By Erica C. Barnett
This week’s “Seattle Nice” offers a preview of the upcoming campaigns for and against the initiative to fund social housing, I-137, which will go on the February ballot next to a competing measure from the city council that would provide a much smaller amount of funding for traditional affordable housing. I argue that by taking the unusual step of pitting social housing against affordable housing on the ballot, the council is attempting to thwart a proposal that enjoys broad voter support; Sandeep counters that the new social housing developer has no experience building housing yet, so they need guardrails to prevent them from wasting taxpayer money.
As we’ve reported, Initiative 137 would fund the social housing developer created by last year’s I-135, imposing a 5 percent tax, paid by businesses, on workers’ earnings in excess of $1 million a year, which the campaign estimates would bring in about $50 million a year. The money would be used to purchase or build an estimated 2,000 permanently affordable homes, at a wide range of incomes, over 10 years. The plan assumes that nearly half the residents of social housing would be higher-income tenants—those making between 80 percent and 120 percent of Seattle’s median income—and that these tenants would subsidize rents for lower-income renters.
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The council’s alternative, in contrast, would kneecap the social housing developer by providing just $10 million a year, for five years, to build standard affordable housing for people making less than 80 percent of median income; this type of housing requires ongoing operations subsidies, because it has no higher-income residents to subsidize rents. The council’s plan would also nix the new tax, taking money out of the existing JumpStart payroll tax fund, which currently funds other affordable housing projects, to pay for this affordable housing—a zero-sum game that pits affordable housing developers against each other.
Assuming there’s no legal challenge (the city charter requires competing council initiatives to be on the “same subject” as the measures they’re attempting to defeat, and there’s a real question about whether social housing and standard affordable housing are similar enough to meet that standard), both I-137 and the council alternative will be on the ballot next February. I’m confident we’ll be talking (and arguing) a lot more about the proposals between now and then.
Also: We talked briefly about proposed $50,000 bonuses for new police officers hired from other departments. SPD is the only city department routinely allowed to keep funding for hundreds of unfilled positions and use it for virtually any purpose.
Wow…. 2,000 units… half of which are for people who are not poor.
So the “social housing” folks will create 1,000 units in 10 years. Oh, and they won’t necessarily “create” new units because one of the options is to buy current buildings and make them “social”… so just re-purposing existing stock. Think about that.
This is such a waste of time and money. I get it that the socialists think this is some kind of magic bullet for homelessness (because socialists are bad when it comes to details and actual plans and funding)… but this isn’t going to do a damn thing for affordability or a reduction in the homeless population. Too bad Erica is too blind to see it.