Guaranteed basic income for 16,000 Seattle families. A new income tax to fund a new housing Public Development Authority. An expansion of emergency rental assistance. Juicing federal dollars for all their worth.

These were just a few of the solutions floated by Seattle top mayoral candidates at a forum on the homelessness crisis last week hosted by We Are In, a local advocacy organization.

“Compassion Seattle”
One of the central questions of this race is where the candidates stand on a proposed new amendment to the city charter to spend more money on housing and public services and require that public spaces like parks be kept clear of homeless encampments.

Former Seattle City Council president Bruce Harrell said he supports it, but concedes it isn’t perfect. SEED Seattle’s Lance Randall said there are “a lot of things that need to be worked out,” but notes it puts pressure on city leaders to act.

On the other side, Capitol Hill architect Andrew Grant Houston said he was “vehemently” opposed to the amendment, saying “I am not interested in an attempt to legalize sweeps” and that the campaign in favor of it, “Compassion Seattle,” did not consult the Lived Experience Coalition, which is made up of homeless and formerly homeless people.

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Colleen Echohawk, who recently left her position as executive director of the Chief Seattle Club to focus on the campaign, argued there were many problems with the amendment. She similarly noted the lack of input from people with lived experience of homelessness and that it doesn’t provide funding for the actions it calls for, like spending on housing and behavioral health. She also said amending the city charter is simply not the right way to go about dealing with the homelessness crisis.

“It’s a very bad way to set policy,” Echohawk said. “A regional approach is needed. I wish Compassion Seattle had waited and that the regional approach had happened. The system is broken. We need change. We need more funding and we need real, proven solutions.”

Jessyn Farrell, a former state lawmaker who also ran for mayor in 2017, said the amendment is a “symptom of the failure of the past six years” and added it is “only as good as the next mayor.” She agrees with some of its goals, including more permanent supportive housing and money for behavioral health services, but also notes it doesn’t identify funding sources to scale up these plans.

In past forums, current Deputy Mayor Casey Sixkiller has made little attempt to differentiate himself from the Durkan administration. For example, in a forum last week, Sixkiller was the only candidate to say he would allow sweeps of homeless encampments, one of the more controversial aspects of Durkan’s tenure. He said the proposed charter amendment “underscores that a cross section of our city wants to see more progress.”

The charter amendment will begin gathering signatures Thursday to get on the ballot in November. It needs over 33,000 by June 25 to qualify.

Top policy priorities on homelessness
Sixkiller reiterated multiple times a plan to guarantee a $500 per month basic income to 16,000 Seattle families as a pillar of his campaign to reduce housing instability. (500 x 16000 x 12 = 96 million dollars per year)

He also pushed for more focus on commercial affordability to keep small businesses afloat.

Harrell called for expanding several existing programs to fund solutions to homelessness, including rapid rehousing funds and emergency rental assistance, and his own new plan for a “Seattle Jobs Center” to connect people with jobs to keep them off the streets.

“Quite candidly, sometimes it’s just cash to keep people in their house,” Harrell said. “It could be something to fix their car, it could be a plane ticket to reunite family.”

Houston, donning an Elizabeth Warren sweatshirt, called for 2,500 tiny homes and a new 1% income tax to fund a housing Public Development Authority focused on building public housing, new environmentally-focused apprenticeships, and Equitable Development Initiative investments. He also called for an end to exclusionary zoning and said that he wanted to push to overturn I-200, which banned affirmative action in the state.

Echohawk said she would want to extend the city’s eviction moratorium and that there must be changes to the city’s zoning code to allow for more homes.

Randall called for a stop to the divisions between the business community and City Hall and said he would look to subsidize fair landlords to stop evictions.

Farrell said she wants a regional Sound Transit 3-style program to fund housing, referring to the $54 billion transit package passed in 2016.

“Every single community in our city and in our region needs to be taking on housing,” she said. “In my administration, we will absolutely be building solutions that are scaled to the size of the problem.”

Did the city press enough for federal funding?
Perhaps the only moments of true conflict between the candidates came as some questioned why the Durkan administration wasn’t pushing harder for FEMA funding for hotel beds as a form of shelter. Defending Durkan, Sixkiller said “there has been no point since the beginning of the pandemic that the City of Seattle has left any money on the sidelines. We have gone after and leveraged every single opportunity available to us… Frankly, the false narrative that has gone around that somehow we did not pursue FEMA funding is absolutely and categorically false.”

PubliCola reported in February that the mayor’s office was turning down FEMA money for hotel-based shelter, in the process raising a number of concerns about using the federal dollars for that purpose.

Houston responded: “I am not going to sit here and listen to another candidate lie about what the funding could and could not do.”

“What I will be bringing as a candidate is transparency, honesty, accountability, and trust because those are four things that are currently lacking from our current executive,” Houston added.

Echohawk said “it seems like the city has left money on the table.” Farrell said it would be helpful to release the mayor’s text messages on this issue. Harrell said his administration would have a cabinet-level position dedicated to catching federal dollars and said a majority of new America Rescue Plan Act funding should go toward homelessness.

Current council president Lorena González had to miss the forum after a fire this month killed her mother-in-law and left her with an unstable housing situation. State Rep. Nicole Macri read a statement in her place calling González a “leader on addressing homelessness.”

“She’s experiencing first-hand how hard it is to find affordable housing in Seattle even with all the advantages she carries,” Macri said.

Tuesday’s forum can be watched in full here.

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