New Ballot Initiative Aims To Create ‘Social Housing’ In Seattle And Wage War On Property Owners

The city clerk’s office will review the new ballot initiative to ensure it has been filed correctly. Once that has been settled, the initiative will receive a ballot title and then members of the coalition will begin collecting signatures from Seattle residents. The coalition needs almost 27,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot.

If the initiative hits that, voters would get to weigh in on it this fall. 

 

 The effort is known as “social housing,” and it’s essentially publicly owned housing that is insulated from private market forces and designed to be permanently affordable. This model is popular in Europe and other countries around the globe including Vienna, Austria.

“This is kind of a referendum on all elected officials,” said Tiffani McCoy, advocacy director at Seattle’s street newspaper Real Change and co-chair of the coalition behind the measure, House Our Neighbors. “We’re very serious about solving the affordable housing crisis. We can’t wait another year.”

 Unlike the Seattle Housing Authority, which must follow federal housing rules, the new entity would make it possible for a governing board of renters to decide who lives there and open the developments to a mix of incomes and backgrounds.

but private property owners cant decide!

The average property owner will now have to assume that a tenant will not pay rent for three months. As such, small landlords will increase the price of units to compensate. Seattle already limits the maximum security deposit to one month’s rent less any nonrefundable fees charged. Additionally, the use of criminal history in tenant screening is prohibited and housing providers must screen applicants in the order the housing provider receives the completed applications, and offer tenancy to the first applicant that provides a completed application and qualifies under the housing provider’s screening criteria. Housing providers will now have to assume the “worst case scenario” about every applicant and adjust pricing accordingly. 

 

 

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