Seattle Councilmember Tammy Morales is seeking to add $70 million in social housing funding to Mayor Jenny Durkan’s budget via two budget amendments. Meanwhile, Councilmember Kshama Sawant’s amendment would add $13 million to the city’s Green New Deal low-income home heat conversion program.
The Solidarity Budget coalition is backing all three amendments as they get closer to the group’s goals of exceeding half a billion in housing investment next year and ramping up implementation of the Seattle Green New Deal. They also are backing the extra $30 million proposed for the Equitable Development Initiative.
“Seattle has a severe shortage of affordable and deeply affordable housing,” Transit Riders Union general secretary Katie Wilson said on behalf of the Solidarity Budget. “Without dramatically scaling up non-market housing, we can’t effectively tackle the homelessness crisis or create the conditions for lower-income families to thrive in Seattle.”
Buoyed by federal and JumpStart funding, the Mayor’s budget already included about $200 million for affordable housing. However, the City Council’s spending plan had tabbed 62% of JumpStart revenue — which is projected to be $235 million in all next year — for social housing, and the Mayor failed to reach that level. Council reaffirmed its spend plan with guardrail legislation passed unanimously this summer, which did allow the Mayor to use $85 million in JumpStart revenue to close a City budget shortfall caused by the Covid recession (the shortfall was defined from the budget-wide baseline taken before the pandemic).
However the Mayor went beyond that and swiped another $52 million in JumpStart housing funds and replaced it with one-time federal funds, which sets up a fiscal cliff the following year for housing investment. The Morales amendments would increase the housing budget, but a Mosqueda amendment is also in the works to restore the $52 million swiped from the JumpStart spending plan and avoid the fiscal cliff the Mayor is setting up.
