
As PubliCola prepares to endorse candidates in the August 3 mayoral and council primary elections, we reached out to the leading candidates for mayor and City Council Position 9 with questions about homelessness, housing, police accountability, and economic recovery.
Their answers to these questions, which we’ll be sharing over the next several days, will help inform our endorsements, coming out next week. Endorsements will be based on each candidate’s record of action, public statements, interviews with PubliCola and other media outlets, and responses at the many candidate forums that have taken place over the summer.
First up: Newcomer Andrew Grant Houston, an architect, housing advocate, and impressive fundraiser whose future-oriented platform would bring transformative change. Houston wants to increase the minimum wage to $23 an hour, build 2,500 tiny homes for people living unsheltered, use neighborhood planning to develop Barcelona-style “car-light” superblocks, and cut the Seattle Police Department’s budget in half, redirecting the $138 million in savings to other purposes.
Here’s what Houston, who is currently outpacing longtime council members Bruce Harrell and Lorena González on both overall fundraising and number of contributors, had to say in response to the eight questions PubliCola posed to every mayoral candidate.
PubliCola: Assuming Charter Amendment 29 becomes law in Seattle, what city programs would you cut or deprioritize in order to dedicate 12 percent of the city’s general-fund budget to human services, and how would you go about adding 2,000 new shelter or housing spots by the end of next year?
Andrew Grant Houston: The money to fulfill the 12% will come from SPD, though based on interpretation of the current budget, that would only be a reallocation of 1% of the General Fund. I already have a plan for 2,500 tiny homes, recognizing that in Seattle there are close to 3,300 unsheltered individuals by an undercount. These homes plus CM Lewis’ “It Takes a Village” plan should be enough to ensure that, at the very least, we make sure everyone is inside by the end of next year.
Local elected officials and candidates have often emphasized the need to revitalize downtown Seattle as the primary focus of post-COVID recovery. What is one specific action you would take in Seattle’s non-downtown neighborhoods to promote economic recovery and neighborhood vitality?
We need economic recovery no matter where people live or where a business is located. The answer is ultimately short and long-term action that gives people financial stability when it comes to wages, rent, childcare, and housing affordability/availability in our city. We must do what is just and effective to continue financial protections for individuals.
“I remain the only candidate for Mayor with a plan to expand public restrooms, recognizing that when people have places to go (whether housed or unhoused) as well as specific places to dispose of sharps and trash, we reduce the number of biohazards in our public realm.”
That said, we can promote economic and neighborhood vitality by improving the public realm and making it such that people want to spend time on our streets frequenting local businesses. This is what my “Retake the Right of Way” policy proposal is all about: when we replace space for cars with space for bikes, walking/rolling, and even street cafes, people want to spend more time in our neighborhood centers. Plenty of data and studies show that protected bike lanes actually increase the amount of customers a business sees, so let’s do everything we can to encourage sustainability—environmentally and economically.
There is general consensus around the need to replace some functions of the police department with non-policing alternatives, such as civilian crisis responders. What gaps in Seattle’s non-police public safety network can be filled on the shortest timeline, and which are the most pressing priorities?
I would normally start with the transfer of Parking Enforcement to SDOT, however that is already happening and being worked on by Council. The next step, then, is to expand the Public Safety Coordinator from a singular position in South Park to creating no less than seven in each council district. This is a version of public safety that has seen success and is enjoyed by the residents of the neighborhood, so let’s expand this visible network of resources to other parts of Seattle. Continue reading “PubliCola Questions: Andrew Grant Houston”