Council "Alternative" to Social Housing Would Raid JumpStart for Small, Short-Term Affordable Housing Pilot
By limiting eligibility, the proposal would eliminate a crucial element of social housing's funding plan.
By limiting eligibility, the proposal would eliminate a crucial element of social housing's funding plan.
By Erica C. Barnett
City Councilmember Maritza Rivera is sponsoring an alternative to Initiative 137, the proposal to fund permanently affordable "social" housing through an excess compensation tax, that would raid the existing JumpStart payroll tax to fund a much smaller affordable housing program that would be limited to lower-income tenants.
A key element of the original social housing proposal is that higher-income tenants would subsidize the rent of lower-income tenants by paying more, but that council's proposal eliminates that subsidy by imposing much lower maximum income limits.
Assuming the council passes it, the competing measure will appear alongside the social housing proposal on the February 2025 ballot.
Initiative 137 is the second half of the social housing proposal from House Our Neighbors, whose 2023 ballot measure, I-135, created a public development authority to build permanently affordable mixed-income housing. I-137 would impose a 5 percent tax on annual employee compensation above $1 million, to be paid by employers, raising up to $50 million a year to build and purchase housing.
In contrast, the council's proposal would take $10 million in annual proceeds from the existing JumpStart payroll tax— currently earmarked for unrelated affordable housing, small business, and equitable development programs—to fund the social housing developer. The measure would provide a total of $50 million for new housing—to be administered through the city's Office of Housing—before expiring in five years.
Unlike the social housing initiative, the council's alternative would cap renters' incomes at 80 percent of the area median, effectively converting social housing into traditional low-income housing. A key element Seattle's social housing plan is that people earning up to 120 percent of median income would help subsidize the housing costs of lower-income tenants by paying higher rents, ensuring that the housing becomes self-sustaining.
The council delayed action on I-137 earlier this year, ensuring that it won't appear on the high-turnout Presidential election-year ballot in November. Instead, voters will choose between the two competing measures in a special February 2025 election.
During the council's weekly briefing on Monday, Rivera said the council's alternative to I-137 "allows the new public development authority to demonstrate proof of concept, rather than the city simply handing over a blank check to yet another new agency with no track record of creating housing. ... If they succeed in delivering positive results, the city can expand this effort in the future, but we need to receive results first and foremost."
The legislation would amend the spending plan for the JumpStart tax, removing funds from other priorities to pay for the limited five-year pilot. The city also plans to use JumpStart funds to close a $250 million budget gap this year.
There are some major and very real challenges I haven't yet heard discussed when it comes to social housing...
There have to be SO MANY rules and so many checks and balances to protect the community from things like fraud, apathy, abuse. Then there is the question of who becomes liable? Seattle's affordable housing is in a health and safety crisis. In social housing, who takes on responsibility when HVAC units aren't cleaned for 20 years and people get sick? Or plumbing back flows and people end up with auto immune diseases? Or building structures teeter on the edge of collapse?
And governance... The loudest voice in the room is rarely the one really worth listening to. Abuse can run rampant.
I support the idea of social housing, but the pundits I hear talking about it are totally out of touch with the reality of it, causing me to worry of the giant mess that could come of it .. .