Seattle renters are all too aware of the gut-punch of hire renewal notices: a cheerful “Completely satisfied Anniversary!” adopted by a staggering enhance—9.9 %, 15 %, or a jaw-dropping 45 %. Between 2021 and 2022, the town’s median asking hire soared from $1,300 to $3,118, leaving many residents, significantly these with decrease incomes, struggling to maintain up with skyrocketing housing prices.
Seattle launched the Financial Displacement Relocation Help (EDRA) program in July 2022 to handle the rising disaster of financial evictions. Nevertheless, as an alternative of stopping displacement, EDRA solely responds to renters already within the technique of being displaced. Slightly than regulating hire will increase or assuaging monetary pressures renters face, the town created a bureaucratic system that renters should choose into and navigate. This shifts the burden of time, effort, and information onto renters whereas failing to handle the basis causes of displacement or present significant help to assist low-income households stay in Seattle.
We renters make up the vast majority of the town’s inhabitants, with greater than 50% renting since 2019. In line with 2023 information, 23 % of renters spend greater than half their incomes on hire, far exceeding the 30% affordability threshold. Whereas rents dipped following the sharp rise in 2022, they’re climbing once more, with downtown residences seeing a 2.5% year-over-year enhance. Codified in Chapter 22.212 of the Seattle Municipal Code, EDRA was created to help tenants dealing with “financial displacement” as a consequence of rising housing prices.
Underneath this program, renters who obtain a hire enhance of 10% or extra and earn lower than 80% of Seattle’s space median revenue—about one-third of the town’s households—can apply for relocation help. This help is a lump sum fee, equal to 3 occasions the tenant’s present hire, which the owner reimburses to the town.
With EDRA named in a number of landlord lawsuits filed towards the town, the “poisonous cocktail served over the icy situations and the glacier tempo of the King County courts,” one would possibly assume that landlords have been in a steady loop of hitting tenants with hire will increase over 10 % after which being compelled to pay the town to relocate them. However after we dig into the actual numbers, the state of affairs appears a bit completely different.
EDRA by the Numbers
Since its inception, EDRA has seen wildly fluctuating purposes and approvals. In 2022, 89 tenants utilized with 11 deemed eligible. The next yr, purposes rose to 316, with solely 87 deemed eligible. By 2024, purposes dropped to 143 with 67 deemed eligible.
Noting the big lower in EDRA purposes from 2023 to 2024, Bryan Stevens, Director of Media Relations on the Seattle Division of Building and Inspections, framed this as a internet constructive, “This system has far more visibility within the landlord and tenant group than ever earlier than. Many landlords are preserving hire will increase beneath 10 % and tenants are contacting our division earlier than submitting EDRA purposes so we are able to vet them for eligibility upfront.”
Regardless of this system’s elevated visibility, solely 165 of the 548 EDRA data filed as of November 2024 have been deemed eligible. Of these, 57—roughly 35 %—had been appealed by landlords, with 9 of these appeals overturned.
The remaining 383 EDRA data had been both “admin closed” as a consequence of failure to answer requests for extra data or inadequate documentation, “withdrawn” by candidates who selected to not proceed, or “denied” for not assembly income-eligibility necessities or as a result of the rental enhance was not giant sufficient to qualify for relocation help.
This system has authorised roughly 80 purposes yearly, with a median family fee of $4,544. To this point, the town has disbursed $740,787 in EDRA funds and is awaiting reimbursements of $157,000 from landlords.
How It All Begins
In my decade of renting in Seattle, I’ve but to discover a landlord who doesn’t love an annual hire enhance. One of many 5 tenant protections cited in lawsuits towards the town is the 180-day discover interval, which handed in 2021. Enacted shortly after statewide COVID-era hire enhance restrictions lapsed, the legislation requires landlords to supply tenants with not less than 180 days’ written discover earlier than rising hire. If the proposed enhance is 10 % or extra, the legislation mandates that the owner embody an EDRA discover.
For 3 years, I lived in a Central District residence complicated taking part within the Multifamily Property Tax Exemption (MFTE) Program, which affords tax exemptions to landlords in change for preserving hire prices barely decrease than the market fee for a proportion of tenants. After hire will increase resumed in 2021, I obtained my traditional annual hikes. However in 2024, I used to be hit with a 17 % enhance in comparison with the earlier yr.
The steep hire hike made me eligible for EDRA. The applying course of relies on three key standards: your hire enhance should be 10 % or extra, your family revenue should be at or beneath 80 % AMI, and it’s essential to notify your landlord in writing of your intent to maneuver. I promptly notified my landlord in writing of my intent to maneuver.
I submitted my preliminary software and paperwork on the Seattle Providers portal and obtained a monitoring quantity. I used to be then prompted to supply further documentation: EDRA requires tax returns, pay stubs, unemployment or Social Safety profit letters, retirement statements, or baby help award letters. My kind was totally submitted in July, and it remained pending within the Seattle Providers Portal for 3 months till a caseworker was assigned in October.
Navigating the EDRA Timeline
In line with the Seattle Division of Building and Inspections (SDCI), the typical time from “open” to “eligibility dedication” is about 70 days, together with outliers that took 100 days or extra. When excluding these outliers, the averages are as follows:
56.36 days: Common time from “open” to “eligibility”
79.68 days: Common time from “open” to “shut” (excluding circumstances that had been administratively closed or withdrawn)
The timeline alone presents a big impediment. My software took 93 days to be assigned. I submitted in July, anticipating to obtain help earlier than my move-out date of September 1. I primarily based this expectation on the EDRA software timeline, which reveals that “inside 10 days of receiving a whole software” the “Tenant is notified of EDRA determination.”
As my move-out date approached, I used to be compelled to make different plans. With no EDRA funds to help, I withdrew cash from my IRA incurring penalty taxes. Whereas I used to be in a position to do that, most low-income renters don’t have a retirement fund to dip into. Renters being economically displaced usually don’t have additional assets to tug from. I coated transferring and move-in prices out of pocket whereas updating my data with the town and routinely checking on the standing of my case.
As soon as eligibility is decided, each the tenant and landlord are notified. If the tenant is deemed eligible, the owner has 10 days to attraction the choice, ought to they select to take action. As soon as my case was lastly opened, it was deemed eligible inside three days. Greystar, the most important residence proprietor within the US, with not less than 15,000 items in Seattle—together with the one I used to be residing in—instantly filed an attraction on my case.
Weaponizing the Appeals Course of
Greystar’s attraction to my case, signed by one in all their native property managers, acknowledged: “My curiosity on this determination is primarily rooted within the monetary stability and general well-being of the property. If the proposed motion had been taken, the property would expertise monetary hardship.”
Seattle landlords have come beneath fireplace for using doubtful ways to bypass moral requirements and the legislation, together with, allegedly, artificially inflating rental charges and colluding to drive housing prices even greater. Amongst them is Greystar, a serious participant within the rental market and one in all six firms at present implicated in an ongoing Division of Justice antitrust lawsuit. The DOJ lawsuit alleges “that the six landlords actively participated in a scheme to set their rents utilizing one another’s competitively delicate data by means of widespread pricing algorithms.”
Their declare of economic hardship is putting not solely due to Greystar’s alleged function in a nationwide rent-fixing scheme but additionally when you think about their monetary standing. As a world actual property large managing over $76 billion in belongings and producing $5 billion in annual income, the notion that offering a lump sum of beneath 5K to a low-income tenant would trigger them monetary pressure is troublesome to reconcile. For a tenant already struggling to stay in Seattle, this huge energy imbalance makes their try to deny relocation help all of the extra egregious.
I first turned conscious of Greystar’s ways to keep away from paying EDRA relocation help through the appeals course of by means of a 2024 report by PubliCola. In a single case, a tenant was notified of a hire enhance exceeding 30%. After the tenant gave discover to vacate, citing the rise as the rationale, Greystar—4 months later—provided a revised enhance of 9.9%. The tenant, having already signed a lease elsewhere, declined. Regardless of this, Greystar argued (unsuccessfully) that they shouldn’t be liable for relocation help as a result of they’d ultimately proposed a rise beneath 10%.
Greystar’s quick assertion of their attraction to my case claimed, “the truth that the property had already rescinded letters of hire will increase to affected residents,” an assertion that was a lie. By the point a court docket listening to was scheduled for November, I had already moved out of the Greystar property and had been settled into my new dwelling for over two months.
Earlier than the Seattle Metropolis Examiner, the SDCI’s compliance analyst offered all supporting reveals used to substantiate my eligibility. When it was Greystar’s flip, the property supervisor repeated their preliminary false declare and failed to supply any proof or documentation. Shortly after the listening to, I obtained notification that Greystar’s attraction had been denied, and I used to be authorised for the EDRA help funds. Greystar had once more wasted taxpayer cash, metropolis officers’ time and assets, and my very own.
Seattle’s Complete Plan on Anti-Displacement
In January, Mayor Harrell signed an Govt Order on the Implementation of Anti-Displacement Methods. One key funding within the proposed Anti-Displacement Motion Plan is EDRA. However EDRA will not be an anti-displacement program—it’s at finest, a displacement deterrent, and at worst, a response to displacement after it has already occurred.
With a median one-time payout of $4,544, EDRA fails to supply monetary help for renters to stay of their neighborhoods. Whereas I used to be lucky to maneuver in with my associate and keep in my zip code, most renters aren’t so fortunate. Many are being pushed out of their communities—whether or not to Burien, Renton, and even out of state— forsaking their help networks, transferring farther from jobs, and disrupting the cultural material of their neighborhoods.
Although EDRA affords essential monetary help to assist renters keep away from homelessness, it has assisted solely 156 renters so far. This system falls in need of the systemic options required to sort out displacement. Many nonprofits I reached out to had been unaware of EDRA, reflecting an ongoing lack of visibility and entry. Its complicated necessities, prolonged timelines, and intimidating appeals course of solely add to the obstacles low-income renters face. The irony is evident: if landlords adhered to stifling their greed with a 9.9% cap on annual hire will increase, EDRA would turn into out of date.
EDRA will not be essentially a flawed program—it’s a flawed resolution. Whereas it could possibly be improved by making it extra accessible, shortening timelines, or penalizing wasteful appeals from company landlords, these adjustments alone would not make it enough. Senate Invoice 5222, at present transferring by means of the state Senate, is a step in the correct course. It proposes capping annual rental will increase at 7%, nonetheless above Seattle’s value of residing adjustment, however a transfer towards higher affordability.
We’d like options that sort out the basis causes of displacement and housing instability, akin to obligatory hire caps and funding for social housing. Tuesday’s particular election outcomes present robust voter help for progressive housing insurance policies. Regardless of over half one million {dollars} spent in opposition and deceptive rhetoric from the Mayor and Metropolis Council, voters made their stance clear. Once we construct coalitions that middle communities and talk our insurance policies with readability, we win.
Company landlords and rich firms are lucky to function right here. Holding them accountable is essential to offsetting the hurt they’ve triggered. As we have fun the progress of social housing, we should proceed pushing for progressive anti-displacement methods. It’s time for insurance policies that don’t simply look good on paper, however that ship actual, tangible outcomes.
