Seattle City Council Finance & Housing Committee 3/16/21

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome to the Finance and Housing Committee.

Today is March 16, 2021. The time is 9.32 a.m.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, Chair of the Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Chair Mosqueda?

Present.

Vice Chair Herbold?

Here.

Council President Gonzalez?

Council Member Lewis?

Present.

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

And when the Council President joins us, we'll make sure to announce her.

Colleagues, we do have a full agenda today and I want to thank all of you for your time.

As a reminder, we have on the calendar today an overview of the American Recovery Act plan from central staff.

We have the resolution on the federal funding that we discussed in our last committee meeting and has been introduced.

This is our opportunity for amendments, discussion, and possible vote.

We will then have a conversation on Council Bill 12019, the Federal Appropriations Bill.

I'm sorry, we will have a discussion on the bill that allocates $12 million for non-congregate shelter for people experiencing homelessness.

And then finally, the rental assistance bill that we discussed yesterday, which we were eagerly anticipating given the congressional passage in December, which will allow for us to continue to extend and expand rental assistance.

If there's no objection, those four items on today's agenda will be adopted.

hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

Wonderful, and we do have public comment.

Today we have the opportunity to hear from those who have signed up for public comment.

I only see one person signed up, so if you are still interested in signing up, please do go ahead and dial in.

I will make sure to give the instructions for how to call in right now.

And as I do that, you still have time to go ahead and sign up.

So for those who are interested in public comment, we are going to offer two minutes of public comment.

Please make sure to say your name at the beginning of the meeting.

Make sure to note the item that you're here to speak towards.

and you will hear a 10-second chime at the end of your allotted time, which is your indication to wrap up.

Please do go ahead and wrap up your comments.

Unfortunately, at the end of two minutes, the microphone will be cut off, so we don't want to miss your last closing comments.

And if you do get cut off, you can dial back in to listen in on the listen-in line and also watch on Seattle Channel.

Or you can e-mail us your public comments, if you didn't get through them all, to council at seattle.gov.

With that, our public comment period is now open.

There is one person signed up.

Good morning, Alicia.

Alicia Glenwell is the first person to sign up and the only person listed here.

So, Alicia, thanks for being with us, and please go ahead.

Hi.

Good morning, everybody.

My name is Alicia Glenwell.

I'm with the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence I'm speaking this morning to say thank you so much to Council Member Herbold for proposing this morning's amendment to add gender-based violence services to the list of activities which may be covered by federal COVID-19 relief funding.

Council Member Herbold we appreciate your swift action and your continued championship for survivors and survivor services in the City of Seattle.

This amendment is a response to an anticipated 25 percent reduction in federal Victims of Crime Act funding allocated for DV and SA services in 2021 and 22. We anticipate a total loss of 26 million over the biennium for services across the state and many organizations providing services such as housing relocation assistance mobile housing and culturally specific advocacy bilingual advocacy services emergency financial assistance.

They'll all be affected here in Seattle and King County.

We're hearing about a possible federal fix later this spring.

However that will be too late to prevent an anticipated gap year as the VOCA coffers are replenished and the funding process gears back up.

And as our local leaders, you know, you're working hard every day to tackle pressing community issues.

Domestic and sexual violence are at the root of many of our region's most complex problems, like homelessness, the re-envisioning of community safety.

Gaps in gender-based violence services are gaps in our region's responses to these issues.

And as you know, COVID has created such complex needs for survivors and their families.

So this is coming at a time when demands for these services have really never been greater.

So again, thank you so much to Council Member Herbold, and thank you all for considering this amendment to include these services within your priorities for federal funding.

Thank you so much.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

And well said.

Alicia was our only person signed up for public comment today.

And I just want to confirm with the clerks and folks at MIT, there's nobody that we're missing right now.

There are no more public comment registrants.

Okay, wonderful.

Colleagues, that brings us to the end of public comment.

Then I want to welcome Council President Gonzalez, who is here with us as well.

Thank you very much, Council President, for joining us.

And she was here at the beginning of our public comment period as well.

So have the benefit of hearing from our colleagues.

I am going to move us into the next items on our agenda.

My computer is not cooperating here, so let me see if I can go back to the old school paper.

Madam Clerk, could you please read item one into the record?

Item number one, resolution 31999, a resolution identifying the city council's priority to maximize local use of future federal funding to support COVID-19 relief and recovery efforts for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

And I want to thank central staff.

There have been no less than six people working on this various resolution over the last two weeks and working with a sense of urgency as we try to both anticipate the passage of the Federal American Recovery Act plan and also to make sure that we reviewed the materials from the passage of that Congressional Act and got ready for today.

I think this is great timing that we're here having a conversation about the resolution as we then jump into the meat of the actual federal bill that will direct how we, as a city, want to respond and deploy the dollars with urgency.

Allie, I'm going to turn to you first, but maybe instead of jumping into the presentation, we can have folks introduce themselves for the record.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair Mosqueda, committee members.

I'm Allie Panucci with your Council Central staff, and I'll turn it over to Yolanda.

Good morning, Council.

It's Yolanda Ho, Council Central staff.

Tracy Rathliff, Council Central staff.

Amy Gore, Council Central staff.

Great, thank you.

I'm going to go ahead and share my screen and then we'll turn it back to Yolanda to walk through the presentation.

We are going to do a quick recap because we discussed a draft of the resolution a couple of weeks ago.

Now we have our introduced version that incorporates feedback from a number of councilmembers.

We can go to the next slide to The first and foremost being equity, acknowledging that the Latinx and BIPOC communities have been particularly hard hit by the COVID pandemic and that these populations are also overrepresented in our frontline workforce and thus more likely to be exposed to COVID.

This principle is about ensuring that investments in these communities is a top priority for this federal funding.

Next principle would be coordination.

And the principle acknowledges that the city is one of many entities addressing this public health and economic crisis.

and it should use its federal dollars to fill in any service gaps.

Flexibility, that the city should be nimble and prepared to adjust its strategy as necessary to maximize its response to any emergent needs.

And finally, resilience, that our federal funds should be used where possible to help guard against future uncertainty and be used so that the city is ready to make investments in new housing, economic revitalization, equitable development, and into the equitable development initiative and the Green New Deal for Seattle as described in the Jump Start Spending Plan.

we can go to the next slide.

So we'll not describe all 33 spending priorities that are included in the resolution.

We'll note that they are grouped under the general categories as listed on this slide.

Based on the feedback from council members, we have added two new categories to the draft.

So all the same, except the new categories are transportation and community well-being, since we discussed this draft two weeks ago.

The priorities reflect the evolving nature of the city's response to the pandemic.

Many of the priorities included would continue the city's existing relief efforts, such as food and rental assistance programs and support for seniors, and others focus on mid to long-term efforts to help Seattle recover and grow in a more equitable way, such as investing in multimodal infrastructure more options for child care and employment education and apprenticeship opportunities for young people, particularly BIPOC youth.

And with that, I'm happy to entertain any questions.

Otherwise, I can hand it over to Amy, who has one amendment to present.

Thank you very much, Yolanda.

I'm looking at the squares to see if there's any questions.

Okay, I just want to say a few comments before we discuss the amendment.

Colleagues, I want to thank all of you for the base bill here that Yolanda has summarized.

This is a reflection of what we currently understand are some of the priority investments that could be possible, categories that could be possible as we look at the draft, as we look at the final version that came out of Congress.

We've been really working hard on this behind the scenes with all of you and publicly with the public to make sure that folks knew what the draft was even going to look like.

And now here we have the introduced resolution that incorporates various items to make sure that the full council had the chance to provide their comments and priorities in this draft.

As a reminder, this is about making sure that we have both near-term and long-term goals as we look at Seattle workers, residents, small businesses, our most vulnerable, getting the support they need now to recover from COVID and also in the out years so we can create a more equitable recovery.

My hope and the goal with this resolution today is that we begin the process of working on a more detailed appropriations bill that we will be discussing very soon following the presentation from item number two.

And we'll have more to say both in terms of the scope of that process and the timeline on agenda item number two.

I'm really thankful for central staff's work on this.

Yolanda, I think your presentation and the email that you sent around to council colleagues, I believe it was on March 1st really highlighted how these spending priorities came from.

robust conversations that we have had directly with community partners over the years as we created the 2020 budget revisions, as we created the Jump Starts COVID relief plan, and as we created the 2021 adopted budget.

All of those ongoing conversations with various stakeholders and directly impacted communities have helped inform the principles that are in the resolution here today.

And keeping in mind those principles that you talked about and the priorities for having long-term recovery efforts coupled with acute emergency relief is critical.

The potential to leverage other local, state, and federal programs and the partners who are trying to respond to COVID is baked into this resolution.

The ability to make sure that we were looking at and cognizant of the city's capacity and addressing the restraints that are currently imposed on us as we try to be responsive to the need to shrink certain types of services and expand other services.

We really need to be looking at ways for us to expand various services if we're going to reach our most vulnerable populations and do that equitably as we seek to deliver services in a post-COVID world.

So to me, the principles that you outlined in this presentation of equity, coordination, resilience, flexibility, all help to make sure that we are coupling this visionary document with past efforts that the council has put together and preparing us well for the conversations we will have soon about the appropriations bill and hopefully a strong partnership with the executive to deploy those resources very quickly.

I just want to thank you for all the work that you've done, because I know this is just the tip of the iceberg as we begin to work on the appropriations bill.

I should say bills, plural, because we know that they're coming in tranches and that there could be potential portioning out of the various tranches.

Any questions?

Okay, I'm seeing none.

I know we have an amendment.

Amy, I'll turn it back over to you, and thank you very much, Councilmember Herbold, for your work on this amendment.

Would you like me to go ahead and describe the amendment, or would you like to move the resolution first?

Why don't you describe the amendment, and then I'll move the resolution.

OK.

So there is one amendment proposed to the resolution.

It is sponsored by Council Member Herbold.

The amendment would add a new subsection under heading G, which is community well-being.

And the proposed subsection would specify that investments in gender-based violence response services our priority for council.

With that, I will turn it over to Council Member Hurdle to describe more fully.

Vice Chair Hurdle.

Please go ahead.

Thank you so much.

My office distributed this amendment yesterday morning.

It was attached to the agenda yesterday.

It was drafted in response to concerns raised by advocates about a possible future funding gap for survivor services usually supported through the Federal Victims of Crime Act.

I learned about this upcoming and likely funding gap on the domestic violence Council, which I am a member of.

We know that the impact of COVID on victims of sexual assault has showed that survivors are struggling with an increased acute mental health problems, financial losses, housing instability, and lack of access to support services.

associated with COVID.

Those findings are demonstrated in a recent statewide survey that I know we all received.

Communities of color, immigrants, and refugees are more significantly affected.

And there are also, of course, technical barriers, including fear of seeking forensic exams in emergency departments during COVID, lack of privacy to participate in telehealth or to seek crisis care, technological barriers to securing protection orders online, and the inability of children to report abuse to a trusted adult outside the home.

Advocates report that Congress may take action this spring.

Nevertheless, it might be too late to entirely prevent a funding gap for crucial services.

And again, I want to thank the Coalition for Ending Gender-Based Violence and the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center for bringing this to my attention, for their work to advocate for survivors through this very, very difficult environment.

And thank you for the testimony this morning in favor of the amendment.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Herbold.

Colleagues, are there any questions on the amendment?

Okay, I'm going to go ahead and move this legislation so that we can have it in front of us.

And if there's any additional discussion or questions, we can go ahead and take those as folks think about the great summary that you just provided, Amy and Council Member Herbold.

Okay, so thank you again for the overview here.

With that, I'm going to move the committee recommends passage of Resolution 31999. Is there a second?

Thank you very much, Vice Chair.

It's been moved and seconded.

Let's go ahead and have Council Member Herbold, would you like to move your amendment, amendment number one?

Yes, thank you so much.

I would like to move amendment one, and the amendment was described, but it will work to address a possible funding gap for survivor services through VACA.

I will second that.

It's been moved and seconded.

Okay, amendment number one is in front of us.

I just want to say very briefly, Council Member Herbold, thank you for bringing this forward.

The Coalition for Ending Gender-Based Violence has been a longstanding partner as we have tried to address inequities that were present prior to COVID.

And given the staggering reports that we see of both abuse and neglect among various vulnerable populations in the wake of COVID, I'm happy to see this included.

We know that this is a general I think it is a good indication of the council's commitment to making sure we continue to provide assistance for those who are survivors of gender-based violence and violence overall.

Any additional questions or comments?

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Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Madam Chair, that's five in favor and none opposed.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

So the amendment is in front of us, the amended resolution.

Are there any additional comments on the amended resolution before I call the roll?

hearing none, thank you again to central staff for your work on this.

And I do want to thank the folks who provided additional amendments to this.

Allie, do you mind just sharing a few of the council members who provided additional comments to you all so we can thank them prior to passage of this?

I would be happy to, and Yolanda, please chime in if I inadvertently overlook anyone, but this resolution was a joint effort led by the chair's office with input from Councilmember Herbold, Council President Gonzalez, Councilmember Strauss, Councilmember Morales, Councilmember Peterson.

I think that covers who we got specific amendments from and was shared and reviewed by all council members.

And I will say in developing the base resolution in coordination with the chair, we were using information that has come up in discussions over the last year related to the council's COVID response.

I hope it reflects the interests of many council members.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Just wanted to get them recognition.

I appreciate you calling that out.

Okay, let's do final passage here.

Council colleagues, we have in front of us amended resolution 31999. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Chair Mosqueda?

Aye.

Vice Chair Herbold?

We couldn't hear that.

All right, yes.

Council President Gonzalez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Madam Chair, that is five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The motion carries, and the committee recommendation that the resolution as amended will be sent to the March 22nd Seattle City Council full council for a final vote.

Okay, thank you very much to our central staff team who helped to draft that, and I'm sure you all will have various parts, if not today, also behind the scene as we consider the appropriations bill in front of us.

Let's go ahead and move on to item number two.

Item number two, overview of American Recovery Act for briefing and discussion.

Wonderful.

And I see that we're going to continue to have Allie Panucci, Tom Meisel, Jeff Sims from Central Staff.

And if other folks from Central Staff are going to stay with us, Yolanda and Amy, thank you very much for your time, along with Tracy Radcliffe.

Thanks for being here.

Allie, why don't I go ahead and turn it over to you and save some of my comments for the end of the presentation or throughout, folks.

If you do have questions, you are encouraged to use your hand feature and or send me a message and I'll look for your actually hand in the screen as well.

I want to make sure that this is a interactive conversation.

We do have quite a bit of time today.

So I want to get through this with your participation.

We have about 45 minutes.

So let's go ahead and walk through this.

And please, central staff, feel free to take your time and help to answer questions along the way.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Good morning again, committee members.

I'm still Allie Panucci of your council central staff.

Today, we will be providing a high level summary of the American Rescue Plan Act that was recently adopted by Congress and signed by the president and highlight some of the aid that will come directly to the city or will be distributed through other agencies at the federal, state, or county level.

You could move on to the next slide, please.

We will walk through a discussion of some of the targeted aid that is part of that federal package and where there's overlap with council member priorities.

and then discuss next steps.

Next slide.

Before we dive into that discussion, I first want to define certain terms that we will use to describe the federal package today and likely moving forward as the committee continues the discussion for how to allocate the direct aid.

For purposes of these discussions, we are using the following three terms to describe sort of three different categories of funding that is included in ARPA.

This includes support for individuals and households, things that are distributed directly to individuals, such as stimulus checks or extended tax credits, direct aid, that describes funds that will be granted directly to the city that can be used to support the city's COVID response with greater flexibility than many of the targeted aid buckets.

And then targeted aid, which describes funds in the act for specific uses that ultimately will be distributed by state, county, or in some cases may flow through the city.

Next slide, please.

As you're all aware, last week Congress approved a $1.9 trillion appropriation bill to provide additional relief as the country continues to work to address the continued impacts of COVID-19 on the economy, public health, state and local governments, individuals, and businesses.

This slide just highlights the sort of different categories or sections of the bill, but we won't be going into detail here, but I've included it for reference.

Next slide, please.

We won't spend a lot of time talking about the individual or household support that will be provided through this bill, but we just did want to highlight some of the pieces of the package that provide relief directly to those households through things like the direct financial assistance, extension of unemployment benefits through early September, or increasing the earned income tax credit.

Next slide, please.

In terms of- I'm just, I think that the exciting part that this bill offers from Congress is the ways in which the direct aid is also coupled with additional services that will have a direct impact.

And we'll probably talk a little bit more about that as we go forward.

But one of the things that I think is important to continue to highlight is how This does have, you know, the cash assistance as you outlined here, but wanted to lift up the last line there, the funding for vaccines.

I know that this has been a tremendous stressor for families trying to figure out how they were going to be able to access a quick and accessible, hopefully culturally and linguistically competent care as they do that and funding directly to those community health clinics and services through state programs like Apple Health.

This is going to have a tremendous impact on our families who are dealing with so much stress, and I think that's a direct individual impact as well.

The small business support I know we featured in here, direct child assistance, and the fact that there's so many families that are going to be potentially lifted out of poverty.

The new legislation is expected to see 14 million Americans lifted out of poverty, including 5.7 million children.

So just the sheer magnitude of what this bill could do is impressive.

When I was working on Apple Health for Kids, which is also called, you know, Medicaid, Medicaid expansion, when the Affordable Care Act passed, at the time it was hailed as one of the largest civil rights bills at the time in Congress.

And I think this is parallel, if not even bigger, given the magnitude of how this can help address, I think, the near-term crisis, but has the potential to set the ground for leveling the playing field and helping to get folks out of potential generational poverty if we can continue and sustain these types of investments.

So really excited about both the near individuals, household support, and then the ways in which some of these other programs are truly going to provide that ongoing wraparound care to hopefully provide less stress, both from poverty and from the stress of having lack of access to critical support services that contribute to the social determinants of health.

Thank you.

This next category describes the direct aid to local governments included in the package.

There's about $130 billion to support local governments.

Seattle is anticipating about $239 million of direct aid that will be distributed in two tranches, one relatively quickly expected within 60 days after signing.

So approximately by May 10th, we should be receiving a check and the second tranche no sooner than 12 months after the first tranche is distributed.

So at earliest likely April or May of 2022 for the second half of the direct aid.

And then there's flexibility to use these funds for the eligible uses through 2024. And I'll just note here because this came up in previous conversations on the anticipated federal aid related to the county.

I believe the estimate for the county is about 430, almost $437 million of direct aid.

And I note that in part, as Yolanda highlighted, the principles described in the resolution regarding federal funding, one piece that was highlighted is coordination with the partner agencies and looking where, how to best leverage and maximize city resources to support other efforts going on in our region.

Next slide, please.

So the uses for the direct aid are fairly flexible and can be used in COVID response efforts that include responding to the public health emergency that also includes providing assistance to households, small businesses and nonprofits or aid to impacted industries.

It can be used to provide premium pay to essential city workers or to provide grants to eligible employers who perform essential work and to support general government services in the amount relative to the extent of pandemic induced revenue losses.

So what that means essentially is looking at what our revenues were pre-pandemic.

So 2019 revenues and what our current revenues look like now and backfilling to support certain services to ensure that we have continuity of service.

And then finally, to make necessary investments in water, sewer, or broadband infrastructure.

Next slide, please.

So the remainder of the presentation will focus more on the spending priorities by categories and how that relates to some of the targeted aid that's included in the package.

This slide just acts as a reminder for the priority spending categories that were just described and approved by this committee in Resolution 31999. Next slide, please.

So This slide is meant to serve as a guide for how to read slides 9 through 19. What we've done as we've been combing through the federal bill is try to identify where there is targeted aid included in the package, in the federal package, that could support investments in the same or similar priorities categories identified by the council in Resolution 31999. The purposes of this exercise is to help you all weigh and balance how to prioritize use of the direct aid and where there may be targeted aid to support the same spending priorities.

I'll reiterate that this is a work in progress.

It's going to take some time before there's additional guidance on how and when this targeted aid will flow.

and where there may be gaps in certain pieces of it.

So we'll not go into great detail on some of these categories, but we will highlight where we think there may be overlap between the council's priorities and some of these targeted aid funding buckets.

Those priorities where we have not yet identified targeted aid in the package that could support the same or similar efforts in the city is one consideration for how you might prioritize the use of some of the direct aid funds that we will need to do some additional analysis to ensure that any specific spending priority is an eligible use for that direct aid.

So as these conversations evolve, we will continue to narrow and fine-tune that analysis.

So moving on to them, say Ali and all of central staff, you all have put this presentation together in a very fast timeline and have made it very digestible.

Really appreciate the outline here, coupling the council identified priorities with what we know so far in the American Recovery Plan Act and making it easy for both us and our teams to understand, but also more importantly, for the general public.

Thank you very much for this helpful walkthrough and the layout of the presentation today.

Very impressive.

Thank you and I appreciate that.

We've been trying to come through but likely have may have missed some things here and there.

So the first spending category we'll talk about and these sort of track in order of the spending priority categories in the resolution are vaccines and testing.

There are a couple of buckets of targeted aid that will support testing and vaccination efforts.

However, it's not entirely clear how that money will flow and if there are funding gaps to ensure that the principles and activities described in the resolution adopted by Council 31992 that highlighted principles and priorities for how vaccination should be distributed or adequately funded.

As more information is available, we will better understand what resources could support those efforts, including things like ensuring language access, transportation to sites, testing information, and that sort of thing.

But there are specific resources for vaccine distribution, as well as continued testing, contract tracing, and data solutions.

And Ali, as you covered on slide five, the city's portion of the expected support from the federal relief package is expected to be 239 million.

Is there any way to at this point extrapolate what that portion of these national figures will mean specific for the city or is that sort of the information to be determined still as well?

That is the information to be determined.

And with much of this targeted aid, it won't actually flow directly through the city.

A lot of it will end up being distributed directly through state or county agencies.

So that is some of what we need to sort out and better understand, which is why you'll hear us continuing to say providing some flexibility, as you consider appropriations for the direct aid is likely necessary so that we can adjust, you know, the city can adjust its response as we learn more.

If there is, for example, county funding to support a specific strategy, we may better maximize or leverage city resources in some other needed space, given that the magnitude of the need is so great, we'll need to be I guess, flexible and agile as we make decisions about how to spend the direct aid.

All right, next slide.

In the food space, there is no targeted aid that we've identified for programs like the emergency grocery voucher program that was stood up early.

in the city's COVID response or new programs that would, as described in the resolution, such as those that would partner with restaurants, local farms, and food entrepreneurs to provide meals.

It's worth noting here that the 2021 adopted budget only funded the Emergency Grocery Voucher Program through April of this year.

The Office of Sustainability and Environment is ramping that program down.

And that program has really run on a bit of a shoestring with existing staff and no additional administrative resources.

So continuing it would require consideration of what those resources would need to sort of relaunch the program, including staffing.

This is one area where the council may want to consider how the city is providing financial assistance to support households who may need more flexibility in use of those funds that could go from, you know, groceries to gas to get to get, you know, for their car to get to work and those sorts of things.

So that will be a piece we will be looking into further.

Unless there are questions, I'll go to the next slide.

in the house?

Actually, Ali, can I make a statement?

And you can check my assumption on that last slide.

Is part of the assumption potentially that went into the congressional bill, a effort to say if there is additional cash support, then families are really best positioned to make decisions about whether or not that's money that they need for food assistance, or if it is money that they're needing for rental support.

Is that part of the calculus?

Have you heard any?

I haven't heard specific things in terms of the decisions at the federal level, but I do think it's sort of getting at what we were just describing that it's sort of a both and.

Like the city is currently providing the emergency grocery voucher program, but it also provides funding to support food banks and other food service industries as we move forward.

And so in the federal space, they are doing things like increasing funding for SNAP benefits, extending the EBT program and those sorts, and increased funding for WIC, and then also providing that direct cash assistance that provides flexibilities for families to determine what their needs are.

So yeah, so I think we're getting at the same thing.

All right.

So in the homelessness and housing services spending priority, there are several areas where there are targeted funds for things like rental assistance, including utilities, eviction prevention, and foreclosure prevention programs.

as well as internet service costs, at least for homeowners.

It's not yet clear if this targeted aid, for example, for rental assistance is available to be used for things like internet service costs.

The language in the bill is a little vague.

And so as additional guidance is released, we'll better understand what those funds can be used for and whether or not there are gaps in the types of support households might need.

Next slide, please.

Similarly, there is funding in the bill targeted aid for shelter and housing services.

And this includes the potential to for building acquisition.

However, we've not yet identified anything that would specifically support hygiene services that support our people experiencing homelessness in the city.

That just reminds me that we should at some point follow up about the lack of spending the dollars that the council already appropriated for hand-washing facilities.

I know Council Member Morales is having conversations this week with folks in the department, but especially if it's not specifically called out in the federal bill, we have already funded hand-washing facilities across the city and getting those deployed with to make sure that the city council is aware of that and that urgency is needed given that it was now five months ago that the council passed that spending authorization.

So I appreciate you highlighting it in pink and I think that underscores for me the ongoing need to make sure that the dollars that the city council already authorized are actually deployed.

I look forward to getting an update and sharing it out.

I'm sure

Okay.

Next slide, please.

In the immigrant and refugee support category, we've also not identified any specific targeted aid to support immigrant and refugee residents.

As recently presented by the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, the $9 million that the Council authorized through the Jumpstart COVID relief plan to provide financial assistance to low-income immigrant refugees was quickly distributed, but was only sufficient to provide financial assistance to about 20% of the applicants.

So this is an area we wanted to flag as the council is considering how best to use the direct aid.

In addition, to ensure equitable access to the various ways that the targeted aid will be distributed, ensuring that there is support for language access services may be a significant need to help connect small business owners to the resources that may be available through the small business SBA and that sort of thing.

Can I ask a question just to put a finer point on this?

Well, there might not be any targeted aid specific to those things.

Can you, and I'm sorry, Ali, I know we've only been sitting with this bill for a few days, so please don't feel like you have to be an expert on this bill, but what I will say is I think that in some of the comments that I've heard from congressional members, they were really proud that there were not prohibitions on how some of the aid could be used.

explicitly making it possible for many of our immigrant and refugee neighbors and community members to be recipients of funds and allowing more people to have access to those funds that weren't previously eligible in last year's assistance.

Is that a fair statement?

Yeah, I have heard the same thing, but and so I'm just I will take the opportunity to again say this is our initial reach and not have identified any very specific buckets of money for that.

But it's not to say that the individual targeted aid programs wouldn't allow for use of funds to ensure access and greater availability of those funds to support a broader population of people who need need support.

And so that's one of the things we are still sorting through.

Okay, moving on.

There is funding in the federal package through the Child Care and Development Block Grant Program and Child Care Stabilization Grants that appears to be fairly flexible for child care providers, including funding that could be used to bring new people into the child care industry, new workers.

However, there does not appear to be targeted aid to support development of new child care centers.

And it's an initial read, it's not clear to us yet if the direct aid could be used for that purpose.

But we'll continue to look into that to understand how the federal money might support this priority.

Next slide, please.

In the small business worker assistance and workforce recovery spending category, there are different ways that the small businesses will be supported through targeted aid.

However, again, in this category, it's not clear that there are resources specifically to ensure that there will be technical and language support to help small businesses and nonprofit organizations access those resources.

Over the last year, the Office of Economic Development has deployed resources to provide technical assistance as well as OIRA and other city departments to support language access and those types of services.

And that may be a gap that the city may continue to need to fill in on, but that is not yet totally clear to us.

Next slide, please.

In addition, so this is the second of two slides in this category.

There are a number of spending priorities to support small businesses and workers.

And I should note, when I say small businesses, that includes nonprofit organizations.

And there is some focus on certain, the creative industries, restaurants and bars, and other specific businesses.

employers.

But in this space, specifically around supporting workers directly, um, or workforce recovery efforts, we have not yet identified any specific targeted aid for those purposes.

Okay, next slide.

This community well being.

This is somewhat of a catch all category where we have identified targeted aid for things Like where we have not, excuse me, identified targeted aid for things like essential household needs or hate violence response.

I will note here that, though not called out specifically in the resolution, we have highlighted some targeted aid that will focus on internet access, mental health, and substance abuse services.

and funding for critical infrastructure.

I'd also just note that while not listed here, there are some funds within the federal package within the Medicaid section, giving the state the option of providing community-based mobile crisis intervention services.

We're not entirely also clear on what that means or how that money will flow, but I just wanted to note it in response to a question I had about the presentation.

Next slide, please.

In the transportation category, there is targeted aid to support transit service and transportation infrastructure, but it's not clear that there are specific funds targeted aid for right-of-way projects to encourage walking, rolling, and biking, so that's one area we'll be looking into further.

And then...

Sorry, just a quick question on this.

So can you tell us a little bit more about the targeted aid and transportation?

I think some folks might ask, how does this fit into immediate COVID recovery effort?

And there is specific language there.

So could you tell us just a little bit more about what the sort of sideboards on that are?

I don't have a lot of details on this, but we can follow up with more information.

But in general, one of the recovery responses is ensuring that people can essential workers can be continuing to get to and from work.

And as we look to reopening, providing safe and accessible transit is going to be critical to the city's response efforts, including as people are discussing use of the right-of-way that has been more creatively considered during the pandemic.

I think discussions around transit investments will become ever more critical.

and we'll follow up when we know more.

Yep, that's helpful.

Thank you.

And then the final category in the resolution is related to revenue replacement and financial resilience.

We have highlighted on this slide.

There's no specific targeted aid for this category, but it is a potential eligible use of the direct aid.

For your reference, we have added some information related to the 2020 revised and 2021 adopted budget about the use of the city's reserve to rebalance 2020 and to balance the 2021 adopted budget that was needed to support general government services as well as specific COVID response efforts.

The general fund revenues are still projected to be down compared to pre-pandemic levels, so this information will be hopefully useful as you all consider short and long-term decisions related to the use of direct aid this year, as well as consideration of next year's budget and future years.

And again, just pointing back to slide six, the third bullet for folks who are following along, explicitly noting the eligible use of ARPA includes direct aid for the provision of government services to the extent of the reduction in revenue relative to revenues collected in the most recent full fiscal year prior to the emergency.

So while not applicable is there, it is not applicable in terms of a targeted, called out, you know, defined bulleted list, right?

But it is a eligible use broadly as we think about the impact and declining revenues as a result of the consequences of COVID on our local economy.

Is that correct?

Yes.

Oh, hello, kitty.

That's your office mate.

That is one of many.

Not many cats, just office mates.

Okay, and finally, moving on to next steps.

We, central staff, will be working with all of you and with the city budget office to continue to seek clarity on how and when targeted aid will be distributed, what resources may be provided by the state, and where there may be gaps in services that could be supported by the direct aid.

In addition, we'll be putting information together to understand if additional resources are needed to support reopening costs, including revisiting assumptions in the 2021 adopted budget about the timing for reopening.

In some cases, you know, like in parks, for example, we weren't entirely sure when we would be able to fully reopen those sorts of things.

As we learn more and vaccinations become more widely distributed, there may be a need to revisit some of those assumptions and provide additional resources to support reopening, as well as how this direct aid may be needed to ensure continuity of services in future years that otherwise may be reduced due to the projected ongoing pandemic-induced base revenue losses.

It is likely that information and clarification clarification on how and when the targeted aid will be distributed and what it can be used for will evolve over time.

The council, as I noted previously, may want to consider providing some flexibility to departments on spending to allow for programmatic adjustments in response to new information about that targeted aid and to support local needs in changing COVID response needs.

And then in terms of timing, We're working with the budget chair, um, as Chairman Skater described in Council briefing yesterday to put together a more detailed schedule that will be distributing once we have those details.

But generally speaking, following today's discussion, we will be working with all of you with your other Council colleagues and with the executive to develop a spending plan with the goal of introducing legislation in April and taking action by early to mid-May.

This timeline could include taking up one appropriation bill for a portion of the first tranche of direct aid to ensure that services that might need immediate funding are supported quickly, and then taking more time to make other decisions about the direct aid that will be provided in 2021. But again, we will provide more details and likely request proposals from council members by a date certain as we sort out those details with the budget chair.

And with that, that's the end of my presentation.

Happy to take questions.

Thank you very much, Ali.

Colleagues, I know that this is a lot of information.

This is also the beginning of our conversation.

Just to reiterate some of the timeline pieces that Ali just mentioned, over the next six to eight weeks, we are going to be building a plan for allocating direct aid that the city will receive from the American Recovery Act plan to support the city's COVID response.

This will provide time to work with stakeholders and consider the best use of resources so that the city can continue to deliver the critical services that we have already lifted up and invested in as we respond to COVID and to make sure that we are thinking about how we can best be positioned and prepared to weather the future economic uncertainty that COVID has exacerbated as we think about longer-term recovery efforts, so both near acute needs and longer-term resilient economy recovery investments.

Central staff, as you just heard, is working really fast and very hard, and I want to thank members of the city budget's office as well who've been working to try to compare notes.

We are going to continue to build off of the resolution that you all just approved moments ago with resolution 31999 and fold in those spending priorities into a appropriations ordinance.

Today's discussion is not over, so we have a chance to hear a few more questions or identify some areas that you'd like central staff to look into.

We can absolutely do that.

But following today's discussion, we will be developing this spending proposal with the goal of introduction.

I am hoping to have it in our committee on April 6th.

Allie mentioned early April.

That would be the next meeting that we have.

So that's about three weeks from now.

to really get into the details and identify strategies to allocate funding very quickly.

Now, Ali mentioned that there's two tranches, right?

One tranche of funding coming now and another tranche coming in 12 months.

The way I'd like to think about this is, putting just tranche one in front of us and identifying if we need to bifurcate certain dollars that we can act upon now, given the immediate feedback and direction that we have from our congressional leaders and also from the federal administration.

If there is the possibility of moving quicker on a set of dollars within tranche one, we will be able to bring that to you.

If we can move on all of it, great, but I think that there's probably going to be a likelihood that we are going to want to think about, you know, maybe two waves of allocating tranche one, just want to throw that out there as a possibility, and look forward to more information as we receive it from central staff.

Ultimately, I think all of us are going to be having the opportunity to engage in this conversation over at least the two meetings in April, and either one to two meetings in May with the goal of passing this before June.

Because some of the programs that we have provided assistance for using federal dollars.

do have a shelf life that ends in June.

So we want to act prior to June and ideally with as much advance notice to the department so that there is not any gaps in services and the departments have sufficient time to address programs or to make necessary changes so that dollars can get out the door.

I look forward to working with all of you to make sure that the priorities that we've talked about in the resolution are reflected in the appropriations bill I know we've just come off of a year of ongoing budget deliberations.

I really appreciate your time in advance and look forward to working with all of you and central staff to develop more of a detailed schedule.

We will be working in coordination with the council president's office to make sure everybody knows what that schedule is.

And want to also continue to pull in our council colleagues who are not on the budget committee.

And so there's conversations that we will have with you over the next few weeks about how to make that possible.

But do want to reiterate that all of the council members, including those who are not on the budget committee, I'm sorry, not on the Housing and Finance Committee, which is different from the Select Budget Committee.

All of our council colleagues have been able to provide feedback into the resolution in front of us, and we're working on a plan right now, and we'll be working with the Council President's Office and central staff to talk more about how all of the council members can provide feedback into the ordinance coming forward.

So Council President, I owe you a call.

I know that if we were in person we would obviously all have more updates in real time, but I want to make sure that we connect as well about that possibility going forward.

Any questions on Central Staff's presentation, the overview?

I want to just note how impressive this is.

You've pulled in resources from the National League of Cities, from the organization called Local Progress that many of us are members of and Council Presidents on the Board of, and provided information directly from the federal summary documents about what is in the bill.

So very much appreciate you condensing all of this information and really making it digestible.

and relating it back to the council priorities that have already been outlined in the resolution.

So thank you for that.

OK.

Ali, I'm not seeing any additional questions, which means you did a tremendous job.

Thank you very much for providing this information.

And colleagues, if there's no additional questions, thank you for staying tuned.

And we will make sure to follow up with you in terms of next steps.

And a lot of action, I think, is anticipated over the next three to four meetings.

So thanks again in advance.

Wonderful.

All right, let's go ahead and move on to our third item of business.

Madam Clerk, will you please read item three into the record?

Agenda item number three, Council Bill 120019, an ordinance amending Ordinance 126237, which adopted the 2021 budget, including the 2021 to 2026 Capital Improvement Program.

the appropriations to various departments and budget control levels and for various funds in the budget for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you very much.

And we have with us Jeff Sims from Central Staff.

Jeff, do you want to introduce yourself for the record?

Sure.

Jeff Sims, Council of Central Staff.

Excellent.

I am going to ask Council Member Lewis if he would like to say any opening remarks about this item on today's agenda, and then I'll have some comments as well, just to give us a sense of why this is in front of us and the urgency of this legislation.

Council Member Willis, did you have anything you'd like to add to this?

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for hearing this bill so quickly.

For those who are watching in the general public, this bill was walked on yesterday and promptly referred to this committee at our full council meeting from the introduction and referral calendar.

This bill is the culmination of several weeks of discussion, both within the council amongst ourselves and with the mayor's office, the city budget office, central staff, external partners, and the public discourse in the media around how to pursue a sheltering strategy for those most vulnerable in the pandemic.

and take advantage of potential reimbursement from FEMA.

You know, I think Jeff is better positioned to talk to some of the specifics, but would just say I appreciated seeing in the public We have had a lot of media yesterday about this, the strong support from the mayor's office, the strong support from the city budget office for moving forward with this strategy, and look forward to discussing this today, answering any questions, and seeing what the path forward will be to get this much-needed additional resource out the door and try to take advantage some opportunities here to really make sure we're scaling up these essential services.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Jeff.

Okay.

Thanks, Jeff.

Before you do, Council President, is there anything else you'd like to offer in terms of context as well?

I know you had some great comments and updates yesterday.

Yeah, I think I'll just sort of rely on the comments I made yesterday.

I did want to sort of give a big thanks to Jeff Sims and Allie Panucci from our Council Central staff for attending the meeting with the FEMA administrators with my office last week.

And huge thanks to Council Member Lewis for getting us to a point where we can have an actionable piece of legislation to continue to advance the Council's priority in this space.

So looking forward to the conversation and to Hopefully having an opportunity to add my name as a co-sponsor to this really important bill if the sponsor is willing to take additional co-sponsors.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Jeff, we want to thank you for your work on this.

As you've heard, many council members are very appreciative of your work.

Thank Councilmember Lewis for his prime sponsorship of this.

Happy to be a co-sponsor.

Also very thankful for the Council President's direct engagement with FEMA to get to the bottom of the issues that we had been hearing were barriers to potentially using federal dollars.

But to also just basically say this is the right thing to do.

You know, my office has been engaged in conversations with the mayor's office since last March.

In partnership with a handful of hotels who at the time a year ago wanted to open their doors with appropriate services provided and offer rooms and knowing that the crisis that we saw in our street has only gotten worse since last March.

The urgency of this bill cannot be overstated.

very much appreciate your ongoing work Jeff to really try to get to the bottom of what federal guidance is and also to help us understand how dollars that the city has appropriated through the city council either are or are not being deployed so I want to thank you for your work on that and really excited to hear more about the legislation in front of us as we know that the crisis is just going growing worse and as Council Member Bagshaw used to talk about the C test.

We want to make sure that people see relief in the street, and I think that this is a very positive piece of legislation that will allow people to see a change and experience a change, especially for those who are living unsheltered.

So, Jeff, with that, I'll turn it over to you, and then we'll see if there's additional comments and questions.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll go into specifics as Council Member Lewis, Council President Dan, and you already highlighted This bill addresses an urgent need to provide non congregate shelter for people that are experiencing homelessness who are at high risk for severe COVID-19 outcomes.

And that both will prevent further community spread while also providing a way for those individuals to practice social distancing and give those people the option to protect themselves from those potentially severe outcomes.

The bill itself provides $12 million for the purpose of responding to that urgent need.

It also includes a proviso that has four pieces to it.

First, the proviso allows flexibility.

It allows non-congregate shelter either as hotel shelter beds or utilizing a tiny home village or villages, or using enhanced shelters, like kind of our more brick and mortar visions of the shelters.

Second, it focuses on people who are high risk, which is the point of this critical need.

We're at high risk for severe outcomes to COVID-19.

and that are also homeless or experiencing homelessness.

Third, it calls for using a competitive procurement process.

And finally, if necessary, it calls on receiving or obtaining the approval or pre-approval from any federal agencies to pursue the activities and make the expenditures that are necessary.

As all of you are aware, there's been a lot of discussion about FEMA and the availability of FEMA funds.

This bill does not identify FEMA as the funding source, though if the steps that are outlined in the proviso were followed, it would hopefully make it possible for human reimbursement to be one of the potential funding sources to pay for the cost that would be associated with this appropriation.

With that, I don't have any other further technical pieces, so I'm happy to turn it over to the rest of the committee.

Thank you very much, Jeff.

So again, to underscore the importance here, $12 million is the possibility that we are freeing up with this legislation.

$12 million, as you noted, Jeff, not just for hoteling, but also for various non-congregate shelter options, including tiny house villages and hoteling strategies.

along with enhanced shelters.

As folks know, our shelters have had to de-intensify.

They've had to move more folks across different spaces because of the need to socially distance and our older, I should say older and insufficient on the floor strategy where you line people up and have them sleep next to each other and then kick them out in the morning.

It wasn't working before COVID and it's deadly now during COVID.

So this is really funding that we are trying to free up for non-congregate shelter options, enhanced shelter options across the city.

A lot of folks have asked, why do we continue to see more people outside?

It is because our shelters are at capacity.

They were a capacity prior to COVID and we have not opened enough shelter capacity, especially in response to the need to have individual non-congregate shelter options within our city.

I wanna applaud King County.

King County has been doing a tremendous job with helping to hotel folks and provide additional services necessary.

And the data has shown that when people get that type of individual non-congregate shelter options coupled with the services that are provided, Testimonials have been people saying, I was able to keep my job.

I was able to, if folks had been using substances to self-medicate, get sober because they actually had a place to stay safe and not have to self-medicate.

People talked about their mental health improving.

that they felt like there was something to live for.

This is how we both respond to the crisis of homelessness and our five-year declared state of emergency.

And it's also how we respond to the public health emergency of COVID.

So very excited about the options that are listed in this.

And as I think you said, Jeff, if there is federal funding, great.

That's the cherry on top.

That is wonderful news, but this is the right thing to do.

And I think that this is showing that the city is ready to move forward finally.

with making sure that there is sufficient non-congregate shelter options.

This also must be done, though, in addition to opening up additional affordable housing options, permanent supportive housing options.

As a reminder, the council passed last year Jump Start.

And of the $214 million, $135 million is going into homeless and housing services.

So that is the light at the end of the tunnel.

That is the exit plan from these shelters.

The answer is not just shelters, right?

The answer is housing.

So this creates a through option for folks to actually get into shelter and then get into housing.

I'm really excited about this.

Again, I wanna thank the sponsor and I do also wanna remind folks that because this legislation will be amending our budget that we passed.

Approval of this legislation will require a three-fourths vote by full council, ultimately.

Those are my comments.

Any questions for Jeff or comments?

Okay, Jeff.

I'm not seeing any, which means you also did a tremendous job.

Council Member Lewis, as sponsor, do you have any other additional comments that you'd like to say before we wrap this up?

No, Madam Chair, I would just say, you know, I really appreciate, as always, central staff's diligent efforts in stitching this together.

You know, it did go through quite an iterative process to try to get the wording right and put together a lot of feedback from a lot of different sources, which I think is also why the finished product is pretty neatly prepared here.

So I don't have anything else to add to this.

Just want to thank Jeff Sims.

I want to thank Tom Mikesell and Ali Panucci for their work in getting this together and, you know, hope to get it out the door as soon as possible.

And, you know, to again lift up the words of my predecessor, Sally Bagshaw, really make sure that we have a We have a very visible C test on a lot of these sheltering initiatives that we are pursuing to meet the scale of the crisis.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

With that, let's get it out of this committee.

I move the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 120019. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you very much, Council President.

It's been moved and seconded.

Are there any additional comments?

Hearing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Chair Mosqueda?

Aye.

Vice Chair Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Madam Chair, that is a five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

It is unanimous.

The motion carries, and the committee recommendation that the bill pass will be sent to the March 22nd Seattle City Council meeting for final vote.

Congratulations, Council Member Lewis, and thank you again, Jeff and the central staff team.

Very excited to see this move forward.

All right, we are moving right along.

Colleagues, let's go on to the fourth item of business.

Madam Clerk, will you please read item number four into the record?

agenda item number four council bill one two zero zero one eight an ordinance relating to grant funds from non-city sources amending ordinance one two six two three seven which adopted the 2021 budget for briefing discussion and possible vote

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

I am very appreciative of the entire team, it looks like, from Office of Housing that is joining us with us today.

Hello, Director Alvarado.

Thank you for being here from the Office of Housing.

Kelly Larson, again, very excited to see you in this role.

Also now with the Office of Housing, Robert Cromwell with Seattle City Light, Karen Tableau from Seattle Public Utilities, and Tracy Raskliff from Council Central Staff.

Thank you.

Did I miss anybody who's here to present?

Okay, wonderful.

So it is a full team here to talk with us about this bill that would provide additional rental assistance.

I want to make sure that the council members who are part of this committee know we were very much excited about this piece of legislation to come down.

We have not had, I think, ample time to sit with it.

And Tracy, I want to make sure that you know we respect and appreciate you and we think you're a hero, but being able to comb through this and have a conversation with various council members about priorities within the timeframe that we received it from the mayor is probably not possible.

We have listed it today as briefing discussion and possible vote.

If there is interest in a vote, we can do that, but I want to be very transparent that we haven't had the opportunity to have been briefed on this yet from central staff, because it is important that we get this right.

I will be making sure that we have that full conversation.

And I think in recognition of the conversation that we had Yesterday, with the extension of the moratorium, we potentially have additional time to consider the legislation in front of us.

Prior, it was really urgent for us to be able to consider this and move it out before the end of the month to make sure that folks were getting that type of relief.

Again, the rental assistance legislation in front of us and the colleagues who are here from various departments are going to provide an overview of the aspects of this bill along with leadership from Tracy Rathcliffe here today.

But I'm going to ask that you hold your questions to the end and know that we will be able to hear directly from those who have had their chance to write this legislation over the last few months.

But if there is the opportunity for us to identify any concerns or flags or questions that you all have, we still have time to do that.

So I just wanted to make sure you all knew as colleagues on this committee that there's still a chance to ask questions.

And if you do see any amendments that you'd like to tee up to work with central staff to make that possible.

With that, Tracy, am I turning it over to you first?

Maybe Director Alvarado?

I think we're going to go ahead and let Emily go forth with her presentation.

Okay, great.

Director Alvarado, it's always great to see you.

Thank you for all that you have been doing during this crisis that is COVID.

And before that, to help house folks, we really appreciate your leadership at the Office of Housing and I look forward to hearing more from you.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Thank you, members of council.

I'm really excited to talk with you today about our opportunity to make investments in emergency rental assistance.

I'm going to now share my screen to prompt the PowerPoint presentation.

And everyone seeing my screen?

Okay.

So today we are talking about our proposed allocations for federal funding for emergency rental assistance.

We know that there are many households who are struggling, who have been economically impacted by COVID and are unable to pay their rent.

We know that there are many households who already have accumulated debt and have arrears in their rent and owe their landlords resources.

And even though there has been now an extension in the eviction moratorium through June 30th, we know that families are nervous and they're struggling.

So we're eager to get rent assistance resources out into the hands of those who need it.

This bill, to be clear, is federal rental assistance that was passed in December.

This is a direct treasury allocation of $22.7 million for the City of Seattle.

This is not the ARP resources that were being discussed earlier, which will provide additional direct allocation for rental assistance in an amount that I am not clear yet what that number is, but that's forthcoming.

The proposed legislation before you both accepts the funds and makes allocations for a range of approaches to rental assistance delivery as well as to utility assistance.

This is really building on the framework that has been established to date for our approach to providing COVID-19 emergency rent assistance.

And you will hear more, the majority of the resource here we're proposing to invest in direct rental assistance, but there is some utility assistance as well that my colleagues from SPU and City Light can talk more about later.

So I mentioned that we're building on recent work.

As we worked quickly to stand up programs for rental assistance last year, We took three primary approaches.

The first was to work with United Way of King County as they expanded their home base program.

They were really the first entity to create a portal and application process for direct assistance and it's been successful.

Second is we were probably the first in the nation to create a public, a special resource for publicly subsidized affordable housing.

And that really has multiple justifications behind it.

One is an approach to target those with the lowest income and a history of housing instability.

We do publicly subsidized investments so as to stabilize buildings, entire building communities, and also to support our nonprofit operators.

And we used community-based organizations.

In 2020, we primarily leveraged our relationship with existing contracted homelessness prevention providers.

And you'll see in this proposal that we recommend scaling the investment in community-based organizations even more.

There has been a flurry of national assessment about what are the best approaches and best practices in delivering rental assistance.

I want to call out specifically two papers, one done by the Urban Institute and one done by the Furman Center.

Both are really looking at how to not only efficiently invest resources, but how to do so equitably.

And from the Urban Institute, they recommend three, Ferman recommends five key priorities, and I'll summarize them with three, which is leverage existing systems to the extent possible.

Prioritize funding based on need and vulnerability.

So the real call from both of those institutes is to look at how we're supporting the lowest income households and how we're supporting the populations who have been hardest hit by both COVID and housing instability.

And then both institutes are really pushing us to invest in strategies that are designed to achieve racial equity.

And I think in this case, it's clear to say that achieving racial equity is not only about looking at the demographics of who is served, but also about the community partners who we're working with and ensuring that there is appropriate language access, outreach, and targeting for those strategies.

We know that the need for rental assistance is really significant.

I'm putting out a number there that there are some demographers and statisticians who might not like the way that I extrapolated this figure, but it's there to give an order of magnitude of how much need there is.

An estimated 13,000 low-income households are deficient on their rent.

And for those households, we can use both national sources corroborated by some local information to show that the average household is between $3,000 and $5,000 in arrears on their rent.

In this issue, we see very clearly that there are disproportionate impacts of the need for rental assistance based on race, while the Pulse survey shows that 11% of white households report that they're not current on rent.

21% of Latino households and 18% of Black households report they're not current on rent.

So again, a justification to ensure that we're focusing on having targeted racial equity strategies to ensure that we're meeting the needs of Black, Latino, and other people of color households.

I will say that if you do the quick math of the $13,000 multiplied by $4,000 in arrears, what it concludes is that even with this assistance, we're not going to meet the need.

So the need outcases the available resources, even with this allocation.

So here is the summary slide that shows our proposed funding amounts.

First, we're recommending $8 million to United Way of King County.

It would be a subaward to them.

And Kelly will talk more about the partnership with United Way.

But that's really the primary way to direct individuals to a centralized tenant pool.

We're recommending $7 million to continue investments of publicly subsidized affordable housing.

Again, consistent with national best practices, this is one of our ways to ensure that we're really focusing on meeting the needs of the lowest income households.

We're recommending $6.2 million to community-based organizations to achieve targeted racial equity outcomes.

We are looking for these agencies to be BIPOC-led organizations that both have experience in rental assistance have experience in serving those who are both disproportionately impacted by COVID and by housing instability.

And the approach here would be not only to invest in rental assistance, but also to pair that with support services as is needed by the folks who approach these agencies.

And then $1.5 million would be proposed for allocation for City Light and SPU, and they can talk more later about their bill paying assistance proposal.

So I'm going to turn it over to Kelly here.

Great.

Thank you, Director Alvarado.

Thanks for having us here today.

We're really excited to be talking about this work and we want to thank all of the staff at the Office of Housing and our colleagues in the community for all of their work to make this a reality.

We'll start by sharing a little bit more about the eligible uses of the funds and then follow with more detail about the proposed allocations and strategies.

As you heard already, these funds are issued and regulated by the U.S.

Department of the Treasury.

So you can see the funding is intended to serve people who've experienced a financial hardship due to COVID-19, folks who are at risk of experiencing homelessness or housing instability, and those who are at or below 80 percent of the area median income.

The eligible cost categories are quite narrow with the singular goal of keeping people in their homes.

So 90% of funds must be used for direct financial assistance, which includes rent and back rent, utilities and utility back payments, and other direct expenses related to housing.

10% of these funds may be used for housing stability services and admin.

So moving to the first allocation proposal.

This proposal provides $8 million to Unite-Away of King County.

As you heard Director Alvarado say, this is the individual tenant pool.

So this is where we would be driving the general public to apply.

King County expects to deliver approximately $145 million total for all of their rental assistance, and they will be investing in this strategy as well.

So this is our community's coordinated effort to serve tenants and small landlords.

The city directed funds through this joint effort last year, and it demonstrated pretty strong outcomes.

United Way worked directly with a number of groups, including Urban League, Solid Ground, and Neighborhood House to deliver funds and services to the community.

They did great work serving the priority populations we've talked about.

And as you can see in the slide, over 70% of the households in 2020 were headed by a person who was black, indigenous, or a person of color.

With funding that we receive as well from the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, we're planning to support smaller community-based organizations to help navigate folks toward this program with language access and translation services.

And we've had some preliminary conversations with groups that are interested in providing this type of support.

We've also heard that United Way reports there are over 2,000 Seattle households on their wait list for this next round of rental assistance, all indicating they're behind on rent, which is another indication of the need that we're seeing.

So staff at the city, the county, and United Way are now doing the program development work to ensure alignment and make sure tenants can easily navigate this program.

And the second allocation.

This provides $7 million for tenants living in publicly subsidized buildings.

This strategy really prioritizes the lowest income households who are mostly under 30% of area median income.

These providers are consistently housing folks with the lowest incomes and somewhat challenging housing tenures.

And we feel it's critical to ensure these tenants, these buildings, and these organizations are stable as possible during this very uncertain time that we are in.

In subsidized housing, an accumulation of back rent can quickly become a very concerning financial situation.

So that's part of the strategy.

We also believe that a lot of these buildings serve as low-income communities in and of themselves, and stabilizing them at the building level is really important to our community as a whole.

So we expect the strategy to serve organizations that are in the Office of Housing Portfolio, as well as aligning with the Seattle Housing Authority this time around.

You can see on the slide some of the organizations that received funding last time.

And overall, we served 23 different organizations.

And we typically saw agency participation that was reflective of the size of each organization's portfolio.

Part of this strategy also will be directed toward a new technology solution for the streamlined grant and data management system and a 1.0 FTE term limited senior grants and contracts specialist for the Office of Housing to administer these funds.

On to allocation three, this directs $6.2 million to community-based organizations.

This is a strategy focused on black, indigenous, and person of color-led organizations in the community.

These funds will be awarded through a competitive process for organizations with experience managing rental assistance and homeless prevention funds.

The Office of Housing is planning to issue a Notice of Funding Availability, or ANOFA.

The goal is for this to be as low barrier as possible and to identify agencies interested in providing this assistance quickly in the community.

We seek to achieve equitable outcomes through a very equitable process and learning from a lot of the national best practices, which Director Alvarado mentioned earlier, that have been published already to make this strategy successful, which is reducing documentation, simplifying documentation, and striving to get funds into the hands of communities of color who know how to best meet the needs of their community.

And for allocation number four, I'll hand it over to our colleagues at City Light and SPU.

Great.

Thank you for the opportunity.

I'm Corinne Tebow with Seattle Public Utilities.

I think it might be helpful to just take a moment.

I know this committee doesn't typically deal with utility issues, though I know we have several members on the committee who are very knowledgeable.

So I'll just take a moment to explain from the utility perspective why, how and why we see using a portion of this federal rental assistance for utility delinquencies to be really crucial for keeping renter renters in their homes.

Um, so first of all, as some background since March of last year, the utilities have not imposed any penalties for non payment.

So there have been no shut offs, late fees, no penalties for breaking payment plans.

no penalties at all for non-payment.

And while this has certainly provided relief to low-income families who have been unable to pay their bills, it's also resulted in thousands of customers accumulating very large balances.

And we know that unpaid utility bills can be grounds for eviction once the eviction moratorium lifts.

So even if the utilities aren't imposing penalties, landlords can evict renters for unpaid utility bills.

So the utilities have two key programs for providing low income assistance.

We have the utility discount program, which is probably the one you're most familiar with.

It has about 42,000 households enrolled today.

It offers 50 to 60% off the customer's utility bills, but this only applies to charges that they receive after enrolling in the program.

The UDP really doesn't do anything to help people with the balances that they owe today.

So the other key program that we have is our emergency assistance programs.

So the two utilities each operate their own emergency assistance program, but they're really very similar to one another.

These emergency programs have two important differences from the UDP that I think are important to highlight.

The first is that whereas the UDP is a prospective or forward-looking rate assistance program, The emergency programs are retrospective.

They provide one-time assistance toward the customer's outstanding balance that they owe today to whatever charges they've accumulated in the past.

So it really is the best program to respond to this COVID delinquency crisis.

The other important thing to highlight is the emergency programs have a higher income threshold than the UDP.

So the emergency programs, have a 10% higher threshold and they can help households who do not benefit from the utility discount programs discount.

They're paying full price for their bills.

They're still low income.

They're just over that UDP thresholds, and so they've accumulated larger delinquent balances.

And so what what's being proposed as part of this legislation today is to funnel a portion of the federal rental assistance dollars through the utility emergency programs as a supplement to the assistance that we already provide through these programs today.

Again, because of the core issue that unpaid utility bills can be grounds for eviction.

So for SPU, the maximum assistance that we can provide to a household through our emergency program is $922 a year.

And for City Light, it's $400.

And only households with children qualify for this maximum amount.

We are working with the executive to develop legislation so that we can possibly extend this maximum dollar amount to all income-qualifying households this year in response to COVID.

But even if we're able to do that, there will still be hundreds, perhaps thousands of low-income households owing the utilities several hundred thousand dollars beyond what the ratepayer-funded emergency assistance can cover, even at that maximum assistance amount.

And the utilities cannot legally write off customer debt, customer balances owed to us.

There are state statutory prohibitions against writing off debt, and it would also break our bond covenants.

So we're limited to what we can provide in these emergency assistance programs.

And again, even if we're able to extend that maximum amount of emergency assistance to all income qualified households this year, there will be thousands of low-income customers with unpaid utility bills who will be at risk of eviction because of those unpaid utility bills.

With that, I will ask my colleague, Robert Cromwell, if he has anything he'd like to add.

Thank you, Corrine.

I think you covered it really well.

I guess I'll just add for consideration that one thing we need to be is maybe a little bit humble about what we don't know.

Our customers, the citizens of the city are making their own choices.

in the face of some very challenging circumstances.

And so we know that thousands or even tens of thousands of customers are in crisis.

We do know that many of them are not asking us for support.

We need to find a way to provide them the services that they're entitled to.

Nothing else to add, thank you.

So that is our presentation.

Our next steps after receiving direction from City Council, hearing your questions, responding to any questions that you have, is to secure our technology solution.

We are working closely with King County and the State Department of Commerce, who is also seeking to Um, acquire technology to ensure that tenant access and landlord access is easy for applying for rent assistance, which will also help us to not only deliver the resources more quickly, but then have strong.

data at the back end for accountability and for consistent evaluation of our approach.

We are establishing processes for quick contracting.

As you heard Kelly mention, one of the key recommendations from Furman is that we reduce barriers to the application process.

And so we want to make sure that we're able to move quickly, including with our community-based organizations who would have the secondary step of staffing up their own agencies to be able to deliver these sources.

So I will stop there, Chair Mosqueda, and turn it over to you for discussion and questions.

And I will stop sharing my screen at this time, unless you'd like me to keep it up.

Keep it up for a second, see if we have any questions specific to any slides.

Colleagues, are there any questions that you all have specific to any slide or comments that you've heard?

I'm not seeing any.

Council Member Herbold, Vice Chair, do you have a question or comment?

Please go ahead.

Not specific to a particular slide.

So I do have questions, but not necessarily do we need the slides up to orient those questions.

Thank you.

So my questions relate specifically to the concept of a rental assistance fund that is targeted in such a way that not only identifies at-risk tenants, but also property owners who might be at risk of losing their property because of an unpaid mortgage associated with unpaid rent.

And so just wondering whether or not some portion of the funding for rental assistance can be used to also address foreclosure prevention in rental housing to preserve naturally occurring affordable housing.

During the jumpstart deliberations last year, we passed an amendment asking that the executive make a recommendation for a program sort of like that, and I think we're supposed to be getting an implementation plan in June 30th of this year.

So just wanted to, again, sort of highlight this question, see if there are some early thoughts about it, because I think we have a goal of targeting resources to help the most vulnerable tenants, but when they live in housing that is also vulnerable to foreclosure because the landlord has an unpaid mortgage, as opposed to landlords whose mortgages are paid, but might have tenants who also are behind in their rent.

Just wondering what our thoughts about are about that item.

And then I have one other follow-up question.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

I think your question brings up two issues for me.

One is, what is the best program design to reach those targeted buildings?

And then two is, what is the best outreach and advertising strategy to reach those buildings as well?

And I think there's a balance that can help to accomplish that First on the program design, when you look at King County's programs and assess what they were able to do through COVID-19, their data demonstrates that actually for the purposes of small landlords, which is a slightly different population than you're mentioning with at-risk properties, but small landlords were best represented in the tenant pool.

So the approach to the individualized tenant pool has been one of the best ways to reach tenants who live in properties owned by small landlords.

And part of that with this new Treasury resource is that for the first time, you know, I guess not for the first time, but through Treasury, there's explicit allowance for landlords to apply on behalf of their tenants.

And so that could happen in the tenant pool as well.

And part of the technology that we're seeking to purchase would have an entry point for a landlord and an entry point for a tenant to make that access to application more easy.

So I think that program is really well designed and has shown strong results to date at targeting that population.

But I think also on your question about at-risk buildings, I think there is a way that we can use some of our resource towards advertising and marketing to also seek out through partnerships with RHA or other landlord associations, we can find and make sure that we're delivering more information to those folks so that they are aware of the resources that are out there.

I would say that at this point where between the $145 million that is going through the county and the next round of anticipated resource, our vision has been to keep the resources flowing and then use some of those advertising and marketing strategies to direct folks there.

That's helpful.

So I did ask at a recent RPC meeting where Budget Director Dively presented on their program about their small landlord program.

And it's true they were effective in that small landlord program in reaching the target tenant population.

So that was tenants below 50% AMI who are adversely impacted due to COVID and at high risk of eviction.

But they did not target the small landlord assistance to landlords who had mortgage debt and or particularly unpaid mortgage debt that was I am interested in exploring this further.

I have reached out to advocates at the housing alliance to see whether or that sort of additive approach as well with you, Director Alvarado.

As a follow-up, and thank you, you gave me a great segue when you referenced the fact that the technology allows for the portal to be, the entry portal of the application portal to be either from the tenant or from the landlord.

And I understand when a landlord applies, they have to, as we would want them to do, demonstrate tenant eligibility.

I have heard of some cases, and I'm taking people at their word when they write to me.

I don't believe that this is a widespread problem, but I do have some small landlords contacting me, telling me that their tenants are not providing the income, cooperating with the program requirements.

And some of those landlords really feel like they're in between a rock and a hard place, desiring to access the resources, believing that they would be eligible, and just wondering what we can do to help that, what I'm sure is a relatively small population of landlords, but an unfortunate situation nonetheless.

Yeah, thanks for that question.

You know, I think one of the benefits that we have with this resource is that The Treasury guidance has made some Efficiencies in terms of administration that are more helpful to overcoming some of the barriers that you mentioned.

So, for example, income certification can be satisfied by a self certification.

Rather than a more onerous process of reviewing many income documents.

Or for example, Treasury does not require that there is regular posting and communication with tenants in a way that had been previously required by the county's funds, for example.

And then lastly, there is a piece under the Treasury guidance which does allow for direct payment to tenants when there is not responsiveness by the typical process, which I think provides another way that we can ensure that money starts flowing and getting out the door.

So taken together, I think we have some more flexibility in the way in which we can administer the funds to help make sure that it's not overly burdensome I think it's important for us to be aware of the policies that are stopping landlords who should receive the money from getting it.

Can I trouble you to send me a description of those three components that you just mentioned?

No problem.

I can use it for my constituent responses.

Thank you so much.

Absolutely.

I appreciate it.

I will use it for mine because I love borrowing from your constituent responses.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I also like to borrow from your guys's constituent correspondences.

So thanks for letting us all freely plagiarize accurate information.

Just really quickly around the same concept, but not necessarily in the residential side.

And maybe this is not the appropriate question for this venue, but I'm just wondering sort of for those individuals who are also looking for relief on the commercial side of issues related to this funding, is that something that's included as part of this pass-through or not?

This is specific to residential tenants, so it doesn't allow for that use.

OK.

I mean, I think the only thing that I'll extrapolate is for the publicly subsidized portion.

We do know that a lot of those providers are carrying commercial spaces in which there hasn't been regular rent paid and having a full and complete payment of their residential rent helps their overall balance of their property, but it can't specifically be used for commercial supports.

Got it.

So in those sort of projects that have mixed use, if you will, there will be some sort of tangential benefit, but it's primarily rooted in residential assistance.

Exactly.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Council President.

Any additional questions?

Okay, I have a few questions.

When we look at the presentation, I think it was slide six, and you talked about the various organizations that would be distributing the over $6 million.

Can you talk a little bit more about which organizations or the type of qualifications that you're going to be looking at?

I want to underscore the importance of making sure that folks do have the opportunity to allocate these dollars.

I think it's the right thing to do.

especially as we have been talking about over the last year or two, that those who know best about how to meet the needs within our community come from within the communities that have been hardest hit by displacement, hardest hit by housing unaffordability, and now hardest hit by COVID and the consequences for housing stability there.

So just any flavor or any additional context on who might be administering those dollars?

Yeah, thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I will say that, obviously, we're going to have a process by which we select folks, but just to give a general sense, we are seeking organizations who have experience administering rent assistance, so that narrows the pool somewhat, because we're going to have to be moving pretty quickly here to get these funds all spent in 2021. And two, we're looking for BIPOC-led agencies who have history and expertise serving communities of color who have been dually hit by COVID and housing instability.

So for example, that might mean leveraging some of the existing relationships with homelessness prevention providers who include REWA or Interim or El Centro de la Raza or Seattle Indian Health Board United Indians of all tribes, or it might be more broad agencies who we know deliver rent assistance but haven't participated in city programs.

For example, Bird Bar Place, who uses a state rent assistance program, or Muslim Housing Services, who's been instrumental in the counties program.

So those are examples of the agencies.

Thank you very much.

Just on that real quick.

The organizations that you just mentioned, they actually have incredible tenure with working within community and oftentimes, you know, half a century or decades worth of support.

So appreciate that you have noted some of those and the process that will go into making sure that the dollars are allocated.

Tracy, I am happy to hear more from you if you have any concerns or questions, things that you're interested in looking into.

I know there was a sense of urgency.

If you could also give us a general sense of how yesterday's announcement regarding the extension of the moratorium on evictions, how that plays into this and what the timeline looks like for us.

Councilmembers, I have reviewed the legislation.

I don't have any concerns or unanswered questions.

We've been able to talk to the executive agencies pretty quickly over the last couple of weeks to get our questions and concerns answered.

It really is a question about how comfortable you all are with what's being proposed by the executive in terms of the allocation of these funds.

Again, to highlight the fact that This is the first of the resources that the city is going to get.

We do expect that we're going to get some of that additional funds from the legislation that passed last year.

We may get funds, although I don't think probably directly to the city, from the State Relief Act that allocated upwards of $300 million of rental assistance.

It seems to be targeted to local housing providers is the language that's used in that legislation, but I'm trying to get clarity from Robin Kosky at OIR about that, just to confirm that the city won't see any of those resources, but another significant amount of money.

And then obviously the county will also be getting $145 million.

We've got confirmation of that to fund their existing programs, some of which we've talked about today.

So I don't have anything further to add.

I feel like my questions have mostly been answered, but look for direction from you all in terms of how you would like to proceed with this, with the legislation.

I think that there have been some questions that Councilmember Herbold has asked as Vice Chair, and I still have a few questions, especially around the dollars that we're including for Seattle City Light.

Corinne, I appreciate your overview.

I also understand that Seattle City Light was poised to impose collections and additional fees on folks prior to the council's coordination and plea to not do that.

And that was prior to COVID.

I think that was in September, October of 2019. I'm very happy that that didn't move forward, especially in anticipation of what was to come.

and very also pleased that the policy has continued to remain in place.

I think that it's made the difference between people being able to put food on their table or have to worry about keeping the lights on.

So I appreciate it, but I'm also not sure that I understand why the 1.7.

.5.

I'm not sure I fully understand why that 1.5 for Seattle City Light and public utilities needs to come from this allocation, colleagues, that's covered in slide 11, funding for utility assistance for eligible renters and builds on administrative infrastructure of the emergency assistance program, especially when we just heard from The previous presentation that the eligible uses of the American Recovery Act plan now explicitly say that we can make necessary investments in water, sewer and other infrastructure.

And I want to make sure that every dollar that is available specific for rental assistance is getting directly into the hands of renters and via renters into the hands of small landlords to address the issues.

that Council Member Herbold was bringing up.

What is the average amount of rental assistance?

Can you remind me the average amount of rental assistance each recipient usually gets currently in the program?

It's roughly between $3,000 and $5,000 is both the typical need and also what has been typically provided through the various rent assistance programs.

So conservatively, if every renter were to receive the 5,000 allotment.

If we were able to find a different revenue source for this $1.5 million, that would mean that at least 300 families in this city would be able to have a rental assistance, stable rent assistance at the maximum amount.

So I'm not in a position to wanna say this need is greater than this need, especially in a post COVID world.

We have spent a tremendous amount of time over the last year preventing against austerity budgeting so that we're not pitting Peter against Paul or robbing Peter to pay Paul.

But I do think that it is important now that we have greater understanding from the ARPA and especially the clarification that there is the ability to use direct aid for necessary investments in infrastructure, including explicitly watering infrastructure services, that we look at whether or not that is a better use of those sources and whether all of the allocation available from the December Congressional Act could be used towards rental assistance.

So Tracy, I'm going to leave us at briefing and discussion today, and we'll look forward to working with all of you to help answer those questions.

If you had comments in response to that, feel free.

I didn't want to cut you off.

I saw some folks come off mute.

But again, I think that there's some questions I'd look into there.

I'm only seeing Tracy off mute.

So Tracy, if you have anything else you'd like to say, please.

The only thing I'm going to just add is, so would you desire to bring this back to committee on the 6th of April for a possible discussion and vote?

And if so, then I would love to hear from your colleagues about any proposed amendments or questions, unanswered questions that you need answered.

We will continue to work with them to make sure that we are providing the necessary information prior to that date if possible.

And I would like to make sure that it is a quick conversation because we want to provide additional assurance out there to community members that this funding is coming.

But given the extension of the moratorium yesterday, I think that we do have a little bit of flexibility here, not if I'm correct, to take a little bit of time to see if there's any need for amendments.

Seeing some.

Yeah, I think that's right.

And then Tracy, I'm sorry I may have missed it when you just said it right now, but by when by when would you like to receive?

Potential amendments from us.

Probably the week before we walk into committee, so that would be the week of the 29th of March.

So we can then get that distributed to your colleagues as well for for the review prior to committee action on the 6th.

Let's say then a hard deadline, noon next Friday, just to put a finer point on it.

Okay, I'm seeing Allie nod as well, great.

And thank you, Council President, for asking that question.

Noon next Friday, colleagues, if you have amendments.

Please go ahead.

I was gonna say I like to have those hard deadlines.

I think it helps central staff and it helps us as well.

So I'm hearing that by, did you say noon?

Noon, March 26th, we should have identified amendments to Tracy.

That's correct.

Got it.

Thank you very much.

And that'll give us time for all of you on the line here as presenters to make sure that we have a chance to run those amendments by you, too.

So no one's caught by surprise.

Vice Chair Herbold, did you have any additional comments?

I do, but I'll raise it with you, Chair Mosqueda, Madam Chair, offline.

It's related to the timing of amendments.

appreciate it.

Thank you.

Okay, great.

If that timeline works well with you, then we'll keep that for now and happy to chat more offline.

Okay.

All right.

I want to thank you for all of your work.

You have provided tremendous relief to community members, whether it's through the utility discount program, preventing eviction or eviction notices from going out or water shutoff and light shutoff from going out.

You all are providing a tremendous service to make sure that people have less stress in their life right now.

So thank you very much.

We appreciate all of your work and we will work with you as we consider any possible amendments, but mostly just interested in making sure that those questions get answered before we move forward.

Okay, thanks for your time today.

Thank you very much.

appreciate it.

Tracy, thanks for your work and thank you for your review.

Hope we get a chance to hear more from you as you get a chance to dig into any questions that council members have.

Colleagues, I do have one more item for you before we get into wrapping up today's agenda.

If you don't mind, we have just a few more minutes left in today's meeting.

I wanted to draw your attention to the possibility for signing on to a letter that I circulated to the members of the Finance and Housing Committee here today.

As is our requirements and per code, we are required to collect signatures on any items that have more than a quorum of the body.

But if we bring it forward to a public forum, all the members in the public forum are allowed to sign on to statements.

and one of the things that I'd like to consider asking for your signature today is a letter that we have drafted with the help of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Thank you as well, Council President, for your office.

Cody has provided feedback on the letter as well.

We'd like to send a letter to express support for a bill that Representative Macri and Majority Leader Senator Billig is working on, this is House Bill 1220. Colleagues, the importance of this letter is to make sure that members of the Senate Housing and Local Government Committee can receive comments supporting the legislation that's in front of them prior to Thursday.

And what better timing than to have a meeting specifically focused on housing for colleagues of the Seattle City Council to consider signing on to.

House Bill 1220 provides an update to the Growth Management Act to include planning for and accommodating for affordable housing.

It requires jurisdictions to address racially disparate impacts and displacement.

It prohibits cities from not allowing emergency housing, permanent supportive housing, or indoor emergency shelters and multifamily commercial or mixed-use zones where short-term rentals are allowed.

This bill is really important.

It is important to make sure that we show support for all of the cities that are working on planning for affordable housing needs so that all community members have a safe, stable, and accessible place to call home, especially given the conversation we just had about how COVID has exacerbated already unstable housing situations and we've seen many more people fall into homelessness.

This is our effort, I think, as a state to show partnership with the state to help ensure that jurisdictions are offering safe places for our neighbors experiencing homelessness.

I would love to have this letter sent to our members and colleagues in the state legislature to express support from Seattle City Council.

for House Bill 1220 with your considerations so that the Senate Housing and Local Government Committee can have that in hand as they consider this bill in their Thursday meeting at 8 a.m.

So is there any questions about the bill, excuse me, about the bill summary or the draft letter that I sent for your consideration and possible sign-on today?

Again, hoping to use this forum just to get as many signatures as possible since we need to do this in public forum.

Councilmember Strauss as chair of land use.

This is in your bailiwick.

We'd love to hear more from you.

Thank you for raising your hand.

Yeah, thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Thank you for organizing.

Thank you to OIR for organizing this letter.

Happy to sign on.

I also just want to share my appreciation to all the colleagues, Vice Chair Herbold, Council President Gonzalez.

throughout today's presentations, I keep going to ask a question, and you have already asked it.

So just wanted to say thank you for doing that, and thank you, Chair Mosqueda, for shepherding this bill, this sign-on letter as well.

Happy to sign on today.

Thank you very much.

That means a lot coming from the Chair of Land Use.

Appreciate that expression of support.

Any additional questions or comments about the letter in front of us for consideration?

I'm happy to sign.

I'm happy to sign.

Thank you for bringing it forward.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Okay.

Well, with that, I don't see any additional hands.

Madam Clerk, for the purposes of the record and transparency as required by Seattle City Council, for us to consider signing on to the letter expressing support to the state legislature for House Bill 1220, could you please call the roll of the Finance and Housing Committee members?

Chair Mosqueda?

Aye.

Vice Chair Herbold?

Aye.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Council Member Lewis?

Aye.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Madam Chair, that is five in support.

Thank you very much, colleagues.

With expression of your aye and yes votes, we will now add you to this letter, and we will finalize it and send you a copy as we send it off to Representative Macri and Majority Leader Billig, Senator Billig, and appreciate the work of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Thank you as well to Dana from Communications Office for helping to draft this letter, and Robin and Lily.

from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations specifically.

Appreciate your signing on to this letter today in public form.

That helps us to make sure that we are doing everything out in public and happy to see that level of express support for this bill.

Colleagues, thanks so much.

If there's no additional comments or questions for the good of the order, We are at the end of our agenda now.

Our next meeting will be on April 6th as we just discussed at 930 a.m.

We will have at the top of the agenda finalizing the vote for the rental assistance bill to quickly move that out, addressing any questions in the meantime, and having any amendments ready for you to go.

I appreciate your willingness to take that back up in April and to swiftly move it out with any adjustments from this committee.

We will have the transparency requirements for contractors item on here, five appointments for the Labor Standards Advisory Committee.

I almost called it the Latino Standards.

but the Labor Standards Advisory Committee members, and a Sound Transit Property Transfer Ordinance.

This is a really exciting opportunity, I believe, up in the Northgate area.

And then we will have on our agenda, and this will all be included in the memo, ample amount of time to continue our discussion on the American Recovery Act Plan Spending Ordinance.

Thanks again to the incredible team at Central Staff for all of their presentations today.

And as a reminder, please do provide your amendments on item number four here regarding the rental assistance bill by noon on Friday, March 26. We will adjourn and thank you very much in advance.

Have a great rest of your day.

Thank you.