by Josh Feit
Last week, I channeled the progressive opposition to what I’m calling the sweeps and shelter initiative—a proposed charter amendment that couples spending on homelessness with a trigger for sweeps.
Short version: Combining these divergent approaches in one initiative is an attempt by pro-sweeps liberals to rationalize a law-and-order crackdown on homeless people by co-opting “compassion.” The amendment literally codifies the “Of course we’re compassionate, but…” mantra into the city charter. The tell: There’s no funding for the housing part of the initiative.
This week, I’ll channel the urbanist argument against the charter amendment, which begins, actually, with the one pro-urbanist element of the proposal: It says “to accelerate the production of emergency and permanent housing” the city “shall, to the full extent permitted by state law, waive land use code and regulation requirements as necessary to urgently site [emergency and permanent housing]…”
It goes on to say the city must waive permitting fees, put projects first in line to expedite permitting, and refund city-imposed project costs. Hear, hear!
This nod to YIMBYism correctly identifies that Seattle’s land use and zoning codes squash housing development.
Unfortunately, this promising language ends up highlighting the limited scope of the charter amendment. The rules are only waived for “housing serving homeless individuals.”
The urbanist approach to homelessness understands that the problem is larger than its symptoms—homelessness—by identifying the cause of homelessness: A dearth of affordable housing.
But the charter amendment misses this larger, systematic problem and then exacerbates it by opting for liberal tinkering. The amendment calls for 12 percent of the city’s general fund (about $190 million) to go to shelter and services through a new human services fund, or about one percent higher than what the city will spend this year. Slightly recalibrating the city budget this way to dedicate money to homelessness, creating the illusion of action, will unwittingly promote this type of spending as the solution, and take political pressure off the city to do what actually needs to be done: Change the city’s zoning rules, so we can meet housing demand with housing supply. For example, 75 percent of the city’s residential land is currently zoned exclusively for detached single-family houses. If you haven’t heard, prohibiting multifamily housing is class war from above.
Spending more dollars on the symptoms of housing scarcity, such as tents in parks, will take the city’s eyes of the actual problem: Housing scarcity.
Spending more dollars to address the symptoms of housing scarcity, such as tents in parks, will take the city’s eyes off the actual problem: Housing scarcity. As I said, Seattle currently spends about $190 million on programs for people experiencing homelessness, including shelter. While I’m all for increasing those dollars to help people in crisis, I don’t harbor any illusions that it’s the way to end the crisis.
The only way to do that is to understand that the real crisis is the affordable housing crisis and the real solution is to build more affordable housing stock. All told, through the Housing Levy, the Mandatory Housing Affordability program, incentive zoning, the Multi-Family Housing Tax Exemption program, and other funds, Seattle spent around $115 million on affordable housing in 2020.
It’s clearly not enough. The money translated into about 1,300 affordable units, or about 11,000 units shy of what we need to be creating annually. In order to reset our housing economy so more people can actually afford to live here, we need a total of 244,000 net new affordable homes by 2040, according to the King County’s Regional Affordable Housing Task Force. Our current spending doesn’t come close.
Talking in regional numbers brings up another urbanist critique of the charter amendment proposal: An isolated Seattle response to homelessness will be about as successful as a climate action policy that caps carbon emissions in New York, but not in Texas. Urbanism is about community: creating sustainable metro regions that are connected by sympatico transit, land use, environmental, and housing policy. It’s why we created the King County Regional Homelessness Authority last year, and recently hired a CEO. Seattle shouldn’t undermine this approach, particularly not with a charter amendment that awkwardly justifies a crackdown policy.
Our homelessness policy needs to be about building more affordable housing. An affordable housing approach will check poverty and the downward spiral into homelessness. The cruelty of the sweeps and shelter initiative is that it blames homeless people for the homelessness crisis. It’s like addressing police murders of African Americans by telling African Americans to stop getting pulled over.
Josh@PubliCola.com
Seattle needs more affordable housing for low income residents. Very few people would argue against this. Changes to the zoning code would be helpful. The argument that changes to the zoning code are going to be a panacea to addressing homelessness is speculative. Allowing for increased density in some single-family neighborhoods, which I support, will mostly lead to more market-rate housing, not low cost housing. I see this all over Capitol Hill. There currently are no incentives for developers to build housing for this population and little financial assistance for renters/buyers. Building affordable housing for the homeless population presents even bigger challenges.
Homelessness was declared an emergency in this city over 5 years ago and little to nothing has been done and the problem is only getting worse. People should not be living outdoors in tents or cars. The City Council and the Mayor have shown little leadership or understanding of what to do. The proposed Homelessness Charter Amendment is not perfect, but it is an effort by some people to force some action by the City to do something. Actually build or develop housing for this population without further delay. Josh Feit is asking the residents of Seattle and the homeless population to wait until a more perfect solution can be found. Most Seattle residents, including those currently homeless, just want to see some action taken. Is this asking for too much?
Terry: Your comments are reasonable and rational. However, what people should know is how Seattle got to this point and what is going to happen next if we keep doing the same thing. This is explained in a YouTube video by Glen Morgan called: “How to Turn Your State Blue”.
Josh: Everything you believe about the un-housed is built on the flawed assumption that they have no choice except to remain un-housed. That is wrong. That is a lie. At least half of them could contribute something of value but they choose not to because of all the free stuff they can get. I keep a running list of Seattle’s free stuff and I have repeated it in this space. Your beliefs are based on a proven lie, yet you continue to lie. Josh says: “We must hand out more free stuff. YES. That will solve the problem if we can steal money from those bad people who produce value”. The phrase “affordable housing” is the equivalent of stealing from the productive class and handing part of the value to those who did nothing for it. You may have taken the wrong classes in college. You lack the intelligence to understand this, but here is one way the state it: Artificially lowering rent payment is the monetary equivalent of giving away some housing for free. My Seattle friends just moved from West Seattle to Texas. Do you see a trend here? Yes, the money and talent leaves when Progressives take over. Progressives like you Josh. Seattle will become another example of what NOT to do. Plus, the more you fail, the more entertaining it is for those of us who know how to succeed.