us today.
Thanks to the members of the Press Seattle channel for streaming this.
This is a monumental day to be here with community, with the organizations, with the individuals who fought to pass jumpstart progressive revenue two years ago to this month and right now we are celebrating those dollars going into community and building homes, building units, building a sense of joy and pride and respect for people to call home.
You all made this possible and it is my privilege to be able to work in partnership with you to make Jump Start a reality in Seattle.
Here we are making sure that the first round of funding for Jumpstart gets the due diligence it needs to highlight in community the hard work that's gone in to making these projects actually come into action.
The Office of Housing has been working with the organizations behind us to make sure that their vision of what a house should be, what a home and community should be, get the funding that's needed and the support and technical assistance to bring these homes online.
We have so much to celebrate today.
We're celebrating jumpstart funding going out into community, but we're also celebrating and showing the value, the worth, the importance of these investments.
Investments in creating housing units get a lot of attention.
We have a whole fact sheet that talks about the number of units being created.
But what's hard to quantify is that each one of these housing units is a home that creates stability, opportunity, wealth, and community.
Nearly 20 projects are coming online.
And when I say nearly 20 housing efforts are coming online, those are family-sized housing units that are creating opportunity for individuals to have a place to call home so they can send their kiddos to school nearby, so they can walk to the grocery store like we are able to do right here.
We're talking about culturally informed housing, housing that's built through the community lens, especially the community lens that's been most disproportionately impacted by displacement.
We are rooting these homes within the community that had the vision originally.
I'm talking about projects like the Skipton North Lot.
Skipton North Lot project that will create an all-inclusive care home for the elderly, coupled with child care run by El Centro.
I'm talking about youth care and community roots housing coming together to create not just housing, but housing paired with educational and employment opportunities for young people who've experienced homelessness.
I'm talking about places like New Hope Family Housing in the Central District that's going to provide housing to folks experiencing homelessness with very low incomes, but using the community preference policy to prioritize household and housing for those who have been displaced in the Central District and are able to return home so that we can directly combat displacement.
At a time when the lack of affordable housing is driving up the cost and pushing communities out of the city and often into the street, these projects, these housing investments, create stability and sanctuary.
At a time when the layered stressors of COVID are creating crises that negatively impact not just our physical health but our mental health, these projects provide health and healing.
And at a time when the economic impact of COVID is compounding disparities, these housing efforts create economic opportunity when the foundation of them invest in affordable housing units above small business opportunities, childcare, community centers.
And that is why we are standing here today at El Centro de la Raza in the Roberto Maesta Plaza, because this is the vision of what Jumpstart wanted to fund.
community center, small business owners, BIPOC small business owners, child care providers, next to social services provided year-round, and housing, near transit and grocery stores.
This is the vision.
And I want to thank Miguel, I want to thank Estella, I want to thank the whole team at El Centro for housing us today, literally.
and for all of the work that this organization has been able to fight for.
But no organization should have to fight for seven plus years to build the vision that the community needs.
These organizations behind us have fought for years to make sure that their vision could come online.
And with the leadership at the Office of Housing, we're changing policies to make it easier to build housing like this and take that funding that Jumpstart has created and make it possible to build it fast.
And guess what?
We can do this in perpetuity now for the lifetime of Jump Start because those folks who were opposing Jump Start finally dropped their challenge and this week we see Jump Start continue to be the law of the land here in Seattle for years to come.
We've already won twice in the courts and we continue to win in the court of public opinion because two-thirds of Seattleites support Jumpstart and we're here to show exactly what those Jumpstart fundings go into.
So I want to thank you all for being here so that we can highlight the important work and it's my extreme pleasure to turn it over to the leader at the Office of Housing.
who came from community, who fought for Jump Start before coming to the city, and who knows the value and the importance of making sure that these dollars not only get out this year, but every single year, and that we protect those dollars and statute so we can build more projects like this.
Please give it up for Director Michael Winkler-Chin at the Office of Housing.
Hi, everyone.
Thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda, for those words.
I have nothing really left to say, I think.
And it's hot, so you really don't want to hear from me.
You'd rather hear from people about their projects.
I'm a little overcome with emotion, which is kind of hard for me because I'm kind of emotionally flat in general, as people who know me will say.
because we're at this point, and we have this list.
And the list is not, uh, the list is this, with all these different things.
And as Councilmember Mosqueda mentioned, I worked on this up until four months ago when I took this gig, right?
And so when the Councilmember mentions those, these projects, and as I look at the list, I'm like, I know that one, I know that one, I know this one, because I've been doing this a long time.
And it's like, it's just so great to have this.
So the Jump Start funds actually allow the Office of Housing to work better with community, to do things in a different way than what has traditionally been done through the housing levy funds.
Now that's not ever, ever, ever to diminish what the housing levy does.
That is foundational.
That is really, really important.
But Jump Start adds a little bit of a different flavor to the work that we can do in working with community.
We cannot lose any ground, either in working with our unhoused neighbors or through displacement and losing our communities.
And what the Jump Start funds have done is allowed, I guess I get to see myself in the projects in a very, very different way, which I was unable to see for most of my career.
So with that I just want to thank you.
I want to thank you and all of you for pushing us to do more and to do better and I still have my old cell phone number and I know that you guys know it.
I have my new cell phone number you can use that.
So appreciative of the council member just and her office and I know she gets that from all of you of really thinking about the community self-determination fund or As I used to call it the bad marriage fund, I would say the forced marriage fund, where BIPOC organizations were forced to partner with people in these forced arrangements.
This funding just allows for just a little bit more flexibility in that, and as we envision what housing in our communities look like for us.
Thank you.
And please welcome up to the stage former representative Velma Valoria with the Filipino Community Center.
Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.
Thank you, Mayco from the Office of Housing.
We're really excited about this project.
As a community-based organization stepping up to build affordable housing that meets the needs of our community, obtaining the funds necessary to acquire land to build upon has been a challenge.
Jumpstart.
has added a new and equitable funding stream that will enable the Filipino community of Seattle to seize an opportunity to purchase property to build family size affordable housing for working families in our communities.
We are thrilled to be one of the first organizations participating in the Job Start Community Self-Determination Fund, and we're excited that we can move forward to secure the land and build housing that will help root the Filipino community in place.
Thank you very much, Council Member Mosqueda, and thank you everybody for your support.
And it's my pleasure to introduce to the stage our host, Miguel Maestas from El Centro de la Raza.
Thank you.
On behalf of everyone at El Centro de la Raza, the center for people of all races, we would like to welcome you to El Centro and Plaza Roberto Maestas.
Our Executive Director Estela Ortega could not be with us so she sends her greetings.
And of course we want to thank Council Member Mosqueda and her staff for all of their work on Jump Start and for the opportunity to share a few words here today.
Plaza Roberto Maestas, where we stand now, is a community-inspired, mixed-use, transit-oriented, affordable housing development.
That is El Centro de la Raza's model for affordable housing.
This model is really about building community and making sure affordable housing is paired with other elements that support community.
Child care, commercial and small business space, community and cultural space, so that Not just those who live and work here, but the entire neighborhood and city see it as an asset.
The Jumpstart Progressive Revenue Source is so valuable for organizations like El Centro to continue to build assets and community through affordable housing.
This funding is supporting El Centro's next affordable housing development in Columbia City.
Our Columbia City project in partnership with the Church of Hope and Consejo is designed to support families where more than half of the 87 apartments will be two and three bedrooms.
It will be the largest development of this type in Columbia City, designed to support families.
Like Plaza Roberto Maestas, it will provide affordability, great neighborhood amenities like access to light rail.
It will include a child development center, not only for children and families that live there, but for families throughout the neighborhood and city.
It will also adorn beautiful art, much like this development, that reflects the diversity of our Latino community through Afro-Latino, Indigenous, and Mestizo art.
When this progressive revenue was being championed, this is the vision we had.
Direct support for community-based organizations like El Centro de la Raza to do this type of affordable housing and community building.
We are excited for the future and what jumps start.
funding will provide to our city and communities.
This is an incredible asset and supports smaller organizations in building capacity and creating affordable housing that are truly long-term assets that will serve and strengthen communities.
Thank you all for being here.
Mil gracias.
Thank you so much Miguel.
And we are going to turn it over to James Lovell from the Chief Seattle Club.
Welcome James.
My name is James Lovell and I'm an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians from Belcourt, North Dakota, and I am part of the leadership team at the Chief Seattle Club.
We're a housing and homelessness nonprofit here in Seattle.
We carry the name of a Duwamish and Suquamish leader, Chief Seattle, who is a signatory on the Treaty of Point Elliott, which governs the work we do as a community citywide today.
I'm here representing our Executive Director, Derrick Belgard, an enrolled member of the Siletz tribe of Oregon and also Rocky Boy.
And as a native person born and raised in Seattle, I am so honored to be here today to speak about the powerful healing that JumpStart has made possible for our community.
For years, everyone has tried to discern the precise cause of homelessness.
We've measured everything, taking the temperature every so often to see where things stand.
Now, with JumpStart, we are putting away the thermometer and cranking up the thermostat.
We're not just measuring, but creating lasting change.
Native people experience homelessness, especially chronic homelessness, at higher rates than any other community.
Councilmember Mosqueda spoke about displacement.
This should come as no surprise, especially in Seattle, where our city's founders made it illegal for natives to live within city limits 157 years ago.
With JumpStart, the City of Seattle, our council, our public servants, our business partners, our taxpayers have made funding possible for Chief Seattle Club to ensure that native people have a supportive place to live.
JumpStart funding has made our 120-unit permanent supportive housing project, Sacred Medicine House, possible.
We broke ground earlier this week on that landmark development up on Lake City Way.
But building a culturally responsive development from the ground up takes time, and Sacred Medicine House won't open until next year.
So what do we do in the meantime?
I'll tell you what we do.
We practice self-determination with the help of the Office of Housing, and we acquired the Goldfinch Building in Fremont, which will house 60, more than 60, of our elders.
They said, who do we need to house?
We said, our elders need housing.
And that's who we're housing when Goldfinch opens later this year.
Jumpstart is not just a tax or a program.
Jumpstart is a leap forward.
It is a leap forward for our community.
It's progress where it's needed most.
It's housing for our elders, supportive services for our community, and healing for our people.
We are proud to partner with Councilmember Mosqueda and the City Council, our other city leaders, and our whole community to make lasting change through Jumpstart.
And thank you to El Centro for hosting us here today.
Wow, thank you, James.
Thank you for those powerful words.
And really, thanks to the entire coalition, over 100 organizations who fought for Jumpstart, small businesses and large community organizations, housing providers who you see here today, labor unions, folks who've been calling for greater sense of community and addressing the social determinants of health.
That's what we fought for.
And part of that would not, that this would not be possible without the incredible work of Erin.
House and Sejal Parikh on our staff who helped move Jumpstart through the process.
And it wouldn't be possible without the leadership and partnership with the state legislative members and champions, like Representative Nicole Macri, who is a champion for housing, a champion for progressive revenue, have been pushing for something at the state level to mirror the type of investments that are needed in housing and in progressive investments.
And we know we will continue to fight with her for progressive revenue and more housing.
Please give it up for Representative Nicole Macri from the 43rd Legislative.
Wow, well it's quite an honor to be here and Councilmember Mosqueda, I'm so deeply grateful to you and your entire team.
As you mentioned, this work builds upon work that we know works, we've known for a long time works, and that we had invested significant effort into at the state legislative level.
And the only way we serve our communities well is when we have strong partnerships between our communities and all levels of government.
And so it was an honor to be able to work on Jump Start, pass the baton to Teresa Mosqueda and the entire team in Councilmember Mosqueda's office at a time early in the pandemic when we knew we couldn't slow down on our investment in community and our care for community.
I am very emotional hearing these updates from folks who are on the front lines who are doing this work, not only for housing that will serve our community, our elders, our young people, our people living with disabilities in ways that we have envisioned for so long, but really by empowering community-driven development.
So it's an honor to be here, and I'll say I look at this list of over 20 projects, and I have been working at the state legislature in different ways to help move them along.
And the fact that they're coming to fruition because of these amazing investments from the Jump Start program is just really, really heartening.
We know we have to keep running really, really quickly to provide not only the housing, but the connection to community, the community empowerment that so many folks in this city need.
And so it's been my great privilege to be able to partner with a council member in the City of Seattle on Jump Start.
And I look forward to going to many more celebrations and openings in the coming months.
So we're going to wrap it up and happily to take questions from folks.
Earlier today I had the chance to talk with the Seattle Times if they're watching and the question was, how do you feel?
And I think you just summarized it really well.
Very emotional.
How do you feel?
And the answer that I gave was breathless.
And part of the reason that I think is because we are on the cusp of actually seeing this hard work come into action.
We have been holding our breath and waiting for this moment for so long.
And as Representative Macri noted, we have been running hard since the beginning of COVID, knowing that investments in housing is actually what creates healthier communities.
That's why we're breathless.
This is a huge moment today, and we will have more opportunities to celebrate in the near future, because we will never relinquish our investments that Jumpstart outlined and codified into statute.
We will always continue to protect these Jumpstart investments, and we will show to our community the value, the importance, and the worth of this hard work coming into action and not creating just units, but creating more homes.
Thank you, everyone, for all of the hard work you've done.
And there are so many people who didn't get a chance to speak.
I hope you get a chance to ask questions and hear from them afterwards.
Let's give it up one more time for all of the organizations here today who are seeing housing come online.
And thanks to the Office of Housing.
Happy to take some questions.
Any questions?
Or would we be able to pull you aside separately, maybe?
Oh, sure.
Because since we were late, sorry about that.
Yeah, no problem.
That's no problem.
Yeah, thanks for coming.
Any questions?
Yeah.
My co-host said that the Jumpstart funding supports community-driven development in a way that the housing levy never did.
Can you just explain a little bit more why?
How?
Go for it, please.
I thought I heard something.
I thought I heard somebody in the back say, be honest.
And that's kind of hard.
So one of the things.
that JumpStart allowed us to do is to develop the JumpStart Community Self-Determination Fund, which then helps organizations that want to provide housing for their communities, in their communities, a path to being able to do that.
It provides resources, it provides loan funds, it actually also helps fund technical assistance because When you build something like this, this is not something that should be entered into very lightly on a whim, all that.
You have to figure out just financially what you're committing yourself to.
And I don't know if people realize this.
We require a 50-year commitment.
And that's why I call it the forced marriage, the bad marriage fund, right?
Because when you enter into these arrangements, the traditional way is that organizations such as the SCID PDA had not been able to access the funding, even as a governmental entity, because at a certain point you have to work with a bank, and the bank may be like, yeah, you're nice, but that's not the deal for you.
And so these funds will help address some of those issues.
Does that help answer your question?
And if anybody has any other examples that you'd like to give, feel free to step up.
I know, I'm looking at Velma, I know you got an example of a situation.
But I would also say this, you know, we have an opportunity to pull the best policies from Jumpstart and integrate them into the housing levy.
Next year, we're going to be asking voters to vote yes on the housing levy in November 2023. And there's some really incredible policies that we've been able to work on in partnership with Office of Housing that came from the community who had the experience of trying to get access to funding and wanting to address barriers.
We have passed those policies into city statute, and we can build in more opportunities to fund those in the housing levy that's come up.
So this is really a positive sort of impact on the rest of our housing policies as well, we will be looking to build into the housing levy next year.
I wanted to just add to what Meiko was saying regarding the question of how different will this make sense.
The Filipino community had the opportunity of being given the right of first refusal for a piece of land.
The Filipino community didn't have the money.
We applied to the state, the Office of Housing, and without criticism of the Office of Housing, there were barriers, challenges that we came up against.
One of them was that we needed to have already three projects.
The Filipino community only had one, so it meant we could not access the funding.
Jumpstart would allow us to do that.
So does that answer your question?
Great.
Thank you.
Is there any other questions?
I know that, you know, this is a big progress, but the housing crisis is pretty huge, the scale of it's huge.
Do you have any thoughts about sort of what, you mentioned the housing, but what sort of next steps, I'm sorry to keep building on this one.
How do we help fix the housing crisis?
It's a housing crisis that impacts not just extremely low-income people.
I've had the interesting day today of being at this, being at the opening of North Star, which is permanent supportive housing by DESC, and to go to Willow Crossing.
I think Willow Crossing is a movie.
Willow Crossing, down in the Rainier Valley, developed by a for-profit developer.
When I drive around the city, I think about my own family and who can afford to live here.
And not all tools work for all income levels.
We will be looking at the mandatory, the MFTE, the multifamily tax exemption.
There's probably upcoming tweaks to the MHA.
We've got to look at all the tools.
And then we also have to think about all the resources that are available to us, whether they're at the federal, the state, and the county.
And how is it that we come together and work?
I don't think anybody is against housing people.
So how do we work together on that?
And what are the barriers?
And what are we learning as we're working through this process?
Am I going to screw up?
Yes, I will.
That is how I learn, right?
I absolutely will.
So we will try.
And it is those moments where you're like, okay, what did I learn from this process?
And what do we do?
And I think it's speaking with people in community about what it is that they need for them to be housed.
I think that's a great example.
I think there is that partnership between all levels of government is our key.
This last year, the state legislature put more money towards investments in housing and homelessness services than we've ever seen in the history of state government.
which I think sets the floor for where we need to go.
But it's not just about funding, it's about creating the policy environment to build more homes in communities across our state and to make sure that we don't have communities that are driving displacement and continue to be exclusive.
And so we will continue to fight for policies that allow for a greater diversity of housing types all across our communities that invest, incentivize the private market.
Most of us are going to live in private market housing, most of us in our communities and across the state.
And so we need to make sure that we bring health back to the housing market.
And at the same time, we need to make sure that we're investing in communities that have been most marginalized from access to stable secure housing.
So it's going to take a whole array and we know that we know the strategies that work.
I want to highlight news that the King County Regional Homelessness Authority released earlier this week about how they put to use over eight or just about 800 vouchers from the federal government.
Many of us have been fighting for more investment from the federal government and we know when we make those investments We are able to put them to good use in our communities.
Those vouchers are making sure that people who have been so marginalized and have had such challenges finding housing for a very long time are living in neighborhoods across our city and communities across our county.
So it's going to take all of us from the city and county level, the state and feds.
So thank you for that question.
Okay, I'll just summarize to say absolutely everything they both just said.
And I think of it as three pillars, right?
We're in desperate need of additional revenue.
There's no doubt about that.
Before COVID, the McKinstry report said in our region, we need a billion dollars a year.
So we need revenue desperately.
We also need to change policies like the Office of Housing has helped to do with the leadership and vision of community to make it easier to build and easier to access those funds.
And the third pillar, as Representative Macri and Michael Winkler-Chin just noted, is changing the policies so that we can make it possible to build in more places, reevaluating our zoning policies, looking at the roots that have excluded communities from being able to build affordable housing throughout our city, and really taking those zoning laws on head on.
So those are the three pillars that I think of how we will continue to fight for more housing.
Any last questions?
OK, I want to jump for jumpstart or something cheesy.
So you ready to jump for jumpstart?
Yay!
I couldn't help myself.
Thank you so much for everybody for being here.
And thank you for all the work you do to make our community house.
Yay!
Group photo?
OK, group photo, group photo, group photo.