It’s Particular Election Time! The place the turnout is low and the measures are further complicated.
By now, it’s best to have already got your poll in hand—or in that pile of mail you swear you’ll get round to. This time, we’re voting on if/ fund a social housing developer, and persevering with to shut the state’s funding hole for Seattle faculties. Let’s dive in.
Metropolis of Seattle, Proposition Nos 1A and 1B:
Vote for 1A to fund our social housing developer in a sustainable, actionable means.
This one has a variety of shifting components, so it’s useful to have some backstory. It begins with I-135, a poll measure in 2023 (that we additionally endorsed). Two years in the past, Home Our Neighbors, the coverage arm of Actual Change newspapers, introduced Seattle a brand new concept: a legislation to create a social housing developer. And 57 % of you voted to make it occur.
The Seattle Social Housing Developer provides town an opportunity at long-term inexpensive housing. They are going to be geared up with the instruments to “construct, purchase, personal, and handle” housing that, if achieved accurately, will completely keep inexpensive. As a substitute of market-rate housing, which has turn out to be chronically inaccessible for low- and middle-income earners, or government-subsidized housing, which will be put again on the unaffordable market in 20 or 30 years, social housing is publicly owned and operated, out of the arms of personal, money-grubbing middlemen, and rents are endlessly capped at 30 % of a tenant’s revenue.
We stated it then, and we’ll say it once more: Our public housing developer is not going to resolve the speedy housing disaster. However with sufficient time and political will, this resolution might finish Seattle’s affordability disaster.
Okay, so what does this need to do with Prop 1 in 2025? This initiative really funds our social housing developer.
The Sure/No vote reaffirms what we’ve already voted on: Sure, we would like a social housing developer. Prop 1A and 1B are the 2 doable ways in which it may very well be funded.
1A represents the funding mannequin proposed by Home Our Neighbors (HON), who envisioned this social housing endeavor. Below this mannequin, the buildings’ prices are recouped by the tenants’ hire, functioning virtually as a sliding scale: Residents could make anyplace from 0 to 120 % of the world’s median revenue (AMI); as a result of each tenant pays 30 % of their revenue, the wealthier tenants successfully subsidize the decrease revenue residents. Fairness!
To fund the remainder of the challenge, 1A creates a brand new payroll tax on employers—5 % on annual compensation above $1 million paid to any worker within the metropolis. This ongoing tax might generate as a lot as $50 million in its first yr and turn out to be a long-term funding supply for social housing.
Now, Prop 1B is the choice funding supply proposed by the Chamber of Commerce and metropolis council, who don’t need a new tax on town’s companies. Quite than funding a brand new concept with a brand new tax, 1B would pull $10 million a yr from the Jumpstart payroll tax (sound acquainted?) for simply 5 years. In the case of actual property, $10 million doesn’t get you very far in Seattle. (And if we hold attempting to make use of Jumpstart for every little thing, it received’t be good for something.)
It additionally undermines the “sliding scale” mannequin as a result of Jumpstart funds can solely be used for models that serve individuals who earn 80 % AMI or beneath, fairly than 1A’s 120 %. This solely works if richer individuals can subsidize housing for his or her poorer neighbors. That’s the “social” half.
Remember that social housing is new to Seattle, but it surely’s not a brand new concept. Vienna, Finland, and Singapore have all used it efficiently to deal with housing shortages; And right here within the U.S., Montgomery County, Maryland, has established its personal public developer.
The chamber desires to spook us with the truth that the developer isn’t staffed (proper now they solely have a CEO), and stated repeatedly throughout our endorsement assembly that they “had no plan.” However we don’t discover that concern cheap. In our endorsement assembly, HON acknowledged that the developer isn’t established but; They do plan to employees up—which might’t occur with out $$$—and as soon as they’ve that employees, they’ll be geared up to show these admittedly lofty objectives into an actionable plan.
Would we want to see a extra established developer at this level? Sure! Have they been given the assets to take action? No! Does that imply we shouldn’t give them the assets to do exactly that? No! Within the meantime, the Low Earnings Housing Institute (which, most notably, has managed lots of the metropolis’s tiny dwelling villages, and bigger developments across the state) has provided to supply sensible help (together with compliance, design, and technical experience) whereas the developer builds its staffing infrastructure—which, we must always point out, didn’t assuage the Chamber’s issues, however we agree it might undeniably assist the developer get their toes beneath them.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge that there’s a small Vote No contingency. They argue that we shouldn’t spend cash on social housing when now we have the speedy want for shelter beds at the moment. We agree that now we have an pressing want for shelter. However we don’t consider this can be a zero-sum recreation. If we don’t put money into long-term options, too, we’ll hold discovering ourselves proper again the place we are actually.
This can be a model new proposition on this metropolis, and we’re not arguing that it’s excellent, but it surely’s greater than ok that our metropolis ought to let the general public developer discover no matter kinks there could also be and work them out. We’re in a housing disaster. We are able to’t afford to take a seat on our arms. The potential of issues, that are inevitable with any new resolution, shouldn’t be sufficient to dissuade us from daring motion. We have to give social housing an actual likelihood in Seattle, and the one means to try this is to fund it.
So vote Sure on Proposition 1, and vote for 1A.
Colleges, Proposition 1:
We’re a levy city. We like to go ‘em. And we predict that’s nice. They fund transit! They fund faculties! We love these items!
This time, we’re funding faculties, and the district is proposing two levies that, mixed, come out to about $2.5 billion. Earlier than we dive in, although, let’s discuss concerning the elephant within the room. After the district threatened to shut as many as 21 faculties final yr, these levies are beneath extra scrutiny than typical. The chaotic back-and-forth didn’t encourage public confidence within the district’s funds, or how they had been being managed. We agree that the district’s actions warrant scrutiny. However whether or not or not we really feel assured in how they’re spending this cash, youngsters nonetheless have to indicate as much as college every single day, by legislation. And if we require them to be in these buildings day in, time out, they deserve a secure, clear, supportive surroundings.
Now for the following query: “Aren’t our faculties funded by the state?” you ask? Sure! They need to be. And for essentially the most half, they’re. However the funding falls in need of our districts’ wants, so statewide, districts have been compelled to complement what we get from the state with levies like these.
Prop 1 makes use of a property tax that covers about 16 % of our working prices. (The Feds cowl lower than 10 %, and the remainder is roofed by the state.) This yr, Prop 1 would cowl a 3rd of the districts’ particular training prices, and supply funding for arts, athletics, safety specialists, and multilingual staffers.
If final yr’s college closure panic taught us something, it’s that our district’s funding is on a razor’s edge. We are able to’t afford to lose this funding.
Vote Sure on Proposition 1.
Colleges, Proposition 2
Now for the massive one. Prop 2 proposes $1.8 billion for a “capital levy.”
What’s the distinction? This one doesn’t simply buoy the district financially—it permits for funding in buildings, safety measures (particularly, an inter-building intercom system, cameras, and key playing cards), expertise, and so on. Seattle moderates have some gentle reservations about this one: After final yr’s drama with a messy closure plan foisted on households after which deserted, can we belief how the district would spend this cash? (They dare to suggest $150 million to switch an ageing elementary college, for instance. The gall.) We agree that final yr’s showdown invitations some scrutiny about how the district makes its choices, however we completely disagree that withholding funding from a struggling college system is the best way to try this.
Vote Sure on Proposition 2.