Seattle City Council Human Services, Equitable Development, & Renter Rights Committee 9/23/19

Good evening.

Can I have your attention, please?

This is the Human Services Equitable Development Renters' Rights Committee of the Seattle City Council, and we are in City Hall Chambers, and it's 6.30 p.m.

on September 23rd, 2019. I wanted to start by paying our respects to the Duwamish people and to all the Coast Salish nations, and recognize that we've been joined here in the audience by King County Councilmember Larry Gossett.

Thank you for being here.

one item agenda for the committee tonight and that's on renters rights and specifically to go over the draft legislation on rent control that we have put forward through our movement.

and that my council office is a part of.

We have not yet been joined by other council members.

We have welcomed them, and I hope we will be joined by them.

But even if we are not joined by them tonight, we will continue with our meeting, and then we will continue our conversation with council members.

Before beginning the public testimony section of the meeting, I wanted to invite all the tenants from the Chateau building struggle to stand here so that you can receive recognition from everybody in the movement for the incredible breakthrough victory that you have achieved.

Please wait till everybody, till all the tenants come up here and then give them hopefully what will be a resounding applause.

Roselle, Renee.

We will win!

We will win!

We wanted to do this not only to give the tenants a wider recognition for their valiant struggle against a $185 million company, Cadence Real Estate, but also so that everybody else who's watching us knows that if you are a tenant who is being exploited by a corporate landlord and want to fight, get organized to win justice, you can because they did it and they won.

You can too.

I wanted to thank also and recognize all the community organizers in my office, but particularly on the Chateau struggle.

I hope you will join me in giving an applause to Jonathan Rosenblum and Sasha Somer, who were on the forefront of the struggle.

Please join me in also recognizing the other community organizers and policy analysts in my office, Ted Verdone, Adam Zimkowski, and Nick Jones.

and organizations who played a leading role in working alongside the shadow tenants to win this victory.

It's too numerous for me to take your time on, but I wanted to just say that this struggle was supported not only by tenants rights organizations, but by labor unions, faith leaders, and many other people who care about affordability in the Central District.

Next, I wanted to invite The members of the Superintendent's Student Advisory Board of the Seattle Public School District, if you want to come to the microphone.

Fran Shannon and Talia Glick, who co-authored a statement, a letter to the superintendent, Superintendent Juneau, urging them to excuse absences for students who wanted to courageously participate in the climate strike, youth climate strike on Friday, and also Angelina Riley, who read that letter to the school board.

So can we give them a hand?

for just a second so they can see your faces.

They are here, and they will say it in their own words, but they are here because they know that we cannot possibly wage a battle against the climate catastrophe that looms over us and win a Green New Deal unless that also includes the fight for affordable housing.

Go ahead.

Shannon, a senior at Nathan Hale High School.

We will be talking about our roles in the climate movement before connecting it to why we need rent control.

I co-wrote a letter to the superintendent and school board to urge them to excuse all absences of students participating in the climate strike.

The school district failed to excuse these absences despite demands from the student advisory board, the Seattle City Council, and teachers across the district.

It's really disappointing for our voices to feel unheard.

but we would like to acknowledge and thank Council Member Sawant for her outspoken letter and our support.

It's not often that our elected officials actually care what the young people think, so it's really great to have her encouragement and support.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Angelina Riley, and I'm a junior at Rainier Beach High School.

Activism, as Greta Thunberg said, so eloquently works.

People mobilizing and coming together to make a change has worked for centuries and will continue to work.

I live in the South End.

98118 was known as the most diverse zip code in the country, but that is no longer the case.

Every year, my black and brown peers disappear one by one.

Some of my friends have moved south, Federal Way and Kent, but some of my friends live outside and in and out of shelters.

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states in Article 25, everyone has the right to standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of themselves and for their family, including food, clothing, housing, medical care, et cetera.

This is self-explanatory, but it seems as though certain demographics still have to fight for this.

I don't want to see anyone else affected by issues made by choices because they were based on money and that seems so much more appealing than health.

Choices made because those in power continue to prioritize wealth.

My pain, the pain of my communities, the pain of my peers are all matched in combating this climate crisis and this local rent crisis.

And so it is said, when we fight, we win.

My name is Talia Glick, and I'm a junior at Ingraham High School.

And I'm here today to speak as a student representative, first of all, in support of the climate strike, which we are really so grateful to have the city council's support of, but as well to advocate for rent control.

I know these issues may seem unrelated to people who don't have a lot of knowledge on them, but I want to make it really clear that climate justice and housing justice are directly linked.

The City Council was supportive of the youth strike, something that I know myself and all my peers are very grateful for.

This support means that the City Council has explicitly acknowledged the danger that the climate crisis poses to our collective futures.

That danger is tangible and real, and it is here in our own city.

For the last few years, every summer, Seattle has been engulfed in smoke.

And you all know, as well as I do, how frustrating it is to cover your mouth with a bandana every time you go outside, which we all avoid doing.

In a city with one of the highest rates of homelessness in the country, the members of our community who are homeless are put at a much higher risk than the rest of us by being forced to remain in dangerous air quality.

Throughout the past years, a number of our community members have actually died because of this air quality, something that would not be the case if they had access to affordable housing and were able to remain inside.

This is just one of the examples of the threats that the climate crisis poses to all of us, and especially to those who live on the streets.

The danger of the climate crisis is non-negotiable.

The partisanship of rent control must take a back seat, and our city council must prioritize the lives of its citizens.

Without rent control, people will continue to die on the streets.

We need rent control now.

It is a crucial step forward in the fight for climate justice, something that the City Council has already explicitly stated its support of.

Passing rent control would fundamentally impact the lives of so many people in our beautiful city, allowing for everyone to have a safe and affordable home, and not just the wealthy.

It would save lives.

It is not a political issue.

It is a right and a necessity.

What do we want?

When do we want it?

I will start public testimony now.

Thank you to Fran, Talia, and Angelina for those eloquent remarks.

I just wanted to say two things.

One is we usually have a two-minute public comment, but since it is 6.40 at this moment and we want to get to the legislation itself, We thought one minute is appropriate and obviously one minute is never enough but I would really appeal to everybody to keep your comments within a minute so that we can hear from everybody and continue with the rest of the meeting because I know you all have personal responsibilities or perhaps even work to get back to.

And apologies to the Vietnamese elders who came here tonight.

We welcome you, but unfortunately we realize that the interpretation equipment has had technical problems.

But if you as Vietnamese members of the community are here to speak in public testimony, then we do have a person who can translate your comments for the rest of the public.

So I'm going to call out three or four names at a time.

I would really appreciate it if you could just sort of line up here so we don't waste time in people getting out of their seat and coming to the microphone.

Our first three speakers are Julissa Sanchez, Kim Lundgren, and Velma Chaney.

Good evening.

My name is Julissa Sanchez.

I'm with the Tenants Union and I'm the South King County Organizer.

I want to speak about displacement.

I want to speak about displacement.

It seems to be a reoccurring theme in the lives of people of color and beyond.

My mother was displaced from her lands, her homelands in Sinaloa, and we ended up in the central district of Seattle, 22nd and Yesler, where I grew up.

the community was so beautiful and it was diverse immigrant and refugee communities and the black community.

And soon after we created such a beautiful, diverse community, we were displaced.

And along with mostly all the people of color, oh God, that count, that makes me nervous, okay.

So I'm just telling, I get calls from people who are in crisis of being displaced and homeless every day because they received a $200, $300, $500 increase in rent.

And now, as our students have said, people of color are being pushed to Kent.

are being pushed to Federal Way where they have less rental tenant protections.

We do not have a space in the City of Seattle where people of color are inclusive because if we want to solve the problem of poverty, we need to start with rent control.

Thank you.

My name is Kim Lundgren.

Can you speak closer to the microphone, please, Kim?

My name is Kim Lundgren.

I'm a Seattle resident, and I come here with a group of seniors, the Vietnamese seniors here.

I would like to share some ideas, some thoughts, and some thinking.

First, I want to congratulate Chateau apartment tenants.

They fight really hard with council members and so on, so we will follow their steps.

We fight, we will win.

Another thing I would like to say is our group here, they are all seniors.

Some of them, like myself, still working, and some of them already retired.

The retirees, they have a very fixed income.

It's really hard for them.

They get a fixed income, but the rent, everything getting higher and higher every year, so it's really difficult.

I myself going to, I can be retired soon, but I don't want to think about that because, you know, thinking about moving to a place that I can afford or I cannot afford because of the rent, it getting higher and higher every year.

So we need, what we need?

Rent control.

What do we want?

Now.

Thank you.

Next is Velma Chaney, and before Velma Chaney goes, I wanted to read out a few more names.

Sean Hostet, I'm sorry, I'm Velma, Sean, then Dove, John, and then Emojean Williams.

Go ahead.

You might want to use this other microphone because that's too short.

Okay.

Hi, my name is Velma Chaney, and I am a social service worker in downtown Seattle.

When me and my family came here in 2013, we ended up homeless in Seattle.

So we ended up having to branch out and move into Kent.

I commute two hours each way to my job in downtown Seattle every single day, where I help hundreds of Seattleites every week with utility discounts, food access, healthcare navigation, and of course, housing.

I can say as someone who does this work every single day, the root of so many of these problems is the high cost of rent.

People are coming to me to find food access programs because they have to choose between paying rent and buying groceries.

Rent control is an important first step to allow working people to survive in this city.

At some point, we must prioritize a person's life and well-being over a new luxury high-rise that will end up sitting vacant.

The way the City Council chooses to act on rent control will show who you really care about.

The companies that profit off of the raising costs of our rent or the working people of Seattle.

I urge you to stand with us in the fight for rent control.

My name is Sean Osford.

I'm 59 years old.

Affordable rent is not a luxury.

It ensures the possibility of diversity, livability, and safe dwellings for all of our community members.

As a Seattle resident who was born here, I remember getting out of high school.

Remember, I'm 59. And I was able to afford my first place.

It cost $175 a month.

It was one bedroom.

It had a view of Lake Union.

My, how things have changed.

As a homeowner, I look forward to constructing an affordable apartment, when money allows, above our garage.

As a Seattle citizen, it is imperative that we get rent control now.

We can work together on this to solve affordable housing and houselessness.

Thank you.

Next is Dove John.

My name's Anthony Terhar.

Greetings and salutations, most noble taxpaying citizens of Seattle.

I'm sorry, we have to go by order.

Please, I'm sorry.

We have to go by order.

Sorry.

Is Dove here?

Dove, John.

If Dove's not here, the next speaker is Imogene Williams.

Imogene, you're next.

Then we have Raging Grannies, Benjamin Shabazz, Kerry Thompson, and Lubella Bowen.

Roanoke Park had its annual family picnic.

I'm there with my rent control petitions.

I met two men who provided live music for the picnic, and they didn't even charge.

One of them was particularly emotional.

He was very close to crying.

Why?

Because he has to live in Seattle.

How is he going to get jobs in music, in performing?

if he's not in Seattle.

But his rent is taking everything.

He only has pennies left.

That is not fair.

We have to change this.

OK.

Assisted living.

I go every day because my son's professor is there.

I make him walk, talk to one of the young caregivers.

He lives in Auburn.

How much of his paycheck is left if he drives to Auburn and back every day?

He'll just have pennies.

How can he have a life?

Do I have to stop?

I went to Shama's door-knocking event, and I'm going home.

And you know there's that huge bakery, that huge factory bakery.

And a fellow came up to me.

Security person, very upset.

The Central District was about African-American people.

There's nobody left.

This isn't right.

We have to make our city work for us.

And we're all going to have to put our shoulder, we're going to have to put our back in it to make it happen.

Thank you.

After the raging grannies start, I just want to announce there's free child care in the Sam Smith room.

You don't have to search for the room.

Just find one of my staff members and they will help you.

After the raging grannies, we have Benjamin Shabazz, Carrie Thompson, Lubella Bowen.

Please be ready to speak next.

Ready?

Oh, we're a gaggle of grannies.

of our families to come here today and help pave the way for rent control.

Rent is increasing.

Cruel existence unceasing.

We're embracing our voice, demanding a choice.

Rent control's being priced out of this city.

We hear it more and more, while the rich keep getting richer from the pockets of the poor.

So join this gaggle of crannies.

Get out of your panties.

We're making a dent for rent.

Control.

We will invade it.

And precisely, rent control.

I will say it very nicely.

Rent control.

Read our list.

Let the ban on rent control.

Isn't Benjamin Shabazz before you?

Okay.

It's Benjamin first, then Carrie, then Lubella, and then Karen Weinstein, and Donna Jean Thompson.

Hello, my name is Benjamin Shabazz.

First of all, I want to say thank you to our Honorable Kshama Sawant for having the insight and the courage.

I want to emphasize the word courage to have put this whole thing together.

Seattle needs rent control.

I'm a tenant at the Brighton Apartments in South Seattle.

I'm a Vietnam veteran and a senior citizen.

There are many people in my building who are elderly and on fixed income.

And even with the help of our management, the situation will soon be out of their control.

Economic eviction.

We need rent control to prevent economic eviction.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Carrie Thompson.

Please speak close to the microphone.

I am 78 years old, disabled, a widow, and have lived at the Brighton Apartments for the past 13 years.

My income is $1,775 a month, and I'm having trouble making my rent now without any raises.

I want to know about relocation help for those of us who will be made to move out of our present homes and buildings.

Our building is made up of 125 one, two, and three-bedroom units with about 225 people.

When I moved in 13 years ago, it was advertised as low-income senior housing, but that is no longer true.

We have multi-generational, multi-income family building now, with my unit housing of three or four more generations.

I feel I'm getting an economic eviction because I can't afford the raise in rent.

Thank you.

Carrie, can you speak to one of my staff members?

Ted, can you show her to one of our others?

Or if you want to talk to her yourself.

Let's make sure we stay in touch.

Thank you.

Lubella.

I am also from the Brighton Apartments in the Rainier Valley.

I have been, my concern is the cost of higher rent.

I have been, we were, the building that we live in is a senior led building.

I have been there 15 years, almost 16 years.

We are, we consider ourselves a community.

We look out for each other.

Nobody goes unattended.

If we don't see someone, we go to see about them, we check on them, and we're just one big happy family.

And I would hate to have to move because of the cost of rent.

We're on a limited income.

We're all on Social Security.

And you think about if we move, We can't afford to move and we would love to stay in our homes.

We'd love to stay with our family because that's what we consider them to be in the Rainier Valley.

And we would love to have rent control with a because we realize that though as someone for stated that they haven't put a cap on the rent and it's all about the ones who's making the money.

But we want to send a message to them when they're going to where we are.

They will be.

And they'll understand where we're coming from if they get to be that age.

And I thank you all for this time and allowing me to speak, because I, too, I'm all for it.

What do we want?

Freedom!

What do we want?

Now!

Carrie and Lubella, can you please make sure you give your contact information to Adam there so we can be in touch with you?

So after Lubella is Karen.

Karen Weinstein, am I saying it right?

I'm Karen Weinstein.

Weinstein.

Sorry, one second.

After Karen, there's Donna Jean Thompson, then Marguerite Richard, and then Dan Cavanaugh.

Thank you.

I'm Karen Weinstein.

I'm 59 years old.

I'm a single parent, full-time working, and I'm a resident of the Brighton apartments with these other people.

I use one whole paycheck of the month for my rent.

I do not use cable, I don't go on vacations, and I have trouble making ends meet.

Is that right?

And something on my mind is that I hope that when we have rent control that federal and state funded buildings will also, those programs will also be controlled by rent, rent controlled.

Thank you for allowing me to speak.

Thank you.

And please.

My name is Donna Hall Thompson.

They know me as Donna Jean at the Brighton.

I'm also a resident there.

Been there 11 years.

And the majority of us that live there are on fixed income.

We cannot increase anything unless we go to work.

I'm 67 and I still have to work.

One of our biggest concerns is that the rent is going to outgrow us.

And so we are taking some steps to make a noise to let people know as far as what our issues are.

And that being the main thing, rent control and the increase in rent and that we are under a limited income.

we are in a private-owned building.

So we are concerned about how this rent control is gonna affect people that own buildings privately.

LLCs, you come to the Brighton, you might hear it called the Brighton Campus, the Brighton Senior Center, and, you know, simply LLC Brighton.

And so we are in a dilemma because we are dealing with the management directly and we're trying to open up communications to let them know the seriousness of our situation there.

And so We would just like to make a voice here and there to let people know in our management to know that we are very, very much serious about fighting for our right to have rent control.

Could you please wrap up so we can hear the next speakers?

Yes, yes.

So my bottom line is I'd like to say that we are very much interested to be a part of this whole situation.

So thank you.

Thank you, Dona Jean.

Everybody who spoke from the Brighton Apartments, can you please all make sure that you all share your contact information with Adam or Jonathan?

And we should make sure that we address the specific issues you're facing in your building immediately.

And absolutely, we need you to be part of the rent control movement.

We have Marguerite Richard, then Dan Cavanaugh, and then, I'm sorry, I can't read this name, Hinda Kipnis, if that sounds like your name, so please come forward, and then Emily MacArthur.

Okay, I'm Ms. Richard, and I'm known around here because I was born and raised in Seattle.

So I come to talk to you on a serious note about generational poverty and community trauma.

So I'm saying there's a lawsuit pending in Wilmington, Delaware, if anybody knows the history of Wilmington, against the mayor and all those that govern the city of Wilmington in regards to the gentrification and the mass incarceration of the Negro and any other trauma that takes place against black people here in America.

So, I don't know how you can control the rent when we don't have enough money to even pay the rent, let alone live above ground in a decent environment.

And I'm including anybody that's in public housing that knows what Andrew Lofton is fixated to do through public housing is to discriminate.

I may be in the Guinness Book of Records for filing I don't know how many multiple complaints in the Civil Rights Office because anytime you file a HUD complaint, it goes directly to Mariko Lockhart sitting up there.

I don't know what she's doing, but she's doing the wrong thing.

And it's time for us to stand up and get everything out that's not right, that's coming against us.

This is 2019, not 1919, and we should have learned from the mistakes that America has done against us.

You see this cane?

You remember the ride of Aaron?

Well, you better see the ride of Queen Pearl on today.

After Dan is that name that I can't read because it's sort of scratched out, so it's Linda or Hinda or something like that, Kipnis.

And if that's not your name, if you want to look if it's your name, you feel free to come up here and read it.

But failing that, after Dan, that's Emily MacArthur, then Barbara Fenney, then the Honorable Michael Fuller, and then Mish.

Hey, everyone.

My name is Dan.

I'm a member of Socialist Alternative, and I've lived in Seattle for four years.

I'm a renter.

My landlord's a corporation.

One of the reasons this movement is so important to me, you know, my property has changed hands twice in the past year.

And when my lease is up, I have no idea.

I know my rent's going to go up, but I don't know by how much.

And I've talked to some people around the district who are facing $300, $400 increases or more.

And yeah, I think I should have a say.

I think ordinary people should have a say in whether or not they get to keep their homes.

I don't think it's right that the landlord lobby has so much power.

And I think it's unfortunate that the other council members aren't here.

My council member, Bruce Harrell, I'm not surprised, but I am disappointed that he's not here.

But I have a message for Bruce.

You can run, but you can't hide.

We're going to come back, and we're going to build our movement bigger and stronger, because we need rent control, all right?

My name is Emily MacArthur, and I'm also a member of Socialist Alternative, and I was really inspired to see those three young people get up here at the beginning of tonight's meeting, and so I also want to echo Greta Thunberg, but my message is to the council members who chose not to be here tonight, and I say, how dare you?

How dare you govern over a city under climate crisis, under a housing crisis, and refuse to even show your face here tonight?

They think that they can ignore our movement, but I say hell no.

How about y'all?

need will take all of us, but it will also inspire a statewide, a regional rent control, a national rent control.

We'll need to be loud, we'll need to be persistent, and we'll have to fight against corporate loopholes until the very end.

They may not be here tonight, but let me tell you they're coming.

Seniors, school students, workers, small business, all of them are harmed by the unaffordability of housing in Seattle, and all should join in our fight for rent control.

to detractors who say that developers won't build, or they'll allow housing to become run down.

One, you wrongly assume that the rent control movement is the last stop, and that we won't be fighting to tax big business to build social housing.

Number two, we're fully aware that capitalism is uninterested and unable to meet the needs of working people, and that's why we need a socialist approach, and that's why I'm proud that we have a socialist fighter in Shama Sawant here tonight.

Housing is a race issue, it's a women's issue, it's an LGBTQ issue, it's an environmental issue, it's a you issue.

Join this fight, because when we fight, we win!

We win!

Barbara Finney, you are next, and then the Honorable Michael J. Fuller, then Mish, and then Anthony Durhar.

I'm Hender Kipnis and I just want to repeat what the granny said, lift the ban on rent control.

It's in the state and we just got to work hard for that.

But that's, I wanted to bring up another thing that all you hear everywhere is we need growth.

We must grow the economy.

And I want to link that to climate change because economic growth brings global warming and nobody talks about that except this young person today.

at the UN, Greta Thunberg, and she's only 16, and she's got her wits about her, and I think we need to think of the big picture because the system that we live in that's called capitalism, it cannot survive without economic growth, and that's why you hear it everywhere, grow the economy and remember that's why we're dealing with a climate crisis that's unbelievable and it's linked.

So in your minds you've got to find a way to link that with the rising rents and the lack of rent control and how are we going to change that?

We're from American Federation of Government Employees, Local 3197, AFGE.

We endorse Seattle Needs Rent Control.

The union represents the employees of the Seattle VA Medical Center on Beacon Hill.

Rapid loss of affordable housing in Seattle is of paramount importance to our members and their families.

It profoundly affects the veterans we serve.

Therefore, we fully support efforts to expand the development of affordable social housing and universal rent control policies free of corporate loopholes.

Thank you, Councilmember Swann.

Thank you.

The Honorable Michael J. Fuller, Mish Vecchio, and Anthony Durhar.

Yes, I'm Honorable Michael Fuller, Sue I. Jewell.

Yeah, we got to have rent control.

I'm looking at extraordinary pimping with the Seattle Housing Authority, Andrew Loftin, Rod Brandon, and that Debra Sink scene.

I'm looking at organized crime control like October 15, 1970, that was signed by President Richard Nixon.

And that Communist Control Act, August 24, 1954, that was signed by President Dwight Eisenhower.

And that Older American Act, October 3, 1965, that was signed by President Lyndon Johnson.

Harry Truman stated, how many times, 1948, Harry Truman stated, how many times does a person have to be hit over the head before they realize who's hitting them?

August 16, 1967, Martin Luther King's speech, where do we go from here?

August 16, 2019, where do we go from here?

I am speaking today as a rank and file member of the Seattle Education Association.

I'm a Seattle public school teacher.

I work at Nova.

I'm a special education teacher, but I'm also the McKinney-Vento coordinator.

McKinney-Vento is a program that serves homeless students and students who are in temporary housing.

There are nearly 4,000 students in the McKinney-Vento program.

Some schools, it's 5% of an entire school, and some schools, it's 20% of a school.

But this doesn't account for those students whose families have stable housing, but whose rent is wholly unaffordable, or whose students who are forced to transfer after their one year of eligibility to stay in a school ends after the McKinney-Vento eligibility ends.

This is super disruptive, and it causes displacement for these students.

Because of this, the Seattle Association, Seattle Education Association, unanimously passed a resolution in support of this draft legislation.

Our union and our schools are focused on equity, and if we right here cannot push forward this legislation, send a message to our legislators, and pass rent control, then we are not providing equity to every student in every school every day.

Anthony, who was here earlier.

Once again, before you go after Anthony, it's Adam Capilou and Leah Perlmutter, who will be speaking together, and Ted will give them two minutes.

And then we'll have Brooks Depp and Nancy McKinnon.

Go ahead, Anthony.

Go ahead.

Greetings and salutations, most noble and beautiful taxpaying citizens of Seattle.

There are corporate executives who made $11 billion last year and didn't pay taxes on it.

You didn't get three months paid vacation.

You didn't get $50 full coverage health care.

But your love is so overwhelming.

The clouds that wrap around the mountains of Seattle are like you.

They're saturated with water.

Your hearts are saturated with love.

And it overwhelms me every day that I wake up in this city.

If I could put the spirit of the people of Seattle in a bottle, I'll put Coca-Cola out of business.

I love you, Ms. Kashama Savant.

And I love Jenny Durkin.

I'm going to sue the federal government for not sending me to Seattle when I was in junior high school.

I just want to say I love you, and please get your friends and neighbors to join the fight to bring us rent control.

Thank you.

Two minutes.

I'm Adam Capelo.

My union, the UAW Local 4121, represents over 5,000 graduate students and 1,000 postdocs at the University of Washington.

We are proud to stand here this evening with all of you to declare that it is time for rent control in Seattle.

82% of our union members are rent burdened, paying about half of their wages to the landlord.

That means people are scraping by, sometimes forgoing basic essentials like health care or other essentials because the rent takes so much of our paycheck.

We know this is not right.

And so over these past few months, I've been gathering signatures for the petition, talking to people about rent control.

And it is clear to me that we are ready to fight for the city we need.

And if there's one thing I've learned from my time on strike with my union, from the fight for 15, or from the historic struggle of the Chateau apartment residents, it's that when we fight, we win.

When we fight, we win.

When we fight, we win.

My name is Leah Perlmutter.

I'm a renter, a member of UAW Local 4121. and a graduate student in computer science and engineering at UW.

As a computer scientist, I make more than most grad students at UW, and I still pay 37% of my income in rent for a modest apartment with a roommate.

Despite being rent burdened, I'm considered well off compared to many of my fellow grad students and thousands of people in this city.

Furthermore, there are thousands of people in the city who don't have access to any housing.

Rent control cannot come soon enough.

Affordable housing paid for by taxing big business cannot come soon enough.

When we fight.

After Brooke, we'll have Nancy, and then Renee McCoy, then Emerson Johnson, and our final signed up speaker is Richard Frith.

Hi, all.

I'm ready.

Well, I'm Brooke Stepp, and I am a queer person of color living in Capitol Hill, which is just really rare these days.

Economic eviction is something that affects people of all marginalized identities.

We've heard about that today, people of color, queer people.

And that's fundamentally because capitalism is life denying, and capitalism affects all of us.

So Capitol Hill is historically a queer neighborhood, right?

And for so many of us, just like communities of color, we have been pushed out of these neighborhoods that hold our families, our communities, they hold our belonging, where, you know, sometimes for some of us, we've been pushed out of our families of origin, our biological families, and so this is effectively re-traumatizing for so many of us.

So, you know, my path is similar.

I've lived in Capitol Hill for the last four years, and a few months ago, my building was purchased by a property management company, and our rents were raised over 69%.

And, yeah, right?

And we were able to organize together, and we were able to win, effectively, rent control, no more than 10%, so many of us could actually stay in our buildings.

And what I want to say is that, yeah, when we fight, we do win.

It's possible.

And we still need rent control because, like someone said, this is not where we're stopping, right?

We need community control of land.

We need community control of the city.

And rent control is what makes that possible.

So when we fight?

We win.

That's right.

McKinnon, and I rode the bus here, and I have a normal job like everyone else in this room, but I am a landlord.

I provide housing for my one building.

I work with my tenants.

I keep my place clean.

I go there and work there every month.

They call me if something's wrong.

I go there and fix it.

I have tenants who have lived there a long time.

I even give them extra time to try to find ones moving out.

And I told her, you can stay rent free for another week or two to find a place, because there's not many places to find available.

And I work with them.

I don't support rent control.

I've seen it in a lot of other areas and states where it hasn't been effective.

I know everyone wants this to be the solve all our problems.

But there is a larger problem than just rent control, like you've discussed today.

And I just wanted to give my two cents worth.

I know I'm in the minority here in this room.

And I support my tenants.

I know their birthdays.

I know their kids when they go to school.

So thank you for your time.

Thank you, Nancy.

I appreciate you coming.

Nancy.

to connect with Jonathan there so we can keep in touch with you because the reason this is a draft legislation and not the final version is precisely because we need to hear more from small landlords.

And we would love to have a conversation with you.

I'm not the only one in the room either.

I know.

But our collective starting point has to be that all people deserve affordable housing.

So we have Renee, then Emerson, then Richard Fritt.

Good afternoon.

Thank you so much, Shama, for starting this.

Like so many other wonderful things that you start for the good of humanity, all of us, And this is another really much needed cause.

And I just wanna say to the landlords, because there are some really good landlords that aren't in this for profit.

And to those I say, thank you.

And I don't think this is trying to push out the small landlords by any means, nor is it gonna make the rent lower than your mortgage.

So there's a few things there that I'm sure will be addressed.

It's just, you know, I hear a story after, I've lived in Seattle for 33 years.

I love this city just like everyone else.

And oh my goodness, have I seen the changes and it's really devastating.

It's quite sad because it doesn't, It affects all humanity, and this isn't just, oh, well, gee, just got to move to a different city.

I mean, so I hear story after story after story, like a few here tonight, how rents are continually being brought up, $300 at a time, $500, developers still coming in, wiping out.

people and where are these people going to live and I'm so sad that honestly there's so many of my friends that don't even live here anymore.

Can you wrap up Renee?

And so I just really support the rent control and thank you for everyone jumping on board and we really need this rent control in the state not

Hi there, my name is Emerson.

I'm a member of Socialist Alternative.

I'm here to enthusiastically support the draft legislation for rent control that Councilmember Sawant is putting forward, but also I'm so excited to stand with everyone in this room and the 12,000 other people who are demanding affordability in Seattle.

I've lived in Washington my whole life.

I've lived in Seattle specifically since I was 18, so six years now.

And I have moved every single year that I have lived here because I've been economically evicted from my home.

And I know that I am not the only person in this room who's had that experience.

working people, black and brown communities are at the forefront of this housing crisis.

And it's funny to me because we hear from corporate developers and so many of the other city council members, the platitudes that they have about solving the housing crisis.

And now, when a bold policy is being put forward, where are they?

They are here.

And I think that just goes to show this is going to be a relentless fight won by the movement.

Not backroom deals.

you know, compromises made with developers and big business, it's going to be won by us and by the 12,000 other people that we're going to get involved in this.

So I'm just so excited to win rent control with all of you.

Our last two speakers are Richard Frith and James McDonald, and then we will move into committee discussion.

Go ahead.

Good evening.

My name is Richard Frith.

Some of you may know me better as Gree, middle initial D, landlord.

I like to be popular, and I wanted to be able to greet all you people as one of the rich landlords.

I'm a fat old white guy who's been doing this for 37 years, according to my last look at it.

I agree with one thing.

Rents are way too high.

I'm scared for my tenants.

I can't believe that there's any place left for a middle class person to live in this town, because I could not afford it in today's situation.

or much less even for working class people.

37 years ago, I bought a duplex because I was living there and the landlady was going to sell it because rents were going to go up too much.

I bought it.

I couldn't afford a mortgage, so I got seller financing.

I was lucky.

I was middle class.

Things have changed since then.

Reagan got elected and the highest taxes for taxpayers used to be 70% until Reagan got elected.

And then, damn right, that's exactly it.

The tax rate of the richest people dropped.

The middle class has been evaporating.

The average wages have not moved since the 1970s.

High rent is only a symptom of a bigger problem, the demise of the middle class.

I became middle class because I ended up with 18 units.

We must tax the rich.

This is only the most convenient nail head that we can hit with the hammer we have in our hands.

But rent control was only a small amount of this.

We need to tax the hell out of capital gains because that's where I just made money.

I sold a unit, I sold a building last year.

I got...

Under this proposed capital gains income tax, my tax on the building I sold last year would be $16,800.

That's nice.

We're talking, but it's hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the city.

That's great.

My income tax from the feds is over $150,000.

We need to tax the rich seriously.

Thank you.

We have James, and then our final speaker is Chris, and then we really have to get into the committee.

I'd like to introduce somebody who I met about two hours ago on the street corner.

I mentioned I was coming here to City Hall for rent control, and he decided to turn out as well.

So this is James, everyone.

being that I have traveled abroad and I have been on the streets of many places.

I understand that there is a simple need for human relations.

In the way that we treat one another, it stands to be the governing of the royal law.

Love thy neighbor as thyself.

If we have no neighbors, we have no one to love because when you go for a cup of sugar or a cup of milk to make a meal for someone, you actually have no one to look forward to because they are trying to make rent due.

They are trying to access avenues of charities which are being exhausted because people are being put on the streets for various reasons.

Some don't want to.

being that I am currently on the streets and I actually see a lot of things that most people don't.

I don't shed light on those that don't want, but I express knowledge to people on how to better their situation.

One of the things that I've strived for since I've been homeless in California as well as here is that I want a place to call home.

I want people that I can look to and say, good morning, neighbor.

How are you?

How did you sleep?

How did you do yesterday evening when our doors closed and we were at home with our loved ones?

I actually look forward to that no matter where I go, because even though I'm on the streets right now, I look for a place to call home.

And when I find that place, I'd rather see people that aren't struggling to make rent because of some inflation or some taxation based on monetary needs.

The needs of people are shelter, food, things of that nature.

Dead presidents don't feel anything.

They've done their term.

People feel everything.

Good evening, Council Member Sawant.

My name is Chris.

I'm a disabled person working as a barista, and I'm here out of desperation to plead for rent control because I don't know where I'm going to stay at the end of this week.

For the past three years, I have shared a three-bedroom duplex with housemates in the Central District, and each year the rent has increased.

The total cost of my duplex is now $500 more than when I first moved in, and I pay $1,025 for my room.

In the past year, there have been several months where I had to borrow money from friends and St. Vincent de Paul in order to keep my housing.

I even had to drop out of my teaching program because I had to work more hours to pay for my rent.

I recently tried to apply for a low-income studio for $8.75 a month, but I was told that I don't make the minimum of $26,000 a year to qualify for those studios, so I was sent to several other buildings.

I tried three of them, and all of them said that they had several applications in front of me.

There is an affordable housing crisis because property managers, landlords, and developers are more concerned with market value than actually housing people.

And thousands of units go empty while thousands more are forced out of their homes.

I come here today to remind you that we are all, many of us are just one paycheck away from losing everything.

It doesn't matter how hard you try or how much education you have.

This city just simply doesn't care about us.

As waves of people come in and drive up the cost of living, the culture of the city has changed in favor of profit, and it's forcing out the communities and the culture that make living in Seattle so desirable in the first place.

This has to end, and rent control can stop developers and landlords from pricing us out of our homes.

Thank you.

And please make sure you share your content information with my office so we can, you know, address even the specific situation you're facing.

And similarly, those of you who are either yourself, renters, or you know somebody who's a renter and is facing a difficult situation, please make sure you, you know, connect with my office so we know how to get back in touch with you in the days following tonight's committee.

And we have no illusion that we are going to be able to solve this deep crisis that our region is in, one building or one tenant at a time.

But fighting those individual battles helps, you know, inject momentum into our larger fight for end control, as you saw with the Chateau building victory.

So each of your situations, you know, winning a victory on each of your situations matters to us greatly.

So please be in touch.

I also wanted to invite small landlords who are either here or are watching this on Seattle Channel.

to also reach out to my office because we want to make sure we hear your concerns and make sure that the legislation as it gets better with community input also includes the genuine concerns of small landlords.

And we want to make sure that we support those small landlords who are not gouging or exploiting their tenants, and we want to make sure we have a policy that actually works for tenants.

And I wanted to echo somebody who said that it's not good enough.

I mean, I think it was Brooke who, they won a victory against a 69% rent increase, but it was a 10% rent increase.

And I agree with Brooke, even 10% is too high, because a simple way you can measure that is, when was the last time your wages went up by 10% in a month, right?

So how can your rent go up by that much?

That's why we are talking about a very strong rent control law.

And then I completely agree that we need rent control.

It has to be part of a comprehensive policy program that has to include a major expansion of publicly owned social housing.

by taxing the wealthy.

So I agree with Richard who said that we need to tax the rich, but it's not an either-or.

We have to win all these policies because our city is really lopsided.

It's so wealthy on the one hand, and on the other hand, so many of us are suffering.

So that has to end, and rent control has to be part of it.

And finally, apologies to those of you who want to speak more, but I had to ask you to wrap up.

I hate doing that, but I have to because we have to move on.

Ted, you have a presentation that you want to pull up.

And we want to invite all the people who are going to be here at the table.

Can you please join us?

Those of you who are scheduled to be here.

Okay, you can sit on this side, it's fine, either way.

You also can sit here if you want, facing the audience, it's up to you.

Could we have just very brief, one sentence introductions, name and organization, just for the record.

I'm Edward Doan, Council Member of Solon's office.

Can you go?

Reverend Angela Ying, Senior Pastor at Bethany in the Address of the Christ.

Violet Labate, with the Tenant Union of Washington.

Devin Silvernail, Co-Chair of the Seattle Runners Commission, and with B-Seattle.

Thank you.

We have a presentation that will cover the highlights of the draft legislation.

Ted is going to go through each slide and, you know, have introductory comments for each slide, but then we want our guests here to, panelists here to expand on each of the slides and make whatever points you want to make, and we'll go through the presentation.

Go ahead, Ted.

So the first question is, who's covered by rent control?

And many cities have rent control that's limited to certain types of housing or housing built before a certain date.

But in this bill, all the housing in the city would be covered by rent control.

Did Devin or Violet want to talk about why we are insisting on this and what we have seen through studies on how rent control policies have worked in other cities?

Sure.

Yeah, the number one thing that I would say, and you hear this too from the crowd that isn't in favor of rent control, is that you hear conventional wisdom, quote unquote, is that it limits development.

I think that's a huge argument against rent control.

Last year, the Haas Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, did a study that, in addition to other things, flat out said that that is usually, that quote is usually not backed up by actual real researcher evidence.

So I think that is a huge thing to mention here.

You know, why we're asking for it to cover everybody because, you know, that boogeyman of rent control doesn't necessarily exist itself, the thing that is really the biggest problem with rent control, are the things that are built into it to undermine it.

And that's why we're asking for a full, complete, universal rent control package.

One of the things people always say to us, why is it that you guys are pushing for rent control?

Rent control, as you know, it equates to, it's putting people more on the streets.

People don't realize when you get a rent increase, they don't have the means or the extra income to pay that extra rent.

Rent control would cap some of the outrageous, because we know a lot of landlords are, I mean, the latest I've heard up in Capitol Hill was $6,000 a month that the landlord wants to charge.

And these are real numbers.

And that's why it's important that we get rent control because we need that cap.

And this is for everyone.

It will cover everyone.

One thing I wanted to clarify also is when we say all rental housing citywide would be covered, and those of you who have this, there's this handout you all can look at.

It's a double-sided handout.

And under the section where we say no corporate loopholes, one of the things we mentioned there is universal rent control.

We're talking about both all kinds of rental homes, you know, regardless of whether it's an apartment or a room in a single family home, it doesn't matter, or an accessory dwelling unit, it doesn't matter what kind of rental place it is. that the universal rent control law should cover you.

And also the other point I think that we want to include here and that is in our draft legislation is that regardless of the date of construction, all rental homes will be covered.

And if panelists want to add to that also what we've observed in San Francisco because of Costa Hawkins and so on, if you wanted to add to that, please do.

I organized in San Francisco.

I worked with tenants in San Francisco.

And I lived in San Francisco in an apartment that wasn't rent controlled.

I was very jealous of my friends that had a rent controlled unit.

And that was a lot of them that didn't have it.

Most of the apartments in San Francisco, I would say, aren't covered under rent control.

If your building was built before June of 1979, you don't have rent control in San Francisco.

Sorry, if it was built after June of 1979. So essentially, if it's been built in the last 40 years, tough luck.

Until recently in New York, until, well, the upstate-downstate coalition won universal rent control.

It was 1974, so it was even longer.

So basically, they had it set up for more and more time.

As time went on, we had less and less stock.

And so not exempting buildings based upon age will basically add stock all the time for affordable housing.

Exactly.

And just one other thing, anecdote I wanted to share is in, I'm sure many of you have had this experience, but in my economics 101 book, I'm laughing because, of course, I didn't agree with a lot of what was in that textbook.

But one of the things was, you know, the textbook, just to give you a sense of what kind of economics often students are taught, one of the, you know, these little sort of pull-out boxes, one of those pull-out boxes that I remember was, why unions are bad, you know?

I remember reading that.

But the other box was about why rent control doesn't work.

And the example that they had was, you know, New York rent control is so evil because rich people like Mia Farrow, you know, Mia Farrow is the famous movie star.

who's very rich.

You know Mia Farrow has a rent control, massive rent control apartment in New York City, in Manhattan, and it's rich people like them who will have rent control and that's why if you're an ordinary person you shouldn't support it.

And the reason I mention it is not just because it's funny but because the loopholes that were put in, the corporate loopholes that were put in place in other cities, not by the movement, obviously, but by the real estate lobby, meant that the stock of housing, rental housing that was covered by rent control law, kept dwindling because of various loopholes, and that ended up meaning that it became a very rare commodity.

So those who had it, had it, and those who couldn't have it, couldn't have it.

And it, rather than creating unity among renters with a strong rental, rent control law, it ended up dividing renters between those who had rent control units and, or those who knew somebody, you know, my aunt has a rent control unit and she's moving to assisted living, I get to move into her unit.

And it's a sort of underhanded market, rather than everybody, just because you're a renter, by law, you're getting rent control.

So that's why And so, you know, these are live examples of how those loopholes have undermined rent control laws as Devin was saying.

That's why we are making sure that our draft legislation is universal rent control.

But I continue to stress on the word draft because In order to actually win what we have here, we will need to have a serious fight.

That's what we've seen.

And the New York City, New York state movements were successful because they built a united movement, upstate, downstate movement.

They united everybody.

That's the kind of movement we'll need.

Yeah.

So the legislation defines this thing, maximum rent increase.

And rents cannot be raised more than the maximum rent increase in any given year.

And the maximum rent increase, it can be, rents can be raised less than that, or the rents can be lowered, or rents can stay the same.

but rents cannot rise more than this maximum.

And the maximum is the rate of inflation, the CPIW, which is the inflation of wages.

So if wages go up, then rents can go up the same amount, but rents can't go up faster than wages.

So the Seattle inflation last year was 3.4%, and that would be the most that rents could be increased that year.

And just to compare what happened with rents in Seattle to what happened with inflation, Between 2010 and 2018, the average rent went up 69%.

In that same time, inflation was 23.3%.

Yeah, I think one of the things that we're seeing working at the tenant union we get multiple calls every day about rent increases like where we're gonna go and I think One of the things that the landlords and developers want us to know it doesn't work Actually, it does and I think they've gotten to the point where there are some good landlords and I've met them there are some landlords who say You know what?

Rent control is not going to work.

Well, it's not going to work for them, but it'll work for us, those who are fighting for rent control.

I think the misconception of landlords and developers, what they're saying is they've dictated a lot of our housing policies.

And I'm going to tell you this.

This is a fact, and it's in the numbers.

African-American tenants are the first ones.

It's the highest rating of evictions in our state right now.

So that tells you something, that housing right now is discriminatory.

It's not fair.

And so when landlords come and say, hey, I'm one of those people, please, When the landlord says something to me, I'm going to say something back.

I'm sorry.

I've dealt with a lot of them, and so I don't have a little bit of compassion for them, those who are coming against us.

That's why it's important that we fight for this, that this will help us, and this will help more people get off the streets, y'all.

So I'm glad, tonight actually I met a woman and I want to lift her up, Nancy, a landlord from Ballard and she, I gave her a hug, she gave me a hug, which I thought was wonderful because part of it is we're working together on this to figure out a way for rent control.

She said she was against it because part of it is as a small landlord, it's really tough for her and that the costs are rising.

And I think part of it that was really important for us to share with her, and I'm glad that she listened in, was basically that not knowingly, she's probably one of us.

And I think, and as a person of faith and somebody seeing our neighborhood disproportionately continuing to have rents rise, I mean, 69%.

I mean, no wonder our neighborhoods are being displaced.

I mean, there's no way.

No one can afford this.

I mean, I can't even afford this.

And I'm trying to have our communities continue to be together, but they keep getting pushed out.

I'm really thankful to Shama Sawant for bringing this forward with all her staff and all of us and the big win with Chateau.

I also know, having worked with King County Council Member Larry Gossett, he's working day and night tirelessly to make sure there's affordable housing.

in King County, and that's huge.

So many times we have luxury apartments that nobody of us can afford, but he's trying to make sure that we, the neighbors, can be in the homes that he's going to have built in King County.

So part of it is working together.

Shalma is saying it's a movement.

It's a people all working together to make sure that, yes, if inflation goes up by 2%, then rent, that makes sense to go up by 2%, but no more.

Because basically the key part is we want to make sure that people stay in their homes, not on the streets.

We have enough people that are homeless.

We want to get the homeless people in homes, not put more people out on the streets to be homeless.

I'm going to let Reverend Angela and Violet bring this up because this is exactly why the Seattle Runners Commission supported it in the first place and the idea of rent control.

And, you know, we came out in support of it in April, but I'll tell you that the Commission has been working on this for two years, right?

And it started with former Commissioner Cliff Cawthorn who pushed hard and did a lot of research and went around and looked at a lot of places.

in around the country to see how they handle it.

Other commissioners who can't be here at the table today, I'd like to, you know, give a shout out to also Beverly Aarons and David Mooney, Michael Padilla, you know, folks who went out of their way to help because they know that this is exactly what is happening.

You know, housing shouldn't be a privilege, right?

You know, it shouldn't be just the few who have the most money who can live in a place.

It should be for everybody.

And that's, you know, that's why it's really great to have this tied to inflation, because you also have it tied to something, right?

And that, again, like Council Member Swann, you had said earlier, when was the last time your raise went up by 10%, but maybe it did go up by 3.4, and you can actually still hang on.

So it's, you know, it's really important that this is part of the provision, so thank you.

Before moving on, just to add, I got an email from a small landlord last week who asked that, who was originally very worried about rent control, although he said that he worked with his tenants and didn't raise the rent a lot and that sort of thing.

And for him, when he found out that rents could be raised as much as inflation, He was a lot less worried about that.

So for landlords, there are small landlords out there that do keep the rents low and not gouge their tenants.

And for them, the reality is they're doing this anyway.

Yeah, that's great.

This legislation, it makes it clear that the rent control is tied to the apartment.

It's not tied to the person.

So even if somebody moves out, the rent control stays in place.

And I'm sure people can give examples of that.

So we're talking about vacancy control, which I think it's important to talk about that.

Councilmember Sawant also talked about the corporate loopholes that are in New York.

or were in New York until the people won universal rent control.

And, you know, vacancy control, that was one of those.

It was one of those things that plagued San Francisco and plagued New York.

You know, I can tell you in the neighborhood that I lived in when I was in San Francisco, Bernal Heights, it was a low to middle income queer neighborhood when I moved there.

And then it was the ground zero for gentrification when I moved away.

And I had neighbors who had a, I'm not kidding, they had like a 400% rent increase one year.

And they fought against it.

And it was because of things like this, right?

So if you, that house was below market rate, and people moved out, and so they redid the lease.

And when they redid the lease, because people moved out, there were vacant units inside that building.

they raise the rent.

Another thing about New York I think that is great to kind of loop into vacancy control too and tying it to housing units is out there, a unit could be phased out of rent control if a person made too much money.

prior to the reforms that happened this year, which makes it also important to tie it to a unit as opposed to a person.

Because sure, you might have somebody who's making $120,000 a year living in a unit, and then they move out.

But then what if the person who's making $40,000 moves into that unit afterward, right?

So it's good to keep that continuity.

Right, and just to add to what was said, in California there was a statewide law that was passed in 1995 called a destructive law called the Costa-Hawkins Act.

It was named for a Democratic Senator Jim Costa and Republican Assembly Member Phil Hawkins and that's why it came to be known as the Costa-Hawkins Act.

of 1995, and it included, it introduced many insidious loopholes into the rent control laws that the cities that had rent control law, it's not, it wasn't like the city is the statewide there was a law, but cities like San Francisco, the Costa-Hawkins Act ended up greatly weakening the existing rent control laws, and one of the loopholes it introduced was vacancy decontrol, meaning if a tenant moves out, then the landlord is allowed to jack up the rents to market rate before the other new tenant moves in.

So it basically means that you can't keep unit homes rent control.

It's like writing, allowing such a loophole to be written into the law basically means you are writing in the demise of the law in the law itself.

So it's sort of contradictory.

And the reason we call them corporate loopholes is because it is the corporate real estate lobby that has pushed for such loopholes in city after city, state after state, and that's whom we're going to have to fight in order to make sure that our rent control law is not plagued by something insidious like vacancy decontrol.

And just another example I wanted to give was the example of the city of Boston.

which where the people who live their experience when the rent control laws were weakened and then eliminated in the mid-1990s, the apartment rates doubled within a few months that followed.

And so these are not idle speculations.

We have seen these things happen in other cities and we want to avoid those mistakes.

But avoiding those mistakes depends on the strength of the movement.

Go ahead.

I just want to add for the vacancy control, it's really important because if you heard during the public comment, my neighbor and friend Emerson, I mean, if she moved or he or she moved or they moved seven times, you know, every single year, can you just imagine what profit that landlord just took.

And I think that's the key.

It's like, if we're gonna have rent control, we also have to have vacancy control because a lot of us, especially in my community, my congregation, whatever, they're moving a lot, just like my friend, because they can't afford the rent.

So they're trying to find something lower.

And then the minute they move out, somebody hikes it up.

I mean, that's a perpetual systemic problem.

So the next portion here is some of the just technical aspects of the bill.

Some people's leases, the landlord pays the utilities, other times the tenant pays the utilities.

And so this rent control law says that anytime you switch from the landlord paying the utilities to the tenant or back.

then that amount needs to be added or subtracted from the maximum rent.

And that way, utilities plus the rent stays the same either way.

So that's just some of the, yeah.

And just to clarify to everybody in the audience, the slides that we are going over as a summary, all of that language is incorporated in the draft legislation right now.

So some of you might know the term one-to-one replacement anytime a building is is demolished or renovated The way that it's written in this law is that any any?

Affordable units in the building need to be replaced at the same affordability level so to give an example if there's ten if there's a a building with 10 homes in it, and maybe it's an older building, maybe those homes are affordable.

If that building is demolished and a big building is built with 100 housing units in it, 10 of those units need to be tied to the old rents, at the same rent plus whatever inflation, but at that old rent.

But then the other new homes after the demolished ones are replaced, then those are new, there's no old rent to peg it to.

So the building owner can set whatever rent they want for the new units to begin with, and then from that point on, any rent increases are tied to inflation.

Okay, keep going, it's okay.

Unless anybody wants to speak.

I would say that that sounds like our mandatory housing affordability program on steroids.

So that's really great because currently Currently, we only are asking for up to 9% of new housing to be built with affordable housing.

And I can tell you just as a person, I lived on Capitol Hill since 2007, crossing fingers.

And in that amount of time, I've seen affordable older building after affordable older building being torn down and replaced and The idea of having one like this this replacement program would be really great because then it could keep people in place Which is something that I know that the mayor has herself said that she wants so Could be something great for her to support as well

Why not?

Yeah.

You know, when you go outside and you look in Seattle downtown, every time you see a crane, the city is making money.

Somebody's making money.

And so when they're building these luxurious apartments, like, who can afford to live in there?

I mean, $6,000 a month.

Yeah, even the people who are with Microsoft and Amazon, some of them won't rent there.

This is outrageous.

And I think everybody thinks that.

Why is it rent control?

I have two landlord friends.

I do have landlord friends.

Yeah.

There's a list of landlords that hate me, but I have two landlord friends.

We always discuss this.

They're good people.

And I think when you have good people, you will do the right thing.

We have a lot of landlords who don't do the right thing.

I'm for building more affordable housing.

What does affordability mean?

Sometimes it doesn't even mean affordable.

Like they say, oh, it's $3,500 for a studio.

That is not affordable, you guys.

And I think with rent control, it won't solve every problem of ours in the city of Seattle, which we have a lot of issues and stuff, but it will help alleviate a lot of these increases and people not going down the street.

The tenant union right now is preventing people from going to the street.

We go after landlords who does unjust practices.

So if I sound angry at a landlord, forgive me.

Not to, so, yeah.

Does this include like units like with the same age fee?

What it needs to include is to make sure that bedrooms, like if a two bedroom or three bedroom apartment is replaced, it can't be replaced with some shitty micro studio.

Cut in half.

Thank you for that, Sean, but I would urge people not just pop up with lots of questions because we're also trying to sort of, no, no, that's okay.

It's a very good question, actually.

I'm just concerned that everybody is, it's eight o'clock and people need to go, so I feel a lot of obligation to end the meeting soon so that we don't lose people.

So to repeat the question into the microphone for the record, so a person from the audience raised that if there's one-to-one replacement, the replacement units need to be the same sort of unit that was demolished.

You don't replace two bedrooms with studios and that sort of thing.

For people that want to read the details, there are copies of the bill on the table in front, and we'll also make them available online.

The way that it's written into the bill is that the replacement is measured by square foot, and it's proportional to the size of the unit.

So if there was...

Good.

That answers his question.

I was going to go into details, but I think people understood.

Go.

All right, next up.

So what do you do about emergencies, exemptions, unforeseen things, hurricanes, that sort of thing?

Every city that has rent control has some sort of process or procedure for what to do about that sort of situation.

Ted, for the audience, can you give an example of what you're talking about?

Why should this be relevant to rent control law?

Sure, so let's say there's a small landlord who owns one building and a There's a hurricane and a tree in the yard falls and crushes the roof.

And they don't own a lot of units, and so they don't have the money to repair that roof.

And they feel stuck.

Who's empowered to decide what to do about a situation like that?

Many cities have some sort of rent control board.

The way it's written into this bill, and this is one of those things that definitely should be discussed in detail over time, is that There's a rent control board that's empowered to make, to look at emergencies, and to grant on a case-by-case basis exceptions.

They can only grant exceptions for unforeseeable major things, like that hurricane drops the tree on the roof.

Not for routine maintenance, that comes from or not maintenance that comes from neglect.

So, you know, if the roof caves in because it hasn't been repaired in 40 years, that doesn't count.

And also necessary, there's also a check for financial hardship from the building owner.

If you have a giant real estate company that has a thousand units, well, they have over the course of the business, the resources to deal with that one tree for that one unit.

But if you have that small landlord that just has that one building, that's the situation that this is designed to address.

And also in the bill, It mentions that the financial hardship of the tenant also needs to be taken into consideration.

So that's the sort of scenario that the rent control board is for.

And maybe I'll read these three slides together before they're discussed, because they all go together.

So the rent control board, as it's written in this bill, Each city has a very different sort of rent control board structure.

So in this bill, it's designed a lot like the rent control board in Quebec.

And it's also designed a lot like Seattle's design review board.

where each council district would have its own local district rent control board that would take up issues in that area.

Each district rent control, and then the district rent control boards would come together into the citywide one.

Each district rent control board would be made up of five renters who rent, you know, who live in the district.

And one landlord or building manager representative who owns or manages a building in that district.

And the aspiration in the bill is that to begin with, the boards are appointed by the district council member for that district, and then that appointment is confirmed by the city council as a whole.

But starting in four years to give time to put that infrastructure in place to have those rent control boards be elected.

Do we have other cities that have elected rent control boards?

I didn't find them, but.

Berkeley, California.

It's an elected rent control vote.

And they're directly elected by voters.

Yep.

Yeah.

By the people.

OK.

So the bill has an enforcement section, which is also an area that should be examined and developed over time.

It's overwhelmingly based on the enforcement provisions that are already in Seattle's rent-to-rights laws, so the same rent-to-rights laws that govern the other tenant protections are the same ones that are used here, which may be something to revisit as a whole going forward.

And there is, and within that there's, what is it, so there's the normal penalties for breaking a tenant protection law, but also the tenant themselves needs to be made whole.

So in this bill, making the tenant whole means that any extra rent that was charged beyond what's allowed needs triple that, needs to be paid back plus 12% annual interest, which is the same as what Seattle does for wage theft.

Paying back three times what's stolen plus interest.

Or at least that's what's allowed under the law for wage theft.

As well as covering any damages that's done by overcharging rent like eviction costs.

And I don't know if you already mentioned this.

The OLS on this slide refers to the City of Seattle Office of Labor Standards, which administers the laws that are in place for wage theft, as Ted was saying.

Ted, can you give one or two examples of companies that have been held accountable on wage theft and have had to pay a penalty, if you can think off the top of your head?

But also, in addition to that, Can you also explain the rationale behind why?

Why is it that our draft legislation doesn't just say if a landlord is caught flouting the rent control law, they just have to give their rent back, you know, whatever rent is owed.

Why is there a penalty of triple damages and so on?

If you imagine, so if it was just paying back the extra rent that was charged, then it would create an incentive for landlords who want to gouge their tenants to charge too much rent all the time.

And the worst thing that happens to them is they have to give it back.

By paying back triple what's taken, then it means that if they're caught, they lose money, which makes an incentive to follow the rent control laws.

And in terms of company, I don't have a list of companies.

The Office of Labor Standards put out a press release about a big settlement that they got for workers just a couple days ago, but I forget what it was for.

Yeah, the name of the company escapes me, but they did do a great job of getting penalties from a company that was engaging in wage theft.

Did any of you have any thoughts on enforcement?

I think one of the things that we're seeing is we have to, if we're going to, because these are good policies.

I'm even like, it's really good.

Enforcing them is a big thing because if you bring all this legislation forward for rent control, The thing is, we have to put a mechanism in place about enforcement, because a lot of landlords are still getting away under some of the ordinance.

And we're talking about their security deposit theft.

That is big in the state of Washington.

And so this is good.

I mean, you know, Tenants Union have been fighting for rent control since the 80s, you guys, since they banned the, you know, they banned it on the state of Washington.

So this is finally a dream come true for the Tenants Union because we believe that, yes, housing should be a right, a human right.

There's two things as well that I really have to say that are three things that are really great about this.

A, the package isn't overly complicated, right?

It's something that we can easily talk about, we can easily digest.

It's not super convoluted.

Also, having that real incentive for landlords to follow the rules.

Because I'll say, as a renter and as an advocate for renters, I'm not here to put a landlord out of business necessarily.

I'm not here to punish a good landlord.

But, I mean, I think that bad landlords should be punished.

And there was a woman who came up and did public comment who was a landlord, and I really appreciate that she said that she cares about her tenants and she works with her tenants.

That's what small landlords usually do.

They have a real relationship.

And so I think it's also important and great to have the hardship thing built in, too, because sometimes that will happen.

But if you've got a large landlord like mine who owns, you know, millions of dollars worth of property in my neighborhood, you know, they can get away with that, but that person can't.

So I think that's really an important thing to have in there and also something that can maybe have those folks come on our side too.

Yep.

So to flag some issues for follow-up discussions, as often happens when drafts of legislation come out, one is providing...

discussing with and providing options for small landlords who make special allowances for good tenants.

We do hear that, and they...

that should be built in.

And then the other point to flag is the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, which is the department that enforces renter rights.

As Violet says, there's already many tenant rights that exist that are being broken, and it would be valuable to have a broader discussion about those enforcement provisions.

Right.

Yeah, and there will probably be other elements that will come up when more community organizations look at the draft legislation.

I wanted to make a few sort of concluding points, but did you have one more slide?

Well, this is a slide for concluding points, but this shows the black line at the top is what actual rent, average rents in Seattle were since 2011, which is you could choose any starting point, but for this graph, that's the starting point.

And then if they rose with inflation instead, that's the white line at the bottom.

And we should note that all that money that we all paid in rent that went to make a lot of profits for a lot of very rich people.

So it's, it's, We should not be apologetic about fighting for rent control because this is the correct thing to do.

One question that hasn't come up in the presentation that I wanted to ask our panelists before we sort of bring this discussion to a close and announce some of our next steps is, A common thing that we often hear from our detractors is that if you pass rent control, even a weak rent control, unlike the one we are talking about, which is a strong rent control, then it would lower the quality of available housing because any type of rent control takes away the incentive of landlords to maintain the rental homes.

How do you respond to that?

And do you see any evidence to prove that that happens?

So I'm gonna tell you that landlords, they have meetings on this type of stuff about stopping rent control.

The thing is, they're a business.

They don't really care about people, so that's a myth that I'm gonna disperse because it's not true.

The thing is, they're always gonna be in business.

They find things to come at the tenants, to charge the tenants even more.

So I don't believe in the, We won't build more housing if there was no tenants They would not be rich and I want us to comprehend a lot of tenants.

Don't think that way.

They just say I just need a place a lot of landlords I repeat a lot of landlords There's tactics that they use.

Well, we won't have enough places to stay or Listen, they're out to make money.

Do you think that's true?

I They will keep building and building and building.

And this right here, this policy will cap them where they can't raise $6,000.

That it will stay at what we make.

And a lot of people, you have to make 91,000 to be middle class in the city of Seattle.

I think most of us are low income.

Yeah, a lot of us are low income.

That's what they consider.

I just, listen, you're going to hear it.

It doesn't work.

Landlords will say- And Violet, you addressed the, like, would it affect the number of rental homes that are built?

The other question that comes up is, the other point that comes up is, it will reduce the quality, meaning the rental homes will not be maintained very well.

What do you say to that?

And also, Devin.

Just think it's a tactic that they use I mean who wants to rent out crappy there are slumlords running around in the city of Seattle We know some of them, but the thing is the quality of the place That's why I think Seattle is really good because we have an inspection.

You know we have this Inspection program up to that goes in places like that.

I just don't believe it do it listen right now You're gonna hear all kinds of stuff that rent control does not work It's baloney.

I say it really nicely.

It's baloney.

We've heard it.

They have meetings about this.

How do we squeeze more money out of the tenants?

That's what they talk about.

I should know.

I infiltrate some of them.

I can't do it anymore because they know who I am now.

You know, I would also say there's a couple of things in that.

You know, A, the landlord lobby, they have really good PR people, right?

They can spin things however they want it.

But, I mean, in terms of it limiting supply, you know, again, 2018 UC Berkeley research study that says that that's basically not true most of the time.

You can also look at a place like Manhattan.

you know, the densest city in the country, or San Francisco, or sorry, the densest borough and biggest city in the country.

San Francisco, the second densest city in the country, both of them have rent control.

As a former San Franciscan, I can tell you, go look at Soma, go look at the Fillmore, go look at Midmarket, the Castro, they're building.

We just have this really skewed perception in Seattle because we're building the most.

But if the conventional wisdom were true, that if all you have to do is build to get us out of this crisis, we would be winning and we would have cheaper rents or our rents wouldn't have spiked.

Additionally, if it were true, they're never going to do it because it's not going to help the investors who are investing in these properties.

Do you want to build yourself out of making money if you're an ultimate capitalist?

Probably not.

You know, and yeah, in terms of, you know, what Violet was talking about with the landlords, you know, I would just say like, yeah, I completely agree with that.

You know, again, it's the big ones that we're talking about that are completely ruthless.

And, you know, that's why we need to, we want to get small landlords on our side too.

And if, I mean, just to add to what the two of you are saying, I mean, if you look at the graph, and I'm good at math and the graphs, I mean, the average rent in Seattle, if we had had rent control, is still about, you know, 13, 1400. That's not cheap change, right?

Okay, that's not.

But now, if you look at the graph, I mean, it's like what it is right now.

I mean, it's over, you know, 21, 22, whatever.

That's called absurd.

Okay?

And that's what we're talking about.

Because if you look at it, I mean, that's why we're asking for rent control.

Because realistically, we know, you know, what's possible for the people.

But still, I mean, the actual average, you know, rent in Seattle is outrageous.

And that's what Devin and Violet have said and continue to say.

And that's why I'm glad all of you are here as we say.

What do we need now?

Thanks.

One thing I would like to add, I just forgot, also, that ties into the high school students that were here for climate justice, that during the New Deal in the 30s, groups of business people came together and said that this would kill the economy.

They're doing that right now with the Green New Deal, too.

They're saying that this will kill the economy.

Guess what?

The New Deal didn't kill the economy, right?

And so they're trying the same tactics with rent control.

So who are you going to believe?

You're going to believe the 1% or you're going to believe the 99%?

People.

Exactly.

And I appreciate, Devin, you tying this to the question of the Green New Deal as well.

And again, also, as Violet was saying, right now, Seattle does not have rent control.

And right now, slumlords are thriving.

There are so many tenants we hear from.

My office hears from.

new tenants virtually every day who say that they're being exploited by their landlord, and these are not the kind of small and caring landlords who care about their tenants, but these are landlords who have, who may look small on paper, but when you sort of trace the financial sort of, you know, the line that they follow where their big corporation is divided into smaller and smaller and smaller corporations.

So you have to go beyond what you first see and then trace the financial origins of many of these landlords.

They're big corporations.

So Carl Hagelin, for example, is one person, but it's a corporation because it's a corporate landlord.

corporation and slumlords are thriving right now and that's why just to sort of add to what the panelists were saying, we believe that it's the same as minimum wage, meaning what the wages are is not so much a function of supply and demand.

Yes, supply and demand plays a role undoubtedly, but that's a minor component.

The major factor that determines what wages workers get especially the lowest-paid workers, is the balance of power between bosses and workers.

Similarly, what rents people end up paying, what conditions renters have to face in their rental apartments, and how much they can hold their corporate landlord accountable, all of that depends on the balance of power.

And right now, there is a deep imbalance, and that is why, even in the absence of rent control, even in the context of the rental laws of the city greatly favoring corporate landlords, you still see very, very badly maintained homes.

We have seen so many homes that are mold infested and roach infested.

And again, you know, this requires a fight.

So I just also wanted to give, you know, just to throw this out there.

If you're listening to this and if you are a tenant who is being forced to live in a rental home with all these persistent problems and your landlord has not corrected those problems, please contact my office because we want to make sure The existing laws are enforced.

We have, through our activism and movement building, actually won many renters' rights victories in the last five, six years.

But we want to make sure they're enforced.

And laws are only as good as their enforcement.

So please don't hesitate to contact us to talk about that.

And I really appreciate everybody staying here.

But it is 823. Obviously, we're not going to win rent control tonight.

We have a whole movement to win, and we have to have a sober assessment of, you know, tonight was a huge victory for us, and we should celebrate that.

But we should also be sober about the challenges that lie ahead of us to continue building this movement.

I mean, today I was the only council member who is at this table.

We are going to need to build a huge momentum to make sure that our voices are heard in City Hall and not those of the corporate landlords, and I really agree with Devin and others that we need to make sure we also systematically outreach to small landlords as well.

We should outreach to many faith leaders who will support our struggle and also homeowners.

You know today we had homeowners speaking in favor of rent control.

So let's make sure that in the coming months, we very systematically do outreach to small business, progressive small business owner, progressive landlords, small landlords, homeowners, in addition to renters, so that we build a united movement.

And in terms of concrete next steps immediately that we need to go to, which I hope you will all join me at, is on October 3rd, and please make sure you get one of these double-sided leaflets.

On October 3rd, the city council as a whole will have a public hearing on the budget, because from now until Thanksgiving, the city council will be primarily focused on the city budget.

And every year through the People's Budget Movement that we initiated through my office in 2014, we have won unheard of victories because people got organized.

So I would really urge you to join us on October 3rd at the public hearing, but very importantly, also come to the People's Budget Town Hall on October 8th.

You know, it's a lot of events, it takes time, but movement building requires that kind of time, so I hope You will join us there.

If you haven't signed up on our rent control petition, please do so, because we want to be able to keep in touch with you.

Today's incredible turnout is the result of the fact that we collected 12,000 signatures, and everybody here has done an incredible job collecting those signatures.

So I am so grateful to everybody.

Let's adjourn the meeting, and then let's keep fighting, because when we fight, When we fight, we win!