City Council, homelessness, Mayor Wilson

Mayor Wilson’s “Shelter Acceleration” Plan Moves Forward, With Some Questions Unanswered

By Erica C. Barnett

The Seattle City Council approved two pieces of legislation to advance Mayor Katie Wilson’s proposed shelter expansion this week and moved a third bill forward, clearing a legal path for the city to build larger tiny house villages on a shorter timeline and providing $5 million to help pay for the first of 1,000 new shelter units Wilson has said her administration will add this year. (Earlier this month, Wilson announced the first new shelter that will open as part of her “shelter acceleration” plan—a 75-unit Pallet shelter on 15th Ave. W in Interbay).

But council members raised questions about the timeline and long-term funding for the new shelters, which are supposed to serve people with various needs, ranging from people priced out of market-rate housing to those with profound substance use disorder and other behavioral health needs. The legislation allocated existing funds for the shelters, but they’ll need ongoing funding through the city budget, which is facing a deficit of more than $140 million.

“I will say that in these few months of a new mayor, we have yet to understand exactly what the plan is for the rest of the year, and in most circumstances, the council would not pass a budget bill without an exact plan nailed down,” Councilmember and budget committee chair Dan Strauss said. ” [A] higher level of care means that there’s a higher financial cost, and I think that we have to just really reckon with that, because without spending those additional dollars, we’re not going to see the outcomes that we are setting out to achieve today.”

The first bill adopted Tuesday gives the city’s Department of Finance and Administrative Services the authority to sign leases and make property improvements on behalf of nonprofit agencies that operate tiny house villages or other types of “transitional encampments,” a change aimed at reducing the time it takes to open new shelters. The legislation also allows the city to negotiate leases at “market rate,” rather than capping the price for land.

The second bill allocates $8.2 million to new shelters by using up the balance of two city funds—a revolving loan fund for affordable housing that was “underutilized,” according to a council staff analysis, and a human services fund that’s restricted to projects in downtown Seattle.

Councilmember Eddie Lin’s land use committee took up the third and final bill for the first time on Wednesday. It would increase the maximum size of tiny house villages from 100 occupants to 15o and allow one “pilot” village with up to 250 residents—a reduction from Wilson’s original proposal, which would have allowed one such village in every council district.

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The council attached several amendments to the funding and leasing legislation before passing the two bills on Tuesday, including:

  • A requirement that each new shelter sign a “good neighbor agreement” committing to “address community concerns” as they arise, along with a written plan “to keep the area surrounding the shelter safe, clean, and free of unsanctioned encampments” (Rob Saka);
  • A list of reporting requirements, including monthly reports on “public safety indicators” around each new shelter (Debora Juarez) and a detailed report, due in September, showing how the mayor’s office plans to add 4,000 shelter units by the end of 2029 (Bob Kettle);
  • A new work group that will set the “acuity level” for future shelters (low, medium, or high—terms that are not currently defined or used in limiting clientele at Seattle’s existing shelters) and lay out the exact service types each level of shelter will provide (Strauss); and
  • A requirement that at least one of the new shelters established this year be an abstinence-only “recovery” shelter (Maritza Rivera).

Staffers with Wilson’s office repeatedly emphasized that they plan to work closely with both the Seattle Police Department and the city’s encampment-removing Unified Care Team to enforce public safety requirements around new tiny house villages, including the provision that makes shelter operators responsible for whether people pitch tents anywhere in the vicinity of the new shelters.

“The Seattle Police Department already enjoys a strong collaborative relationship with the Human Services Department via the Unified Care Team, which visits many of the existing encampments on a regular basis, and through the Find it Fix It app and criteria for resolving encampments that become dangerous or obstructions to public access to public spaces,” Wilson’s public safety advisor Alison Holcomb told the council on Wednesday.

The UCT’s criteria for encampment sweeps were established under the previous two mayors and codified by the Harrell administration in a matrix that focuses on where a tent is located rather than the individual circumstances of the people being swept.

During her campaign, Wilson opposed indiscriminate encampment sweeps, but has since told PubliCola that she doesn’t plan to make “earth-shattering changes” to the way the Unified Care Team operates. The 116-member team, which has exclusive access to hundreds of shelter beds, managed to get someone into a shelter bed for at least one night just 903 times in 2024.

Jon Grant, Wilson’s chief advisor on homelessness, said the mayor’s office hasn’t identified a site for the initial 250-person tiny house village because it would be premature to announce a location before the council adopts legislation allowing it.

Grant said the first 500 tiny homes will be aimed at “high-acuity,” chronically homeless people who need more intensive case management and wraparound services. (The cost of these services has been a bit of a question mark, as the mayor’s office has only announced an average cost, $28,000, for the first 1,000 shelter units she has said the city will open this year.) However, he said, there is “nuance” in that designation

“Within that range, folks can be chronically homeless for lots of different reasons,” including a disability that prevents them from having a full-time job who just needs “somebody to help them get their their ID and get connected to a rental subsidy program to move them into housing,” Grant said.

 

 

Courts, King County

King County Assessor Won’t Have to Wear Ankle Monitor in Stalking Case
Seattle Municipal Courthouse in downtown Seattle.

By Erica C. Barnett

King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson, who was arrested and charged with stalking last year after he showed up repeatedly at his former fiancée Lee Keller’s house in violation of a no-contact order, will not have to wear an ankle monitor, a Seattle Municipal Court judge ruled Wednesday. The monitor would have alerted Keller if Wilson violated the order by coming within 1,000 feet of her.

Wilson—who failed to show up at his scheduled hearing yesterday, citing confusion about the date— told Seattle Municipal Court Judge Andrew Simon that he has a medical condition, called lymphedema, that requires him to soak both his legs every day; the ankle monitors the city uses are not supposed to be submerged in water. Addressing the court this morning, Keller said that in the four years she was involved with Wilson, she had never seen him soak both his legs because of this condition.

Wilson’s attorney, John Polito, suggested he was being targeted because he is a public figure. “If his name was John Smith, I’m not sure he would be here in this position,” Polito said. (Wilson has refused to resign from his elected position).

Simon said he saw no other choice than to reverse the previous order that Wilson wear an ankle monitor. He asked Keller if she has a smartphone, so that she’ll have “a way of recording any phone calls in the moment.” He also advised her to take screen shots if Wilson attempts to contact her by email, text message, or over social media, “and of course, then you can report that to the city.” If Wilson violates the order, Simon said, he’ll be arrested again.

“He will not be violating this order, and if he does, he will incur this Court’s wrath… its legal wrath,” Polito said. Wilson agreed emphatically, saying. “Let me assure you, I will have absolutely no contact with Miss Keller for as long as I live. We are done.”

In a statement, Keller said, “My only goal is to be protected from further contact with John Wilson.  I expect he will obey the court’s very clear order and refrain from contacting me.”

From a 2025 conversation between John Arthur Wilson (messages in white) and Lee Keller. Source: Case file

According to Keller, Wilson contacted her repeatedly after he was arrested for stalking her last year. She provided two screen shots of messages Wilson sent through a shared scheduling app on March 27, shortly before she obtained a new protection order against him last week. The messages referred to an event Keller was attending that night; while she was there, she said, he posted a Facebook reel that showed him at a bar two blocks away.

Keller first obtained a protective order against Wilson in 2024. At that time, she accused him of creating fake social media personas to contact her after she blocked him; taking photos of her without her knowledge and texting them to her; tracking her whereabouts, and showing up at her home uninvited. That August, Keller said, Wilson contacted the employer of a man she had dated to falsely accuse him of sexually assaulting her in an attempt to get him fired.

Although Keller and Wilson briefly reconciled, she got another protection order against him the following year, after he refused to stop contacting her despite her pleas to leave her alone, according to Keller’s account. In one message, Wilson responded to Keller’s all-caps demand that he leave her alone by saying “never,” then continuing to text her. In an effort to get that protection order overturned, Wilson attempted to paint Keller as vengeful and unstable. He was arrested outside her house three weeks later.

Even before Wilson’s arrest, the entire King County Council demanded he resign his elected position as county assessor. His term ends in December. Wilson’s next court date, for a pre-trial hearing, is scheduled for May 5.

Courts, Mayor Wilson, Parks

King County Assessor Says He Can’t Wear Ankle Monitor In Stalking Case Due to Medical Condition, Burien Puts City Manager on Leave, and More

1. King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson failed to appear at his court hearing in Seattle Municipal Court on Tuesday, where he was scheduled to explain why “medical issues” prevent him from wearing an ankle monitor while he awaits trial on charges of stalking his ex-fiancée, Lee Keller. Wilson’s attorney said his client was confused about the date. The court will hold another hearing tomorrow so that Wilson can attend.

According to a court filing, Wilson told a staffer for the company that provides GPS monitors, Sentinel, that he can’t wear a monitor because he “must regularly soak both legs in water to help reduce swelling” from a medical condition. “Sentinel policy states that the GPS device must not be submerged in water,” the “failure to enroll” filing says. Wilson also said he has to wear compression socks and “reported the device felt tight and indicated that additional space would be necessary to allow him to properly remove and put on his compression socks. Due to these factors Sentinel did not enroll Mr. Wilson on the GPS with exclusion zones obligation.”

Wilson was arrested earlier this year after showing up repeatedly outside Keller’s home in violation of an existing no-contact order. In court filings last year, Keller detailed Wilson’s history of stalking and harassing her over a period of several years. Seattle Municipal Court magistrate Noah Weil issued a five-year no-contact order against Wilson last week  and ordered him to wear a GPS monitor that would alert Keller if Wilson comes within 1,000 feet of her. During that hearing, Wilson said he would have “no problem” complying; the ankle monitor was meant as an assurance that he would not violate this protection order as he has with previous orders to stay away from Keller.

2. The Burien City Council decided, in a closed-door executive session, to place city manager Adolfo Bailon on administrative leave last night, voting 4-3 to remove him and direct the city’s contract interim city attorney, Ann Marie Soto, to find an interim replacement.

The reason the city has a contract city attorney is that Bailon summarily fired former City Attorney Garmon Newsom III earlier this month, PubliCola has learned. (Newsom would have been the person providing legal advice to the council as they discussed whether and how to remove Bailon). This could be among the reasons the council’s four progressive members voted to place Bailon on leave after a lengthy executive session with Soto Tuesday night.

Officially, the council has not given a reason for removing Bailon from his position, and PubliCola was unable to get any councilmember to comment on the record about what led them to consider removing him in the first place. (Executive sessions are closed to the public and considered attorney-client privileged.) Administrative leave is paid and is not considered punitive in itself.

However, it’s not hard to imagine any number of possible reasons beyond Bailon’s decision to fire the city attorney. Back in 2023, the city council (then dominated by more conservative members) stood by Bailon as he shot down efforts to stand up a homeless shelter on land owned by the city, threatened legal action against a church that hosted an encampment, turned away $1 million in shelter funding from King County, and more.

Bailon also berated council members who disagreed with his political views on homelessness, filed a complaint against Councilmember Hugo Garcia over  tweets, demanded the removal of the King County sheriff’s deputy who served as Burien’s police chief, and apparently spent much of his time calling 911 on unsheltered people in the park outside his office, among many other actions that arguably stretched the limits of his authority as a city employee.

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Under Burien’s city manager-council form of governance, every city employee technically works for the city manager, and he works for the seven-member city council. Three years ago, an outside firm resigned over what they described as the council’s refusal to take critical evaluation of Bailon’s performance seriously. With a council less sympathetic to Bailon’s actions and political opinions, he could be on his way out after four years in the role, for which he is paid around $240,000.

3. Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced the dates for Seattle’s annual “Bicycle Weekends” event, in which the city opens up Lake Washington Boulevard in Seward Park to cyclists and pedestrians during summer weekends. And unlike her predecessor, who killed longstanding plans to install stop signs and speed humps on the dangerous lakefront boulevard, Wilson is expanding the safe-street program to include every summer weekend and three holidays.

That means that cyclists and pedestrians, including wheelchair users, will have access to the roadway Under Harrell, who lives nearby, the car-free celebration happened only on alternate weekends, for a total of 20 days. Wilson is expanding that to 15 summer weekends and a total of 33 days, including three holidays. Details (including where drivers can park outside the car-free zone) on the city’s website.

homelessness, Mayor Wilson, podcasts

Seattle Nice: Mayor Wilson’s Shelter Plan, King County Assessor’s Stalking Charges, an Ambitious Library Levy, and More

By Erica C. Barnett

If you aren’t listening to Seattle Nice, the weekly podcast I co-host along with political consultant (and my former Stranger colleague) Sandeep Kaushik and longtime reporter and producer David Hyde, now’s a great time to tune in—in the last couple months, we’ve talked to City Councilmember Eddie Lin about plans to increase density across the city, debated Mayor Katie Wilson’s apparent plan to move forward with the police surveillance cameras she once opposed, and talked to Downtown Seattle Association director Jon Scholes about the DSA’s unusually sunny forecast for the future of downtown.

This week, we talked about the mayor’s plan to build 500 new tiny house village-style shelter units by this summer, stalking charges against the King County Assessor (who has refused to step down despite a unanimous King County Council vote demanding his resignation), and the latest library levy, which Sandeep said was just another example of Seattle’s willingness to pay any amount of taxes for any purpose.

Sandeep said he was impressed by the mayor’s announcement last week that the city will open 75 new shelter beds in Interbay and expand tiny house villages in two other locations. The biggest unheralded news, he thought, was the announcement that T-Mobile, Starbucks, and Microsoft are all helping to fund the mayor’s initial shelter push, kicking in around $3 million so far.

As someone who’s genuinely excited by Wilson’s ambitious agenda but skeptical about her ability to upend the Seattle Process, I argued it’s too early to declare victory—noting, for instance, that the last time the city participated in a privately backed venture to address homelessness, the “Partnership for Zero” effort to eliminate visible homelessness downtown, they got burned—that initiative, spearheaded by the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, fell apart when it proved harder to house people directly from the street than the homelessness agency anticipated, and funders pulled out, forcing the partnership to shut down in 2023.

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People who’ve been around Seattle’s homelessness system for a while say they’re hopeful about the mayor’s plan, but I’ve also heard concerns that it’s too focused on a single shelter type—tiny house villages—and too optimistic about the timeline for siting nearly 1,000 more tiny house units around the city in the next nine months. Another concern is cost—Wilson’s team has said the average tiny house unit will cost $28,000, all in, but that estimate seems low, given the higher cost of existing villages with the kind of wraparound services and 24/7 security Wilson has suggested will be available at each site.

All that said, you know who didn’t really even bother trying to add shelter in Seattle? Wilson’s predecessor Bruce Harrell, who promised to add 2,000 “shelter or housing” units by the end of his term but ended up using dubious math (taking credit for shelters that were underway by the time he took office, for instance) to claim he had actually added 3,000. (In reality, by the end of Harrell’s term, there were around the same number of shelter beds in Seattle as when he took office). In other words, even if Wilson gets no further than the initial 100 or so additional tiny houses she announced last week, she’ll have increased shelter more than Harrell did in his entire four years in office.

City Council, Courts, Density, homelessness, housing, Mayor Wilson

This Week on PubliCola: April 11, 2026

Shelter expansion, anti-apartment pushback, Northeast Seattle gets dedicated cops, and a bunch of other stories you may have missed this week.

By Erica C. Barnett

Monday, April 6

Seattle Nice: Mayor Wilson Wants to Expand Housing Faster

On this week’s episode of Seattle Nice, we talked about how Mayor Katie Wilson’s personal experience renting in Seattle may have impacted her decision to go “bigger, taller, and faster” on the city’s comprehensive plan. We also talked about City Councilmember Maritza Rivera’s still-vague proposal to “audit the Human Services Department.”

Councilmember Rivera Wants to Audit Human Services

Speaking of which, here’s what we know about that proposal: Rivera believes that in light of King County’s audit, which found serious problems with some its own human services contracts, the city should audit its own human services contracts. The auditor’s office told us this would be a long, involved process; generally, their audits are more focused and happen at the direction of more than just one councilmember.

Tuesday, April 7

Seattle Council Hears from Renters Who Want Quality of Life and Homeowners Who Want to Keep Neighborhoods to Themselves

A meeting on the proposed comprehensive plan update, which could allow some apartments in parts of the city that are not directly on large, polluting arterial roads and highways, broke down along predictable lines: Renters and housing advocates asked for the right to live in Seattle’s quieter neighborhoods, and housing opponents argued that allowing apartments near them would be tantamount to clear-cutting Seattle, murdering orcas, and making birds go extinct.

Wednesday, April 8

SPD Dedicates Three Officers to Magnuson Park, Citing Success with “Disorder” and Property Crimes During Pilot

The Seattle Police Department is permanently assigning three officers to the area around Magnuson Park, a large lakefront park in an affluent part of Northeast Seattle where residents, and Councilmember Rivera, have been calling for more cops to crack down on loud summertime parties and street racing. The park is home to hundreds of low-income residents who live in apartments run by two nonprofits; it’s also where police shot and killed Charleena Lyles, a woman who called 911 during a mental-health crisis.

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Thursday, April 9

Larger Library Levy Moves Forward

The city council added nearly $70 million to a $410 million library levy renewal that will be on the ballot this year, including new funds for repairs and maintenance at the downtown library, air conditioning for libraries that don’t have it, and more electronic copies of popular books. Rivera voted against every amendment, citing the need for fiscal responsibility as the city approaches a state-imposed cap on property tax levies.

Founder of AI Worker Surveillance Startup Appointed to Ethics Commission

Evan Smith, formerly of Starbucks, created a system for companies to spy on retail workers by recording all their conversations and using AI to analyze their speech for compliance with company policy. Councilmembers Rivera and Joy Hollingsworth nominated him to serve on the city’s Ethics and Elections Commission.

County Assessor Pleads Not Guilty to Stalking, Must Wear Ankle Monitor in Five-Year No Contact Order

John Arthur Wilson, who has refused to step down from his elected role as King County Assessor despite being arrested for stalking and harassing his ex-fiancée, was slapped with a five-year no-contact order while awaiting trial on stalking charges. He’ll have to wear an ankle monitor to ensure he doesn’t come within 1,000 feet of his ex; his term expires at the end of this year.

Friday, April 10

Developers Ask for Mandatory Affordable Housing Fee Holiday as Permits for New Apartments Dry Up

Seven years ago, the city approved Mandatory Housing Affordability fees on new development; the fees fund affordable housing projects, or developers can build affordable units on site. Since then, development has slackened and the cost of building has gone up, and developers say the fees are a major reason. Now, they’re asking the city to lower the fees temporarily. But the request raises larger questions about how Seattle funds affordable housing, and whether it’s smart to treat apartments like a negative thing by charging special fees on new development.

Also this week: I covered two stories exclusively on Bluesky.

First, the mayor met with opponents of police surveillance cameras in a Zoom town hall that was clearly frustrating for both sides. (I attended a watch party at Stoup on Capitol Hill.) Wilson seems committed to turning on the cameras proposed by her predecessor, Bruce Harrell, and approved by the previous city council, and opponents of police surveillance feel betrayed by the mayor they supported, in part, because they thought she shared their commitment to getting rid of the cameras.

Second, Wilson announced that the city has secured a site for the first 75 units of new shelter of her term—a small step toward the 1,000 new shelter units she promised during her first year. The announcement came at a public meeting where the mayor moderated a panel and took questions from the public, a dramatic departure from the way most previous mayors have rolled out big announcements.

I also talked about these stories and more on Hacks and Wonks with Crystal Fincher on Friday; we also discussed the lawsuit that was filed this week to stop the state’s new high-earners’ income tax, some sheriff’s opposition to a new law saying they can’t serve if their law enforcement certification has been revoked, and more.

 

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City Council, Development, housing

Developers Ask for Mandatory Affordable Housing Fee Holiday as Permits for New Apartments Dry Up

By Erica C. Barnett

A group of apartment builders is asking Mayor Katie Wilson and the City Council to consider rolling back the fees they pay every time they build new housing. The developers, calling themselves the Seattle Housing Roundtable, are asking the city to reduce Mandatory Housing Affordability fees by 90 percent this year, followed by an 80 percent reduction next year and a 75 percent reduction in 2028, with a goal of permanent MHA reforms by the following year.

According to Ian Morrison, an attorney with the land use firm McCullough Hill, MHA “was a good idea when it was originally envisioned, at a time when interest rates were much lower and the economic climate was a lot more positive and predictable.” But, he added, “What we’re seeing now, using the city’s own data, is MHA as a part of a project that was viable in the late 2010s no longer work.   That means housing will not be built in Seattle today.”

The Seattle City Council approved MHA in 2019 as the final component of former mayor Ed Murray’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA). The program made developers build affordable housing or pay a fee every time they built new apartments in Seattle’s multifamily areas (at the time, Seattle still had single-family zoning). In exchange, they were allowed to build more densely.  The framework took for granted that new market-rate apartments have a negative impact on neighborhoods that developers must mitigate by funding affordable housing.

This consensus has shifted just in the seven years MHA has been in effect, as scarcity has made apartments increasingly unaffordable and more people understand that density is an environmental necessity and an answer to growing demand for housing. At the same time, the funding MHA produces for affordable housing has plunged from a high of $74 million in 2021 to just $22 million last year as development has slowed. Last year, developers filed applications to build fewer than 2,000 new apartment buildings, a drop of almost 90 percent from a peak of 17,400 units in 2020.

Developers and land use attorneys we spoke to seemed reluctant to say outright that the city should get rid of MHA altogether, although it negatively impacts their bottom line. Holly Golden, a land use attorney at HCMP Law Offices, said that with lower fees, “you’d still see millions of dollars of MHA fees, plus new construction jobs and permit fees to keep [the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections running during the building downturn. … Getting projects started provides a huge financial benefit to the city budget at a time when they really need it.”

Taxes on construction are inherently volatile, and there’s a real question about whether MHA aligns with the reality of Seattle as a majority-renter city with an acute housing shortage. If the city agrees to an MHA “holiday” and development rebounds, a surge in other funding sources like the Real Estate Excise Tax could help offset the loss of MHA dollars.

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Not every jurisdiction funds affordable housing by charging a fee on development. PubliCola has reported on a concept called funded inclusionary zoning, in which developers get tax breaks for including affordable housing in their projects. The concept flips the script on development, treating density (i.e. apartments, i.e. renters) as a good thing while also ensuring that affordable housing gets built. Developers aren’t charitable organizations—if a project doesn’t make sense to them, they won’t build it—so instead of penalizing new housing with fees, cities like Portland are trying incentives to build new housing at all income levels.

“There are ways to ensure that inclusionary zoning programs work for the long term and are well calibrated to ensure they don’t impede housing,” Morrison said. “But getting those details right takes time.”

Eddie Lin, the head of the city council’s land use committee, told us on a recent episode of Seattle Nice that he’s “open to a temporary reduction in MHA fees. It needs to be tailored to the right size to get construction going, but not more than we need.”

Eliminating MHA completely, Lin continued, is a nonstarter; the fee, he said, remains “incredibly important for developing additional affordable housing. … We want to be mindful of not giving away too much more than we need to.” MHA reform, he said, might include addressing the fact that developers currently have to pay a fee for building in low-rise zones but not in neighborhood residential—the former single-family zones that now allow essentially the same density as low-rise areas.

Ray Connell, managing director at the developer Holland Partner Group, said it’s possible the impact of MHA and other taxes and regulations in real time by looking east across Lake Washington. “All the cranes are in Redmond,” where fees are lower, “so projects get started,” Connell said. “It’s amazing to go over there and see a bunch of new projects and cranes in the sky. Why is it happening over there? It’s not a hard cost issue, and it’s not an interest rate issue. Yes, it’s the jobs… but it’s also the additional fees that we have to face on this side of the lake.”

Redmond recently adopted an aggressive inclusionary zoning package that says 10 percent of all new units in housing with 10 or more units must be affordable. In four years, Connell said, “there won’t be cranes in certain areas of Redmond. … We can’t get those areas of Redmond to work anymore.”