Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the launch of Family Housing Connection (FHC), a “coordinated entry” system created to make it easier for families to navigate the housing system in King County.  There are 3,210 homeless families currently on the placement roster waiting for a housing referral. 

Of the 3,210 families on the placement roster today:

• 7% are staying in a place not meant for habitation (215 families)
• 56% are couch surfing or doubled up with friends/family
• 14% are in shelter or using an emergency hotel voucher
• 10% are in a rental with no housing subsidy
• 4% are staying in a hotel without a voucher
• The remaining 9% are in transitional housing, substance abuse treatment, housing with a voucher, a home they own but are losing, hospital, incarcerated, or other.

Coordinated entry came out of recommendations of the Committee to End Homelessness, of which I am a Governing Board member.  FHC partners with more than 80 shelter and housing programs in King County and continues to reach out to programs who are not yet partnering.  Today, instead of calling 80+ programs individually, families needing housing now have a single access point to 80+shelter and housing programs.

FHC does not create additional housing resources and this new process does not shorten the months long waiting time it takes to get families into shelter or housing faster.

A year’s worth of work illustrates just how much there is yet to do.  Here is an excerpt from a recent report:

“As we all expected, year one presented many challenges.  No one has felt these challenges more than the 3,788 families who have accessed FHC. Long wait times for housing assessment appointments and much longer wait times for emergency housing produce anxiety and hopelessness for families awaiting our call.  The 215 families who are staying in a place not meant for human habitation are prioritized for emergency housing – but even with prioritization, they will wait months for a roof over their children’s heads.”  (my emphasis added)

Over this year period, FHC has referred 1,048 families to housing, 55% of them have either moved into housing or been accepted but not yet moved in; 19% of them were denied because background checks, credit checks, drug tests, etc. made them ineligible; 26% of referrals were refused by the family for various reasons.  After a family refuses a third referral, they are removed from the waiting list.

Improvements to the system over FHC’s first year include a change requested by the City Council under my leadership, specifically that the “first come first served” referral philosophy be shifted to prioritize families who are staying in a place not meant for human habitation. Future improvements planned, also requested by the City Council, include a. reducing barriers to referrals that currently lead families to be deemed ineligible as well as b. increasing placement assistance resources such as optional background checks and optional document scanning.

Tonight in King County, children in 215 families – while prioritized on top of this list – will sleep in a car, in a greenbelt, on the streets, in an encampment, or in abandoned building.  These children will wait months for their families to be placed in shelter or a hotel.  This is unacceptable for a region of our resources.  I intend to continue to advocate for additional funding to address the immediate housing needs for these children and their families and determine what it would cost to provide basic shelter services so that they do not have to sleep in places not fit for human habitation while they are working with an agency to become re-housed.

Comparison of a 128 sqft parking space, a 150 sqft microunit, and a 180 sqft basketball court lane

Don’t know what micro-housing is?  Here is an except (full content at link below) from a Council Central Staff briefing document:

“Microhousing projects are generally comprised of apartment or townhome-style dwelling units, each of which contains several (often seven or eight) sleeping rooms clustered around a shared kitchen and laundry area. The sleeping rooms are typically 150 to 200 square feet in size and equipped with a kitchenette (refrigerator, microwave, sink) and private bathroom. Each sleeping room is leased to an individual tenant and rent levels, while subject to variation by location, are often in the range of $600 to $700 per month…Tenants include, but are not limited to, students, service industry workers, and individuals who divide their time between Seattle and a residence in another location. Since 2006, DPD has received permit applications for 48 microhousing projects. Once all those projects are complete, it is estimated they will yield residential capacity for more than 2,300 people. Eighteen (38%) of the projects are located on Capitol Hill, 12 (25%) are in the University District, and the remainder are spread throughout the city.”

The event will be an opportunity for public comment as well as hearing presentations from the Department of Planning and Development (DPD), the Office of Housing (OH), and Council Central Staff.

It will be held in City Council Chambers on the 2nd floor of Seattle City Hall.  The agenda and supporting documents can be found here.  If you can’t attend, but want to watch, the live streaming video is found here and the archived video will be located here.  Because not everyone can attend daytime meetings, within the next few weeks, Councilmember Rasmussen and I plan to host another evening public forum on microhousing development. Details about this event will be available as soon as it is scheduled.

]]> http://licata.seattle.gov/2013/04/17/forum-on-microhousing/feed/ 2 http://licata.seattle.gov/2013/04/05/city-hall-open-house-april-6/ http://licata.seattle.gov/2013/04/05/city-hall-open-house-april-6/#comments Fri, 05 Apr 2013 23:49:26 +0000 Nick Licata http://licata.seattle.gov/?p=4308 Seattle City Hall will be open on Saturday, April 6 for an Open House, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

You can visit the Mayor’s Office on the 7th floor, and Councilmember offices on the 2nd floor.

There will be adoptable animals, food trucks, and performances (acrobatics at 11a, and the Massive Monkees at noon).

On display on 5th Avenue between Cherry and James will be the Seattle Police Mounted Unit, and an antique Fire Truck.

This week, the Human Services Department (HSD) announced that they will use the Council-allocated funds to allow Seattle Winter Shelter operations to be extended at both a. the City Hall Winter Shelter serving adult men and women and b. the Women’s Shelter at Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) Connections.

In 2011, thanks to the advocacy of the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness (SKCCH), the Seattle City Council voted to make shelter available “behind the red doors” inside City Hall all winter long.  Again, in 2012, SKCCH called for an extension of winter shelter to meet the ongoing, yearlong unmet need when turnaways at year-round shelter spike after winter shelters close.

I’m glad that with the 2013-2014 budget money allocated by the Council in 2012, HSD agreed to allow these shelter operations to extend past the winter months.

The meeting was a good preview of some of the major issues that my committee members and I will be tackling this year, including:

• Monitoring the Yesler Terrace Re-development
• Implementation of Seattle new Rental Registration and Inspection Program passed by the Council last fall
• Multi-Family Tax Exemption (MFTE) Program changes to address a. 2012 MFTE Audit findings and b. program changes necessary to implement possible Council decisions on appropriate program goals

Here is a very quick summary of what you can expect in upcoming months on each of these 3 topics.

January 23 HHSHC Committee

At this meeting, the Seattle Housing Authority will give a presentation on their proposed Yesler Terrace Relocation Plan.  It’s important that the 561 households at Yesler Terrace are supported throughout this process, that their moving costs are reimbursed, that they not have to move more than once, that families with school-aged children don’t have their education disrupted, that they have the right to return to Yesler Terrace, and that the maximum number of very low income units are developed onsite so that they can return to Yesler Terrace if they do want to return to the new Yesler Terrace.

February 13 HHSHC Committee

In order to provides context for for future MFTE Program discussions, which will take several months this year to complete, the Office of Housing will present:

a. A snapshot of the current housing market (rent levels, vacancies, etc)

b. Current affordable housing needs data

c. MFTE Annual Report including up to date program activity and status on administrative procedures changes to respond to 2012 Audit findings

April 10 HHSHC Committee

At this meeting we will get will hear about a proposed fee structure and learn what implementation costs will be reimbursed through this fee revenue paid for by landlords and which costs will be reimbursed through other sources.  We will also get a full implementation plan for the Rental  Registration and Inspection Program that will estimate resources needed by quarter over the next 2 years to do the following:

• Establish a publicly accessible database of properties regulated under the program
• Outreach to regulated property owners and tenants
• Register property owners
• Establish a training program for inspectors
• Promulgate a rule for random inspections
• Begin inspections

I’m looking forward to 2013 and am confident that it will be another productive year for my HHSHC Committee

A State Bank is mechanism to directly invest tax deposits to build critically needed infrastructure at a substantially lower cost, create jobs, and generate a higher financial returns to taxpayers, thus benefiting all Washington residents.

Here are some of the benefits of a State Bank:

• Lower interest rates and much reduced upfront fees mean borrowing costs are significantly lower

• Every time a construction loan is repaid it revolves the funds for another infrastructure project and jobs that come with it.

• Taxpayers earn a higher return on their tax dollars

Though it didn’t move out of either the House or Senate committees of origin last year, there were 44 co-sponsors on a similar bill, the greatest number of co-sponsors of any bill filed that session.  Currently there’s only one state-owned bank in the nation, in North Dakota, where one has existed since 1919.  Some credit that bank for the fact that the State of North Dakota has a surplus in state revenue when other states are making budget cuts to address revenue shortfalls.  My hope is that in the 2013 Legislative Session the Washington Investment Trust Bill becomes a reality.

If you want to learn more about how a State Bank might work, check out what the North Dakota Attorney General and Governor have to say about it on this Prairie Public Radio video.

Though there were supporters present, there is still much opposition.  The major concerns I heard on Monday night were:

• Many people believe that new low income housing for families will result in an inevitable increase in nuisance behavior such as public inebriation and urination, aggressive panhandling, drug dealing, shoplifting, etc.
• Many people believe that there is already a much too high concentration of low income housing in Lake City.
• Some people were worried that development now would interfere with an opportunity for another commercial/residential development that could contribute to Lake City’s growth and economic health.
• A few speakers said that low income people wouldn’t be able to support local businesses to help those businesses succeed.  In other words, they would be a dependent population not a contributing one.
• Some people thought that the Fire Station Levy Fund account would suffer, because the city would be use funds from the sale proceeds to support the project, instead of replenishing the Fire Station Levy Fund.
• Nearly everyone included in their testimony that the City should make more investments in infrastructure, particularly the community center.
• Many people said that they believe that the city is not listening to the community’s concerns

I believe that many of the concerns voiced on Monday night can be addressed. However, a strong perspective that I heard was that Lake City residents feel betrayed by the City; facts alone may not alter those kinds of perceptions.

A little bit of background on the proposal is important to understand how we got to where we are today.  On any given night in Seattle, there are more than 6,000 people in need of shelter. Most find their way into an emergency shelter or transitional housing, but there are still over 1,700 people in the Seattle area sleeping outdoors without shelter.  In the Spring of 2011, the Council passed legislation that created a work plan and timeline for analyzing alternatives and recommending actions to provide services in securing housing and to help meet the immediate survival and safety needs of individuals in our community who do not have access to safe shelter.  The City Council’s review was to include possible renovation of Fire Station 39 as a long term location for a new shelter or housing facility.

Then, about this time last year, the community convinced the Council to not support the proposal for a shelter at this location and instead look at possibly selling the property to someone who would develop permanent housing for this site and partner with the City to use the $950,000 earmarked for this site for some sort of a public community space.  And with that, the Seattle City Council changed course and voted for a Statement of Legislative Intent (SLI), requesting the Executive instead develop a proposal for the future redevelopment at the site of the old Fire Station 39 to include long-term housing for low-income or formerly homeless families.  The  Executive was requested by the Council to also involve community stakeholders in the development of that particular kind of proposal.  The Executive has not yet made a final recommendation to the Council and the Council will still have to – after a recommendation has been made – vote to support, reject, or amend that proposal.

So, in short – the Council heard the community a year ago when Lake City residents emailed and met with Councilmembers to say that Fire Station 39 should not be used as a shelter.  How do you know that the Council heard Lake City residents?  Because, Council voted to tell the Mayor to change the shelter proposal.  And the community will have still yet another opportunity to influence the Council, after the Mayor makes a final proposal and before the Council votes on the disposition of the Fire Station.

Back in June, after the City made a preliminary recommendation, there was a briefing on that recommendation and the next steps in my Housing, Human Services, Health, and Culture Committee.  If you are interested in the details of the preliminary recommendations, an assessment of the needs of Lake City residents, or information about the concentration of low income housing in different City neighborhoods, you may want to review the documents at this link, under agenda item #2. In December, the Executive will be making a final recommendation to the City Council.  My committee will hear that recommendation.  If you want to track the Council’s discussion in December about these issue, you may want to sign up to receive my committee agendas here.

The Summit today will showcase what we’ve learned during the other first phases of the Summit.   There have been 12 regional Community Gatherings over the last year and a half.  Also,   Action Teams were formed in the first phase of the initiative to begin working on projects that will make the visions reality.   Today’s summit is the second phase of the Aging Your Way initiative, the goal is for participants to interact with people who are working with new community-based models to transform communities and make use of the talents and resources of the residents in the nearby areas.

Phase Three will strive to support the actions and models that result from the Summit and strengthen communities throughout the region.

To learn more see here:  Aging Your Way Summit

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