♪♪
-Welcome to "City Inside/Out: Council Edition."
I'm Brian Callanan.
In this episode,
we're looking at new promises from Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell
from his State of the City address,
new budget questions emerging over homelessness,
and new challenges presented
in the struggle to stop gun violence.
I'm going one-on-one
with City Council Budget Chair Teresa Mosqueda
to answer these questions and more
on the issues that impact you
right here on "Council Edition."
-How can we both activate downtown,
possibly convert office space into housing,
and also create greater opportunities
for folks to live across our city?
-All that and more coming up next
on "City Inside/Out: Council Edition."
♪♪
And here we are with Councilmember Mosqueda,
and I really appreciate you being here.
I wanted to start by talking about a ceremony
that happened just a little bit before we recorded this show,
and this was to honor D'Vonne Pickett Jr.
If you're not familiar, folks,
this is the 31-year-old man shot and killed
outside of his mailing service store,
the postman in the Central District in October.
It is an understatement to say he was loved,
well-respected in his community.
He leaves behind a wife and three children.
So, Councilmember Mosqueda, you co-sponsored the resolution
to name a portion of East Union Street
between 21st and 22nd after him.
Tell us about this ceremony
and just what this honor from the city means.
-Well, the honor was truly mine
to be able to work in partnership
with D'Vonne Pickett Jr's family.
They reached out earlier this year
and asked if they could have the street renamed after him.
And immediately I and my staff started working with the family,
with Department of Transportation,
with the Urban League and community members across Seattle
to turn that request into action.
What we know is that he was well-renowned,
not just in the central district,
but throughout the city of Seattle.
And the family and the community talked about
how it wasn't just the city that he touched.
It was cities across the nation and, frankly, across the globe.
His presence as a community leader, as a family member,
as a mentor and inspirer of younger kids
in generations to come will continue to live on
not just with the street renaming,
but also through the programs and policies
that we must continue to invest in.
The family was there yesterday, including his mom,
his wife, members of his family including cousins,
who all talked about the need for us
to continue his legacy of fighting for self-determination,
to have the tools and the power to fight against inequity,
to fight against gentrification,
and to also make sure that we're fighting against gun violence,
given that gun violence took his life.
And that's, I think, the public policy call,
for all of us to really continue to double down on these efforts
to get guns out of our streets
and to make our community safer for all.
-Yeah, and I wanted to talk about that,
because I'm sure you were hearing it
from the family and community members there.
I know you've heard it from the Seattle Police Department.
I think it's a 15-year high, in terms of violent crime,
that Seattle is seeing right now, gun violence.
Just gunshots fired, etc, at an all-time high.
Talk to me about that.
How can you turn that into action?
Because I know this is something the council,
the city's been working on for so long,
to try to turn the corner on gun violence.
What's going on?
-The city of Seattle, specifically,
the city council three years ago was the first one
to put $4 million towards gun violence reduction.
We've continued that efforts over the last three years
as I've been budget chair.
But this is an issue that requires us to make investments
along the spectrum from young kiddo investments,
having access to good education, childcare opportunities,
youth investments in terms of job creation,
housing stability, opportunities for folks
to get into good living wage jobs, union jobs,
and for us to work on getting guns out of the community.
This is a public health crisis.
We're moving those guns from
ever being there in the first place.
That's something that everyone is committed to.
I would also say, related to some of the statistics
that you noted, it is important to look at the five-year trend
that the chief noted.
Overall, the five-year trend that we saw in the last year,
it's slightly lower.
If you look at the entire,
you know, half decade in the past,
we are trending in the right direction,
especially if you look at the last quarter of 2022.
I am optimistic that we will continue to see the trend
in terms of gun violence decrease,
overall violence decrease.
But this is a trend that other cities are experiencing,
our entire country is experiencing,
and I think it's part of the shadow pandemic.
In the years that we have seen the COVID pandemic
creating greater isolation, depression, economic insecurity.
We have also seen other cities grapple with the same issues.
So my hope is that we will continue to invest
in the health and safety of our community
by investing in gun violence, use violence reduction programs,
and also making sure that we're investing early upstream
so that families can have greater security.
-And I wanted to talk about that youth violence piece of it,
because you remember what happened when we had
that shooting at Ingram High School last November.
There were protesters who came right here
to the City Hall campus
and were very upset about it, had their signs out,
really wanted some investments in mental health,
some gun control issues, too.
And I remember at the time as budget chair, you were saying,
"Alright, we're going to make a down payment."
Some dollars did end up going to Ingram here,
but I think you talked about the challenges
that are inherent with this issue.
When you talk about schools, that's a state issue.
When you talk about gun control laws,
that's a state issue, too.
Can you tell me about that work
that I guess needs to go on from here?
Because I know the city of Seattle
can't do it all by itself.
-That's right.
The city of Seattle can't do it all by itself.
But we need to lead on this issue.
We have seen mental health issues
result in more interpersonal violence and yes,
including gun violence as well within schools here
in the city and across our nation.
Last budget, I was able to work with the Seattle Students Union
to double the investments into mental health funding
for students throughout Seattle.
This came from the students themselves,
folks within Ingram High School, but across our city
who said that we needed to act with greater urgency
to address mental health crisis, and that they would be working
with the state legislative partners
to also continue to expand that work.
So at the state legislature right now,
the Seattle Students Union is working to advance
House Bill 1741.
They want to make sure
that there's more investments in the mental health crisis
that we're seeing at historic highs across this country,
and to make sure that our youth get access to counselors,
therapy, community-oriented programing
led by folks who look like them,
who speak various languages, who can relate to youth,
who can address mental health needs in a multitude of ways.
So yes, it is about increasing the number of counselors,
but it's also about increasing the type and access
to programing that will improve mental health
for our youth throughout the city.
So I'm really proud of the $4 million
that we put towards specifically mental health
in last year's budget, and looking forward
to our state legislators continuing to amplify
those investments by passing House Bill 1741.
-Yeah, thank you for all those pieces.
I know there's a lot still to talk about
with public safety.
The mayor is talking about rolling out
this third public safety department,
the CARE, Civilian Assisted Respond & Engagement team.
We'll see how that happens later on this spring.
But I did want to shift into another piece of this,
because in his recent State of the City,
the mayor was also talking about housing.
You chair the Finance and Housing Committee
on the city council.
He mentioned something specifically about
possibly transforming unused office space downtown
into housing with a new plan starting up this spring.
-In March, our city planners, many of whom are here,
will launch a design competition
around converting office buildings to housing,
and we need to recognize that
downtown office space may never fill up as before.
We need more housing options,
so let's make downtown affordable
for everyone who wants to live there.
-This sounds pretty big, Councilmember Mosqueda.
What do you think about the mayor's plan?
How might something like this work?
-Well, it is really exciting to think about innovative ways
that we can create more housing in the city of Seattle,
and I mean more housing everywhere in
the city of Seattle. -Not just downtown, sure.
-Downtown is an exciting opportunity for us
to think about activation --
activation of the core of the heart of our city.
Absolutely, I'm excited to learn more
about what proposals might come forward to SDCI and OPCD,
our departments that are tasked
with looking at design and development.
But I think the question we have to ask
is how can we both activate downtown,
possibly convert office space into housing,
and also create greater opportunities for folks
to live across our city?
75% of Seattle's footprint right now
is currently zoned only for single-family housing.
So it's great to both create opportunities
in one of the densest areas in our city,
but that's going to cost a lot of money
to convert some of those buildings,
and so it'll be really exciting to see how that path marries
this ongoing conversation we're having
about the comprehensive plan and how to create more housing
that can be built relatively quickly
in other parts of our city as well.
-I want to put a pin in the Comp plan
just for a second here,
and thank you for leading it in that direction.
But just when you talk about trying to convert
some of these office buildings into homes,
I think it does cost a lot of money.
That's what I've heard, and I also would think that
the building owners would want to be sending these things,
renting them to businesses rather than homeowners.
I think they're just going to make more money.
Is it a situation where you'd have to try to incentivize this
to rebuild these structures into homes or --
I'm just trying to figure out the logistics of this.
Yeah, I think it's a good question to look at
in terms of what sort of renovations
would be needed to existing buildings.
You need running water in each of the units.
You need to make sure that there's plumbing
and appropriate lighting.
Some of the office spaces
that we know are sitting vacant right now,
they have inner cores that you probably wouldn't want folks
to live in, a place that didn't have access to daylight.
But those are some of the questions that I think
that the mayor's process will help reveal.
What is feasible. How much will it cost?
What does renovation look like?
I just want to make sure that
that conversation continues on the parallel track
of how we also create denser and affordable options
across our city as well.
And I think more housing across Seattle is still a good thing,
so I'm really excited to look to see what those proposals create.
-Okay. Thank you.
Hang on to that whole idea with the Comp plan
for one more second, because there's one more budget issue
that I wanted to talk about.
And it's not the city of Seattle's budget per se,
but rather the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.
The KCRHA recently came out with this five-year plan
to end homelessness,
calling for $8 billion in capital cost,
$3.5 billion in annual operating costs.
And you know and I know, the city of Seattle
is right now the biggest funder for the KCRHA,
$95 million of the $253 million total.
But now we're talking about billions.
And I know the council and you
fought for some extra dollars for the KCRHA,
but now we're talking about a big multiplier here.
What do these numbers mean to you?
Because this is a budget from the KCRHA
that's supposed to be finalized in April.
And I want to see, where do you want to guide this conversation?
-Well, I think it's important to put into context
that this proposal
of what it would take to address homelessness in our region
is a regional issue,
and it's also part of their five-year plan.
It is going to take us some time
to build the structures necessary to get
to the level of investment that they're talking about.
And we have to take this in actionable steps.
And I think the mayor of Seattle, Bruce Harrell,
the executive of King County, Dow Constantine,
have both sent messages saying, it's important to look at
what that overall goal should be.
And we also need to know, what is actionable now?
What can we do in the immediate future
to help more folks move off of the street
and into appropriate housing?
And I underscore the word appropriate,
because right now what we're hearing is
that there is not enough
appropriate shelter places for folks who are
experiencing homelessness throughout our region.
And that could be folks who we see every day outside.
It could also be families and couples,
kiddos living with their parent
who are doubled up in houses and sleeping on couches.
The scope of the need was really underscored
by the Regional Homelessness Authority's report,
and we should always keep that front and center
when we think about how we work towards that.
But we can't have paralysis by analysis
when we look at that large number.
We need to identify what is actionable now
and continue to work with
the Regional Homelessness Authority,
our 39 cities in this county and our King County partners
to help to get to those actionable steps
so that we can see progress in the meantime.
And hopefully, our state legislative partners,
our congressional partners will help us work
towards addressing the revenue gap
that the Regional Homelessness Authority has outlined.
But it will not stop us from acting with urgency
to get more folks inside.
-Is there a certain piece of that,
when you talk about actionable items,
is there something that you're saying,
"Hey, let's head here first. Here's some low-hanging fruit."
Or however you want to look at that.
Is there a piece where you'd like
this type of budget to concentrate its efforts first?
-Yeah, I think that there's two.
Number one is, I want to put at the front of the list,
the workforce necessary.
We've spent a lot of time in Seattle City Council,
especially me as the prime sponsor
of the human service provider pay equity issue
to make sure that we are keeping up with
cost of living for folks who provide services
and programing for folks experiencing homelessness.
This includes for youth, for vets, for seniors.
And we are seeing, you know, 40% to 70% turnover vacancy rates
within those departments.
We are not paying people
equitably for this very hard work.
And if we don't invest in the workforce,
then we will never create the stability necessary
to keep folks stably housed.
The second thing that I would put at the top of that list
is emergency housing types, options of various choices
for folks to be able to come inside
and out of the elements.
That could be more tiny houses.
That could be more non-congregate housing
settings so that people have their own room,
a door so they can be with their family,
that you don't have couples, parents
being split away from their kiddos,
where you have individuals who might be able and more willing
to be able to come inside if they can stay with their pet.
And most importantly, for folks who need ongoing
care and services to have those workers available
so that they can keep folks stably indoors.
Those are the two things I think we can continue
to prioritize in the region --
the workforce and emergency housing options.
-And when you talk about housing, the council made
a really big investment in housing in this past budget,
and it's going to keep going into next year as well.
Can you talk to me about that?
Because I think this is another thing
where you were the prime architect behind it.
These dollars, $250 million, roughly, I think,
over the next couple of years here.
Tell me about those dollars, where they're going.
Are they going into some of these options
you're talking about, or where are those moneys going?
-Yes, $252 million each year for the biennium.
So it's over half a billion dollars, with a B,
going into affordable housing.
This is the largest investment we've made into
affordable housing in my time on council.
I have seen from my first year on council to last year's budget
the amount of investments going into affordable housing
increase four-fold.
So we are taking this issue of homelessness
and housing instability seriously
in the city of Seattle.
I was proud to be the prime sponsor
of JumpStart progressive payroll tax,
because the vast majority of those dollars
are going into affordable housing.
And along the spectrum,
as we think about creating housing options for folks
who are experiencing homelessness
and preventing more people from falling into homelessness,
we have to look at services and emergency housing
just as much as we need to look at building additional units,
creating more first-time home ownership options,
and creating more permanent supportive housing.
That is the three things that JumpStart focuses on --
home ownership, affordable units,
and permanent supportive housing.
-Got it.
And now we can talk about the COMP plan. How about that?
We'll talk about where all these homes are going to go.
This is a big issue for the city of Seattle,
the Comprehensive Plan that's due up for renewal next year.
You had a recent talk with the Sierra Club
about this, and viewers at home,
you can take a look at this photo
and see if you can spot the slightly scary appearance
of former Councilmember Mike O'Brien in the background there.
You also had an op ed from the MLK Labor Council
about providing some bolder options for growth
in one of your recent newsletters here.
I'll even pile on with an e-mail we got
from one of our viewers here who says,
"Seattle housing policies are concentrating poverty
and crime in diverse and walkable neighborhoods
like the international district.
Shouldn't car-centric areas like Sand Point and Broadmoor
be made to help out?"
Thank you for that email there.
I just want to make sure
that I get all these different pieces together
and ask you, what do you want to get across to people
when you talk about guiding this Comp plan ahead?
-Well, I actually want to reframe
what was sent in from the viewer, because I think
it's about creating access to opportunity for all.
We want there to be housing, mixed-income housing,
housing of all types in high opportunity neighborhoods.
Everyone should be able to have the ability to walk to a park,
to walk to a grocery store,
to be able to walk to their child care like I do,
to have access to bus routes.
In my neighborhood, I have three local parks.
I have my childcare within three blocks.
I have five bus routes I can take to the downtown area
or to one of our public beaches in West Seattle.
I have the opportunity to not live in a food desert.
So if we want to go grab healthy food,
fruits and vegetables from the grocery store,
we can walk there or we can take the bus.
That is what it looks like to create access
to high opportunity neighborhoods.
And so it's really about looking across our city
and identifying where we can
and should be creating more opportunities for folks
to live within the city that they work or where they worked
and want to stay and retire here.
That is why I'm so committed to creating
an additional alternative for the City of Seattle
to study with the Comprehensive Plan that's coming up next year.
This is unfortunately a very wonky process.
It only happens once every ten years.
-But it's really important.
-So this is our once-in-a-decade opportunity
to change the fabric of where people
can potentially build housing in the future.
Because the last 4 to 5 decades, we have gone the wrong way.
We have created barriers and made it illegal
to build things like apartments, townhouses, duplexes,
quadplexes in places where they were already
part of the fabric of our city.
And in 1950, the old apartment I lived in,
a four-story brownstone that had eight units in,
has been downzoned
and would no longer be allowed to be built in Queen Anne.
But it is a beautiful brownstone in the heart of Queen Anne
that just blends in with the rest of the neighborhood.
So it is both false to assume
that it is not already the fabric of our neighborhood
or the character of our neighborhood,
and it is also important to remember
when we add diversity in terms of housing types,
it actually creates more opportunity
for everyone to live here.
And if you care about trees
and if you care about the environment,
as the Sierra Club does,
we should also care about creating more opportunities
for folks to live in the city of Seattle.
That's how we'll get away from being
the third-highest mega commuter city
in the entire country.
If we can create more opportunities
for folks to live here,
it's good for our health, it's good for the environment,
and it's good for local businesses, too.
-Can you try to differentiate this "alternative"
that you're talking about?
I've heard "alternative six" thrown out there.
There are five on the table right now --
talking about the potential of six.
How is what you're thinking about --
and I know the public is still weighing in on this --
but how is what you're thinking about different
from what's on the table right now?
-Well, what's important to remember
about what's on the table is,
we have to stay within the proposals
that the city studies now
for making a final decision next year.
So if we don't have an additional alternative
that looks at slightly higher buildings, greater density,
we will not be able to consider it next year in our analysis.
So what we are asking for right now is, at the very least,
the city should be considering an additional alternative
as they look at the various options,
to make sure that it can at least be
part of our conversation next year.
I don't think that capping buildings at 30 feet high
is necessary.
I think that we could go 40 feet
and at least ensure that there's greater density
on top of these larger buildings that we're creating.
I know my brownstone was more than 30 feet tall,
and with eight units in it,
that creates opportunity for folks to live here.
I think it's also a great opportunity for us
to look at how we can incorporate childcare,
small business opportunities,
the opportunity for community centers.
This is how we can create density,
places for people to live,
but also have a sense of place and livability included.
So that's why I want an alternative six,
to include higher density and more diversity
in terms of the type of uses of those buildings,
and to also think about family-size units being part of,
you know, what makes this city great.
We want more families to live in our city.
And I think that an alternative six
at least being on the table helps us get there.
-Thank you.
I have a "Council Edition" viewer
who often writes me about what's happening
with small landlords in our housing picture,
has some concern about rental regulations
added over the past several years
and how that's impacting mom and pop landlords.
The writer says this --
"Seattle has lost thousands of small-scale rental registrations
in the last few years with no discussion or concern
from the city council," as he puts it.
What are your thoughts?
Some thoughts about these smaller landlords.
I know they have a voice here,
and I'd like you to respond to this, if you could.
-Yeah, I think it's important to remember,
especially during COVID
when so many people lost their livelihood,
whether they were small business owners themselves
or they were workers on the front line.
Lots of folks lost their income and they couldn't pay rent.
But what the city did in partnership
with our congressional members
is we ensured that rental assistance
was directly passed through to landlords.
Those were small landlords and large landlords,
but it helped to make sure that people could stay afloat,
both inside the home, inside the unit,
and also that those landlords
continued to receive that income.
It has been a wildly successful program,
and whether it's, you know, an affordable unit
you know, naturally occurring affordable unit.
-An older unit, right. -Or, you know,
somebody living in SHA, Seattle Housing Authority,
or somebody living in,
you know, an apartment that has just been built.
We all benefit when people stay stably housed.
And it's really important for us to think
about rental assistance dollars
being a buoy for those small landlords as well.
They have been at the table as we talked about
how to deploy rental assistance dollars
and make it easier for them.
They wanted to make sure that it directly went there
and that's what we did.
So if you think about, you know,
small landlords potentially being a business of sorts too,
when we create greater density,
there will also be more opportunities for folks
to live in the city and they will need to both rent
and have home ownership opportunities.
-A final question, just in terms
of public health and public safety.
You recently took a tour with some firefighters
down in the south end of West Seattle, the peninsula there.
Some firefighters that Councilmember Herbold
was able to kind of usher in
and make sure that they were on board
and the council supported that move there to add that service.
Let me know about that ride-along.
This was something that --
It sounded like it was pretty eye-opening for you.
-Well, Councilmember Herbold and I
were co-sponsors of an effort to ensure that the ladder truck
and the medic unit truck in West Seattle and South Park
remained core to the services that West Seattle
and South Park residents receive.
This was a ladder truck and medic unit that were added
when the West Seattle Bridge was not available to us,
and we saw the benefit of having medic truck
and the ladder unit in the area.
It increased response times.
It helped to make sure that there was more resuscitations
available in an area
that often didn't see the level of resuscitations
that we saw with the medic unit once it was there.
This is literally saving lives
to have those two vehicles there.
And they weren't in the proposed budget
that the mayor transmitted down.
So this was a huge priority for her
as a District One representative
and also for me as a citywide representative,
but also coming from public health.
What we saw on that tour was the ability
to respond to an elderly woman who was having a cardiac arrest.
We saw them be able to resuscitate her,
and her son arrive.
They took her off in the in the ambulance.
But that response time would not have been possible
if the Medic One unit was not at the station in South Park.
And we saw the relief in the eyes
and the experience of the first responders,
the firefighters who talked about being able
to actually respond to some of these crises in real time.
We also heard folks talk about the need for us
to continue to make investments upstream
so that more people had housing stability
and behavioral health treatments needed,
because they're spending a lot of time
responding to people who are living in moments of crises.
And we can do that.
Thank you very much, Councilmember Mosqueda,
as always, for joining me.
And we will see you next time on "Council Edition."
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