Civil Rights, Mayor Wilson

Investigation Report: Trip to Strip Club on Civil Rights Office Trip Was Sexual Harassment

By Erica C. Barnett

An investigation into complaints against the director of Seattle’s Office for Civil Rights (SOCR), Derrick Wheeler-Smith, found that Wheeler-Smith sexually harassed a male employee by accompanying him to a strip club during a city-sponsored trip to historic civil rights sites in Alabama in 2023.

PubliCola reported on the investigation’s general conclusions in June; two weeks later, we reported on allegations about the strip-club outing. The full investigation report, which PubliCola obtained through a records request, ties those two stories together, confirming that the sexual-harassment finding was related to the strip-club outing.

It also provides additional details about some of the other allegations that the investigators did not believe rose to the level of harassment, including misogynistic and transpobic memes Wheeler-Smith and the employee shared over texts.

The investigation was prompted by a memo from PROTEC17, the union that represents many SOCR employees, containing allegations that Wheeler-Smith and his deputy, Fahima Mohamed, had engaged in discrimination, harassment, and intimidation against civil rights office staff.

“The investigation included a review of OCR employees’ allegations that Wheeler-Smith and/or Mohamed engaged in unwelcome conduct or comments based on religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity” the investigation report says. “However, even assuming all the information provided during the investigation was true, those allegations did not rise to the level of conduct protected by” the city’s rule against discrimination and workplace harassment.

The investigation, which wrapped up in June, found that Wheeler-Smith sexually harassed his male employee, who was also a longtime personal friend, “by taking [the employee] to a strip club on a work trip.” The employee told investigators he didn’t feel he could say no to going to the strip club, given that Wheeler-Smith was his boss. Wheeler-Smith said he only went to the strip club because the employee said he wouldn’t go without him.

Investigators found that the misogynistic texts did not constitute sexual harassment because they were not “unwanted,” and that a change in the employee’s work assignment wasn’t retaliation for comments the employee made about trans women at a group training.

Nor, the investigators found, was it sexual harassment when Wheeler-Smith told a group of staffers a story about accidentally ending up a a swingers’ resort with his wife and being propositioned, or when he gave a toast at a work event that concluded, “May all your ups and downs be in bed,” which some staffers found offensive. (Wheeler-Smith told investigators that by “ups and downs in bed,” he meant getting up in the morning and going to sleep at night.)

Wheeler-Smith sent one of the memes we previously reported on—a fake image of Kamala Harris with bruised knees captioned, “CONGRATS to Kamala on her new promotion! I don’t know how you did it!”—with the message, “This innanet is undefeated.” According to the report, Wheeler-Smith told investigators the message was meant to  “show his distaste for the vile and disrespectful meme,” but his employee said he took the comment to mean the meme was “spot on” and “accurate as hell.”

In another message, Wheeler-Smith sent an X thread by Kanye West that concluded, “WIVES SELL PUSSY FOR LIFE,” saying Kanye was “saying some wild shit but he got a point here.”

A text between SOCR director Derrick Wheeler-Smith and his employee about a trip to a strip club during a civil rights tour of the Deep South

The texts Wheeler-Smith sent the employee also included a meme of a Black woman posting, “My throat hurt but my baby got uniform clothes,” and a screenshot that read, “12 years ago today. my friend Dave came out running and screaming ‘ITS A BOY!!!’ With tears streaming down his face…We never went back to Thailand again.”

According to the investigation, Wheeler-Smith said he exchanged texts with the employee, a longtime acquaintance, out of deference to an elder. “According to Wheeler-Smith, the Black community respected its elder members,” the investigators wrote. “[The employee] was a seventy-year-old Black man. As a result, [the employee] set the tone of their friendship.”

Wheeler-Smith has been on paid administrative leave since March; Mike Chin is currently serving as the second interim director of the department.

PROTEC17, along with the chairs of of the four city commissions SOCR oversees—the LGBTQ,  Human Rights, Disability, and Women’s Commissions—have called for Wheeler-Smith’s removal.

Unlike most department heads, the SOCR director is not an at-will employee. A law passed in 2017 prohibits the mayor from removing the SOCR director except for “just cause.” The provision was meant to shield the office that enforces civil rights laws from political interference and retaliation, but it also makes the prospect of firing the SOCR director challenging and legally fraught.

A spokesperson for Mayor Katie Wilson said the mayor’s office “is completing its review of the investigation report and determining next steps. We expect that process to be complete by early October and can share a fuller update on the outcomes of this process, at that time.”

 

Density, Mayor Wilson, Transit

Greater Seattle: Late Press Conferences, On-Time Buses, Selfish Housing

By Josh Feit

Five and a half hours > A half hour

As they spin headlines to make Mayor Katie Wilson look bad, local TV news’ populist schtick fails news reporting basics. Taking the word of an unnamed source from SPD who says the press conference after July’s Seattle-Center shooting was delayed because Wilson was waiting on “dignitaries” (the governor and the Seattle congresswoman) is a delusional account if you actually read the email and text message threads from that night.

What the behind-the-scenes conversations between the mayor’s office and SPD show is that as soon as 6:30, immediately after the shooting, Wilson was looking to her staff and to SPD to assess the possibility of going to Seattle Center to make a statement. SPD, however, told her to hold off as they secured the scene. They then withheld critical information—namely, that the shooting wasn’t terrorism or a mass shooting, but a personal fracas, keeping the public largely in the dark for five and a half hours, between 7:30 and 1am when they put out a blog post about the incident. The police were also in delay mode because they were waiting for (now former) chief Shon Barnes to get a briefing and hold a Teams call with elected officials..

This chaos stalled Wilson’s trip to Seattle Center. But when she finally got there shortly after 10 pm, and a presser was ready to go, (with the SPD still reticent on the details) there was a wait of less than half an hour for Governor Ferguson and Congresswoman Jayapal to arrive—far less than the length of time SPD kept critical information from the public.

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

 

The 8 > The L8

My favorite way of judging the mayor—and one that is actually populist (despite the convoluted right-wing notion that riding the bus is somehow elitist)—is by keeping my eye on the infamous (L)8 bus.

Wilson, the founder and former co-director of the Transit Riders Union, has thrown money, fresh paint, and SDOT planners at the historically sluggish, major east-west route. The first part of her plan—an eastbound bus-only lane on Denny—went into effect on August 24. And as part of Wilson’s plan, Metro added more buses the same week.

And, well, well, well. It’s still early (and there are more fixes to come), but dramatic signs of improvement are already clear. On-time performance  jumped to from 68.6 percent percent to 77.8 percent between this August and August 2025, an increase that only includes one week of improved service on the 8. So far in September, on-time performance has continued to climb, to 78.5 percent.

The 7,203 average daily riders (July’s numbers) who rely on the 8 likely appreciate Mayor Wilson’s focus on the basics; as a regular rider, I know I do.

Living Alone ≠ The Housing Crisis

The Seattle Times’ FYI Guy claims the sharp increase in people living solo is “eating up” units, saying we could address most of the housing crisis without building new housing if those selfish singles would just “double up.”

First of all, my own FYI: People who “live alone” don’t live alone. We’re living in multifamily buildings with plenty of other people. This type of dense housing is better for the environment and brings down rents.

The Seattle Times column goes onto to pooh-pooh the idea that rigid zoning is the culprit, even though Seattle’s suburban character notoriously limits mutlifamily housing in the city.

So, I guess, for my contribution, I should ask someone to move in with me in my 350-square-foot apartment to lower regional housing costs while those who eat up 5,000-square-foot lots should continue to manspread.

Josh@PubliCola.com

homelessness, King County, LGBTQ+, Mayor Wilson, Police, public safety

This Week On PubliCola: Katie Wilson is Jimmy Carter, Key Shelter Provider Closes Abruptly, SPD Delayed Information on Shooting

Inside a Pallet shelter.
Inside a Pallet shelter.

By Erica C. Barnett

Monday, August 31

Poll Tests Anti-Density Messages

A new poll sponsored by groups like Tree Action Seattle and Seattle Residents for Responsible Growth tested out messages opposing the city’s comprehensive plan update (currently tied up in litigation), which would allow modest density increases in areas directly adjacent to existing frequent transit stops and small commercial areas.

Mayor Wilson Does Damage Control

Less than a day before we published our story about interim Police Chief Andre Sayles’ complaint against a detective who spoke at a pro-LGBTQ event, Mayor Katie Wilson assured the city’s LGBTQ Commission that the complaint was less significant than it turned out to be, angering some commissioners.

Ron Davis Has Another Anti-Stranger Manifesto

Former legislative candidate Ron Davis just won’t let the Stranger’s decision to endorse a different candidate go. In a 3,300-word email, he told campaign supporters he has a plan to neutralize the power of the paper’s endorsements, which he called corrupt and oligarchical.

Tuesday, September 1

Greater Seattle: Katie Wilson is to Jimmy Carter as Zohran Mamdani is to Barack Obama

In this week’s edition of his column, Josh says Katie Wilson has a Jimmy Carter problem—unlike NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, she hasn’t dazzled the media with her charisma (and yes, the fact that he’s a he and she’s a she is a factor). Plus, some plaudits for a rare win for affordable homeownership in Seattle.

Wednesday, September 2

King County Assessor Wilson Misused County Resources Amid Stalking and Harassment Allegations: Report

A report from the King County ombuds office concluded that King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson misused county resources to negotiate a lease for a vacation home, violate a domestic-violence protection order, attempt to get the sheriff to visit his ex’s home, and set up campaign meetings to do damage control amid negative media coverage of the allegations against him. Wilson has been ordered to pay a $20,000 fine for the violations.

Thursday, September 3

Pallet, Company That Built Just-Opened Interbay Shelter, Closes Abruptly

Pallet, a nine-year-old company that produced utilitarian individual shelter units, went out of business suddenly this week. The company partnered on the city’s latest modular shelter in Interbay, and was expected to be a key player in Mayor Katie Wilson’s ongoing shelter expansion push.

Friday, September 4

Mayor Wilson Says City Will Improve Crisis Communications In Wake of Shooting

In response to a communications breakdown after a shooting at Seattle Center in late July, Mayor Wilson announced changes she says will improve public access to information during future public safety emergencies. In the future, the city plans to release information within an hour of an incident whenever possible, and push information out on Alert Seattle, an opt-in app. Additionally, no more than three members of SPD’s executive staff can be out of town at a time—during the shooting, the police chief and both of his deputy chiefs were in other cities.

Messages Show SPD Primarily Responsible for Information Gap After Bite of Seattle Shooting

Hundreds of pages of Teams and text messages released by the mayor’s office on Friday reveal that almost all of the delay in disseminating information about the Bite of Seattle shooting resulted because SPD failed to update the public after an initial, alarming X post immediately after the shooting. Mayor Wilson’s office was indecisive about whether to send her to the scene of the shooting (ultimately doing so under media pressure), but her absence, and a brief wait for other elected officials to arrive, did not significantly contribute to the delay, and messages show her team repeatedly and unsuccessfully urging SPD to let the public know what was going on.

Mayor Wilson, Media, Police

Messages Show SPD Primarily Responsible for Information Gap After Bite of Seattle Shooting

 

The messages also reveal that Mayor Wilson was indecisive about going to the scene of the shooting while advisors gave conflicting recommendations and TV reporters speculated about why she wasn’t there.

By Erica C. Barnett

Mayor Katie Wilson’s office released hundreds of pages of internal Teams messages and texts between her staffers, herself, and Seattle Police Department officials from the night of the July 26 mass shooting at the Bite of Seattle and in the days following the shooting. (Full documents available here.)

The messages, which do not include communications between SPD officials except where the mayor’s office was included, show two things. First, that the mayor’s office dithered and debated whether Wilson herself should go to the scene of the shooting for three hours before she finally went to Seattle Center, partly in response to TV reporters criticizing her for not being there.

And second, that the primary reason for the delay in information, as well as almost all of the delay in holding a press conference that night, was that SPD delayed the release of information repeatedly, withholding any new information information from the public and press until the press conference finally took place around 11pm.

SPD, the messages show, knew critical details about the shooting, including the fact that it was not a random mass shooting or terrorist event within an hour of the shooting—that is, before 7:30pm—but did not put any of that information out broadly until after 1:00 in the morning on July 27.

The messages include texts from mayoral communications staffer Jonah Spangenthal-Lee to SPD Chief Operating Officer Sarah Smith asking her why SPD had not provided any information since a tweet warning the public of a shooting with “multiple shooting victims” at Seattle Center at 6:29pm. “Sarah, where is SPD”s statement?” Spangenthal-Lee wrote at 8:36. “It’s been two hours since you guys have posted anything? Even some tweets at this point…”

A few minutes later, Spangenthal-Lee told other mayoral staffers in an internal Teams chat, “It’s fucking embarrassing that SPD has waited HOURS to put anything out. … I’m just saying this is a massive fucking disaster and hit to public trust.”

Responding to the text, Smith wrote,”The team is actively handling the situation on the ground and with the media on scene. Still very chaotic right now. We will have more information out soon. A few minutes later, Wilson’s interim communications director, Dawn Schellenberg, wrote that another SPD staffer was “working on getting something on Twitter”—the only social media site SPD uses. Moments later, Smith corrected her, saying SPD would have no further updates until “after 9.”

Wilson’s own statement on the shooting went out at 8:46. It did not include information SPD was still withholding, including the critical information that the shooting appeared to be between groups of people who knew each other and that there was no need for he general public to be afraid.

At 9:26, Smith sent an update: Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis, who was filling in because Barnes and both his deputy chiefs were out of town, would be doing media interviews at 10pm; SPD would put up a Blotter post “right afterwards.” Ultimately, the press conference was delayed until almost 11pm, with both Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and Governor Bob Ferguson, who had driven into town from Olympia, in attendance.

None of the messages include an order from the mayor’s office to withhold information from the public so that “dignitaries” could arrive at Seattle Center, as one of SPD’s communications staff told TV reporters who have repeatedly suggested that this was the reason SPD did not release information to the public all night.

While SPD was withholding information and failing to communicate with the press, a chaotic debate was going on within the mayor’s office about whether she should go to the scene of the shooting. The discussion began shortly before 6:30, when Wilson said she was available “as needed” and her interim communications director, Dawn Schellenberg, said Spangenthal-Lee had said she should go to Seattle Center. The mayor’s public safety advisor, Alison Holcomb, advised against this “until we know more.”

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

At 7:26, Wilson texted, “It would be good to get clarity soon whether we’re planning a public conference tonight v. tomorrow morning, so we can communicate that to other elected officials. (Just talked with Ferguson and Jayapal. Ferguson is in Olympia but can head this way shortly.)”

Holcomb replied, saying to wait until after a conference call for elected officials that was being organized by SPD. That conference call didn’t take place until around 9pm, possibly because Barnes wanted to get briefed on the situation from Dallas before participating in a call with elected officials. (A release of similar internal Teams chats and text messages from SPD would shed light on what Barnes and other SPD officials were doing between approximately 7:30 and 9:45.)

By around 9:40, it was still unclear whether the mayor would go to Seattle Center. At almost 9:30pm, Spangenthal-Lee wrote, “I reaaaaaaally think the mayor should go down there,” but Holcomb disagreed, writing, “Harborview, where victim’s families are, makes more sense, and I’m not sure that makes sense.”

“Media aren’t looking for an in-depth conversation about gang violence, they’re. looking for sound bites,” Holcomb continued. “Good time for the Mayor to be letting first responders do their jobs and not be armchair quarterbacking.”

Around the. same time, Deputy Mayor Brian Surratt, who had been on the scene for two hours, told Wilson, “I just talked to [Assistant Police Chief] Davis. His recommendation is no.” In other words, shortly before 9:40, SPD was still saying the mayor should not come to Seattle Center.

But after KOMO reporter Chris Daniels called the mayor, and another KOMO reporter said on air that they would expect the mayor to be there if she was in town, Wilson wrote, “We should consider whether I should come down to talk to KOMO, if that expectation has been created. I’m sure they would love to spin an ‘absent mayor’ story.” (Daniels has been among the mayor’s harshest critics, and a chief ringleader of the narrative that the mayor was solely to blame for the lack of information about the shooting.) “I’m inclined to have you come down,” Surratt responded. 

Wilson was on the scene less than a half hour after that text, shortly after 10pm. The press conference happened shortly before 11.There was a brief delay for Ferguson and Jayapal to arrive from other parts of Seattle, but it was, at most, around 30 minutes—at the end of a long night in which SPD had still put out no information beyond its initial, alarming post on X saying that multiple people had been shot.

SPD’s first post on the evening’s events went up early the following morning, at 1:08 am.

Wilson and interim Police Chief Andre Sayles announced some changes to how police and the mayor’s office will communicate with each other and with the public earlier this week. The city’s Office of the Inspector General is supposed to release a report about the communications breakdown sometime this fall.

Editor’s note: This story originally reported that Chris Daniels was on the scene at Seattle Center; he was not. We regret the error.

Mayor Wilson, Police

Mayor Wilson Says City Will Improve Crisis Communications In Wake of Shooting
Mayor Katie Wilson, with interim police chief Andre Sayles on the left

Wilson rolled out the changes before a report that is supposed to explain how communications broke down after the Bite of Seattle shooting.

By Erica C. Barnett

Mayor Katie Wilson and the Seattle Police Department rolled out a new communications plan for emergencies this week that includes a few updates to the old communications plan, which broke down in still-unspecified ways during a shooting at the Bite of Seattle festival in July that left three people dead. SPD arrested a 15-year-old on the night of the shooting, but still has not found “persons of interest” who may have also been involved.

Former SPD chief Shon Barnes and both of his deputy chiefs were out of town during the shooting. Barnes’ absence was one of several factors that may have contributed to a five-hour delay before SPD and Wilson held a press conference the night of the shooting. Barnes resigned under pressure—walking away with a severance package worth at least $740,000—after his over-the-top reaction to a reporter who asked about his frequent absences turned into a national story.

The new rules, which Wilson announced earlier this week, would include clearer lines of communication between SPD and the mayor’s staff, which appear to have broken down during the chaos after the shooting. A new SPD policy, which the department says is still being drafted, would allow no more than three members of SPD’s “executive staff” to be out of town at the same time; it’s unclear if this will include all command staff or just the chief and his deputies and assistants.

In the future, Alert Seattle, an opt-in system that pings people’s phones during emergencies, will alert residents when any “significant incident” happens, although the parameters that term will include are still undefined. During major incidents like active shooter events, the city may use the system to push wireless alerts to every cell phone within a certain radius—warning them to leave the area, for instance. And there will now be an “expectation of providing information to the media within one hour of a significant incident, when it’s safe and possible to do so,” according to the announcement.

Wilson has deflected questions about what caused the five-hour delay, saying that information will be revealed in a review by the Office of Inspector General, which her office requested, later this fall.

In an interview, Wilson said she decided to announce new communications policies prior to the publication of the OIG review “because it’s very important that the public has confidence that we’re prepared for Bumbershoot this weekend and all the big events coming up. … What this is about is saying there were gaps. We did not measure up to the standard that we have set for ourselves in terms of communications with the public. And we are fixing that moving forward.”

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

Wilson’s communications office has seen significant turnover throughout her eight-month administration, including the firing of a multimedia specialist last week. Currently, Wilson has a temporary press secretary and temporary communications director, along with multiple consultants working on communications.

Asked whether the lack of a permanent comms team was a factor in the communications issues that arose after the shooting, Wilson said, “No, I don’t think so. We have excellent interim leadership in our comms department. And I’m not just saying that because my interim comms director,” Dawn Schellenberg, “is sitting here,” she joked.

It’s unclear how much the changes will impact how quickly the public receives direct information about major incidents, and how often.  The new rules say Alert Seattle subscribers will get push notices about “significant incidents,” an SPD term of art that includes everything from robberies to reports of shots fired to assaults to “any other event a sergeant believes is significant.” Notifying the public every time one of these incidents occurs could contribute to fear—or apathy. Wilson said her office would get back to me on the new threshold for alerts. “We’re not going to spam people,” she said.

Wilson said her office will also direct people to X, SPD’s platform of choice for putting out timely information, “when appropriate,” and confirmed that her office hasn’t asked SPD to put out information on additional platforms, such as Instagram, Reddit, and Bluesky. Most people in Seattle are not on X, the controversial, Elon Musk-owned platform that has become a haven for right-wing disinformation and hate speech.

Most of the mainstream media in Seattle have focused their coverage of the communications breakdown on Wilson’s responsibility, almost to the exclusion of SPD—the organization that actually conducts media briefings after shootings and other major events.

Asked about the media’s singular focus on her role, Wilson said, “I’m not going to sit here and complain about the media.”

“What’s unfortunate,” Wilson continued, “is that so much of the media narrative has focused on communications, in a way that has gotten away from gun violence and the victims and really just what we can do moving forward as a city to make sure our public spaces are safe.”

While the mayor has declined to comment on SPD’s role in the communications breakdown or discuss how much the former chief’s absence from the city contributed to the information bottleneck, Barnes has been making the media rounds to give his own version of events.

Earlier this week, for instance, he told KOMO’s Chris Daniels that his absence from the city during the shooting wasn’t an issue, because he had access to Teams and a copy of the Active Shooter Incident Management Checklist on his phone. (As I reported, Barnes had planned to be out of the city until mid-August.)  “What I did, virtually, if you will, is what I would have done if I was here on the ground here in in Seattle,” Barnes told Daniels.

homelessness, Mayor Wilson

Pallet, Company That Built Just-Opened Interbay Shelter, Closes Abruptly


By Erica C. Barnett

Pallet Shelter, a company that manufactures freestanding, one-to-two-person shelter units that has been active in Seattle since 2022, is shutting down effective tomorrow—an abrupt closure that comes just months after the nonprofit Everyone Deserves Housing opened a 75-unit Pallet shelter in Interbay.

Pallet announced the news on its website and in social media posts on Thursday, saying that a lack of funding and a shift in “political priorities” were partly to blame for the company’s shutdown. The company will cease operations on Friday.

“The homelessness response landscape has evolved significantly since Pallet began,” the post on Pallet’s website says. “Communities understand the challenge differently. Customer needs have become more complex. Funding environments and political priorities have shifted. And through nine years of working alongside communities across North America, we have learned an extraordinary amount about what works, what doesn’t, and what is needed next.”

Pallet founder and CEO Amy King did not respond to a request for an interview, and Everyone Deserves Housing director Dan Wise declined to comment.

The closure of Pallet means that the operators of existing Pallet shelters, like the one in Interbay, will have to replace parts and perform maintenance on the units themselves, with the help of a limited warranty that covers “defective” shelter units and an online handbook that includes sources for items that might break, like heaters, locks, and windows.

The Interbay Pallet shelter is one of the first shelters in several years to open under a contract with the city’s Human Services Department rather than the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. The contract, originally for 50 Pallet units with a future expectation of 100 units on site, was amended in April.

The new contract added 25 units, for a total of 75, removed the reference to 100 eventual units, and tripled in cost, from $1.3 million to almost $4 million. A spokeswoman for HSD said the increase “reflects planned phased work that came on incrementally adding budget for scope as it was confirmed.”

Pallet’s shelter units, which are made of plastic and fiberglass panels that flatten for transport, are utilitarian—consisting of little more than a shed with narrow cots that fold down from the walls—but expensive, at almost $20,000 for each micro-modular shelter. That’s almost five times as much as one of the Low-Income Housing Institute’s “tiny houses,” which are made of wood, and almost four times as much as Pallet cited as a starting price for each unit when PubliCola covered their first Seattle shelter in 2022.

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

In an interview on Thursday, Mayor Katie Wilson said she doesn’t believe the closure of Pallet will impede her administration’s ability to keep opening new shelters.

“It’s unfortunate that they’re shutting down, but we will be able to move forward,” Wilson said. “My understanding is that Pallet shutting down is really due to shifts in the availability of public funding—they just don’t have the demand, in terms of purchasing their shelters, that they need to keep them in business.”

In 2024, a fire raced through a Pallet shelter operated by Catholic Community Services on Elliott Ave. W, destroying or damaging 25 of the units and displacing 28 people. Similar fires have occurred in several other Pallet shelters in California, raising concerns about the flammability of the fiberglass-reinforced plastic used in the shelter units.

Wilson said the city will continue to partner with groups like Sound Foundations, which builds wooden “tiny house” units for the Low-Income Housing Institute’s tiny house villages. She said the city is also looking into shelter options that don’t involve micro-modular units, such as shelters inside leased buildings. The HSD spokeswoman said the city is working to “diversify” the types of shelter it provides, saying, “the City’s shelter expansion is not dependent on a single model. It includes tiny houses, leased apartment buildings, and safe lots for vehicles.” The city just put out a new request for qualifications for shelter providers last month.

That has been the case historically, but it’s a departure from the mayor’s initial commitment to focus on creating large new village-style shelters as a way of standing up lots of new shelter quickly.

Since that “shelter accelerator” announcement, the city has opened or announced a net total of 175 new Pallet and tiny house units combined, a fraction of the goal Wilson set of opening 1,000 new shelter beds in her first year.