Strategic Communications Plan for Seattle Affordable Housing and Homelessness

OCCUPANCYMEDIA

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The Right to an Urban HomeETHICAL ISSUES IN ADDRESSING SEATTLE’S

HOUSING AFFORDABILITY CRISIS

By Adrian MacDonaldAugust 20, 2016

ContextPART 1

In the spring and summer of 2016, the median home price in the Seattle area has risen faster than any other city in the nation, at about twice the national rate.

Estimates vary, although the Seattle Times reports that the median house within city limits is now as high as $666,500. This tops the previous record in 2007, at the height of the housing bubble.

The median household income in Seattle was last published at $71,273 in 2014, and is also growing faster than the national average.

However, home prices are growing much faster than incomes. Based on the figure quoted in the Seattle Times, the median home in metro Seattle is priced at about 9x the median household income.

2016

Amazingly, these homes are still considered to be “within reach” by traditional measures because of the extremely low interest rates available on mortgages, currently about 3.7%. Assuming a 20% down payment ($130k+) and a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, the median income in Seattle can theoretically afford the median home price.

And while many buyers cannot afford a 20% down payment, lenders are now offering mortgages with as low as a 3% down payment. These conditions could be partly responsible for the inflation in home prices, combined with other factors, because they increase “demand” from consumers.

At the same time, the supply of housing in Seattle has become more scarce, in part because of the city’s rapidly increasing population. Seattle’s growth rate from 2000 to 2010 was 8%, consistent with growth thoughout the 1990s — but in the 5 years since then, that rate has doubled.

Many observers attribute this to an influx of tech workers employed at rapidly growing companies like Amazon.com. These workers are typically paid much higher than average and thus further drive housing cost inflation in the city. Per capita GDP in Washington State had the highest increase in the country this year.

Amazon Headquarters

Other forces may be at work to reduce housing supply. In 2014, the Seattle Times reported that Wall Street hedge funds had been quietly purchasing large numbers of single-family homes throughout the area, usually at the starter end of the market, paying in cash.

These firms then turn the homes over to property management firms to operate as rentals, while consolidating many homes together as a new kind of security to be sold to international investors. The value of this asset increases with rising rents.

The strategy closely resembles those that led to the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007-2008.

The local real estate industry has sought to downplay fears of a new housing bubble. In May 2016, KIRO reported on Zillow Chief Economist Svenja Gudell’s overview of the housing market to the City Council: “I don’t think we’re seeing a ton of speculation in the Seattle market. People actually want to live in these homes that they’re searching for,” she said. “We’re still seeing an elevated amount of cash buyers but fewer now than we did two years ago.”

“These increases in prices that we’ve been seeing are not driven by investors just trying to flip homes over and over,” she said. “It’s driven by true demand and true limited supply.”

Svenja Gudell, Zillow.com

Construction of new apartment buildings in Seattle is booming, but these increases in supply almost exclusively target the high-income market, and seem to have a buoying effect on rents across entire neighborhoods. The average rent in Seattle is now $2000/mo.

In 2015, over 45,000 Seattle households (one in six) paid more than 50 percent of their income on housing. At such a margin, many households become vulnerable to displacement and eviction. The number of homeless sleeping on the streets of Seattle has grown 73% in the last 5 years, far outpacing the city’s overall population growth of 8%.

Housing affordability disproportionately affects populations of color. The African-American population in Seattle is just 7% and falling.

A recent national study found that the average black family in America has just 6% of the wealth of a typical white family.

In September of 2014, Seattle mayor Ed Murray and the City Council responded to the affordability crisis by creating the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA). The agenda is led by a 28-member stakeholder Advisory Committee including “renters and homeowners, social justice and labor advocates, for-profit and non-profit developers, and other local housing experts.”

After much contentious debate—especially between for-profit and non-profit developers—in August 2015 the committee finally agreed to a set of 64 recommendations that would produce 20,000 new affordable housing units in Seattle over 10 years.

A core recommendation of HALA is the Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) Program, with the goal of creating 6,000 affordable homes over the next 10 years. The program is more commonly known as the “Grand Bargain,” because of the tense negotiations required to reach a compromise between the for-profit development community and low-income housing advocates. In the plan, all for-profit developers in the city will be required to include some proportion of affordable housing in their buildings, or else pay into a fund. In exchange, city zoning policy will be changed to allow developers to build taller and denser projects.

StakeholdersPART 2

David Wertheimer Co-Chair Citizen, Philanthropic Sector

Faith Li Pettis Co-Chair Partner, Pacifica Law Group

Alan Durning Executive Director, Sightline Institute

Betsy Braun Administrative Director of Facilities Management, Virginia Mason

Bill Rumpf President, Mercy Housing Northwest

Catherine Benotto Seattle Planning Commission

Cindi Barker City Neighborhood Council

David Moseley 40 year administrator for Washington State

David Neiman Principal, Neiman Taber Architects

Don Mar Owner, Marpac Construction

Estela Ortega Executive Director, El Centro de la Raza

Gabe Grant Vice President, HAL Real Estate Development

Hal Ferris Principal, Spectrum Development

Jermaine Smiley Washington & N. Idaho District Council of Laborers

Jon Scholes Vice President, Downtown Seattle Association

Jonathan Grant Executive Director, Tenants Union

Kristin Ryan Director, Seattle Office, Jonathan Rose Companies

Lisa Picard Executive Vice President, Skanska

MA Leonard Vice President, Enterprise Community Partners

Maiko Winkler-Chin Executive Director, SCIDpda

Maria Barrientos Owner, Barrientos

Marty Kooistra Executive Director, Housing Development Consortium

Merf Ehman Attorney, Columbia Legal Services

Mitch Brown ASUW Representative

Paul Lambros Executive Director, Plymouth Housing Group

Sean Flynn Board Vice President, Rental Housing Association

Sylvester Cann IV Advocacy Lead, the Road Map Project, CCER

Ubax Gardheere Lead Coalition Organizer, Puget Sound Sage

The HALA Advisory Committee is:

National / Multi-national:• Skanska• Jonathan Rose Companies• HAL Real Estate Development

Local:• Spectrum Development• Neiman Taber Architects• Marpac Construction• Barrientos

Advocacy groups:• Rental Housing Association• Downtown Seattle Association

For-profit developers/builders

Local developers:• Mercy Housing Northwest• El Centro de la Raza• Seattle Chinatown International District

Preservation and Development Authority (SCIDpda)

• Plymouth Housing Group

Advocacy groups:• Housing Development Consortium• Puget Sound Sage• Tenants Union of Washington State

Real estate equity:• Enterprise Community Partners

Non-profit developers/builders

Law firms:• Pacifica Law Group• Columbia Legal Services

Unions:• Washington & N. Idaho District Council of

Laborers

Non-profit organizations:• Sightline Institute• The Road Map Project / Community

Center for Education Results (CCER)

Government agencies:• Seattle Planning Commission• City Neighborhood Council• Washington State

Institutions:• Virginia Mason• Associated Students of the University of

Washington (ASUW)

Others

• Seattle Housing Authority (SHA)

Conspicuously absent?

Breakdown of HALA participating organizations:

Ed Murray (D)Mayor of Seattle

• Elected Mayor 2013

• Washington State Senate - 6 years

• Washington State House of Representatives - 11 years

• Led the creation of the Housing Affordability & Livability Agenda (HALA) committee in 2014

Sally Bagshaw

Rob Johnson

Kshama Sawant

Lorena Gonzales

Mike O’Brien

Debora Juarez

Bruce Harrell

Lisa Herbold

Tim Burgess

2 overlapping subcommittees preside over the HALA-recommended legislation: “Planning, Land Use & Zoning” + “Affordable Housing, Neighborhoods & Finance”

Seattle City Council (elected Nov 2015)

Initiator of the “linkage fees” model

Favors rent control

What are linkage fees?Linkage fees are a policy where a city imposes a fee on market-rate private developers to help subsidize the development of affordable housing. This policy exists in hundreds of U.S. cities, often in combination with an “inclusionary zoning” policy. Inclusionary zoning is a zoning code that requires any new building to include a certain amount of affordable housing at the developer’s expense. Linkage fees in this context can be a way for developers to opt out of the zoning rule by paying a fee, sometimes called an “in-lieu fee.”

An ethical concern with linkage fees is that they can be used to divert low-income housing to the least desirable parts of a city, thus incentivizing economic segregation. Requiring developers to build affordable units on-site ensures lower income populations have access to high-opportunity neighborhoods.

A brief history of linkage fees in Seattle

• Seattle has been experimenting with a “voluntary incentive zoning” policy since 2008, applied only in Downtown and South Lake Union.

• Under the policy, developers are allowed additional building height and size in exchange for either including affordable housing, or paying a linkage fee.

• The program has been a mixed success, as many developers have simply chosen not to build bigger, citing the high cost of steel and concrete in large downtown high-rises.

• Some developers have taken advantage of the program however, usually opting to pay the fee. Some 30 “off-site” affordable housing projects have been built in Seattle funded in part by this program.

• The city works with non-profit developers to build the off-site housing. As seen in the map at right, these projects have in general been well-located in desirable parts of the city.

Sharon LeeLow Income Housing Developer

• Executive Director of the Low Income Housing Institute

• Linkage fees are an important source of capital for development work

• LIHI has developed or participated in developing more than 4,000 affordable units in greater Seattle

• Latest development is a 49-unit apartment building in the U-District for homeless youth with an integrated food bank and rooftop farm

• Famous for developing tiny home villages and tent cities in Seattle for the homeless

“The thing that’s very interesting is we’ve improved the property values next door. We hire really good architects. We don’t make housing look like public housing. We want to look better and be a better neighbor than typical spec development.”

—Sharon Lee, interviewed for this piece

Lee is not part of the HALA advisory committee, but in March 2015, early in the HALA deliberation process, she participated in an independent group of non-profit housing advocates calling itself the Community Housing Caucus. The group was sponsored by city councilmembers Kshama Sawant and Nick Licata, as well as Frank Chopp, Speaker of the Washington State House.

The CHC developed an “immediate action” agenda to address the housing emergency of 2,813 people sleeping unsheltered on the streets. In general, the group opposes the “upzoning” approach that was later adopted in the Grand Bargain. They argue instead that the city should treat the situation as a public health emergency and dedicate its considerable fundraising resources to address the problem directly. A combination of issuing bonds, appropriations from the general fund, and liquidating low-earning investments could raise $600 million up to more than $1 billion. Development costs could be minimized by building on publicly owned land.

“It’s not that we don’t have enough money,” Lee told Crosscut in 2015. “It’s about priorities.”

Lee believes the most critical subsidy needed is to provide housing for people below the 30% median income level, who are trying to get off the streets. Safe shelter is a prerequisite, she says, for improving health and career prospects. Otherwise people will stay homeless indefinitely.

Inclusionary zoning, in her view, is not an appropriate or important solution. She much prefers to receive the linkage fees, and use them to build high quality housing in collaboration with other nonprofit service organizations. The problem is that the linkage fees will be too little, too slowly, and come at the cost of considerable concessions to developers. A better solution is to raise money and land directly, rather than to further subsidize high-income projects with zoning changes.

Marion West, University District

Othello Village

Marty KooistraAffordable Housing Leader

• Member of the HALA Advisory Committee

• Executive Director of the Housing Development Consortium (HDC)

• Former CEO, Habitat for Humanity Seattle-King County, 2008-12

• Fellow in affordable housing and social work at Harvard

• HDC members encompass all of the major nonprofit developers and service professionals in the affordable housing sector of King County

• Promotes collective advocacy, networking, and collaboration

“The Grand Bargain represents a collective shift from self-interest to common interest. No one got to declare themselves the ‘winner.’ We must now continue to replace the lack of trust that stood as the biggest obstacle with a willingness to let go, so that the community can succeed.”

—Marty Kooistra, writing in Stanford Social Innovation Review

Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC)

YWCA

Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI)

Parkview Services

Community Frameworks

Hopelink

SCIDpda*

Bellwether

Pioneer Human Services

YouthCare

Pike Place Market PDA

Habitat for Humanity

Solid Ground

Senior Housing Assistance Group

Compass Housing Alliance

Friends of Youth

HomeSight

Downtown Action to Save Housing (DASH)

Imagine Housing (Eastside)

Capitol Hill Housing

Housing Resources Bainbridge

Plymouth Housing Group*

Mt. Baker Housing

Mercy Housing*

Inter*Im CDA

SouthEast Effective Development (SEED)

El Centro de la Raza*

Nonprofit developers belonging to the Housing Development Consortium:

* Represented on the HALA Advisory Committee

Jack McCulloughLawyer for Big Developers

• Partner in McCullough Hill Leary, 66th floor of the Columbia Center

• Clients include the Gates Foundation, Chris Hansen, Martin Selig

• Key advocate for market-rate developers in negotiating the “Grand Bargain,” threatened to sue the city if developer fees became too onerous

• Peter Eglick, a lawyer often opposing McCullough, calls him “highly ethical, but often wrong.” “Collaboration was easier in the past, when a local developer,

banker and contractor were behind a project. The city’s globalization has eroded some of that trust.”

—Jack McCullough, interviewed by the Seattle Times

McCullough chairs the Coalition for Housing Solutions (CHS), an advocacy group made up of large for-profit developers that support the greater building heights and density promised by the “Grand Bargain.”

The largest financial backer in the group is Vulcan, the real estate firm owned by billionaire Paul Allen, most known for its work in South Lake Union developing high-end market-rate housing and office space for tech companies like Amazon. In 2014, Vulcan entered the affordable housing market as a developer in Yesler Terrace.

Yesler TerraceDeveloped by Seattle Housing Authority, a federally funded agency

Locally based:• AMLI Residential• Bob Dedon, Dedon Consulting• Columbia City Condos• JC Mueller LLC• Judith M Runstad• Kauri Investments, Ltd• Legacy Partners Residential, Inc• Mack Urban• North Way Investments, Inc.• O & S Partners, LLC• Parkstone Properties• Quintana Consulting• Teutsch Partners, LLC• Vulcan

For-profit developers/builders

• Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA)

• Downtown Seattle Association*

• NAIOP (Commercial Real Estate Association), Washington State Chapter

• Rental Housing Association

• Seattle King County REALTORS

• Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce

• Smart Growth Seattle

Trade Groups and Lobbyists

Law firms:• Cairncross & Hempelmann• Charles R. Wolfe, Attorney at Law• Judith M Runstad

Financial services:• Columbia Pacific Advisors• Emerald Bay Equity

Others

Breakdown of Coalition for Housing Solutions members:

* Represented on the HALA Advisory Committee

Lisa Herbold Seattle City Council

Jack McCullough Coalition for Housing

Solutions (CHS)

August 1, 2016

On behalf of CHS, McCullough sends a warning to the Seattle City Council not

to make any of the changes to the Grand Bargain proposed by Councilor Herbold.

He again raises the threat of a lawsuit, and reminds the Council of his group’s large

HALA campaign contributions.

Herbold’s changes would raise the affordable housing requirements in neighborhoods with a high risk of

displacing the poor, or of demolishing “naturally affordable” older buildings.

August 2, 2016

The City Council subcommittee ignores the warning and votes unamimously

to recommend approval of the Grand Bargain including Herbold’s

amendments.

Steering Committee Co-Chairs: McCullough and Kooistra

In late 2015, an advocacy group called Seattle for Everyone formed to maintain support for HALA’s 64 policy recommendations, among them the Grand Bargain. The group bridges all of HALA’s stakeholder perspectives, including for-profit developers as well as advocates of affordable housing, social justice, and the environment. The Coalition for Housing Solutions and the Housing Development Consortium are key leaders of this cooperative handshake.

Roger ValdezLobbyist for Small Developers

• “evangelist for growth and free-market economics”

• writes for Forbes and Seattle Metropolitan

• outspoken critic of HALA and the Grand Bargain, believes Seattle for Everyone is a sham organization funded by Vulcan

• pro-density, anti-rent control, anti-”linkage fees,” anti-NIMBYism, promotes neoliberal philosophy

• leads Smart Growth Seattle, an advocacy group sponsored by groups like the Master Builders Association

“Tonight, thousands of people will sleep in cars, tents, or in doorways. The stubborn resistance to the simple fact of supply and demand and the argument that building new housing displaces people is slowing production by promoting policies that further restrict new housing. That is harmful to poor people.”

—Roger Valdez, writing in Forbes

What is neoliberalism? Refers primarily to the 20th century resurgence of 19th century ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism. These include extensive economic liberalization policies such as privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade, and reductions in government spending in order to enhance the role of the private sector in the economy. The implementation of neoliberal policies and the acceptance of neoliberal economic theories in the 1970s are seen by some academics as the root of financialization, with the financial crisis of 2007–08 as one of the ultimate results.

August 2, 2016

Seattle voters approve a $290 million affordable housing levy by a landslide, with no organized opposition. The money is expected to provide 2,150 affordable units.

August 16, 2016

Seattle City Council unanimously approves a regulatory framework for implementing HALA’s “Grand Bargain.” The measure will require market-rate residential developers to include affordable housing in their projects, or pay into a fund. The deal is expected to provide 6,000 affordable units over 10 years.

2016: A summer of optimism

The housing levy focuses mainly on low-income housing for those at 30% of area median income, as well as some “workforce housing” at 60%. But what about our homelessness crisis? Providing for up to 30% median income is already spread too thin to cover the amount needed to address our 0%, who have no power. At the same time, we should be thinking long-term about a policy that covers all the way up to 120%.

The Grand Bargain cannot go into effect until the City Council implements multi-family upzoning in all of the areas of the city where it is intended to apply. Seattle’s single-family neighborhoods have been notorious for opposing density and will not make this process easy. The mayor has made recent changes in how his office relates to the city’s neighborhood councils.

2017: A year of discussion

StrategyPART 3

Communications Challenge To communicate the complexity and nuances of affordable housing

issues to a broad audience, bringing out key ethical questions at stake and building political will among Seattle voters and stakeholders for

increased urgency and creativity in addressing the crisis.

Theory of Change If x, then y, because z

x = our projecty = social change

z = our project has superpowers

we create an engaging documentary video narrative to discuss issues and viewpoints

surrounding housing affordability and livability,

If x:

we will increase awareness and comprehension of the issues at stake,

build political will for creative solutions, and change how the conversation is framed in

places of power.

then y:

the interviewees are highly articulate thinkers about urban change and passionately invested in the future of Seattle housing

and

we will compare and contrast viewpoints to dispel myths and misdirections, distill out critical questions as we learn more

and

we will punctuate the discussion with animated infographics and imagery of housing circumstances at different income levels

because z:

“The awakening of empathy within audiences’ hearts is part of the intangible magic of documentary film.”

1. Story is everything2. Build a strategy3. Who are the key audiences?4. Filmmakers don’t have to do and be

everything.5. The story beyond the film—getting the issue

out there.6. Resources (and partnerships) accelerate

impact.7. Tracking impact.8. The landscape is changing, and fast.

Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival

Social Change Documentary

8 KEY FACTORS IN DOCUMENTARY IMPACT

Bully (2011)• Built a social

change movement in school curricula

• 3.2 million kids have seen it

• Changed status quo rationale about the problem

Tales from the Organ Trade (2013)

• Legal, moral, ethical exploration

• “Grass-tops” effort—mainstream media generated buzz

• Opened up taboo discussions at medical conferences

Herman’s House (2012)

• A story about a relationship between a prisoner and an artist, that becomes an investigation of justice and punishment

• Tool for prison activists fighting against solitary confinement

The Invisible War (2012)

• Investigative documentary about the epidemic of rape in the US military

• Penetrated to high-level Pentagon officials and White House, inspired 30 pieces of legislation

Compelling Story

Awareness

Engagement

Stronger Movement

Social Change

Defining ImpactSocial and cultural change that has been driven by a documentary film and its associated campaign strategy:

• Who or what changes?

• How to distinguish change in individuals, groups, organizations, governments, societies?

• Over what time frame?

• Is it really possible to measure?

• Is there a perceivable shift in behaviors, beliefs, and values?

• Are there legislative or policy shifts?

Story is everything

The story of HALA and affordable housing policy in Seattle is full of smart, diverse, empathetic characters, with complex protagonists and antagonists.

Seattle’s growing community of homeless living in makeshift street shelter are a sociological laboratory of human drama — at odds against the philosophical ideas of the powerful.

Seattle is one of the fastest urbanizing cities in the United States — a city of embarrassing technological riches from a gritty industrial past. Many ask, is Seattle losing its soul? What does that even mean for a city to have a ‘soul’?

Build a strategy

a. Who we want to reach

Voting urban dwellers, especially in Seattle, who want to participate in a conversation about cities, and the kind of city we want to live in.

Policymakers, like the Seattle City Council, as well as thought leaders in public policy like the members of HALA, the Community Housing Caucus, and Seattle for Everyone.

Keywords: urbanism, homelessness, income inequality, racial inequality, urban sociology, global economics, social change organizations, architecture, city planning.

b. How we want to engage the audience

Focus on people—understanding housing experiences at every income segment from 0% to 1000% area median, not skipping the middle class.

Reality show remix of stories as they play out in real people’s lives, united by the basic human need for shelter. Opportunities for interesting juxtapositions and story arcs, contrasting current policy debates with direct observation of resident experiences.

A call to action for Seattle residents to actively form opinions about potential solutions to homelessness and housing affordability, to continue the discussion in their communities, and to build political will to try promising new ideas.

c. Goals

• Influence public policy: increase creativity and innovation in Seattle housing policy

• Shift culture: No more passive stances toward houding affordability and homelessness based on apathy, invisibility, or ignorance

• Get the film in front of 1 million urban residents

• Raise public awareness about the scale and negative effects of unaffordable housing, and the political dialogue unfolding on the issue in real time

• Reframe the issue, putting our urban future in the hands of people rather than the market

• Raise visibility of the nonprofit development community and support its economic development as a viable industry

d. Strategy

• Wide reach with the networks of organizations already formed on these issues

• Leverage multi-media partners to lift profile of the project

• Work with the existing movement, creating an authentic relationship with audiences

• Create powerful cross-sector partnerships with public, private, and nonprofit sectors

• Give voice to poor, homeless, and marginalized people in the campaign to build empathy for the problem

• Coordinate campaign launches and events with episode screenings and tapings

• Distribution on public television in addition to online channels

Exploration Interviews• Dry run, rookie mistakes

• Choosing a quiet yet interesting interview site, guaging lighting and background frame

• Equipment checklists, triple-check the audio!

• 30-40 minute interviews, good length for editing

• Deceptively difficult process of achieving comfort level on both sides

• Illustrating narrative descriptions with B-roll

Cary Moon - Activist and writer - Just published a 4-part series in The Stranger on the housing crisis - First source for background research and contacts - Masters of Landscape Architecture from University of Pennsylvania

Cary Moon highlights Housing is a human right, just the same way clean water is a human right, or being able to go to the emergency room, or have the ambulance come to your house is a human right. Those are the things that make society healthy.

Housing is a human right in a lot of places in the world — Germany and Vienna are two examples. There are many different ways to approach affordable housing and a million great ideas waiting to be discovered.

The first time you decide you fall in love with cities, wherever you came from, whatever your educational background is, there are a few basic elements people always appreciate. One is people coming together and inventing stuff and watching what each other’s doing and being inspired by one another. The other is feeling like you can make your city —you have to have access to help shape it through constructive positive interaction with your fellow humans.

Cary Moon highlights One of the biggest solutions we can do locally right now is find the political will to get a ton of money into the pipeline to build non-profit and public housing.

This idea that housing is something the free market is going to provide, and we have to beg the developers, you know, please make housing for us—we shouldn’t play that game. Upzoning is part of it, but the bulk of the solution is elsewhere. It’s getting enough non-profit affordable housing into our system so that people at middle to low incomes can stay here.

There are like a thousand ideas for how to do this, so there’s not really like one funding source and one answer, there’s a whole bunch of everything. If we can just rally around, “the way we’re working on this is not enough, we need much bigger tools, and much more solutions on the table” — I have faith in Seattle.

Cary Moon highlights Some examples of those great ideas:

• high-earners income tax;

• getting rid of some of the Boeing tax breaks;

• a capital gains tax;

• real estate excise tax – increasing that for the luxury properties;

• using the city and the county’s bonding capacity to build housing;

• getting philanthropists to help pay for buying land and operating it as a community land trust;

• co-op housing, basically getting bridge loans and philanthropy to help establish people who live in an apartment building buying the building and keeping it in community ownership so the rents stay affordable.

Cary Moon highlights On HALA: the Mayor’s idea was to put a bunch of competing stakeholders – you know, people with a completely different idea of how to solve the problem – in the room at the same time and make them come to an agreement. And that’s nice in theory, but in reality, some people have a lot more power than other people. Wealth is power. And if the developers of the city band together and say, we will veto any of those solutions, and sue you, what’s the mayor doing to do? They’re going to cave.

John Chau - Design Partner at LMN Architects - 36 years of experience in Seattle, Singapore, and Hong Kong - Sought-after designer of commercial and residential high-rise towers - First source for understanding the market-rate perspective

John Chau highlights There’s some misconception about affordable housing, as to whether it’s treated as less special or whatnot. From the standpoint of planning and laying out a (large, urban) building, there is no difference between including affordable housing and so-called market rate housing... If you were to go into the unit, you wouldn’t know which one was affordable housing unit and which was market rate.

The units that get assigned to become affordable come way after the project is designed. It’s not like, we’re going to put 30 of the affordable units here, so let’s make it cheap. It’s not like that. It’s like you design the project for all the units that make sense, and then they get assigned subsequently. (speaking from his experience designing Stadium Place)

This shortage of affordable housing is not going to go away. I think we all need to get into it and figure out how to solve it. HALA is a wonderful first step.

John Chau highlights I believe that diversity is actually attractive as part of urban living, and when I say diversity it’s not just about racial or gender, but it’s economic in this case. I think that’s actually healthy. So short answer is, I think putting (affordable units) onsite is better—it makes the project more desirable.

If you look at Singapore, Hong Kong, that is serious density. And it’s just as livable if it’s done right. In those cities, between market-rate housing and affordable housing, the cost differential is so vast that actually the government is the one that builds affordable housing. The towers are all the same height, tall towers, and often they are across the street from a tower that is private development. There shouldn’t be any difference when density is done right.

I would also add to that, when we talk about affordable housing, and with the expansion of light rail and public transit, density only makes sense if there’s great public transportation at scale.

John Chau highlights When I lived in Hong Kong, the government had a whole architecture department as part of their planning department that actually plans and designs a lot of the government buildings and housing towers. Affordable housing towers are actually planned by a government agency that serves as both the architecture firm and the developer. They build towers next to other towers that a private developer built. So it’s inclusive in the neighborhood sense, not in the strata between say floors 5 and 6. Over here though, we’re just kind of taking the first step in terms of including it in projects.

I think it’s great that we’re talking about HALA, and we’re talking about affordable housing. What are we doing for the homeless? I feel like the urgency is even higher. What have we done the last couple of years now, what are doing collectively? There’s a lot of talk about trying to do something, but I don’t know what is being done. That is something I extremely support if there’s a plan to do something about it. Not to undermine or trivialize the affordable housing need that we have. But homelessness is such a day to day, it’s today,

John Chau highlights I believe in density, we have to make sure we don’t overuse the natural resources we have, plain and simple. I think it’s a better city. It’s more liveable, it’s more exciting. And in the long run it uses less energy. Density matters. Now, density can be kind of dangerous because a lot of times you use the word without thinking about it — if we have cities with a lot of towers and density, how do we balance that with enough outdoor spaces and open spaces? And if I may specifically about downtown Seattle, aside from affordability, the problem we have is we don’t have a fricken school. You know? That’s one way to help solve it. Have an elementary school, have a middle school as part of the mix.

I don’t know where it’s going, there’s been an eyesore, a hole in front of our City Hall for what, 10 years? Let’s make it a park, with open space, a school, and an affordable housing tower. How about that? That would be awesome. I’m only half joking, I’m trying to find a way to push for that.

Sharon Lee - Executive Director of the Low Income Housing Institute

- largest and most innovative nonprofit developer working in Seattle

- responsible for creating Seattle’s tent cities and tiny home villages

- Masters in Architecture and City Planning from MIT

Sharon Lee highlights We had to overcome significant obstacles to build this building. The first was we were turned down for funding. Essentially, some of the, I hate to say this, but some of the bureaucrats, said oh, we should put housing for homeless young adults in south King County, because that’s where a lot of low income young adults are, and they should be able to stay in their community and be able to access services. So we had to overcome this sense that the U District was not appropriate and that people who are homeless in Auburn, Federal Way, Tukwila, Kent, should stay in their own community. Which is ridiculous if you think about it – if you were a middle class, young person, or a wealthy young person, who wouldn’t want to be in the U District? This is a place of opportunity.

Homeless young adults are never seen as a category for the market to house. So we’ve been on this campaign for a number of years that this is a really unmet need. I went down to Olympia a few years ago, and I met with Senator Ed Murray. And I said Ed, this is project is in your district, and we need housing for homeless young adults, and he was just absolutely terrific. He said Sharon, how much do you need?

Sharon Lee highlights (Marion West) is permanent housing. We know that, especially the young adults, they’ll move on, they’re not going to stay here for the rest of their lives. But it’s a place to get their life together, so that when they transition to become adults, they will not end up homeless, and not end up chronically homeless.

The unit design is essentially market rate if not better, but they’re going to be extremely affordable. The young adults will be paying 30% of their income. So their rent might be $50, or it might be $75, but as their income increases, then their rent will increase proportionately, and it’ll still be affordable. The workforce units are pegged at people making 50-60% of the Area Median Income. And they’re nice sized studio units. They’re not like these claustrophobic micro units that are 400 something square feet.

Sharon Lee highlights it’s sort of a hidden issue, but can you imagine trying to sleep on the street when you’re at your most vulnerable? People are dying not just from the cold, but they’re dying from violence, from sexual assault, from suicide, because it’s so traumatic trying to sleep on the street. So I think there were 91 men and women who died, just from being homeless, last year, in Seattle and King County. And I think that should be unacceptable. Why should we have a death rate from being homeless?

A lot of people are being evicted. And then they stay at their friend’s house, and after a while that doesn’t work, and they try to live in their car for a while, and then their car gets towed or their camper will get towed. So people are trying to survive. And I think this should not happen in this wonderful city. With this great safety net system that we’re supposed to have, we really need to prioritize the most vulnerable.

Sharon Lee highlights I think housing is a human need, and housing is a human right. Housing is the platform, if you want people to get the most out of their education, like children, and people who are not well to get well, or make the best use of mental health treatment, they cant be out on the street! You’ve got to house them and work from there.

Under the housing levy, I think we’ll only build like 600 or 700 units of housing for homeless people. And then the rest would be for higher income people. So one thing we think is needed is for the city council and the mayor to commit other city funds.

All the cranes, and all the commercial development, and all the luxury housing being built is being paid into the city’s tax base. Those funds are not being used for low-income housing. So I think a portion of the city budget that’s related to all this new development should be devoted to low income housing. But a lot of the density bonus money is tied into affordable workforce housing, not for homeless housing.

Sharon Lee highlights We have found out that a lot of people who are homeless are actually our neighbors. They lived in West Seattle, they grew up there, they lived in Ballard. Actually I think a large number lived in Seattle and they were forced out because of the rents, and they moved to South King County, but they were originally from Seattle. I mean, 55% of the renters of color are cost-burdened and cannot afford to pay the rent.

We go out of our way to pick neighborhoods where it makes sense to have income integration and racial integration. We want people to be in places of opportunity. We want people to enjoy what every middle class family wants. So we don’t say, oh, we’re just going to find land in the cheapest part of the city and put all that housing there.

Sharon supports off-site housing funds, because the city can go to nonprofit organizations, which in some cases provide services, and help create a community.

Sharon Lee highlights We create lots of jobs. Believe me the nonprofit housing sector, and the thing that’s very interesting is we’ve improved the property value of the properties next door... And the trick is – you guys should understand this – we hire really good architects. And we don’t make housing look like its public housing. And we also hire terrific contractors. So we want to look better and be a better neighbor than typical spec development.

The neighbors are thrilled, because their number one complaint is that we’re going to decrease their property values, and we’re going to affect the equity they’ve built up. And we prove otherwise.

The subsidy that’s really really important is for people who are exiting homelessness. They can’t pay very much, but once they start a job and get promoted and sort of work on their careers, then their incomes can go up. But it’s a timing factor. We want people to increase their household income. And we want them to increase their self-sufficiency. So we do need rental assistance very early on. Otherwise people would just stay homeless. You don’t want people staying homeless living in a shelter their whole life.

Sharon Lee highlights If you look at some of the European countries, they make a significant investment in the housing infrastructure. And that’s sorely needed here. I think we have a sense that oh, the private sector should take care of it here. Frankly the biggest subsidy here is for upper middle class and wealthy individuals through the mortgage interest deduction.

There are lots of ways we can generate more resources for affordable housing. I think we have to be creative and it can happen.

Seattle’s black population is down to 7 percent and going down even more, let alone the Native American population and Hispanic population. Do you realize a quarter or a half the black population in Seattle lives in Rainier Valley, and Rainier Valley with Sound Transit is getting gentrified. And there’s lots of displacement, and rents have skyrocketed. So we’re sort of losing our soul here.

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