In a special election on Feb. 11, Seattle voters will decide whether, and how, to fund a social housing initiative. The ballot has two competing propositions for where the money would come from.
Josh Cohen, the city reporter for Cascade PBS, joined KNKX's Kirsten Kendrick in studio to explain what exactly is on the ballot.
Click "Listen" above to hear their conversation and find highlights below.
Interview Highlights
On what social housing is.
Social housing is a mixed income, affordable housing model, publicly owned, affordable in perpetuity, and it really is for lower middle income to upper middle income folks. That's opposed to the traditional public housing model, which is for people at the very lowest end of the income spectrum. And then the nonprofit affordable housing model that provides most of our subsidized housing in Seattle, and that's for, again, lower income folks who can't find housing they can afford on the private market.
Seattle voters said ‘YES’ to developing social housing in 2023 but didn't fund it.
Right, there's no funding, so nothing's been built. At the time, the folks behind the creation of the Seattle social housing developer said they would probably come back to voters to get that funding, and here we are.
Voters will decide on two options for funding social housing, both with taxes from big businesses.
Prop 1A would levy a tax on employee compensation over $1 million – that's salary, stock options, stuff like that. But to be clear, the businesses themselves would pay that tax. And it is estimated to generate about $50 million a year.
Prop 1B earmarks $10 million a year from the Jumpstart payroll tax, which is another tax on big businesses in Seattle, that money would go to the social housing developer, and… [the] income of residents that were allowed to live there would be lower than the 1A model.
(Prop 1B was brought forth by the city council and it's backed by Mayor Bruce Harrell.)
On the controversy about using the Jumpstart tax funds for this.
Jumpstart, a big piece of it has always gone to affordable housing — that traditional nonprofit affordable housing model that we talked about. And affordable housing providers are really worried about, you know, having that money go to this new form of affordable housing. We're not creating new affordable housing, we're... just using the same money for a different model and so not moving the needle on the problem.
Voters could say ‘no’ to both funding models.
It's a two-step process for voters. They choose ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on the idea of funding social housing at all. Then they'll choose between 1A or 1B.
[If neither passes] the social housing developer will still exist, but it will not have the capital funding to build anything. I think we won't see any projects from them anytime soon. But again, the advocates behind 1A have said that if they don't get funding now, they're going to come back to voters again in the future. They're pretty committed to making this model work.
Find Josh Cohen's reporting on the propositions for funding social housing in front of Seattle voters at Cascade PBS. Ballots must be postmarked or returned to a ballot drop box by 8 p.m. on Feb. 11 for the special election.
