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Thursday, March 20, 2008

City’s Tenant Assistance Plan Misses the Target

posted by on March 20 at 12:02 PM

A small pool of money set aside by the city to assist displaced tenants remains untapped, because the nonprofit agency tasked with distributing the funds can’t find anyone to give money to.

Nonprofit Solid Ground has contacted the owners of 12 of the 15 buildings scheduled for conversion since September 2007, but they have been unable to find any eligible tenants. While some of the tenants contacted by Solid Ground make too much money to receive relocation assistance—like the folks in a $1500-a-month building on Alki—the real problem is that the city’s outreach efforts took too long, and most tenants of the 166 units lost to conversion moved out months ago after receiving notices of conversion.

According to Solid Ground’s Housing Program Director Donna Dziak, Solid Ground won’t be able to track down tenants who have already moved out. “We don’t have staffing to go out and hunt these people and buildings down,” she says. “The city really has to take responsibility for it.”

In the 2008 budget, the City Council initially set aside $350,000 to assist low-income tenants displaced by condo conversions. The funding was intended as a stop-gap solution until the legislature took action. Mayor Greg Nickels’ office froze the fund—due to an unexpected budget shortfall in the city’s human services department—without notifying the council, and only released $25,000 of the fund, two months after the money was originally supposed to be available.

The Mayor’s office seemed confident that the $25,000 would be enough to assist tenants—although Solid Ground says the money would have only been available to about 20 families—and it appears that by stalling the release of the funds, tenants who may have been eligible to receive assistance are long gone.

Ironically, some of the conversion projects have been called off due to a glut of condos on the market. “Four of the 15 [buildings] have called off projects,” Dziak says. Two of the buildings are already undergoing conversion, and the rest are vacant.

While some of the empty buildings had fewer than a dozen units, it seems improbable that Solid Ground wouldn’t have been able to find at least a few eligible tenants in the 11 now-vacant buildings.

If your apartment was converted to condos in the last seven months and you make less than $41,000 a year, you could be eligible for assistance. Call the Solid Ground Tenant Services Hotline at 206-694-6767.

RSS icon Comments

1

I bet the paper work for this program is a nightmare.

Posted by Sargon Bighorn | March 20, 2008 12:16 PM
2

Man does Seattle need some heftier renters' protections. The city shouldn't have to be shelling out for this. If property owners want tenants out in order to convert their units, it should be buying them off. THAT is the market taking care of itself, not letting developers clean house and leaving the city to scramble to assist the displaced.

Posted by Dougsf | March 20, 2008 2:06 PM
3

Jonah - if the city's long-standing law requiring *owners* to pay $500 to low income people displaced by conversion was working properly then Solid Ground would be able to simply get the names of all income-elibible tenants from DPD.

http://web1.seattle.gov/DPD/CAMs/CamDetail.aspx?cn=602

You've perhaps revealed that it is not only the *City's* new money that isn't getting to income-eligible renters, but perhaps DPD isn't enforcing this long-standing owner obligation to pay either. Perhaps this is happening on a much greater scale than you and I thought might be happening before.

I have a really hard time accepting that there weren't any income-eligible renters in any of these buildings. (one person earning $3500/month) In any event, DPD should be able to demonstrate whether or not the property-owners in these 11 buildings informed their renters of their rights to $500 from the landlord as required by law.

Posted by LH | March 20, 2008 2:28 PM

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