News Mayor Freezes Council Housing Fund
posted by on February 11 at 11:26 AM
A $350,000 fund set aside by City Council to assist financially vulnerable tenants displaced by condo conversions, has been indefinitely frozen by Mayor Greg Nickels’ office. The fund, passed as part of the City’s 2008 budget, was created to act as a stop-gap solution, so Seattle residents would not have to wait for the state legislature to deal with the massive number of apartment conversions in the last few years.
Since 2004, Seattle has lost over 6,000 rental units to condo conversion. Previously, displaced tenants—who made less than $41,700, or 80 percent of Seattle’s median income—were given $500 to move out of converted buildings. Tenants and housing groups complained the $500 did not sufficiently provide low-income tenants with the financial means to move, let alone pay for a deposit and first and last month’s rent on a new apartment.
The $350,000 set aside by council would have provided as much as $1500 to tenants who made as little as 30 percent of the median income. Households that made 31-50% of median income would get $1000, and those in the 51-80% range would get $500.
According to the City’s Human Services Department (HSD), Nickels wanted to hold off on setting up the fund—despite Council’s 2008 budget proviso—until the legislature came back with a plan to deal with conversions or HSD’s budget shortfall was squared away. However, Senate Bill 6411—designed to regulate condo conversions at the state level—failed to make it out of committee last week, and is effectively dead. With SB-6411 dead, there will undoubtedly be a fight between Council and the Mayor’s office over the frozen funds.
“To play with people’s lives like this is an outrage,” says John Fox of the Seattle Displacement Coalition. “It’s just shameful and we’ve got deal with it.” Fox pushed for the Council legislation, working with Councilmember Tom Rasmussen last year, and he says he was shocked to find out about the Mayor’s move. “To sacrifice the needs of a couple hundred households [and hold] tenants hostage is unacceptable. It’s just shameful and we’ve got deal with it.”
“We’re just on hold for the next few weeks,” says HSD spokeswoman Sara Levin. According to Levin, HSD was instructed by Nickels to hold off on setting up the council fund in the hopes that the state legislature quickly comes back with a plan to deal with conversions.”Our first and foremost concern is how do we fill a half million hole in [our[ budget,” she says, adding the now-gone $565,000 was used to pay for down payment programs, homeless shelters and AIDS housing.
The $350,000 council fund has already been absorbed into HSD’s $114 million general budget, but the City’s Department of Finance is apparently working to find a way to fix HSD’s finance problems. However, the fix may come too late for some tenants.
Was it just my imagination, or did the Mayor got a big boo at the Obama rally on Friday?
Anyone else hear him being booed?
I don't get it.
"We're going condo. You have to move. Here's $500."
$500 or even $1000 doesn't begin to cover the cost of moving these days unless a family decides to sell everything and live in their car.
Even people who work and make median income struggle for months after a move because of the expenses incurred.
The mayor was definitely booed. But since his main points were applauded, the boo seemed to come from frustration that he was given the mic instead of Obama, who most people had been waiting for for over 2 hours.
@1 and 3, way to stay on topic there sport!
Yeah guys, leave me alone!
Yeah, the mayor was booed, but I agree that it was mostly in frustration about Obama not coming out. It was a long, long wait!
The mayor's pre-Obama speech was actually better than I expected. Governor Gregoire and Congressman Smith also spoke with poise.
I thought at least one of them would flounder, but they were all great.
And back to the topic at hand -- I get a little tired of people blaming the Mayor for everything and not asking the City Council to be accountable for their end of the bargain.
It seems that many times they play politics to make the Mayor look bad when they're equally at fault. I'll bet there is more to the story.
I agree that the current compensation for renters forced to move is inadequate. I myself was forced to move out of an apartment that I loved when the building converted. Worse still, the manager promised me the funds in time to help pay for the moving truck and other related costs, but failed to deliver - causing me some real problems.
It took my another month and a half to actually receive the check. I hope the new legistation has a provision for developers to provide the funds within a reasonable time frame.
That being said, it's likely that this law is being created too late, as the era of mass condo conversions may be nearing an end. Some are even converting back to apartments.
Yes, the Mayor was booed - by like half the room at Key Arena (what, over 9,000 people?), while the other half cheered (the booing and the cheering were about equal in loudness).
No, he was not booed because he was not Obama - the "boo" went on for more than a few minutes.
I believe Adam Kline (Dem party member) and Governor Gregoire were all introduced about the same time, one ofter the other, and neither of them were booed.
I definitely took the "booing of the Mayor" as a direct comment that around half the people in the room did not like him or his policies. That means that a lot of people who like Obama do not like Mayor Nickels.
Yes, his main points were applauded, but (first): most of them were ones we had heard before and were not particularly controversial ("I got US cities to agree to Kyoto protocol green standards, etc., etc.). And (second) my impression was that the people who booed had made their point and didn't need to keep booing.
I mean, think about it, a democratic Mayor got booed at one of the most energized public democratic party events in recent memory . . .
Now, on the topic at hand:
It seems nobody has clued in to the fact that Seattle is likely to now have a renter majority.
The 2000 census had Seattle's population very close to 50-50 in terms of renters and homeowners, with homeowners having a very slight majority (like about 55% to 45%).
It will be very interesting to see if the politics shift once the 2010 census confirms that Seattle has an equal balance or very probably a slight majority of renters over homeowners.
At some point politicians are going to have to deal with the voters who rent, and not just the voters who own their home (condo, townhouse, whatever).
And yes, this freezing of these funds seems to make no logical sense - there's no problem with Seattle providing these funds now while we all wait to see whatever happens to the thing in Olympia . . .
. . . unless of course the logic is that the Mayor (with the property-owner-developer-landlord lobby's help) is willing to pro-actively stamp out any gain - even a little one - that would in anyway empower or protect renters. This seems the most likely explanation.
I find it by turns hilarious and deeply disturbing that the Rental Housing Association of Puget Sound supports rent hikes and condo conversions as a path to affordable housing - as if they were "advocates of renters." They are among the people who say such ridiculous things as "renters don't pay property taxes," etc. Just search the Times and P-I sites for articles where the RHA is quoted.
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