideration which take different approaches to close the Just Cause loophole.

I urge the Renters' Rights Committee to listen to Council Member Swann and take a unified approach, combining the best elements of both pieces of legislation so that all tenants are protected.

We must also recognize that it will take a fighting movement to win SARA Just Cause legislation.

Already, more than 460 renters have signed the community petition in the Council Member Swann's office.

So, yeah, we need to build a movement and take a unified approach.

If we want to win this, stand up to corporate landlords.

Thank you.

Michael Mellini is next, followed by Jessica Scalzo.

Go ahead, Michael.

Hi, my name is Michael Mellini.

I'm a renter in District 3 calling to support Health Member Swans' initiative to close the loophole.

It's shameful that the eviction moratorium has not been extended past June.

We're still in the middle of this pandemic amongst the housing crisis already and we need the strongest protection possible for renters.

Thank you.

We have Jessica Scalzo followed by Laura Lill-Bernstein.

Go ahead, Jessica.

Hi, my name is Jessica.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I am a renter in District 3 and I definitely support the bill to close the just cause loopholes.

Um, it doesn't even make sense that a landlord has to provide one of the 16 just cause reasons, um, to evict someone if someone is on a month to month, but not if they're on a term lease.

So that seems like an easy fix just to change, especially if we know that.

Nine out of 10 people that get evicted, become homeless.

And I think that everyone can agree that we have a homelessness crisis.

So this seems just like an easy thing to do to at least keep people that are in homes, um, in their home.

Um, I work in a shelter.

I see firsthand, um, the devastating effects of evictions.

And I'm also a peer counselor.

And one of the first tests we learn about recovery is that a house is really, really important.

There's four, um, specific things you need for recovery, a house, community, purpose, and health.

And so we need to keep people in their homes and please support this.

Thank you.

We have Laura Lowe Bernstein followed by Katie Wilson.

Go ahead, Laura Lowe.

Hi, I'm calling today on behalf of Share the City's Action Fund, an all-volunteer advocacy organization working across Puget Sound on land use and public broadband.

We have a newsletter that reaches about 1,000 community members, 7,000 followers on Twitter, and over 100 folks in our Slack group.

We're part of the Stay House, Stay Healthy campaign and the Cancel the Rent and Mortgages Washington efforts.

We support CB 120057. It's a great policy.

We need to extend just cause protections.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis and Sawant for co-sponsoring.

We ask Council Members Peterson and Juarez to co-sponsor.

We ask that the committee as a whole recommends passage of CB 120057 to the full city council.

We also want tenant relocation assistance funds expanded so more rent burden tenants more economically have help.

We need a robust public information campaign so renters can keep up with all of their rights as they get more and more rights.

And I also want to disclose I'm a board member for BC Seattle, who has been advocating for five years and educating Seattle about their renter rights.

Finally, please ask Governor Inslee, as a city council, write to Governor Inslee and ask him to extend the eviction moratorium.

Thank you.

We have Katie Wilson followed by Kate Rubin.

Go ahead, Katie.

Hello, this is Katie Wilson with the Transit Riders Union.

Thanks for hearing our testimony.

The Transit Riders Union strongly supports Council Bill 120057, closing the fixed-term lease loophole in Seattle's Just Cause Eviction Ordinance.

Many of our members have been impacted by the pandemic, carrying rental debt and at risk of eviction.

As we emerge from the pandemic and so many Seattle renters are in this situation, there's a real danger that landlords will use the lease loophole to kick renters out when their leases end.

That way they don't even have to say it's about COVID rental debt.

With rental assistance programs still being set up, it's so important that renters are protected so that landlords will make the effort to access rental assistance and maintain the tenancy rather than resorting to eviction, which usually leads to homelessness.

And this isn't just about the pandemic.

All renters should be protected from discriminatory, retaliatory, and arbitrary eviction.

Thank you to Council Member Morales and to Lewis & Swatt for co-sponsoring this important legislation.

We also support the amendments proposed by SDCI.

And we hope this whole committee, including Peterson and Juarez, will recommend passage to the full council.

Thank you.

We have Kate Rubin, followed by Jordan Quinn.

Go ahead, Kate.

Good afternoon.

My name is Kate Rubin.

I'm the Executive Director of B-Seattle, a representative of the Stay House, Stay Healthy Coalition, and a renter in District 2. I'm calling in support of CB 120057, closing the fixed-term lease loophole.

Right-to-counsel and payment plans will not help people stay housed upon the end of their lease.

As it currently stands, Seattle has the second highest number of no-cause evictions in King County.

Since landlords do not need to provide a reason for not renewing, it leaves renters vulnerable to displacement due to their race, gender, sexuality, disability, or for asserting their rights by requesting repairs or organizing with their neighbors.

Closing this loophole is common sense legislation.

Thank you.

We have Jordan Quinn followed by Matthew Smith.

Go ahead, Jordan.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Great.

Hi, I'm Jordan.

I'm a renter in District 2. I just wanted to say thank you to Councilmember Sawant for introducing your bill to close the Just Cause protection loophole, for endorsing Councilmember Morales' bill as well.

I think our movements are going to need to be unified to fight for the strongest protection in the face of the corporate landlord's opposition to expanding renters' rights.

So that's really, really important.

The looming eviction crisis, too, is really growing in potential severity as rents keep increasing.

You know, just this first quarter, rents went up 9% on average, just showing all the more why it's so important that we fight for rent control, too, like council members saw one announced at a press conference this last week, actually.

And, you know, some good small landlords have canceled rent or decreased it for their burdened tenants during the pandemic.

The big corporate landlords are continuing to profiteer.

We can stop this race to the bottom by passing the Just Cause loophole protection and rent control and other renters' rights.

Thanks.

We have Matthew Smith followed by Sarah Champernon.

Go ahead, Matthew.

uh...

yeah my name is madam uh...

renter in district to uh...

i i agree with well a lot of what has been said on there's been a massive abuse of power uh...

by uh...

big landlords for many many years in seattle uh...

we've seen a a fundamental power imbalance between renters and corporate landlords corporate landlords being the biggest driver of evictions in this city.

We have a housing crisis, continued housing crisis in the city.

Seattle landlords are evicting three households a day on average.

Many of those, the overwhelming majority of those households being pushed into homelessness.

And I think this just cause legislation that is being introduced by Council Member Salwant, by Council Member Morales, This is a critical lifeline to renters and to changing that power imbalance.

I want to thank the previous speakers for letting us know about the rally on May 27th at 6 p.m.

at Pratt Park.

I will absolutely be there and encourage everyone else to join us as well.

We have Sarah Champernown followed by Matthew Wilder.

Go ahead, Sarah.

Uh, hi, my name is, my name is Sarah.

Uh, I've lived in, um, I lived in Seattle my, my whole life and I've moved every like two years since, since 2013. So I just had a, uh, I, yeah, I encourage, uh, the council to pass this, this legislation, closing the loophole, the just pause loophole.

Um, and just, I have a personal story about this.

I used to live in the Atlantic neighborhood and, uh, my, a bunch of, a bunch of roommates And we found mold and structural mold in the house.

And instead of incurring the cost associated with dealing with that, the landlord just decided, okay, I'm just gonna have you guys all leave because there was only two months left on the lease.

So we were all basically evicted because we found mold.

we found an issue you know in the house and this is after getting a verbal agreement that we were going to renew the lease.

And this was also in 2017 when it was really competitive to find good rentals at a fair price.

So this is a major disruption to all of this.

And the landlord had us live there for two more months with that health hazard, didn't refund us any rent to move early or anything like that.

And then he just took a month to fix the place up and then rent it out again, notably at a higher price.

Basically, every time I've moved, it's been because of the whim of the landlord.

Sorry, we have to keep moving.

But Sarah, please send your full comment to my office.

We would definitely be wanting to read it.

Next, we have Matthew Wilder followed by Leslie Mathis.

Go ahead, Matthew.

Hi, my name is Matt.

renter in District 3. I'm calling in support of closing the just cause loophole.

I think also we need to keep building the movement for renters and going beyond that.

We need to require that landlords provide 180 days notice before increasing rents on tenants.

We need to ban the addictions of families with school children.

We need to also implement commercial rent control for struggling small businesses.

And then we need to continue to build the movement as well.

So I encourage people to join us all at the Renter's Rights Rally that we're holding May 27th at 6 p.m.

at Pratt Park.

That's all I have, thank you.

We have Leslie Mathis followed by Madeline Olson.

Go ahead, Leslie.

Hello, my name is Leslie Mathis.

I live in District 6. And I'm calling to ask you to support Seattle rent control.

I want to thank you councilwoman.

So on for your leadership and creating movements, which have invested in concrete community benefits.

Um, I w I have been a property manager in district three for the last 20 years, working for a private landlord, not a corporate landlord.

Um, and as I gained more and more responsibility over those years, I acquired the hands-on understanding.

of the profit generated by rental income, less expenses like salaries, maintenance, property taxes, insurance.

And since I was also in charge of marketing, I was constantly assailed by the owner that, you know, quoting one professional periodical after another, she raised rents just because she could.

And I want to say that I urge you to support the community at large as you did by supporting the Amazon tax, a 15 hour minimum wage and the efforts to achieve police accountability.

Thank you.

We have Madeline Olson followed by Valen Solomon.

Go ahead, Madeline.

Hi there.

Can you hear me?

Okay.

Yes.

Great.

Yeah, I'm Madeline.

I'm a renter in Green Lake.

I'm just here to force my support for closing the Just Cause loophole, as well as the ban on evictions of schoolchildren, their families, and their teachers during the school year.

I heard some concern about the legislation being discussed from a landlord, but closing this loophole simply requires term leases to be held to the same standard as month-to-month rentals.

in that there needs to be legally justifiable cause for eviction, a rule that seems absolutely common sense, as others have said.

You know, holding all landlords to the same standard actually gives less room for big corporate landlords to exploit loopholes, not the other way around.

It's vital that we all cooperate to achieve these things, so thank you so much, Council Member Sawant, for putting forward both the ban on cruel and unjust evictions and co-sponsoring the bill with Council Member Morales, we all win by fighting together.

And just want to thank everyone for showing up today and voicing their support for renters' rights.

We all need to be involved and continue this movement to win vital protection to minimize what we know is going to be a massive eviction tsunami.

So we all know that this is only the first step.

We need to keep fighting for comprehensive protections.

We need rent control for both residential and commercial rentals.

We need six months notice for rent increase.

We need COVID relief in the form of canceling mortgages and utility payments for folks who have lost income.

Thanks so much.

Valen Solomon, followed by Tran Larson.

Go ahead, Valen.

Hi, my name is Valen Solomon, and I'm a renter in District 3 calling in strong support of closing Seattle's Just Cause eviction ordinance lease loophole.

As an attorney working to protect low-income tenants day in and day out, I've seen the significant harm that evictions have on individuals and families, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As I'm sure you all know, evictions disproportionately impact communities of color in Seattle.

especially Black women.

As Matthew Desmond a leader in the field of eviction studies so poignantly said if incarceration had come to define the lives of men from impoverished Black neighborhoods evictions was shaping the lives of women.

Poor Black women were locked up or poor Black men were locked up while poor Black women were locked out.

This is true around the United States and in Seattle.

A 2018 study found that although Black women made up approximately 6.7 percent of Seattle's population they represented over 33 percent of evictions in Seattle.

Now is the time if there ever was one to close Seattle's Just Cause Eviction Ordinance.

Thank you.

Tram Tran-Larson followed by Sonia Pona.

Go ahead, Tram.

Good afternoon.

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

I'm calling in support of Council Bill 12057, sponsored by Council Member Morales and co-sponsored by Council Member Lewis and so on.

With the moratorium coming to an end, we have heard from renters across the city that their landlord has already told them they won't be renewing their lease by using this loophole.

I've been working with one renter in particular who has a severe health condition and fears that his landlord will evict him come July 1st and he will become homeless and die in the streets.

I know he is not the only one.

Seattle started long before COVID-19 and will remain long after.

The temporary moratorium protections save thousands of renters across our city from losing their home in the middle of a global pandemic.

But now we need permanent long-term solutions.

We're asking that the committee as a whole supports and recommends passage of council bill 12057 to the full city council.

Thank you.

Sonia Pona followed by Sebastian Stockpile.

Go ahead, Sonia.

Hi, this is Sonia Pona.

As a working mom of two teenagers and a landlord myself, I support council members who wants just cause the legislation to ban evictions of school children and educators during the school year.

And I urge you to pass it without delay and loopholes.

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

And it's a stunning indictment of our society that we have to fight so hard to ban it.

I was also glad to see the press conference on residential and commercial rent control.

We really do need to build that demand to cancel COVID debt, because we know big banks, corporate landlords, and wealthy people are not going to pay for this crisis.

We are working people.

We know they are not paying their fair share.

And so I was also glad to see these two bills, as mentioned by others.

We really need that kind of unified approach to win victories for renters.

And we also need to organize directly and bring that movement into City Hall, as Council Member Sawant has done.

Thank you.

We have Sebastian Stockpile followed by Jim Henderson.

Go ahead, Sebastian.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Good afternoon.

My name is Sebastian Stockpile and I work with the King County Bar Association's Housing Justice Project as a staff attorney.

I'm also a renter in District 3, or District 4, excuse me.

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

Council Member Sawant, and a piece of legislation developed with ongoing community support.

We at HAP, as part of the Stay Healthy Coalition, have been working on this with Council Member Morales's office.

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

Too often, lawmakers have moved forward with the passage of laws intended to help communities without first getting meaningful input from the community members to ensure protective, effective laws pass.

CB 120057 has the renter community's input and support, and its protection is long overdue.

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

Renters should not be facing homelessness as a result of loopholes, especially not as the moratorium comes to an end.

We have Jim Henderson followed by Molly Go.

I'm sorry if I'm saying your name wrong, but go ahead, Jim.

Do we have Jim Henderson here?

Doing star six to unmute.

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Jim Henderson on behalf of the Rental Housing Association and their 5,000 small landlords here this afternoon opposing this ordinance.

First and foremost, the most important missed opportunity here is for a stakeholder process.

This is necessary to hear the voice of all those who are impacted by this bill.

Secondly, there would be a practical end of using fixed term leases resulting in housing insecurity.

Will disrupt seasonal and student housing, reducing opportunities for tenants who seek to rent out units for less than a year.

And allowing debt to continue for more than 10 months would put tenants severely behind and unable to pay rent.

during two months of the year.

Thank you.

Mollie followed by Peter Hoke.

Go ahead Mollie.

Hello my name is Mollie Goff and I'm a renter in District 4. I'm calling in today to support Council Member Morales' Tenants Bill of Rights legislation to close the fixed term loophole in Seattle's Just Cause Eviction Ordinance.

According to the Housing Justice Project's report on King County eviction filings in 2019, Seattle had the second highest number of no-cause filings.

In Seattle, BIPOC renters faced evictions at roughly the same rate as white renters, even though BIPOC renters account for only 32% of Seattle renters, while white renters account for 60%.

Failure to close this loophole has allowed landlords to sidestep the city's just-cause eviction ordinance and continues to force tenants from their homes without cause.

Council Member Morales' legislation would close this loophole and help to ensure that our most vulnerable neighbors cannot be forced from their homes without cause.

I urge all the council members to vote yes and to support closing the fixed-term loophole.

Peter, followed by Jessica Westgren.

Go ahead, Peter.

Good afternoon, this is Peter Hauk.

I am calling to support Council Bill 120057. I lived in Seattle for over 30 years, and lately I've lived in District 4, both before and during the pandemic.

I currently live in Wallingford, right next to 45th, which is the business street and the heart of the neighborhood.

I've seen small businesses in my area close, but lately I've seen increased business in my neighborhood.

And I agree with a lot of the reasons that people have given in support of this bill and the Council Member Sawant's bill.

But I have not heard, I think another important reason to support these bills, which is to support small businesses.

Most of the people who work at these businesses, who have kept my neighborhood running during the pandemic, and it has kept other neighborhoods running.

They need stability to get back to work and to get rental assistance that's on the way, but not yet here, so they can keep our neighborhoods going and help everyone get back to normal.

Thank you, and please support these bills.

Jessica Westrand followed by Glenn Pinkham.

Go ahead, Jessica.

Thank you, council members for your time today.

My name is Jessica Westgren.

I'm a lifelong renter who's been renting in D4 for nine years, a former member of the Seattle Renters Commission, and a former corporate and non-profit property manager.

I'm calling in to bring my voice in support of closing the lease term loophole.

I especially want to thank Council Member Tammy Morales for bringing this extremely important issue to the table, and additional thanks go to PMs Lewis and Pawan for co-sponsoring.

I'm going to go ahead and be blunt, because tiptoeing around when discussing human rights, such as access to housing, does disservice to the crisis and the people living in current and real danger.

So here's my point.

Not supporting closing the loophole and just cause eviction protections is akin to not really having just cause eviction protections.

In addition, not voting to install these protections also says that you're willing to ignore a tool that landlords use for retaliation.

We have protections against retaliation in Seattle, but this loophole makes them useless.

Listen to these landlords who are already threatening.

Well, then you won't offer fixed term leases if you do this.

This is an abuse of power.

We try to fix the loophole and they threaten us.

Please stand up to them and end this loophole now.

Thank you for your time.

Glenn Pinkham, followed by John Grant.

Go ahead, Glenn.

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

Good afternoon.

My name is Glenn Pinkham.

I'm with Mother Nation.

And what I would like to encourage all the renters out there is that uh...

you start a campaign to register all the renters make sure everybody's registered to vote that's one thing the second thing is i would encourage you to do is to not let uh...

new uh...

uh...

condominiums come up and have a tax break set for the year that they start their tax break at the same year so they could start they could be held at the same tax rate like say it was five years ago be paying the taxes of five years ago, not today.

So encourage that to happen when you deal with the developers.

Thank you.

John Grant followed by Ruben Twin.

Go ahead, John.

Good afternoon, Chair Swanson members of the committee.

My name is john grant.

I'm the chief strategy officer for the low income housing Institute or Lehigh.

We are a regional landlord that owns or operates over 2400 units of rental housing and seven with 70 properties across six counties in the greater Puget Sound area, with many in Seattle.

We are testifying in support of Councilmember Morales is proposed ordinance to reform the just cause eviction ordinance to cover term leases.

We thank Committee Chair Sawant for surfacing many of these concerns in this committee.

As a property owner, we believe that requiring just cause is a best practice and a policy that helps property owners limit their liability because the policy assists owners comply with existing fair housing laws.

This proposed policy would have no negative impact on the buildings we own.

And in fact, we believe would improve relationships between landlords and tenants by bringing more consistency in how eviction laws are enforced.

We encourage the committee to pass this on and pass this law.

Thank you.

Ruben Twin, followed by Rene Balu.

Go ahead, Ruben.

Good afternoon.

Ruben Twin here, Oglala Lakota tribal member working with Mother Nation's nonprofit organization as a housing case manager.

I appreciate the bill to close the Just Cause loophole.

It speaks to the needs of the people.

The position as a council member is to be in the best interest of the people.

Please consider the voices heard today so that people don't lose their houses without this bill.

Thank you for your time.

Rene followed by Lee Goldman.

Go ahead, Rene.

My name is Rene Ballou, and I'm an eviction defense attorney with KCBA's Housing Justice Project, as well as a renter in District 6, and I am calling to express my support for Council Bill 1257. The Just Cause Eviction Ordinance, as it is currently written, allows landlords to decline extending an offer for a new lease if the original lease does not automatically convert to month-to-month.

So it essentially allows landlords to disrupt people's housing for any reason whatsoever, so long as they do not include the month-to-month conversion language in the original lease.

This loophole is completely antithetical to the policy behind Just Cause Eviction, and it should be remedied as soon as possible.

I hear a lot of landlords claim very generally that these increasing tenant protections are hurting their ability to do business.

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

I said it at the last public comment on the bill, and I'll say it again.

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

Thank you.

The next speaker's name, whose name I had read, is now showing as not present, Lee Goldman.

So I'll go to the last speaker who is showing up as present, which is Max Savishinsky.

Go ahead, Max.

Hi.

Thank you, Chair Swan, members of the committee.

My name is Dr. Max Savashinsky.

I'm the executive director of WPSR Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility.

We're an advocacy organization representing hundreds of health professionals across the state.

And on behalf of WPSR's health professional members, we urge you to protect public health by keeping our community members housed and closing the fixed term lease loophole.

Our members see the downstream health impacts of economic insecurity, housing instability, and homelessness every day in clinics and hospitals across the state.

Many of our members work on the front lines of the COVID pandemic and are deeply concerned about the public health consequences that will follow the end of the eviction moratorium if comprehensive tenant protections are not enacted right now.

So that covers all the...

Actually, I think we missed me, actually, for Colton Kenyon.

I didn't see your name, Colton, but go ahead and...

Colton, you're on the panel for agenda item number one, so we'll come to you shortly.

Oh, then that's why I was confused.

I'm so sorry.

No problem.

Thank you.

I'm very glad you're here.

So some speakers did show up as not present.

So please send your comment in writing if you wish to do that.

I really appreciate everybody who came to public comment and lent their voice to the question of renters' rights and to the question specifically of closing the loophole in Seattle's just cause eviction ordinance.

We will quickly begin our first agenda item.

And I want to make sure we do this in such a way that the speakers, some of the renters we have testifying today in our committee, they're here during their work day, and I know that they need to leave very soon.

So I want to first thank everybody who is here to speak as community members, as renter rights advocates, and just to avoid awkwardness, I will call you in order by name.

And as I said, you know, urging your indulgence so that I can call them in order in such a way that people who have to go back to work are able to go back to work in time.

So I will now invite Caitlin Heinen from the Housing Justice Project.

Sorry if I'm butchering your last name, but please go ahead and introduce yourself for the record, and then go ahead and speak.

And I'll call on the other speakers as soon as I can, and then we can have a discussion.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Caitlin.

Thank you, council member.

My name is Caitlin Heinen, and I'm a staff attorney for the King County Bar Association's Housing Justice Project.

HJP is a legal aid clinic providing eviction defense to low-income tenants facing eviction in King County.

Having represented tenants throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, I've seen how refusing to renew a tenancy and terminating a tenancy are functionally the same for my clients.

Both actions place them at risk of falling into homelessness.

So thank you for this opportunity to participate on the panel in support of closing this loophole in Seattle's Just Cause Ordinance.

Thank you, Kaitlin.

And I hope you can stay with us for questions or comments from the council members.

Thank you, I really appreciate that.

Next, I'll call on Jordan Van Vost, who I understand has to leave to go back to work by 3 p.m.

So please welcome Jordan.

State your name for the record, and then go ahead with your testimony.

Good afternoon.

My name is Jordan Van Vost, and I'm a settler on Settle our homeowner on Duwamish land.

I speak today in solidarity with Council Member Sawant and the Movement for Renters' Rights and to voice my support for the legislation to close the loophole in Just Cause lease eviction laws.

This loophole allows landlords to evict tenants on term leases when they expire without having to state any of the 16 legally allowed reasons which exist in month-to-month rent context.

About a month ago, my older brother, sorry, About a month ago, my older brother was contacted by his landlord who said he wanted to evict him at the end of his 12-month lease, which expires at the end of June.

Extremely unsettling news for my brother who has lived with schizophrenia for over 40 years, enduring the social stigma that goes with that, regularly facing rejection and eviction from the world in a general sense.

Nonetheless, despite his severe and persistent mental illness, he has managed to live independently and contribute to society through his artwork.

which he has donated to several Seattle area hospitals and organizations serving the public.

Schizophrenia, like many disabilities, places individuals in an extremely vulnerable situation in a world where the profits of capitalism are ultimately prioritized over human and societal well-being.

Due to my white privilege and karma, I am in a position to help my brother and was able to dialogue with the landlord.

and help them understand how devastating and potentially destabilizing a forced eviction could have on my brother.

But what about the thousands who are evicted every year in our city?

How many of them lack an advocate?

How many of them are guilty of no crime other than living in a society which, despite paying lip service to social justice and human rights, says that it is okay to put someone on the street because we can't infringe upon the rights of the owning class?

How conveniently we forget history when we arrive at these conclusions.

The material wealth of this city and country was founded upon slavery and manifest destiny, eviction of the Native Americans from their land.

It is built upon theft from our children and grandchildren.

The so-called free market of capitalism sanctions the pillage and theft of Earth resources from Mother Earth, destroying the habitat of other creatures and stealing their homes.

Our laws give us the legal rights to do these things, but if we listen to our hearts, we know they do not give us the moral right.

How sadly ironic it is that landlords who have inherited privilege and wealth based on stolen land and labor are allowed to evict people without just cause.

What moral justification is there to deny people the right to housing?

There is none.

Capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy all work together, and it is our job to undo their legacy.

A Dakota elder recently told me that we are living in the time of prophecy.

Devastating climate disasters and pandemics are two signs that our world is way out of balance.

We have to make a choice now which road we are going to follow.

Some would have us believe that we should stick with business as usual and allow corporations and their political contributions to make the key decisions in our lives.

I believe we need to build a society based on compassion that truly leaves no one behind.

We need rent control because so many people are forced to leave their homes in our city because rents are unaffordable.

We need a Green New Deal and real climate solutions.

Building thousands of environmentally sustainable publicly owned affordable housing should be part of that, but we can't wait for that to happen.

We must be willing to step out of our comfort zone and show up in movements for change, utilizing nonviolent action and speech to pressure city council members to stand with renters like my brother and pass Just Cause protections, rent control, and other renter protections put forward by Council Member Sawant and our grassroots movement.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jordan.

And as I said, it's totally fine if you have to leave in order to go back to work.

Really appreciate you coming here.

And also that you have, this is your second committee testimony and bringing the message from your brother who, as you said, like many other members of our disabled communities are, you know, remain invisible and the most, one of the most disproportionately impacted communities because of the lack of these basic rights for renters.

I am really happy to invite Violet Lavati next from the Tenants' Union of Washington.

Welcome, Violet.

Thank you, Council Member Shenle Sawant.

I'm actually here today to talk about closing the loopholes in this important legislation.

Council Bill that was created by Council Member Morales had community voices all around the table.

And this is the reason why it's so important to close these loopholes.

We get many calls from tenants from all over the state of Washington about getting served these 20 day notices.

And so we're happy that through the state of Washington, they have now passed statewide just cause.

There's a lot of good things that are coming out of having Just Cause.

But the thing is, is some of these loopholes, we need to close them now.

Because it does add, you know, people always ask me, why is it so important to have Just Cause?

Because we know if you're staying in a place and you're not on the lease, in 20 days, a landlord can ask you to leave for no reason.

communities of colors are experiencing the highest rate of either intimidation or bullying through these no-cause notices, and it adds to our homeless population.

Closing these loopholes, you know, I read the Council Bill 12057 that have been introduced by Council Member Morales, and I thank you, Council Member Lewis and Council Member Sawant to really engage and uplift these legislation that are so important to our communities.

The majority of communities that feel the crunch that are being asked to leave through these loopholes are communities of color.

African-Americans have the highest rate of evictions in our state.

And I wouldn't be surprised if it's in our nation.

And we're asking council members to support this legislation.

Council member Deborah Juarez and other council members to support this legislation.

It's good for the community.

I get a lot of calls from landlords who are angry at the tenant union, but I do not lose sleep over that.

But here's the thing.

Are there, is there all bad landlords in the state of Washington?

There are actually, I can tell you, there are good landlords.

We just don't have enough of them.

And I think one of the things that we fight every day why the tenant union exists is tenant protection to be protective over people who are feeling the crunch on this housing disparity.

Even before the pandemic, we had many, many people who were losing their housing.

that we're actually going, some of these 20 day notices, if we don't close the loopholes, some of them end up on the streets or end up in their cars.

Housing advocates will tell you firsthand, housing should be a human right.

And I think closing the loopholes is having the community surrounded, bringing the voices of everyone.

Landlords, they're on a lot of coalitions that we're on.

And to say that their voices aren't heard You know, if you look at legislation, if you go back and look at all these legislations, it was actually written by the opposing landlords and everybody.

And so here we are, years later, 2021, fighting for more rights to be protected, not to get over on the landlords, but to have an even playing field.

Today, I got a call from an Army veteran He was asked to leave, and I reminded him that under the moratorium, that he is protected under the moratorium.

We did reach out to the attorney general's office to share his story and to stop this landlord's bad behavior.

This is another reason why it's so important to have these tenant protections.

It's to make an even playing field out in there.

You know, landlord said the tenants need them so much.

Actually, the tenant and the landlord need each other.

And if it's a business, my hope that every landlord who hears this is that, you know, they would pick people over profit.

Come June 30th, the moratorium ends.

And last week we went to the governors, we went to the Capitol to urge to urge the governor of the state of Washington to pass and to extend the eviction moratorium.

If he does not extend it, there are a lot of people right now as we speak, landlords are ready to take them to court and to evict them.

We're asking, I'm gonna also put a ask out to the mayor, Mayor Durkin, to extend the moratorium also in the city of Seattle, to extend it past June 30th.

If you don't extend this moratorium, you will be contributing to many, many families and individuals who will probably be on the streets.

And you don't want that under your leadership or under your head.

So thank you, Council Member Tammy Morales, for Council Bill 12057. Thank you, Council Member Shama Sawant and Council Member Lewis for supporting this important legislation that we want to see.

Thank you very much.

Have a good day.

Thank you.

And Violet, please stay if you're able to, if council members have any comments or questions to the community panel.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we have Jake Laundrie, who has to leave by 3.20 is my understanding.

Welcome, Jake.

Please start by introducing yourself for the record and go ahead.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

My name's Jake Laundrie.

I'm a Seattle-based musician, a renter in D6, and I'm a rank-and-file laborer and union activist in Drivers Union with Teamsters 117 and with IOTSE 15, the stagehands union.

And because I feel like it's relevant to mention today, I also have a tiny side hustle property managing the Seattle home that I grew up in for my mom as she rents it out.

while she lives with her mom down in California.

So basically, I'm a gig worker in the fullest sense of the word.

And I'm speaking today in a personal capacity to share my story of why I support closing the Just Cause loophole.

And I can say with confidence after I spoke to her yesterday, that even as a private landlord who's had multiple tenants over the years, my mom also adds her voice in support of closing this Just Cause loophole.

So I'm hoping by sharing a little more about myself We can help build on the momentum of our grassroots movements collective action who shared a lot of powerful testimony today in support of winning these renters rights.

I've lived here in Seattle for 11 years since I was 17, but like everyone else here it has been extremely challenging to find a place in Seattle that is affordable, especially during this pandemic, I've moved.

11 times in the last 11 years, often due to being priced out of the living situation I was in.

After a challenging year of being on and off unemployment, I will be looking for new work come June 30. when the eviction moratorium ends.

And my term lease is up around that time, too.

And because you might be curious, we've already asked, and my mom's rental price is totally out of reach for me and my partner at the moment.

But my partner and I have been saving up for years to get our puppy, Mo, who has been a ray of sunshine during this tough year.

But our dog, of course, now adds this new challenge to finding housing accommodations.

And we're renting out.

We're lucky to rent out a place right now with a yard for the first time.

And while I feel more confident in my current landlord than most I've had in the past that they won't exploit this just cause loophole and not renew our term lease, the urgent pressures for me of finding work this summer and keeping our friend excited about renting out their basement and nice yard to us and our puppy at an affordable rate loom pretty large for me and my partner in our anxious subconscious.

So closing this loophole would mean that we'd have that extra layer of housing stability that we need right now.

I'm extremely privileged that I've been able to keep up on rent payments and stay housed through all my moving around, but some of my friends have not been able to pay rent.

and have been forced into homelessness through eviction.

I've personally seen the reality and devastation of homelessness on a much larger scale in my organizing with Housing Tent City Collective Tent City 3 at the University of Washington.

So I just feel strongly that our legislators have a moral duty to protect the human rights of our communities most vulnerable.

And I see that council members Sawant and Morales have proposed different bills to close the just cause loophole.

And I applaud council members Lewis and Sawant for co-sponsoring Morales' bill.

I just wanna join the chorus of all the other renters who support this unified legislative approach and hope that all the other council members on this committee will work together to merge the two bills so that we get the strongest possible protections for renters.

We know that for this and for other renters' rights, history will tell us that it takes a mass community movement to create the strongest possible renters' protections.

And that's why I support, in particular, the legislation that Council Member Sawant has introduced on behalf of our renters' rights movement, which includes requiring that landlords provide 180 days notice before imposing any rent increases.

This has affected me in the past and just having that amount of time to figure out how I'm going to get a gig to make the rent increases.

could have helped me in the past.

Also extending relocation assistance to people that have been economically evicted by rent increases, as I mentioned, I have been in the past.

Banning the latest form of legalized discrimination by barring landlords from using credit checks in rental applications, which we know is highly problematic and a racist approach, prohibiting onerous undemocratic or abusive lease terms, allowing rental history screenings to be transferable from one application to the next, protecting renters from default evictions, canceling rents, mortgages, and utility payments for people who have lost income due to COVID, and building our movement to fight and win for residential rent control and also fighting for struggling small businesses by winning commercial rent control.

And I know it won't be easy for us to win all these, but as a renter, a union member, a community activist, I'm committed to uniting with others to fight for these rights, which we need and deserve.

Thanks for hearing my comments today.

Thank you, Jake.

I know you have to leave for work, but please stay as long as you are able to.

And I appreciate you sharing your story.

And it's not surprising at all.

And I don't think you are in any way the only one in this situation, but it's still stunning.

to see how working people like yourself, your story about having had to move 11 times in 11 years and because of rent increases.

I mean, this really is just shows how badly we need rent control in our city and all the other renters rights you mentioned.

Next, I'd like to welcome star Willie, who is coming off a Starbucks shift that began at 5.30 a.m.

this morning.

We're really grateful to you, Star, for joining us right now, and please introduce yourself for the record and go ahead.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Star Willie, and I'm here as a Starbucks barista in Seattle calling on city council members to stand with renters, stand with the working class, LGBTQ, and trans community, and eliminate the just cause loophole.

Pass rent control now without loopholes as put forward by Council Member Shama Sawant and our movement.

As a barista in the city, I struggled for months to find an affordable apartment to rent.

Now the apartment that I moved into has become less affordable each time I renew my lease because they raise the rent every year.

I'm afraid each time my lease is up that they will refuse to renew my lease, essentially putting me on the street.

I would not be able to afford moving costs if this were to happen.

I cannot afford to move because the rent has increased dramatically since I moved here seven years ago.

I have no credit, so I cannot get approved for an apartment.

I need a cosigner, even though I am fortunate to have a good renting history.

I know that if an emergency were to happen, or if I was evicted due to the just cause loophole, I could easily end up homeless.

As a trans person, that could mean death.

Even in Seattle and other progressive urban areas, LGBTQ people are still discriminated against, sometimes very subtly.

The just cause loophole is one easy way that landlords can discriminate against trans people legally, making it so much harder to find and keep housing.

Trans people face discrimination in the workplace, are more than three times more likely to live in poverty, and face many extra life-threatening challenges when they are homeless.

I know the corporate landlords that manage my apartment building want to increase the rent exponentially.

All around Seattle, I see very expensive-looking apartments being built that I know many people can't afford to live in.

Many of my friends have moved out of Seattle because it is unaffordable, and I'm afraid that I will have to as well.

After saving up for years to move and having no extra money, it was very hard to pay all the fees it takes just to look at an apartment and to apply.

I could no longer afford to look at apartments, so I was forced to choose.

Now the corporate landlords of my apartment are very slow to fix repairs if they do at all.

They are trying to push out my neighbors who have lived here for over a decade by over monitoring them because they cannot increase their rent anymore.

Myself and many others cannot afford to live on their own.

That has put many people in very unhealthy, unsafe situations.

Protecting renters is an imperative part of decreasing homelessness.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many small businesses were struggling with rising rents and no protections.

Many places I like to go have been forced out of business.

If you like to have a person serve you coffee, workers need homes and places to work.

Struggling small businesses are renters, and they need protections, too.

If you love your local businesses, show them by supporting renters' rights struggles, including supporting commercial rent control, as Councilmember Sawant has called for.

We cannot rely on the establishment to protect our rights to live in Seattle.

It's up to us workers to show them that we will not be phased out.

We need to work together to protect ourselves and our neighbors.

Last week, I was proud to be among 40 community members who held a press conference with Councilmember Sawant calling for residential and commercial rent control with no loopholes.

180-day advance notice for any rent increases and relocation assistance when landlords force us out due to rent increases.

We'll need a fighting movement to win these measures, just as we'll need a fighting movement to close the Just Cause loophole so landlords can't kick us out for no reasons at all.

Renters are desperate, but we're getting organized, fighting back and demanding that the City Council take action now.

Thank you.

Thank you, Star, and especially for not only speaking as one of the many baristas and food service workers who are getting priced out of the city, but also as a trans community member and highlighting the disproportionate needs of the LGBTQ community.

Really appreciate that.

And if you can, please stay.

I know you've had a very long day already.

Next, I'd like to welcome Colin Donovan from LGBTQ Allyships Renter Committee.

Please, Colin, introduce yourself for the record and go ahead.

Thank you.

Hello, thank you very much for your time today, Council Member Sawant and all of the Council Members.

I have a commitment to read today.

My name is Colin Donovan, and I'm a current resident of West Seattle, District 1. I have been a resident of the Seattle area since 1995, and I'm here today as a member of LGBTQ Allyships Renders Rights Committee.

as well as a COVID-impacted renter.

I'm here to testify in support of closing the Just Cause fixed-term lease loophole.

And I'm here in general support of strong tenant protections, all inclusive, including the preventatives.

I'm here today to share my personal story of COVID-related eviction discrimination.

You know, I definitely agree with the critiques of the corporate landlord situation, but I'm here also to dispel the notion that so-called mom and pop landlords have been a wholly benevolent force during the pandemic.

I'm here to highlight the needs to protect vulnerable, disabled, queer, trans, and BIPOC renters.

We need stable housing going into the future as we cope globally with this public health crisis and the emerging and continuing threats of climate change.

To begin with some background, I am an independent contractor.

I have a background in community organizing, disability law, and accommodation in higher education, communications, and political economy.

I hold a Bachelor's of Arts from the Evergreen State College, where I graduated in 2007. For my entire adult life, I've been surviving on a month-to-month basis, like the majority of working and poor people do.

Prior to COVID, I had never been laid on rent before.

And at the time COVID began, I was living in a two-bedroom apartment that is $1,850 a month, and I was splitting the rent with a long-term roommate.

When the pandemic struck and lockdown was enforced in March 2020, my former roommate of three years was forced to move out of state after they lost their food service job due to the initial COVID restrictions.

This made me unable to cover the rent on my two-bedroom unit.

Simultaneously, the West Seattle Bridge went out, which depressed the number of people moving into the area.

Travel was restricted, which impacted the Airbnb unit in the downstairs unit.

I live in a fourplex.

And also a long-term elderly disabled tenant, also downstairs, died suddenly.

That confluence of factors impacted my ability to find a roommate, which I attempted to do as soon as I found out my roommate would be leaving due to the COVID impact.

I was unable to do so by the end of last August.

My current landlord then had a mental health crisis, in my opinion, after she was impacted negatively.

She is a first-time landlord.

This is her single property.

She lives across the street with her husband.

She is an employee of Seattle Public Schools, working in special education.

Prior to the pandemic, she and I had had what I believed was a very good relationship, and in fact, had talked extensively about our respective identities and careers as people with disabilities working in education and the way social justice impacts disabled life choices.

When I was unable to pay the rent for August 2020 in its entirety, I was in communication with her verbally and over text message about my heightened risk of COVID as a disabled person.

I thanked her for understanding my situation as an activist and expressed my wish to work with her to ensure she was able to get her money.

I simultaneously contacted several area organizations, mutual aid groups.

I tried to fundraise and was attempting to find a new roommate.

I repeatedly asked that my landlord work with me during the pandemic.

This was while the moratorium was still in place.

At midnight on August 16th, I exited my apartment to dispose of trash by the rear entrance, which I wasn't regularly using at the time.

Upon opening the door, a single sheet of paper fell to the ground.

There had been no email, call, or text from my landlord as had been our regular pattern up to that point with no problems.

The note dated August 15th and left propped unfastened to my back door was an illegal eviction threat telling me that if I did not pay in full by August 31st, I would be forcibly removed from the apartment.

I was stunned and terrified since I'd spoken with my landlord only a few days prior and she had seemed open to working with me on a payment plan.

She'd given no indication that this threat was imminent.

As someone who works professionally for the city as a special education teacher for Seattle Public Schools, I expected her to be aware of her legal obligations regarding housing and the pandemic, as well as the content of my lease, which was misrepresented in the threat.

Let me be clear to the council.

I am a transgender, queer, disabled professional.

I know my rights legally.

My landlord and her husband showed a pattern of recalcitrant hostility over several months, which included verbal intimidation from my landlord's husband, harassment of the other building tenants and refusal to follow the law.

My landlord did this as a result of the economic devastation of COVID and a confluence of factors beyond each of us as individuals.

In the course of my own navigation of these housing impacts, I've met several other tenants, BIPOC, queer, trans and disabled folks who are enduring similar hardships.

Systemic protections are needed.

We need to protect those with the least access to safety.

I ended up being able to file a report with the Washington State Attorney General after receiving help from the Washington State Tenants Unit.

Because the laws existed and were enforced, I was reliant on those systemic eviction protections And since that was in place, it effectively deescalated the harassment.

I was also able to secure a payment for August 2020 through December 2020 in full through the King County Eviction Protection and Rental Assistance Program, which needs to be robustly funded.

However, my economic devastation has not ended.

I now owe back rent from January through the present for my entire unit, as I have not felt comfortable recruiting a new roommate into this ongoing harassment history and unstable situation.

My landlord has since filled the vacancies in the building, and I have a good relationship with my new neighbors.

We've had Airbnb traffic as well.

My landlord has recovered significantly financially, while my situation remains one of stress, debt, overwhelm, job searching, and legal navigation.

I currently owe a total of 92.50.

I have planned to apply for all available rental assistance to alleviate this debt, and I've encouraged my landlord repeatedly to investigate resources available to her as a landlord.

In addition, I'm actively searching for stable employment in this environment, as I have been for months.

I continue to work with area housing organizations, including the LGBTQ Allyship Renters Rights Committee that I'm representing today, as well as the Tenants' Union of Washington State to navigate my situation.

Those organizations and others like them need to be listened to.

Facing this amount of insecurity in the midst of a global pandemic, it's not a joke.

My life is literally on the line and so are those of millions.

We must protect the most vulnerable in this ongoing health crisis where the cumulative economic effects of decades of trickle-down social austerity have hit the hardest.

We do have a moral obligation to act to protect vulnerable tenants in every possible way now.

I'm unable to secure new housing to get out of this situation without continued stability.

And to that end, it's essential that we close these fixed lease loopholes, extend just cause protections fully across the state with no loopholes, rent control is needed, We must ensure that children remain housed during the school year.

My landlord is an educator.

Perhaps if she had mortgage relief as an educator, this wouldn't have happened to us.

We need COVID financial hardship as an eviction defense.

Although I'm on a month to month lease, I have no doubt that due to my landlord's past instability, they would use any loophole they can find to be able to evict me out of the situation and just get a fresh start with a different class of tenant.

As a disabled, queer, trans individual, I have experienced extensive housing discrimination from so-called mom and pop landlords who are unaware of the law or recalcitrant when engaged with that legal reality.

I'm here today as an activist and engaged citizen, someone who's disabled, trans, and queer, and I've lived in the area since 1995. I am here for so many community members who have been suffering terribly.

Poverty is not an individual moral failing.

It is in fact a required and forced feature of the capitalist system and wealth inequality that we're facing today.

The time for change is now, and I strongly urge the support of the council, not only on these two bills before us today, but on full, robust tenant protections that center the most vulnerable.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Colin.

It was really, really appreciated the comments you made both your personal story and also how that applies to so many renters who are facing the kind of crisis that you are facing.

I really appreciate you.

talking about how renters are tenants of landlords of different sizes, and all tenants need a full protection, a full tenant's bill of rights, regardless of the size of the landlord.

And it is a really big problem that landlords are holding renters responsible for the rent of their roommates when the roommate moves out.

We absolutely need to have legislation that stops landlords from putting that burden on renters.

I really appreciate you and I hope you are able to stay.

I'm sure council members will have comments and questions.

Thank you.

Next we have Colton Kenyon.

Welcome Colton.

And as like everybody else has done, please introduce yourself for the record and then go ahead.

All right.

You guys can hear me?

Yes.

Hi, my name is Colton Kenyon.

I'm a taxpaying citizen and I live in South Lake Union.

I recently have still not been able to get any financial help since January for my rent.

And it's 1500 a month, including utilities.

And right now, especially during all of this, I'm living in and out of the hospital.

I'm having a third colonoscopy this year.

And if you know about any of that, it's just that's insane.

So I want to put a little bit of the attention on also understanding on how my situation, especially with work due to the phases, I am no longer allowed back at my bar yet.

So I am completely out of work.

There is rent every single month that's piling up on my back rent.

And my landlord has said that they will not renew my lease and with this loophole, they could really come at me and get me out of here.

And I just have been going through so much emotional and physical strain from this, but just mentally not knowing if I'm going to have a place to live.

And, you know, we need to extend the moratorium because not only for the simple fact that I'm not even back at work, but most Seattle citizens that are in my industry, they are not back and able to come to work.

Um, you know, I also just wanted to touch I feel like as a kid that grew up in an abusive household and had worked with a lot with the state.

I couldn't even imagine what would happen if I had to go through coven as a kid and had to be stuck at the house.

let alone having my parents worry that we're not gonna have a roof for me to live.

Because as a kid, you never even think about bills, you just think about your next Cheerios, it's way different.

So on top of that, I feel like we need to get more housing programs.

I've been working with the past three months now, trying to figure out a different rent situation due to the fact that I am barely saving over $100 a week.

I mean not a week, a month, to try to initiate something so I can move and find a new deposit as well as down payment for a place.

I have been working with Community Roots that used to be Capitol Hill Housing, as well as Bellwether Housing, and they have no properties right now available outside of just a couple of studios.

And the fight for those are, you know, no one's even called me back because we're, everyone during this pandemic has tried to get a hold of the housing programs that we do have.

So that way they don't lose a roof over their head.

So I really feel like we need to not only take care of, you know, some of this financially, we need to make sure that We are going to still have a program out there that would be able to accept us so we could have a roof over our head.

I think that I think we need to add more programs and we definitely need to add more properties to the list because we're now at an unemployment all time high in Seattle and Capitol Hill.

I'm part of the gay community as well.

As far as it has gone for a lot of my friends' businesses, they are having to close their properties and they will never ever open up ever again.

So we're actually losing a lot of history in that sense.

So I really just think we need to get to a plan to be able to eliminate this loophole, be able to help and put ease on tenants' heads.

I understand the landlords that are not corporate and how It affects their life as well, but you gotta really understand how the tenants feel.

And I feel like there's a blur with that.

So I feel like we need to make sure that we also have some funds coming and delegated to help people like myself get back with our background.

I do not want to claim bankruptcy at the age of 26. And it's looking more and more bleak as I try to gain for hope for change.

I really think we need to not only listen to all the tenants that have spoke today, but we also need to protect every single one of them, including myself.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Colton, and for sharing your story.

I could not agree more.

Every single tenant deserves and needs protection.

Our next two speakers and council members, committee members, I will let, I will have the last two speakers in this community panel speak.

And then of course, we will open it for your questions and comments.

Our next speaker is Sean Butterfield.

Go ahead, Sean.

Oh, uh, sorry.

I couldn't find that unmute button.

Um, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

Sorry.

Uh, here, let me, there we go.

Uh, so my name is Sean Butterfield.

Uh, I'm a rank and file member of SEIU 775 speaking in my personal capacity.

Um, I'm a caregiver for my disabled partner charity, and we live together in a rented apartment on Capitol Hill.

Um, I previously gave a similar testimony in late April.

Um, sorry, at the previous hearing on just cause eviction legislation, but I want to emphasize upfront something that I didn't adequately address at that time.

Making substantial and effective change is usually not about making a compelling argument for having the best technical solution to the problems that we face.

That's how it's supposed to work.

It's how we're educated and constantly reassured that it works, but it's plain to see that's not how it actually works.

and the lies we're told to the contrary are meant to distract and placate us.

Most people seem convinced by this illusory story.

I was for most of my life, too.

And I want to personally thank you, council members want for helping shake me from this delusion, even if it is meant seeing a more uncomfortable and discouraging reality.

It's worth briefly pointing out for those listening that the fairly simple reason why the technocratic approach to legislation doesn't work the way we're told it does.

our problems simply aren't problems for the powerful people in society.

Very often, those people are powerful and wealthy because they're in a position to extract wealth from and inflict precarity upon the people for whom that is an obvious problem.

So we line up to tell this council our problems and the solutions we would like to see, and usually they ignore it because we don't have any power as individuals.

I can't afford to bankroll candidates like Egan Orion and Alex Peterson.

unlike the highly lauded and powerful business interests who frequently and disingenuously complain that their input is not heard by this council.

So the only way we have as workers, caregivers like myself to solve our political problems is by building a cohesive movement in opposition to the powerful people who exploit us.

That's why I'm here talking Council Member Swan is the only one here who takes this approach seriously.

And because it is actually effective as evidenced by our victories in the fight for the $15 an hour minimum wage, the Amazon tax and a bevy of other renter protections, she has championed and won.

It has been met with widespread disdain among those who still cling to the comfortable lie of competent technocratic government, as well as those who benefit from telling that lie.

I wanna make it exceptionally clear upfront to everyone listening that building mass movements is the only way we're going to win the changes that will actually ameliorate the problems that we have materially in our lives when those solutions might threaten the political and economic hegemony of corporate landlords and other business interests.

All that set up front.

I'm just going to carry on with my comments from last time because I think they I hope that they'll continue to add something.

Um, to this, uh, to this, um, sorry to this hearing.

So I want to speak specifically from the perspective of people with disabilities about the loophole under discussion today, allowing landlords and your tendency for any reason at the conclusion of your lease, even if they're just going to turn around and rent it to someone else after you move out 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, 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 four years ago.

This has meant we can hire any caregiver, 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 we can move her safely without the added risk of injury, injuring her or ourselves.

However, as these years have gone by and we've become more and more reliant on this lift, as her disability has progressed, we have realized just how reliant we are on our continued tenancy in this apartment, because it's built into the ceiling of 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, potentially for years until the Department of Social and Health Services will reinstall it in a new apartment from which we could be just as easily evicted at the conclusion of a sixth or 12 month year or 12 month lease.

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

Anybody who uses a wheelchair or requires specific amenities due to disability 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 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 the 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 that we're talking about here.

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 up their pants, retrieve an important object that rolled under the bed, or get back in their wheelchairs in an emergency if they've fallen out.

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 the protections from this abuse of the balance of power between tenants and landlords.

The Just Cause legislation before this committee, advanced by council members, 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 would be sure to follow.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Sean.

And thank you for sharing, once again, the experience that you and Charity have had as a disabled community member and as a caregiver to the speaker.

Our last speaker is Renee Gordon.

So go ahead, Renee, and introduce yourself for the record.

And also, I would just say it's important that everybody's sharing this story, but let's refrain from making any personal remarks about any council members or anybody else, because we do, as we all have said, want to build a unified struggle here.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Renee.

Good afternoon, council members.

I just want to make sure you've been listening.

I have, and my heart is really breaking.

That's why we have to close the loophole for Seattle's Just Cause ordinance.

We have to do it now.

The rent moratorium expires on June 30th.

There are protections in place for residents on a month-to-month lease.

The landlord must show a reason and go to court to evict on a month-to-month lease.

There are 16 reasons that are allowed that has stopped many evictions over the years.

Term leases, on the other hand, have no protections.

So if you're on a six- to 12-month lease, when your lease is up, your landlord can evict you with no cause at all.

This practice must be terminated Renters on term leases deserve full rights.

They deserve just cause protections too.

We're also fighting to stop evictions during the school year.

It's a no brainer.

Children need a home to do their homework.

This is going to take organizing and we're gonna have to do it now.

The moratorium will be lifted again on June 30th.

And when that happens, there will be a flood of evictions.

This is going to cause more people to become homeless and add more people to the already huge homeless crisis that is currently going on here in Seattle.

It's going to take us to get organized.

and build a big movement to win.

I know that we can do it because two years ago I was literally asleep.

I heard a knock, knock, knock on the door and I put my ear to the window to see what was going on.

Jonathan and Sasha had came to our building to tell us what was happening.

It turned out Cadence Real Estate had purchased our building where my aunt mother Gordon has lived for over 30 years.

It is her home.

They had planned on kicking her out and she's 90 years old.

They wanted to kick her out and our community of seniors, immigrants, people of color, families with children and tear it down and build expensive apartments.

So we got organized.

We held press conferences, attain community support from unions, faith communities.

We got a petition signed by hundreds of people.

And now we've won several extra years to stay in our place.

And we have $5,000 for any resident who moves out for relocation assistance.

Now we still need to do this, but we need to do this again on a bigger scale.

because we have to win the just cost protections and rent control.

And we need more affordable housing too, as we hear today.

Now the corporate landlords are gonna fight us every step of the way, but we will get organized and we will build a movement to win.

I know together we can win.

We must win.

It's the right thing to do.

Our great leader Martin Luther King said, the time is always right to do what's right, so let's do it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Renee, and for reminding us how you and your fellow tenants won a concrete victory against a corporate developer cum landlord who was trying to basically find a way to evict so many of our elderly and people of color neighbors from the heart of the Central District.

I really appreciate everybody who came from the community and from the renters rights to speak.

Those of you who can stay, please stay.

I know council members who have questions or comments, and I wanted to open it up to committee members to, yeah, please raise your hand.

I'll be watching on the Zoom for any hands, your Zoom hands or your real hands.

Council Member Morales, go ahead.

Well, I just want to thank the panelists for being here.

I think it is important for us to hear their stories and to hear how people are directly impacted by the challenges that exist in the current law.

And I do want to also thank the folks that we invited who helped us craft the council bill we're about to talk about, Violet, Colton, Colin, Who else did we have on this tab?

I forgot.

Caitlyn, thank you so much.

Thank you for being here and sharing, again, why this work is so important to you as individuals and the people that you serve in your work capacities.

Thanks.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Do other council members have questions or comments for the panel?

I'm not seeing any.

I'll wait for a few seconds more, just in case anybody is getting ready to say something and raise their hand.

Um, I'll just say one thing and maybe as other customers will raise their hand in the meantime, uh, I, um, yeah, I definitely, uh, would echo what councilman Morales said in terms of having this community voice here.

It's extremely important to have, um, you know, actual renters who are.

affected by the lack of renters rights and the complete imbalance of power between tenants and landlords.

And I think some specific points have come up.

Just to reiterate something I said earlier in response to Collin Donovan, I do appreciate you, Collin, pointing out that it's a huge problem that landlords hold renters responsible, tenants responsible for the rent of other tenants, you know, roommate tenants, when the roommates move out.

And my staff and I will definitely be working with city council central staff to find out if there is a way to stop this without actually undermining the existing renters' rights, to make sure that landlords don't put that burden on The tenant, so we would definitely love to be in touch with you.

And also, if there are other if people are watching this committee, and if you had this happen to you, where you were legally liable for the rent of your roommates, please make sure to contact my office because we want to make sure that we find a way out of this.

And Colin, am I right that you have been continuing to fully pay your portion of the rent, but that you have not been able to afford the rent of your former roommate, obviously?

Is that the case?

Can you clarify?

I am currently behind on my rent total for myself and my roommate's portion.

I did pay through the Eviction Prevention and Rental Assistance Program.

did pay the entirety of my half through December of 2020. but I have not been paying for this year simply because I am unemployed due to the pandemic and I need to find a way out of this situation.

Ideally, I would be able to move another tenant in and we could move forward as a team as I thought we had been previously.

I understand that my landlord has had a mental strain with this kind of thing.

But yes, I'm currently in debt myself and for my former roommate's portion because I have not been able to find a new roommate to move in to this unstable situation.

So that's the update on that.

And I do need all the assistance I can get.

I mean, I've never been late on my rent ever until August of 2020. So yeah.

Right, thank you for mentioning that Colin because yeah I think there are a lot of renters like yourself who have never been behind on their rent once, but because of this unprecedented crisis are now behind.

So, yeah, and I think it also highlights how we need to fight to cancel COVID debt because short of that, there is no way that just the, you know, over 100,000 or 150,000 renters in our state who are actually currently accumulating renter debt are going to be able to pay it back.

This is just simply not going to work.

And I think that was also echoed in what Colton Kenyon said about how people have not been able to get back on their feet.

I think, Colton, can you clarify, did you say that your bartender job has not restarted yet?

And if that's the case, and also, I just wanted to say, Colton, I completely agree with you that we need to extend the eviction moratorium.

But yeah, and I wanted to say a few things about that, but can you clarify, are you not able to get your job back because it hasn't started yet?

Yes, correct.

This is the problem that my business is having a thought with is they're barely we're only at 50% occupancy.

We're not allowed to do karaoke because that's considered like an event sort of deal with bringing people but they can do karaoke.

They set a table but basically, the managers are the only people working because they they're not even breaking even with their bills.

or let alone breaking even to hire somebody back to come back to work.

I'm told I'm not going to be back until September.

So it's and as all my other friends that are bartenders as well, they are not able to come back due to that same fact.

So

Okay, thank you.

And just on the eviction moratorium, you made a very important point about the need to extend the eviction moratorium because so many renters need more time to get back on their feet.

I don't know how many committee members remember, but the resolution that was proposed from my office to urge the mayor and the governor to extend the eviction moratorium to the end of the year We had held the vote on that because at that time when it was up for a vote, I think a month or two ago, I can't remember the exact date.

It was because of the pressure from renters organizing and signing the petitions and so on that Mayor Durkin was then forced to announce a new extension and then the state also, state legislature and the governor also announced that.

And then so we had held the vote on that resolution, but it is due to come back to the city council for a vote on June 3rd.

And we will need tenants like all of you to help advocate to pass it.

Because in addition to all these renters rights laws that we're talking about, we also need to extend the eviction moratorium.

That is just a real urgency right now.

Council Member Morales, go ahead.

Yeah, I'd like to, we've got 20 minutes left for this committee.

I'd like to ask that we move to the discussion of the bill in question, if I could.

Yes, we were about to go right now.

I was about to take one last look at any council member questions.

There aren't any, so we will move to the second and third agenda items because they're both presentation from city council central staff walking us through a memo describing the two council bills, the two draft bills to close the fixed term lease loophole to the just cause eviction ordinance.

And as committee members know, my office prepared one of the drafts and I will also co-sponsor the other draft bill from council member Morales, because regardless of which bill is finally passed, the important thing is closing this loophole.

But before, Asha, you come on and introduce yourself and start on the memo, I would like to invite Council Member Morales if you would like to say a few words as the Prime Sponsor of Council Bill 1257.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

So yes, we have a bill today that proposes a simple but powerful fix to our city's Just Cause Eviction Ordinance that will ensure tenants, regardless of where they are in their lease or what kind of contract they have, will be protected from the threat of no fault, no cause removal from their homes.

And this will ensure that tenants are not unjustly pressured into mutual lease terminations as well.

We know that Seattle renters have been granted some form of just cause eviction protection since the 80s, but even this set of protections has left one avenue open for tenants to be forced from their homes through no fault of their own, and that gap allows landlords to refuse to continue a rental relationship without having to provide a reason.

And this really just doesn't align with the work that we're trying to do as a city to protect renters.

So this bill would close the gap once and for all by allowing landlords to offer a lease renewal like they do now and by allowing tenants to go month to month at the end of a fixed term lease by default if a lease renewal isn't offered or if one doesn't meet a tenant standards.

So this legislation also explicitly opens just cause eviction protections to tenants on any lease term or type.

And lastly, it strengthens tenants' bargaining power by allowing them to rescind a mutual lease termination in the case where they felt pressured into signing one or after we include some of the STCI amendments that we will discuss later, even if one wasn't signed in the presence of an attorney or a caseworker or a mediator.

So as recovery nears and as emergency tenant protections are lifted, tenants deserve some stability.

As we've heard very clearly here today, we know that they deserve to live their lives without the threat of losing their homes over situations that they can't control, like something as colossal as a pandemic or something as simple as their landlord not liking them.

So my office has been working alongside community organizers, advocates, and everyday renters in developing a tenant bill of rights, starting now by closing this lease termination gap.

And I do want to let folks know that next Monday, I'll ask council to refer our next piece of legislation to this committee, our sound at home eviction defense legislation that would protect any renter who's faced financial hardship during the pandemic from facing eviction.

So Colin, hopefully this can help address some of the challenges that you're having.

Following passage of these two bills, my office will continue our work to strengthen the Just Cause Eviction Ordinance, which I know Council Member Sawant will be doing as well, and we'll bring legislation to further protect renters from unjust and from hasty evictions.

I want to thank everybody who's been here today to share their stories and to the Stay Healthy Coalition for working with my office on these policies.

None of this would be possible without your work.

And I do want to thank Council Members Lewis and Sawant for co-sponsoring this legislation.

I'm really proud of the work that we've done.

Alongside stakeholders, we've also worked with law, with central staff, and with SDCI to bring the strongest bill possible.

And I hope that after discussion, my colleagues will agree that this is the bill for us to pass.

And I am happy to talk about the SCCI amendments once we get to that part of the conversation.

Asha, go ahead with your introduction and the memo.

I'm Asha Venkatraman with your Council Central staff.

So I'll lay out just some general items about the current regulatory landscape and the tendencies that we're discussing and then dive into the details of the bill.

From a big-picture perspective, there are basically three types of tenancies that implicate just-cause protections.

The first is a month-to-month tenancy, so any tenancy in which the tenant is paying on a monthly basis their rent and the landlord is accepting it.

And then there are fixed-term rental agreements, which are what is commonly known as leases.

At the end of a lease, a provision within the lease can either stay silent or say that the lease itself ends on the date of the end of the fixed term or in the fixed term lease it can specify that the lease itself will convert to a month-to-month lease.

The protections that Seattle currently has as well as the The legislation that was just passed at the state, which is in gross state House Bill 1236, requires just cause now for month-to-month tenancies.

So both of those cover the month-to-month tenancy lease type.

There are fixed, excuse me, in terms of the fixed term leases that convert automatically to month-to-month tenancies.

Seattle Just Cause eviction protections also require Just Cause to end those tenancies.

House Bill 1236 does require eviction based on Just Cause unless certain circumstances apply.

So either the initial rental term The initial rental term was between 6 and 12 months, and the landlord has to give 60 days notice.

The issue that comes to the fore and that is commonly referenced as the loophole is this class of rental agreements that do not convert into month-to-month agreements.

And so currently under the Seattle Just Cause eviction protections, Just Cause is not required to end that type of tenancy.

The state bill does require just cause, except in certain circumstances in which the initial agreement is for 12 months or more, or you've had multiple successive six-month agreements since the beginning of the tenancy.

The landlord gives 60-day notice, or the tenancy has never been month-to-month, except in the circumstance in which the tenant has entered a rental agreement between the effective date of that state bill and three months after the end of the governor's moratorium.

And we are working with both the city attorney's office and SDCI to better understand the landscape that 1236 now creates for Seattle, more broadly in terms of all the just cause protections and more specifically in the context of these bills.

But I wanted to lay out what that looked like because we are in sort of a new regulatory landscape when it comes to just cause given the state protections.

So what the bills that we're discussing today, both 1-200-57 and 5-6, purport to do are addressing that circumstance for the class of rental agreements that do not automatically convert into a month-to-month rental agreement.

So they end at I'm at which that fixed term is over.

These bills would require just cause at the end of that tenancy, but the just cause would not apply necessarily to the lease itself, but for refusing to renew or continue a rental agreement.

So Council Bill 120057, amends the rental agreement regulation portion of the Seattle Municipal Code by requiring that landlords have a just cause to refuse to renew or to continue a rental agreement.

Basically, any tenancy will be converted to a month-to-month tenancy unless the landlord offers such a rental agreement for a fixed term or the landlord has just cause not to do so.

It also includes, the bill also includes the last section in subsection 10 of the just cause eviction section that allows a tenant to rescind a mutual term integration.

mutual termination agreement, as Council Member Morales noted.

In the first circumstance, within 10 days of signing the mutual termination agreement, if the tenant gives the landlord notice within those 10 days, written notice, or if the tenant wants to rescind the agreement after the 10-day period has passed by proving that they entered into that agreement improvidently.

which could be shown by something like the lack of equal bargaining powers that the tenant has, a tenant's vulnerability, things of that nature.

And so the bill is similar in that sense to 120056 in that it also requires, that bill also requires that the landlord have just cause not to renew or refuse to continue a tenancy at the end of the fixed term tenancy.

120056 also includes provisions about when the offer has to be made.

It's 60 to 90 days before the end of the lease term.

It gives the tenant 30 days to accept or decline the proposed agreement, requires that the landlord comply with notice provisions, and makes the failure to comply a defense to eviction.

And so I thought it might be helpful just to talk through how the bills practically are different And so assuming that a landlord has to have just cause, and as I mentioned, for these bills, that would be in the circumstance where a landlord does not offer a new rental agreement at the end of the fixed term.

If the landlord does have just cause under either of these bills, then it's no problem.

The fixed term lease ends and the tenant has a new fixed term lease to start the next tenancy.

But if the landlord does not have just cause, again, both bills require that the landlord request, excuse me, the landlord offer a new rental agreement.

However, if the tenant declines under Council Bill 120-056, then the tenancy turns into, excuse me, sorry, if the tenant declines, the original tenancy ends by its term.

So it would end at the time the fixed term terminates.

For Council Bill 120-057, if the tenant is to decline the offer that the landlord makes, the tenancy will convert to a month-to-month tenancy.

I just note that the State Bill 1236 does something slightly different.

Sorry, I'm not sure.

Can you hear me with the barking?

I apologize.

Yes, we can hear you, don't worry.

Okay, sorry.

Sorry, I just lost my train of thought.

Yes, so the difference lies essentially in what happens when the tenant declines the tenancy, whether it converts to a month-to-month agreement or it ends the tenancy at the end of that original fixed-term lease.

The other differences are primarily in approach and where the changes lie in the code themselves.

Code itself, 12057 makes this change both within the rental agreement regulation section of the code, which is up in 7.4, then talks about the requirement to have just cause to refuse or renew within the just cause section of the bill.

And so it covers both of those sections, while Council Bill 120056 puts all of the requirements just in 22206, which is the just cause eviction section of the code.

And so, The approaches are different.

For the most part, the impact in terms of what happens if a tenant is offered a new lease and accepts is similar.

I'll stop there if there are any questions before I move into other impacts on SDCI or on tenant relocation assistance, if anyone has any questions about the operative provisions of the bill.

Thank you, Asha, for that.

We will, of course, go over the amendments that SDC has suggested to that bill.

I have some comments, but I want to wait to see if other council members have any comments or questions so far on Arsha's presentation.

And I would really urge, as I said in the briefing on Monday, I would really urge council members who are members of this committee to ask questions, as Asha recommended, because we want to make sure that we will be voting on closing the Just Cause loophole that my plan is to have the vote at the next committee.

So please make sure you ask your questions or relay any of your concerns or any clarifications.

I'm not seeing any requests, Asha, so go ahead with your subsequent comments.

The next part of the memo and what I'll talk about now is the impacts that these bills have on tenant relocation assistance.

So the state legislation, as well as both of these council bills, none of them directly amend anything that makes a substantive change to the tenant relocation assistance ordinance.

And just to back up, tenant relocation assistance generally applies when an owner of a rental unit decides they want to make a change.

So either substantially rehabilitate a unit, remove use restrictions, changes a use, or demolish the unit.

When that happens, they are generally required to go through our Seattle Department of Constructions and Inspections, or SDCI, to obtain a relocation license.

And in doing so, the SECI basically helps to figure out if there are low-income tenants in the building that are entitled to relocation assistance payments, half of which the landlord pays and half of which the city pays, and makes that determination, helps the landlord to figure out process on that.

As I mentioned, none of these bills directly amend those parts of either the state-level relocation protections or the city-level relocation protections.

they indirectly impact those sections because before the state legislation was passed, if a tenant was required to leave because of a use implicated by TREO, and in this case during a fixed term, either during a fixed term tenancy or during a month-to-month tenancy, The reason for leaving would be because those changes had displaced the tenant and because that's the reason that would require the landlord to go through all of the procedures that are associated with tenant relocation license.

The other path for the landlord when it comes to fixed-term leases that do not convert to a month-to-month tenancy is simply to let the lease expire.

So in the same way that a landlord doesn't necessarily need just cause to end a tenancy, the landlord would be able to wait till the end of a fixed-term tenancy and then decide to do all of the demolishing, all of the things that come along with tenant relocation and make all those changes.

And because it isn't the TREO changes that are displacing the tenant, but rather the end of the lease term itself that is displacing the tenant, the landlord would not necessarily have to go through TREO.

With passage of House Bill 1236, as well as potential passage of either 120-057 or 120-056, there are a reduced number of instances in which a fixed-term lease is just going to end on its terms, either because the just cause requirement kicks in or because the tenancy will convert to a month-to-month tenancy.

That means that the reason for displacement of the tenant also changes.

It's not anymore going to be because the lease ended, but there will be more instances of the tenant being displaced because of the change itself.

And that means that there will be more instances of landlords that are required to get tenant relocation licenses, which then could mean that they have to make more payments, but will at very least mean that they have to go through that process.

And as I mentioned, may have to make more payments out to low-income tenants that are eligible for TRAO.

And that leads to some of the impacts on SDCI itself.

So there is the general increase, I think, in the just cause eviction workload that SDCI is going to have to handle.

Because many of the, I think as the years have gone on, more and more landlords have been using rental agreements rather than just oral agreements on month to month.

And many of them are fixed term leases.

And up until now, up until the passage of the House bill and the potential passage of these bills, because they haven't had to have just cause to end the expiring lease agreement, it's a whole set of tenancies that SCCI really didn't have to touch.

Now with the passage of these bills, there's likely to be not only an increase in call volumes in terms of landlords and tenants calling to find out what their rights are and how to enforce them, it'll also mean that the department will have to update their notice and outreach materials.

It will mean more potential investigation and enforcement of violations.

SDCI has jurisdiction over whether all of the notices that go out in terms of eviction are proper.

And so when somebody comes to them and says that something is missing on a notice, they're the entity that enforces that piece of it.

And so knowing now that there are going to be more of those notices going out because Just Cause is going to apply more often, it means that that caseload is likely to increase.

The resulting changes in TRAO will also include their caseload, as they're the ones that also do the reviews of what will be, of whether a tenant is, excuse me, well, yes, whether a tenant is eligible for relocation assistance, but also if the landlord needs to go through the process, the increased number of landlords that will need to go through the relocation license process, all of that implicates more workload for SDCI.

Although it's not entirely clear what the level of that increase will be, and we may not be able to tell until the legislation fully goes into effect and there are more applications for relocation licenses that come in and more calls that come in asking about renter and landlord rights.

Council members just might wanna consider whether there will be a need to provide more support to the department in order to continue to do that work.

the council members, Sal and Morales have reached out to SDCI to hopefully come be at the table, the virtual table on the 25th to answer questions from council members about that workload situation.

And we're still waiting to hear back about whether that's gonna happen, but that I'm hoping will give council members an opportunity to drill down a little bit into what the impact of both the state legislation and these bills will be.

I'll pause again there if there are any questions before I dive into potential amendments.

Thank you.

Asha, and I see Gautam Muralis has raised your hand.

Go ahead, Gautam Muralis.

Yeah.

Well, this might be something that we just have to wait till May 25th, but Asha, do you have any sense or have you heard from them any idea of, like, baseline if this is an extra FTE or three FTEs or what we might be looking at in order to make this work?

So I don't have a number of FTEs, but what they did indicate was that they anticipate at least between like a 20 to 30% jump in caseload or call volume.

I'll have to double check on that number, whether they were referencing call volume or caseload, but that's the first sort of estimate that I've heard.

And so hopefully we'll have some more information as I continue to work with SDCI over the next couple of weeks before passage of these bills.

Thank you, Asha.

I see Colton has raised his hand.

Go ahead, Colton.

I just wanted to ask a quick question.

Do we happen to know when there is going to be more money going to HJP and other people that can start to help renters like myself get out of debt?

I believe that SDCI has allocated much of the funding that was appropriated to them for distribution over the past couple months.

There may still be some funding left.

I'm not sure if that is direct rental assistance, but I'm happy to double check.

But Ted, I'm not sure if you have additional information there.

I did a little bit of research into this.

There are different sources of rental assistance funds.

The King County rental assistance funds, they're currently in a period where landlords can apply for rental assistance money.

And on May 17th, they will open up applications for renters to apply.

And there's more money coming from the federal grant money that has not gone out yet.

And I don't know when that's going to go out.

But I'm happy to follow up with you.

OK, yeah, perfect.

Thank you.

It'd be nice if you could send me an email or something.

Certainly.

Thank you, Colton, for that question.

Thank you, Arsha and Ted, for that very important information.

And yes, our office will continue to follow up.

And Colton and other renters, please stay in touch with Ted Verdone and Jonathan Rosenblum from my office for answers to these technical questions.

And we will absolutely work with city council center staff who are always extremely helpful.

Just in terms of the, The overview that Asha gave, which I really appreciate, just wanted to make sure that renters and others who are watching, community members who are watching this, just to make sure that they are clear about some of the things that Asha mentioned.

One of the acronyms that Asha used was TRAEO, which is, I just want to make sure everybody knows, is Tenant Relocation Assistance Ordinance, which is the law that requires Landlords to contribute towards relocation assistance for renters who are displaced because the landlord intends to demolish or redevelop the building you know this, this is a law in Seattle.

As a side note, I would just note that several people in public comment said.

Renters need relocation assistance also when they are displaced by rent increases.

In other words, when they experience what we would call an economic eviction, not only when they are displaced by redevelopment or demolition of the building, because the renter's relocation costs are the same regardless of what the landlord's reason might be for their displacement relocation costs money.

And so we definitely something that we want to come back to.

And in fact, that's a legislation that has been drafted already by my office a couple of years ago, and we are making sure it's updated and ready for discussion and vote very soon upcoming in the committee.

to make sure there's economic eviction relocation assistance.

But, you know, back to the just cause question, it is an important feature of the legislation that it will stop landlords from avoiding their relocation assistance responsibilities, but no fault end of lease evictions.

And that's, I appreciate, Asha, you going over that.

I had some comments on the amendments that are proposed by STCI, and then hopefully, Asha, if you have any comments on that, that would be great.

But I wanted to pause and see if other council members who haven't spoken yet, who may have questions or comments or concerns, please, I would really urge you to bring them forward.

It's really good we have Asha here to answer questions.

Council Member Peterson, did you have?

Sorry, Council Member Peterson is indicating silently that there are no questions.

I just want to note that for the record.

Yes, no questions at this time.

I had made comments at the previous committee meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Warris, you're on mute.

Sorry, you're speaking, but we can't hear you.

Sorry about that.

No, I'm actually okay.

I didn't know if you were going to discuss the recent signing of the governor, the other bill in conjunction.

Yeah.

Um, so I think what you're referencing is, is, um, house bill 1236, which, um, the governor signed, I believe yesterday.

Um, and so that's the, that's the bill that, um, I had talked about a little, just a little bit early in the presentation regarding the statewide just cause provisions.

And so, um, let me just, here real quick.

So that, oh.

In addition to providing statewide protections in terms of just cause, it does have specific provisions that deal with what happens at the end of a fixed term lease that doesn't convert into a month to month.

So I am working with SDCI and the city attorney's office to figure out how that whole interplay is going to happen.

And so I'm hoping to be able to dive into that before our next committee meeting.

I will just note.

but House Bill itself does in that circumstance.

So under the bill as passed, it requires just cause for fixed term leases that do not convert into month to month, but only in specific circumstances.

So just cause is required unless the initial agreement is for a year or more.

And so any sort of one year lease is going to be exempt from just cause.

Or if the, The initial term is multiple successive leases of at least six months.

So since you started at the beginning of the tenancy, the first time you sign a rental agreement is for six months.

And then after that, you keep entering into successive six month leases.

You're not required to have just cause in that scenario.

It looks like they have some enumerated 11 enumerated clauses where you where you can't where you can exceptions to that.

Yeah, there are, and we're working to figure out how exactly the Just Causes in Seattle and the Just Causes that were passed at the state level are working together.

And so that's work in progress.

So I will have more on that.

I just do, because we're still working on it.

I will circle back to that piece.

That's okay.

Thank you, Asha.

I sound like Chad from Saturday Night Live.

Okay.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

I appreciate that question.

Asha, since we are at 412 now, did you want to go ahead and talk about the amendments?

I will quickly go through what those amendments are.

So in my conversations with SDCI, they had several suggestions about how to amend the bill.

And so the first is a notice requirement.

So it would require that tenants are given a minimum of 60 days notice if they plan to, if they don't plan to renew the lease, or longer if the specific just cause for which they are saying they have to not renew the lease requires more advanced notice.

Those, the amount of notices differs based on what the just cause is.

And so we're working on language to basically reflect that the minimum should be 60 days.

But if the just cause requirement requires something different, then it should be whatever that just cause requirement says it should be.

And the part of the notice should be that the reasons, both the just cause and the reasons for failing to renew or make a new rental offer.

The second potential amendment is around the rescission clause.

So as I mentioned, the way that the bill is currently drafted, if a tenant wants to rescind their termination agreement within 10 days after it's signed, it just requires written notice.

If they want to rescind it after those 10 days have passed, they have to prove that it was entered into improvidently.

What we heard from SCCI was in their work, doing all of this, the landlord-tenant work, they came across, there are mutual termination agreements that are entered into when the bargaining power is equal, when the tenant has been represented by an attorney and they decide with full knowledge of their rights and what the impact of the mutual termination agreement is that they want to terminate the agreement.

There's also requirements in federal law around subsidized housing.

So Section 8 vouchers, for example, and you need a mutual termination agreement to be able to take your current Section 8 voucher and move it to the next tenancy.

And so we talk through ways not to disrupt those processes in this current legislation.

And so we're working on language to make sure that those circumstances are reflected in the rescission language.

The last potential amendment is related to these bills.

So neither of these bills will amend this current section as proposed, but there's sort of a preexisting problem in the code that the potential amendment would solve.

So as it currently stands, when the owner of a single family home wants to sell their home, it requires a just cause to end a tenancy if they want to sell it without the tenancy in place.

excuse me, the issue is that that particular subsection of the code references single family dwelling units.

And there's a whole set of definitions that interact in this complicated way, which basically means that townhome owners, so single unit property owners, don't fit into that definition of single family dwelling unit.

And so it leaves townhouse and condo owners, for example, under different protections so that when they want to sell their properties without a tenancy intact, they have no ability to use just cause to evict the tenant.

And so that results in either having to wait until the fixed term tenancy is over in order to sell the place or figure out with the tenant a way to have the tenant move voluntarily or offer incentives to the tenant to do so or try and sell the property with the tenancy intact.

The memo doesn't weigh in on whether any of those things are good or bad policy decisions, just that there's inconsistency between the way single family homeowners are able to use this just cause and townhome and condo unit owners are not able to use this just cause.

Because of the state-level legislation, as well as the potential passage of these bills that will reduce the number of instances in which a fixed-term lease just ends on its terms, it will make it more difficult for a townhome or a condo unit owner to just wait until the end of the lease term and sell their property without a tenancy intact.

Um, that would essentially mean that there are decreased opportunities, um, to do that in the scenario where a single family home, um, owner could use that just cause.

So what the amendment would do was would add the term single unit property to this just cause section so that both single family homeowners as well as condo and townhome owners could use this just cause, um, this just cause reason in the same way.

Um, whether the, the, The existence of this as a just cause is a good or bad policy is not what this weighs in on.

It's simply the inconsistency that exists between who can use the just cause.

And that's what would be amended through this potential amendment.

Yes, go ahead.

Do you have any more questions?

Sorry.

Didn't I just I real quick wanted to circle back customer Morales you had asked about the FTS at SCI so I went back and pulled up my notes really quickly indicated that.

about a 20% increase in caseload will require one FTE.

So we'll have to see what that increase in caseload is.

But they did reference that about 27% of their calls over the past three years have been about just cause eviction.

And so that's only anticipated to increase given the changes that are coming in.

So I just wanted to circle back and let you know.

Thank you.

I appreciate that, Asha.

Thank you, Asha.

I have some comments on these amendments proposed by the Department of Construction Inspections, but once again wanted to give other committee members an opportunity to ask any questions on the amendments first.

I'm not seeing anyone, any committee member wanting to ask any questions or make any comments on the amendments.

Asha, thank you for going over the amendments proposed by the Department of Attraction Inspections.

I'll just make some comments on the number one in your memo and number three in your memo.

I don't have comments on number two as yet, but on amendment one, I think this just the way as you see us propose this amendment essentially what it would do is combine the approach taken by, you know, the technical approach in terms of the outcome both the bills are the same but in terms of the technical approach.

taken by the draft from my office.

And then it combines with this draft.

So if this is the version of the bill that goes to the board, I would definitely want to include this amendment.

In fact, similarly, STCI suggested to my office also amending our bill to include a statement that at the end of a rental period, the lease automatically transitions to a month to month, which would be the way to amend 120056, which is the bill from my office, to combine the two dots.

In other words, what SDC has proposed is for, you know, whichever bill moves forward, basically it's combining those approaches.

And in fact, it's along the lines of what my office had originally suggested to Council Member Morales that we combine the draft and send the draft language to do so.

So in reality, as I said, because both draft bills essentially do the same thing, it is important that we move this forward.

While Council Member Morales' draft does not explicitly give a timeline for when landlords need to offer new lease, that timeline is usually Enforced by other parts of the law, like the 60 day notice required for any rent increase.

Similarly, by requiring landlords to offer a new lease in advance, as the draft from my office does, it effectively avoids the end of lease situation from arising.

And that's basically the approach that is used by the federal way ballot initiative that was passed by voters in that city.

And in reality, renters generally want peace of mind in relation to their lease.

So I don't believe that this amendment makes a big shift one way or another, but I will definitely support including this if this bill is voted on.

And then Amendment three from the Department of Construction Inspection, the department made a similar suggestion also regarding the draft from my office.

I want to be very clear, I do not support this amendment from what we can understand.

I mean, I welcome SDCI to explain this differently or Arshad if you have any different explanation, but as far as my office understands that this amendment would create new loopholes, new ways that landlords can evict renters.

And of course, if that's the case, I will not support this.

It really, no property owner should be allowed to evict renters to sell the property.

There is no reason why landlords cannot sell the property with a renter in the property.

And that happens all the time.

The amendment would allow more property owners to evict for this reason than is currently the case.

So in other words, I mean, as Asha, you correctly said, the memo that you've presented does not comment on whether or not it would be good to add this amendment.

It is merely pointing a question of consistency, but I don't think consistency is an end in itself.

Renters' rights are an end that we are trying to achieve.

And we don't want to, in the name of consistency, put forward amendments that would end up potentially hurting more renters than currently.

And as far as we understand, the amendment would allow more property owners to evict for this reason than is currently the case, because it adds townhouses, townhouse and condo owners to the property owners who can evict their renters when they want to sell the unit.

But really we should be going in the opposite direction in my view, if we want to build a real tenants bill of rights in this city.

So I'll stop there, see if any other council members want to have any questions or comments.

And Arsha, if you have anything to add, please feel free.

I just said these are issues that SDCI raised generally about these bills, but the amendments themselves are not proposed by SDCI, they're proposed by the council members.

So just because I'll, to be clear about how the executive has been involved.

Thank you for clarifying that.

I was not clear on that.

I did not know the amendment was from Council Member Morales.

I assumed that it was from the department, so I appreciate that clarification.

Dr. Morales.

Sure.

So I'll just address a couple of things.

With regard to the first one, as we said, STCI has said that this would bring the law in line with their current system of enforcement.

So regarding the the notice that landlords are required to give, which is why we want to make sure that that is included.

And then what we understand is that through those conversations about the the single family and as a single unit is that it has been kind of a longstanding issue with our code.

And this is an opportunity to fix it and brings those situations under just cause protection.

So, and I think it is, you know, I do wanna make the point that condo and townhome owners own a large bulk of the under market rental stock in Seattle.

And so part of the, approach here is to try to ensure that they don't retaliate by taking their units off the market.

And then I don't think you had any questions about the rescission, so I will leave that be.

Do any of the council members have, committee members have any points to add?

I'll wait for a second.

I don't want to, I don't want committee members to feel like they don't have time to speak.

So please let me know.

Violet, did you raise your hand?

No.

I wanted to comment on making sure, I know that we have to look at the legality, all the ins and outs of the bill, but I think it's making a stronger voice is uniting the bills, making sure if it passes, which I believe it will, because we got awesome council members who are here today with us.

I know that everybody works hard on the bill.

We have community members and everything like that.

But the goal is always to unite, to have a big united front and making sure that we're all working together closely on a bill that will that will just be just great for the community.

And so that's what I wanted to say.

Thank you.

I want to thank council members Deborah Juarez, Alex Peterson and the other council member and Andrew Lewis for really hearing the community voices.

This is what I really, you know, this is why I do the work that I do is working with closely with elected officials to passed these important legislation.

Everything you guys are doing, you know, House Bill 1236, we're glad we have statewide just cause, but there was a lot of things that we weren't happy about.

And those are the things that we have to still work out, you know, as a united front for all of us working together at this.

That's all I have to say.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you, Violet.

I really appreciate your emphasis on having unity in order to make sure that we don't end up putting things like the state legislature did where they addressed some problems, but then they created new problems.

We definitely don't want to do that.

We don't want to create any new problems.

In fact, I wanted to see if any other of the community panelists who are here wanted to speak as well.

I mean, I appreciate everybody's input.

I did have a comment on the amendment three.

I mean, I think it is At this moment, I'm still not going to support it because I don't understand how, I mean, what we have to clarify is the list of just causes is not a protection for renters.

It is the list of exceptions when landlords are allowed to evict people.

So in other words, adding another just cause does not actually add protections.

It adds more exceptions.

And in fact, as I said before, no landlord should be allowed to evict renters in the name of selling property.

There's so many renters, countless tenants have faced displacement and faced the need to, forced to relocate because landlords were doing that.

And in fact, that is one of the things that fuels the real estate market that is underwritten by you know, Wall Street banks, essentially, I mean, this is who's at the bottom of all of this, because repeated real estate deals are what generate massive profits to a lot of the people, you know, the people at the top in the financial sector.

And so selling the properties often a very It's a high incentive in terms of the profits that a lot of the big landlords can make.

And it's true, not all of them are corporate landlords, but I just wanted to be clear.

And I'm happy to come back to this discussion to make sure that we have everything clarified in preparation for the next committee.

And I'm looking forward to talking to Council Member Morales' office and other committee members' offices offline.

But I just wanted to clarify once again, that the list of just causes is not a protection for renters.

It's a list of exceptions.

when landlords are allowed to evict people.

And I don't understand why we would want to expand that list of evictions.

That's where I would stand for now.

Once again, I'll invite any council members before we close this item or any additional comments to be made on this.

As I said, we'll be coming back to the meeting on the 25th.

Sean, did you want to speak good?

Yeah, I just I guess I wanted to echo your your question for Councilman Morales that doesn't really seem to help renters or small landlords to be able to evict their tenants prior to selling their unit to a corporate landlord who are increasingly the type of buyer of these types of properties that seems in the city.

Why can't we require the tendency to continue beyond this sale unless it meets one of the just cause eviction criteria?

Was there a rationale for this amendment that incorporates that or addresses that issue?

It would be helpful.

My understanding in my conversation with the department, my understanding was that often townhomes and condos can be less expensive to rent than entire single family homes.

Because of that, if the townhouse owner or the condo owner feels that they can't, for whatever reason, if they don't want to sell with the tenancy in place, and they have a tenant, and let's say they own this townhouse and condo and have it for a limited period of time, they want to sell after a shorter period of time, the incentive for them to rent would be if they were able to Use just cause to give the tenant notice and then have the tenant be able to use that in in moving out rather than trying to potentially use some other just cause to make their case or do it through a huge rent increase and so.

given the way that things are now, it might lead townhouse and condo owners not to put their units on the rental market for even a short period of time if they think they can't sell with the tenant being in place.

And again, this isn't a pro or con.

It's just the reasoning around why it could potentially decrease the the landlords or the potential landlords of townhouse or condo units from offering either what could potentially be lower rent properties to tenants or shorter term leases to tenants if they are holding on to that property for sale.

So I hope that's helpful.

I Thank you, Asha for adding that, but I just, I mean, I know that you're not making a political argument one way or another, but I do think it is, this amendment is problematic from, as I said, from what we understand.

We'll continue the discussion, but we don't, my office will not support anything that will expand landlord eviction rights, and I'm also not clear I don't know if renters were consulted on Amendment 3. I'm sure landlords wanted, of course, but I think expanding the exceptions available to landlords to legally evict only makes evictions of renters easier.

And also, but also this argument furthermore, that allowing renters to be evicted easier will allow more affordable units in the market.

I just, that to me sounds very much like a neoliberal argument.

We hear these neoliberal arguments all the time, you know, including from when we were fighting for the $15 minimum wage, where any number of businesses who said actually keeping the wages lower is better for jobs.

I mean, there's no data.

So it would be useful if we can, I work with central staff in looking at what evidence there is for the city council to make this concession to townhouse and condo owners.

And if we don't, that they will in the future or have in the past taken their rentals off the market.

I mean, I don't know any such evidence, but maybe there is.

We will take a very rigorous viewpoint of this.

But I will say that a lot of the arguments that landlords make, that they will take the rental off the market if this happens, they will take the rental off the market if that happens, that is, first of all, entirely anecdotal.

There's no evidence to show.

But the fact is that they make that argument every time we have passed a renter's right.

They will say, if you pass this, and just to fill in the blank thing, you know, whatever it is that we're talking about, they'll say, well, if you do this, then it will be bad for renters and landlords both.

That's not actually true.

We know that's not supported by the data.

So I will look forward to continue that discussion offline to make sure that we have the evidence on track.

It's 435 if council members don't have comment for their comments, obviously we're going to come back to this on the 25th, especially making sure we clarify all the amendments.

There's another renters rights bill that is also coming on the 25th.

And I want to make sure.

that I know we have very limited time because we have had a long committee meeting and I really appreciate council members being very patient in many of these committee meetings because we're discussing so many of these bills and we need to make sure to hear from renters.

So we want to, if everyone's okay with it, I wanna quickly move to the last agenda item and just quickly go through a short presentation that my staff have prepared.

And Ted Verdone, who's the clerk in the committee will quickly go over the presentation and make sure we have a little bit of overview of the bill, which is to ban school year evictions of school children and their families and educators, and also all the other public, sorry, public school staff.

And just very quickly, sorry, Asha, on the previous point, Let's also look at the evidence to this idea that condos are cheaper to rent now and that, you know, and how that impacts what we would do in terms of closing the loophole.

So let's come back to that as well.

So I just wanted to mention that I forgot that.

Thank you, Asha, I really appreciate it.

Thank you council members for engaging in this.

Ted, in the interest of time, can you quickly go over this presentation?

And obviously this is a very, very important bill because we've talked about the housing instability that has devastating impacts on education.

And this presentation has some really important statistics and also some, you know, just a list of progress that we've made and an overview of next steps.

Thank you, Ted.

Thank you and I'll go through this quickly because I do know that we are over time.

So, the Council Bill 120046 prohibits the eviction of school children, their families and educators during the course of the school year.

One crucial fact is just the homelessness amongst school children in Seattle is just an absolutely shocking and devastating portion of Seattle public schools, the amount of homelessness amongst students.

Most recent data shows that one out of every 14 public school students is homeless during the school year.

And right now, Seattle Public Schools students are struggling with homelessness, and in different ways.

In Seattle Public Schools, this data comes directly from Seattle Public Schools.

It's over 4,000 students, and that includes people that are couch surfing, people that are in transitional housing, people that are in shelters.

There's a lot of different places where students are, but for over 4,000 students, they do not have stable housing.

And stopping the evictions of school-age families is a racial justice and a Black Lives Matter issue as well.

The percentage of homeless students who are Black is 40%, which is a much higher portion than the than what would be proportionate.

And we'll get to it later in this presentation, but the data also shows that when children are evicted and have a housing instability, that then has a devastating impact on their education.

So that means that not only is the homelessness and the evictions a disproportionate harm in itself, but it also then carries over to disproportionate harm in children's educations.

And the vast majority of children who were evicted in Seattle had to change schools as a result, which is a huge burden on their education.

This is from the report commissioned by the Women's Commission, the Losing Home Report.

87.5% of families interviewed said that their children's school performance suffered very much following the eviction, 87.5%.

And that's consistent with all the national data on the issue also in homeless students.

have a much lower graduation rate, and it makes sense that this would be the case.

I mean, imagine trying to do your homework and study and just prioritize your schoolwork when you don't have stable housing.

Should be no surprise to anybody and that nationwide the academic research agrees that evictions harm students learning and development and here's some quotes from various from various studies, which I won't read now because we're over time, but will send out this.

presentation to committee members after the fact.

And there's also research that this bill also prevents the eviction of educators.

And there's also plenty of academic research that shows that turnover of school staff also has a damaging impact on student learning.

So, Council Bill 1246, relating to the termination of residential rental tenancies, providing a defense to certain evictions of children, their families, and educators during the school year.

Who does it protect?

It protects all children and students up through 12th grade.

So, if somebody is still a 12th grade student, even though they are 18 or 19 years old, they would still be protected.

So all students up through 12th grade and all children, their families, because obviously you can't not evict a first grader, but evict their guardians.

That doesn't work.

And all school employees, including preschools, elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools.

When are the evictions banned?

Obviously, we would love to ban the evictions of school children, period.

This bill evicts, this bill bans the eviction of school children during the academic school year.

So just for example, if this was in place this school year, that runs from September 4th, 2020 through June 18th, 2021. It goes based on the school year of Seattle Public Schools.

There are some exceptions to this bill.

The evictions are the times when the evictions are not banned or when there are other laws that require those evictions.

So, for example, if the building is condemned and the landlord is required by law to evict the tenants, then this then this protection is not in place, or if the landlord is required by law to reduce the number of occupants in the building, or these statewide laws regarding serious illegal or dangerous activity in the unit, those are also exceptions.

There are some precedents to this bill, and we'll be able to present more on this going forward, but One, one place that we looked at when we were preparing this legislation is the ban on winter evictions that council member so on proposed in the council passed in on February 10 of 2020 that bill.

That bill has, in kind of a legislative sense, the same structure as this bill.

It has a period of the year when renters have a defense against eviction.

The landlord does not succeed in evicting renters during that period of time.

So this bill uses the same legislative structure as that.

The bill banning winter evictions goes from December 1st to March 1st, and it's not tied to school children, it's to renters in general.

This bill is tied to school children, their families and educators, but it's for the entire course of the academic year.

Another precedent to look at is San Francisco Rent Ordinance Section 37.9J that was amended in 2016 to similarly protect school children, students, educators from eviction during the school year.

That bill, as we discussed last committee meeting, is far more limited than this bill because it's limited to only certain types of no-fault evictions, like if the landlord wants to redevelop the property.

But the San Francisco legislation does not include things like non-payment of rent and those issues.

There is a lot of community support behind the idea of banning the eviction of school children.

This was raised by Seattle School Board Director Zachary DeWolf.

The Seattle Education Association, the union representing educators in Seattle, overwhelmingly passed a resolution in support of passing this bill.

We in Council Member Sawant's office will be sharing a community petition, so members of the public listening today should check your email boxes for that petition coming out soon.

So some next steps.

On May 25th, the next meeting of the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee, that is when the committee intends to hold a vote on this legislation.

So please ask any questions or comments now.

Jeff Sims from Council Central Staff is staffing this bill and is preparing a memo.

I talked to him about his timeline today for that memo.

have a draft out to committee members this week, but in terms of having a memo prepared for May 25th, that includes any potential amendments that committee members may have.

If you send that information to Jeff by this Friday, May 14th, any intended amendments that would give him next week in order to work with you on drafting that language, get it reviewed by the city attorney's office.

And by next Friday, a week from Friday, he'll publish the memo that includes the amendments so that all committee members can view it in time for the votes on May 25th or the intended votes on May 25th.

So if there are any questions, now is the time.

Ted, can I ask, thank you for the presentation.

It was extremely helpful.

One question I had is if you had something more to add about how is the draft legislation that we've put forward different than the bill that was passed in San Francisco and what we're doing differently here?

We looked to the bill in San Francisco for a lot of guidance about who would be covered.

The bill in San Francisco covers school children, their families, and educators, and covers all educators.

So we were able to get a lot of good information about how to define those terms from San Francisco, although Obviously, those definitions are updated to match other parts of the Seattle Municipal Code.

However, the bill in San Francisco in terms of in terms of what sorts of evictions it covers is far more limited.

It covers no certain no fault evictions when the landlord wants to demolish the building or do substantial renovations in the building and wants to evict tenants for those reasons.

In San Francisco, those are the types of evictions that are not covered.

And those types of evictions are also not covered by the bill that by Council Bill 1246. Council Bill 1246 also includes the types of evictions like being behind on your rent or not following certain terms of the rent.

And those are the overwhelming majority of the evictions that happen in Seattle.

The losing home report commissioned by the Seattle Women's Commission went and broke down where the reasons why people were being evicted, you know, the formal reason that was brought to court, and it's well over 90% of the reasons are things that would, well over 90% of the actual evictions that were seen in King County, in King County court, well over 90% of them would not have been covered by the San Francisco bill, but are covered by this bill.

Thank you.

That's very clarifying.

And it's important, as you said, to keep in mind that overwhelming numbers of people who are renters who are evicted is because they are just not able to keep up with rent for various reasons.

And now, of course, that's the paramount reason.

And that's also the reason people have accumulated debt, because so many people lost jobs and income.

During the recession and as Colton pointed out, many have still not recovered.

I'm not seeing any hands raised.

So I'm inclined to adjourn the committee very soon, but I just wanted to register.

Just quickly that, yes, in the upcoming committee that's May 25th, we are intending to get both the just cause, calling the just cause eviction ordinance loophole and the ban on evictions of school kids, their families and educators and school staff during the school year bills forward for a potential vote.

So I would just reiterate that council members, committee members, if you have questions, concerns, or comments, please let us know if there are any amendments.

Thank you, Ted, for laying out that timeline.

And then also, I just want to share, because this was on our Zoom, our public meeting is happening over Zoom.

There was a question from, Renter Sean Butterfield in the chat that I just want to read out to make sure that we recorded and then come back to it.

The question is, is having a tenant in the property, a barrier to sale.

I don't understand why it would if the new owner wants to redevelop the property or move into the property.

They have those options under the just cause eviction criteria.

Thank you, Sean, for that question.

And just to make clear to members of the public, that question goes back to the earlier discussion about the amendment that's proposed from Council Member Morales' office to expand the exceptions that are available to landlords to also include townhouse and We want to keep going forward.

We want to make progress.

And not to guess, but we'll come back to all of these discussions.

And if there are no other comments, I will once again, thank all the community members and renters rights advocates who both testified in public comment, who joined us in the committee, really, really grateful for your input.

And also, especially thanks to all the.

renters and working people, ordinary people who are getting organized as various people have demonstrated.

And also really appreciate council members for your patience.

I know it has been a long committee and I will on that note adjourn the meeting.

Thank you.