Mayor Jenny Durkan announced $100 million of affordable housing investment yesterday at a press conference at the Filipino Community Center in Rainier Valley. The $100 million more than doubled last year’s Seattle Office of Housing budget, which tallied $47 million. Seattle passing a doubled housing levy and the Seattle City Council approving $29 million in bonding for affordable housing explains much of the jump in funding.
“Too many long-time residents are getting locked out and pushed out of Seattle. We need to urgently increase the amount of affordable housing to stop the huge displacement of people and provide permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness,” Mayor Durkan said in a statement. “With this investment, our City is delivering on our commitment to create more affordable housing, including building 900 new homes and keeping 550 homes affordable for the next 50 years.”
Specifically, Seattle Office of Housing will fund 896 new homes in nine new buildings around Seattle, preserve 535 existing units, and support low-income first-time homebuyers through two developments totaling 26 homes via Habitat for Humanity and the Homestead Community Land Trust.
In theory, the City of Seattle sprinkles its affordable rental housing investments across all neighborhoods. The map above shows this year’s new housing investments did not touch West Seattle and only one went to North Seattle–granted the largest of them all. Strikingly neighborhoods like Magnolia, Madison Park, Montlake, and Upper Queen Anne have scarcely seen affordable housing construction in four decades. Wealthy neighborhoods should see affordable housing if we as a city are serious about equity and creating mixed-income neighborhoods. That is the promise of inclusionary zoning (which the City enacted with the Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) program) and it’ll be great when the policy bears fruit in that regard. We certainly could use the help if we are to reach “every corner” of the city.
Today we’re making a down payment on a more affordable future. We are determined to make Seattle more affordable and inclusive in every corner of the City.
— Jenny Durkan (@MayorJenny) December 18, 2017
