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Wednesday, May 7, 2008

City Seeks to Raid Council’s Tenant Relocation Fund

posted by on May 7 at 13:22 PM

The city’s Human Services Department (HSD) is attempting to raid a $350,000 fund set aside by the City Council to assist displaced tenants. HSD has requested $203,000 of the fund to offset budget gaps created by losses in federal funding.

The displaced-tenants fund has been in limbo since March, when Mayor Greg Nickels froze the fund without notifying the council in an attempt to shore up HSD’s budget. After protest from council members and housing activists, the mayor released $50,000 to nonprofit Solid Ground to do outreach and get money to tenants displaced by condo conversions.

HSD has requested the funds because Solid Ground has yet to actually get any of the money from the three-month-old program to tenants. While that’s true, tenants have been left in the lurch because of a throughly fucked-up city process.

Indeed, the tenant assistance program has been a massive failure and the $50,000 has sat untouched, but not because no one needed assistance. Solid Ground hasn’t been able to distribute money to tenants because, they say, they’re just not equipped to do that level of outreach. Generally, the city’s Department of Planning and Development handles tenant relocation outreach, but council member Tom Rasmussen pushed for HSD manage the fund. (In the meantime, DPD has started distributing flyers about the program).

While the program has completely gone off the rails at this point, several large buildings are undergoing conversion in the next few months and if Solid Ground were to be hit with 30-40 requests for assistance, it could easily wipe out the nonprofit’s $50,000 reserve.

The state legislature put some tenant protections and benefits on the books last session, but Seattle has to pass a local version of the legislation by August for tenants to receive those benefits. The city will have to decide how much landlords will have to pay displaced tenants—which could be as much as three times a tenant’s rent—and the council will undoubtedly have to face off with the Rental Housing Association over the details.

RSS icon Comments

1

I work for a housing non-profit and when I hear about money being held up I have two reactions:

1) indescrible anger, because I get calls from women sleeping in their cars who just had mastectomies and families that will be on the streets in mere hours. Or how about the family that was sleeping in their van in December. Or the single dad who could loose custody of his daughter because he can't pay the rent after breaking his leg crossing the street. Can't they just get the funds to the folks who need it a little quicker.

2) recognition of how hard it is to have an appropriate process - we want what was originally tax money going to folks who really need it.

When all is said and done, it's really not a matter of properly distributing the money we do have. Solving housing issues, especially for those who have limited means, is directly linked to having more funding.

My agency turns away 3 families for every family we do serve.

Posted by Erin | May 7, 2008 1:46 PM
2

This seems lawsuit worthy. The City (Nickels administration) appears to be breaking the law.

Posted by Trevor | May 7, 2008 1:54 PM
3

Good point, @2.

Wonder if any real estate lawyers are online here?

Posted by Will in Seattle | May 7, 2008 2:11 PM
4

I sure am glad we spent $850,000 to stick cameras in Cal Anderson park. Money well spent, I'd say. Fuck all these homeless people and displaced renters.

/sarcasm

Posted by Reverse Polarity | May 7, 2008 2:15 PM
5

But they have $200,000,000 for Paul Allen's proposed Mercer Street boulevard treatment that will actually make traffic worse (well, actually, they don't, but they want to spend $20 or so million to start the ball rolling on this unfunded project anyway and commit Seattle taxpayers to the full cost).

Ah, priorities....

Posted by Mr. X | May 7, 2008 2:30 PM

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