Seattle’s small landlords and those involved with family-owned properties could become a bigger part of solutions to the region’s housing crisis under a new incentive program from the Regional Homelessness Authority designed to make it easier for people without a place to live to rent existing units in the city.
The new package offers private building owners including smaller owners of individual properties incentives including guaranteed rent payment managed by a third party, “good tenant” and “good landlord” coaching to help people transition into the rental environment, and ongoing “human services” support from the authority in exchange for using “alternative screening criteria to promote maximum acceptance of referrals” from the program.
The RHA’s new Housing Command Center is seeking 800 units across the county to launch the incentive program.
The new program is open to owners with holdings of any size but might be most appealing to smaller landlords in coveted areas like Capitol Hill who
say they are under increasing pressure to sell out to developers and real estate companies looking to add to their national portfolios.
“Progress on the homelessness and affordable housing crises requires collaboration and partnerships,” Mayor Bruce Harrell said about the program. “This new incentive package launched through the Housing Command Center fully leverages the units of affordable housing available now to help those in need and deliver real results.”
The RHA, meanwhile, is seeking more than $200 million in support in the city’s budget for next year. The Seattle City Council has delayed final debate over 100 amendments to the Harrell administration’s budget proposal until next week as councilmembers wrestle with a projected dip in city tax revenue.
You can learn more about the program at kcrha.org.
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“good tenant” and “good landlord”…
You don’t find this in the “average” tenant-landlord relationship. I hope this is applied only if a problem surfaces. As is, it encourages a continuation of the stigma within the wording, implies that the unhoused are somehow “other”, and denying the past of the majority of responsible adults who find themselves in this situation through no fault of their own. The majority have the same life skills as anyone else.
Oh d413d, you need to lay off the homeless industrial complex Kool-Aid. The reality is that the majority of chronically “unsheltered” have unaddressed behavior issues resulting from untreated chemical dependence and mental illness.
Let’s say this is true. Do you think that a “good tenant” training is going to fix these behavioral issues?
Can we also provide some “good neighbor” training so that more people understand that living in a community is a participatory thing and not some hotel/vacation scenario, if you want positive things you sort of have to work for them 🤷🏻♂️