Earlier this week the House Our Neighbors! coalition filed a petition for a ballot initiative asking Seattle voters to weigh in on the creation of a public developer tasked with creating and owning social housing in Seattle. Unlike most other forms of nonprofit affordable housing in the city, social housing created by the public developer would be available to both middle-income and low-income households, in this case people earning from zero to 120% of area median income (AMI). If House Our Neighbors succeeds in gathering enough signatures to meet the threshold, the measure will appear on the ballot in November. If approved, a public developer could significantly alter the housing landscape in Seattle down the road.
In this article, I’ll provide background information about the social housing model, dive into details about how it would work under this particular public developer initiative, and explain what it will take to make it a reality.
