Seattle’s longest running crisis is homelessness, with the city issuing a state of emergency back in 2015. King County’s annual point-in-time count continued to show a persistent homelessness crisis last year with 11,751 individuals experiencing homelessness on one night in late January 2020, a 5% increase from the previous year but still below the 12,112 counted in 2018. Among those, 53% were sheltered and 47% unsheltered, the same as 2017 and 2019.

This was the context for a Thursday afternoon forum with seven of the candidates to be Seattle’s next mayor hosted by Resolution to End Homelessness. All of the participating candidates said in a Wednesday forum that the biggest issue facing the city was some variation of homelessness, affordability, and inequity.

Here are 13 things CHS heard at Thursday’s mayoral forum on homelessness:

1. Seattle City Council President Lorena González, the only current elected official running for mayor, flexed her recent experience pushing tenant protections in the city to stem evictions during the coronavirus pandemic, including creating additional defenses for renters in eviction proceedings. She also said she would support an expansion of the JumpStart big business tax and other progressive revenue sources to support housing development.“This is, in fact, a crisis and we know what will solve homelessness. It is housing. And what we need to do is commit to more progressive revenue to fund the solutions we know work, which is construction of deeply subsidized affordable housing throughout the city.”
2. Unsurprisingly, all seven candidates agreed housing is a human right and supported a housing first approach to addressing homelessness. Chief Seattle Club executive director Colleen Echohawk specifically noted she was taught this at a young age when her family would house unsheltered Alaskans in their home during dreadful winters. “I believe that every single person who lives in this city deserves housing.”
3. Houston said he would get more funding for housing and increased social services through his plan for a new 1% income tax and defunding the police, “recognizing that a lot of the interactions and the harm that is being done to our unhoused neighbors are being directly done by the police.” He also said he would look to eliminate exclusionary zoning and tap into a new President Joe Biden-pushed program to provide billions in grants to municipalities that get rid of such rules.
4. Former council president Bruce Harrell pushed for tapping the philanthropic community to better fund social services and noted his plan for the creation of a “Seattle Jobs Center” to provide resources to applicants:
5. Harrell also made the connection between race and homelessness and called for a Race and Data Initiative to better understand racial disparities in Seattle. “While we shelter people we’re also going to do the preventative work that I think is so critically important.”
6. SEED Seattle’s interim director Lance Randall said there needs to be a focus on what he calls “purpose-driven housing” to help unsheltered individuals dealing with mental illness: “We have to start looking at making investments into our own mental health facilities to begin to get those with mental health disorders off the streets in a facility where we can house them, but also provide the services that they need on a regular basis.”
7. While Harrell called for philanthropic support and González said she would push for increased taxes on big business, Randall said the city needs investment from the business community to better fund its approach to homelessness. “In order to make sure we have enough funding to deal with this issue, we’re going to need more funding than just from the city of Seattle government.”
8. Jessyn Farrell, a former state lawmaker who also ran for mayor in 2017, noted her personal experience as a child whose father lived in 15 different houses to show “how harmful it can be to a family and the deep economic instability that comes from not having a stable roof over your head year after year after year.” She committed to “rapidly scaling up” permanent supportive housing units and other types of housing.
9. Deputy Mayor Casey Sixkiller cited the Miller Park homeless encampment as an example of how Seattle can work to connect homeless individuals with housing and social services. The city needed to clear the playfield with in-person classes resuming last month and Sixkiller said everyone residing there was given the opportunity to receive indoor shelter and most took up the city on that offer. “We did two things: we got more than 40 people inside and returned that park to its intended use. I think that’s a win-win for our community and those individuals who should have never had to call a park a home.”
   In one of the rare interactions between the candidates during the forum, Houston noted several of the people camping at Miller Park were swept. CHS witnessed at least five people being moved as the city cleanup commenced in mid-April. “We need to stop sweeping people,” Houston said.
10. Sixkiller also touted a proposal of his for a one billion dollar levy to build 3,000 permanent supportive housing units: “We have to build more homes. We need more housing options. We need permanent places for people to transition from shelter to have the supportive services they need.” He also called for more affordable childcare and increasing apprenticeship programs.
11. Instead, Farrell said 3,000 units is not nearly enough. “We also need to build 70,000 additional units at a variety of income levels to really get in front of this.” She said she wants a Sound Transit 3-style program to fund housing, referring to the $54 billion transit package passed in 2016.
12. Echohawk said a priority would be juicing federal dollars given her frustration with Mayor Jenny Durkan’s administration not pushing harder for FEMA funding for hotel beds as a form of shelter. “I will not let one penny go by me.”
13. González said she would be introducing legislation next week to invest federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act in housing programs. Harrell said most of these temporary funds should go toward homelessness.

Forum season is now in full swing as the candidates race for support over the next several months before the Aug. 3 top-two primary election. The top mayoral candidates talked unions and affordability in an MLK Labor Council forum Wednesday. Last month, they discussed police reform in a brief session hosted by the 43rd District Democrats.

For more coverage of the mayor’s race the ongoing election season, check out CHS’s Election 2021 coverage.

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