Okay.

Good afternoon, everyone.

The April 22nd, 2026 meeting of the Housing Arts and Civil Rights Committee will come to order.

It is 201 p.m.

I'm Dion Foster, Chair of the Committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Juarez.

Here, I can barely hear you though.

You might want to do audio check.

I can barely hear you.

Councilmember Rink, is that better?

I don't think your mic is on.

I can't hear you.

Testing.

Is this better?

Yep.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rink.

Vice Chair Lynn.

Yep.

Here.

Chair Foster.

Here.

Chair, there are three members present.

All right, fantastic.

And Council President Hollingsworth has been excused from today's meeting.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda or within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Currently we have one in-person speaker and no remote speakers.

All right, fantastic.

Speakers will have two minutes.

Looks like we have a second speaker signing up.

We'll grab your name in a second.

Um speakers will have two minutes.

Um and uh clerk, will you go ahead and begin inviting speakers up for public comment?

All right.

Public comment period is up to 60 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they are registered.

We will begin with in-person speakers.

Uh once you've heard a time after 10 seconds, that uh there are 10 seconds left.

Speakers will mics will be muted if they do not end their comment within the allotted time.

The public comment period is now open, and we will begin with our first speaker, uh, which is Malcolm Heinz.

Oh, any mic you choose.

Oh, thank you.

Um, this is uh just directed to the arts and culture and uh arts and culture department funding.

Um advocate for the arts actor, I came here last time advocating for spaces.

This is I just want y'all to can have in your consideration about the uh filmmaking opportunity that Seattle has besides uh Harbor Studios um on Harbor Island, that this city is uh definitely lacking in funding and opportunities to film here for filmmakers, and I just want to advocate for uh on the behalf of the film society and local artists that are film here that could use you know the city's help, and uh the city is so immaculate and beautiful to be able to explore and show the world um as it is first in athletics, as it is first in um other things as sports.

It can be first in the arts, and it also starts with film.

Uh I work for CIF as well as an advocate for theater, but the lack of film education and the lack of film being done in this city, uh, especially this area of the city is vitally important.

And there's only things like locals only, and there's only other stuff that is on a smaller scale.

Um there's a lot of people that went to film school here that still work in the city and that are not working, and this also benefits the community and the culture which we are in.

Uh if we want to be back in the high ranking um as far as the arts in America, as far as the city and not in the 20s, you have to start with the core, and that is the filmmakers and the people that are ready to shoot and don't have the opportunity and can't shoot because of the legality uh part of it.

So just for y'all consideration.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Malcolm.

And our next speaker is Ruth Dight.

And so I I want to apologize.

I I looked for an agenda online and I couldn't find one.

So I saw housing.

Of course, I'm talking about conference and plan.

So that's and before you start, Ruth.

Um, we just ask that you leave your sign at your seat.

We don't have signs up at the podium typically.

Oh, it's I it's it's uh it's not a sign.

Oh, it's that was from the No Kings March.

Okay.

I repurposing.

No, this is I wanted to talk to this.

Is that okay?

We don't let yeah, we we don't let signs up at the podium.

So if you want to put your sign at your seat and then do your public comment, that would be fantastic.

Well, it's just it's just demonstrating what I'm talking about.

It's I appreciate that, and thank you.

And if you want to leave it for us, we can talk about it.

But we ask we we have a policy to not have signs up at the podium, so I want to be consistent.

I've had people I've done this before.

Okay, all right.

Um if I put it well, you can't see it.

Um it took a bit of time to make okay.

Well, I'm trying to talk.

Okay, and we'll go ahead and start your time now, Ruth.

Okay, I wanted to talk about zone development capacity and what it means because not very many people understand what it means.

And what my poster here is supposed to illustrate.

Um how they go about estimating it.

Um there are two state requirements.

One that the city identify buildable land and not buildable land, and that the other that they apply a market supply factor, which accounts for the number of pro parcels that they don't expect to come online and be available for development in 20 years.

Now, that market supply factor is something that is rarely talked about.

And so you you what they do is they look at all the zone land, they subtract the unbuildable, they subtract what will be market unavailable, and what you're left with is 330,000 developable, expected to be on the market units of capacity.

A lot of people think that number is so big because well, you have to take account of the fact that people aren't going to put their market up for sale, but that's not true.

I've never heard it explained that there is a market supply factor built into this required by the state.

Very important to understand this.

Uh so we have a target of 120,000.

We we have then 280,000 beyond our 120,000.

That's what's called a zoning buffer.

The idea of the zoning buffer is that if you have a lot of land available, it will bring prices down.

Builders will have more choice.

The problem is in a growing city like Seattle, same thing happened in Vancouver.

This doesn't happen.

The land doesn't depreciate.

That's one of the points I keep trying to make here.

And that's that's all I have to say.

Thank you, Ruth.

Clerk, are there any further public speakers?

No.

Yes.

David Ains, I signed up online, but I just hear something else.

Okay, and just uh go ahead and do your public comment, and let's just make sure before you leave, we get you signed up on the on the record, so we have a record of that.

And just give us one second and we'll start your time.

All right, David Aines.

Perhaps City Council Chair would like to address the high-risk insurance that originates from bad policies that exacerbate the crisis of helping people who are self-destructive and more profitable that kind of destroy the permanent supportive housing.

Uh the service providers are not breaking the addiction and the conscription to the underworld that all these residents are like enjoying.

And yet there's all these innocent homeless people who are being subhuman mistreated and purposely denied.

And it seems like you could like improve the robust like offering a capacity, whether it's like authorized encampments built by the National Guard or the tiny house villages that could be also built by the National Guard.

But like you have to take the restrictions off the comprehensive plan that your colleague self-dealing as a small-time landlord has put within the comprehensive plan that launch the pockets of corrupt nonprofits and purposely backstab backstabs, real developers who could go eight to twelve stories with livable amenities that everybody would enjoy.

But instead, if you go through your presentation today of all the nonprofits that are claiming like permanent supportive housing and affordable housing that are looking to dump all their like exorbitant salaries and debt and like bills onto the taxpayers again as a bailout after they remortgage, all those buildings are either hovering over the sidewalk practically right next to the most famous bar, or they're too low to the ground.

So everybody that lives in the building, it has to put up with the street noise, and there's no livable amenities to go to, like if the trash truck comes in or delivery comes in, you have to go higher, taller, saves trees.

Beware of the people weaponizing trees that own a home that just don't want people to build back better.

And I agree with them being concerned about nonprofits who are unqualified to literally come into other people's neighborhood in the worst location and build some crappy home that's so low to the ground that you allow people to drink, do drugs to get themselves to sleep to lie themselves about how crappy the buildings are that nonprofits that need to be like held accountable built.

Thank you, David.

Clerk, do we have any further speakers?

No further speaker.

No further speakers.

All right, thank you.

With that, we will now move on to our first item of business.

Will the clerk will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Agenda item one, appointment 03471, the appointment of Amy Wynn as director of the Office of Arts and Culture.

All right, thank you.

I would like to invite up to the committee table, interim director Amy Wynn of the Office of Arts and Culture.

Um, and she'll be joined by Deputy Director of Operations uh Mark Ellerbrook.

As they are getting settled, I will just take a few moments to speak on this item.

Um and first I will say, welcome back, interim Director Wynne.

Um it's a pleasure to have you back.

And I will just say it was um really beautiful when we had the opportunity to have you and um what I would imagine is just a fraction of your community, but was a very full council here uh in chambers just a few weeks ago.

And um it was really a fantastic moment to get to hear the support for you and your nomination.

Um, and also I think uh to my understanding the first time that we've seen a department director's face on a popsicle stick um in chambers.

And so that that was fantastic.

Um in all seriousness, um, our office sent around um responses to your written questions prior to today's conversation.

Um, and today provides an opportunity for committee members to ask any remaining questions and also for you, interim director Wynne, to share any information that you wanted to share as a follow-up from our our conversation several weeks ago.

Um I will just say uh in in um in conclusion that um I think we feel very lucky to have you here as a nominee um to lead the Office of Arts and Culture.

Um I will say what I what I've seen in public and in our our one-on-one meetings is a real commitment to the arts um and a real commitment to thinking creatively and innovatively about how to collaborate um across departments here at the city.

Um and it's exciting to have you as a nominee with experience coming back to the city.

Um, and I think we look forward to what that leadership can mean for us at this moment in time.

Um interim Director Wynn, before we uh turn to my fellow committee, before we turn to my fellow committee members for any questions, I invite you to share any thoughts that you'd like to as an opening.

I was missing you, Councilmember as at the uh last committee hearing, and I'm expecting some hard questions from you.

No, you get nothing, girl.

I got you.

Um I just want to thank you so much, Chair Foster, for that introduction.

And I also want to thank you for uh and your colleagues for the fantastic questions that were sent to us in advance, as well as the questions during the committee.

Um, to be joined in chambers at that time, and also in the short period serving as interim, I've had the opportunity to speak with so many individual artists, small, mid, large, nonprofit arts organizations and our major institutions.

And the common thread is people are ready to see action and see value brought to and honored for arts and culture.

That's a mandate that I know I cannot achieve alone.

It's one that we need partnership with the mayor's office as well as city council in order to meet the needs of the arts and culture sector that make this city uh colorful and interesting.

Thank you so much, interim Director Wynn.

I really appreciate that.

And I believe we are working to get um Councilmember Rink online here as well, because I know she's excited to share some questions.

Um so I will turn to my first to my fellow committee members to give you all an opportunity to ask questions of interim director Wynne.

Councilmember Lynn.

Hey, so it's so good to have you here, excited uh for your leadership.

Um just a couple questions.

One, um, one of the things I'm uh excited about in your resume and background is your um experience around public space management.

Um, and that goes back to um Estod and you know, so many things about your planning background.

Um but um uh you know, this past Saturday, um, I was at the Columbia City Night Market.

Um, you know, and it's such a wonderful experience in uh for community to come together and for to have live music and so many small uh you know businesses, vendors um selling um arts or other crafts.

Um just wondering if um it what the role you see for the Office of Arts in sort of partnering around um public space activation.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Lynn.

It's something that I am incredibly passionate about as well.

And the example you brought up, I think is a wonderful uh example of a program within the Office of Arts and Culture.

Uh we have very little regulatory arm apart from the cultural districts program.

And the Columbia City Hillman City Cultural District, I think is an exceptional example of very organized businesses, community members who have transformed and taken control of their neighborhood and made that public space happen.

I was at SDOT in public space management during COVID when those very community members pushed us to advance our street closures in order to meet community needs.

This is a vibrant neighborhood that also pushed forward on cultural districts, and now we have an opportunity as a city to deliver more.

What does it mean to be a cultural district?

I've had some great initial conversations with the interim director, Yarcy at the Office of Economic Development.

And we've been dreaming about how do we create more innovation and teeth around cultural districts at the intersection of business improvement areas, and also thinking around uh that not every model needs to look the same for neighborhoods.

How can we move to actually uh creating a more bespoke community development model that enhances the magic of uh corridor cultural corridors like in Columbia City?

Um I'm very excited that the Office of Arts and Culture we have a uh a history of legacy on public art through the one percent for art ordinance.

It's a place where we have worked very closely with capital departments uh to deliver on public art.

This office recently launched a creative placemaking division.

Um really how can we think about not only the mid and long-term investments on capital development that transforms spaces, but how are we thinking about meeting the ephemeral, meeting the everyday, creating opportunities for arts and culture that doesn't have to wait till after construction mitigation and project delivery before you get to experience that.

And I think festival streets, just as uh how we activate our e afternoons, evenings, arts and culture is entirely at the core of that, just as small businesses are and it is music.

You said it, you can feel it, you can smell it when you are experiencing Columbia City alive.

What I'd like to see is that we enhance and invest deeper into cultural districts, but we also ask what neighborhoods don't have that, and what does it look like for us to build the appropriate cultural support so that uh well arts and culture is treated as that civic infrastructure.

Yeah, and just a follow up, and thank you so much.

And and one thing just uh in this would not not really be, you know, with your department necessarily, but you know, one of the issues that uh the Columbia City Night Market has faced is just so many permitting fees from SDOT, um, you know, other I think insurance and other requirements, and you know, we don't um you know have those same fees for you know for so many vehicles that take up so much space, but for some reason when pedestrians take up the space, all of a sudden we start charging for it.

Um and so anything I uh be happy to partner with you in the office to again help to activate these uh streets in different ways.

So thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Lynn.

Um I will turn to colleagues to see if there are other questions from colleagues, and I will also take this as an opportunity to welcome Councilmember Rink, who's joined us.

Okay, Councilmember Rink.

Thank you, Chair, and and thank you, colleagues, and um thank you, Acting Director Mwyn, for being here.

I know during the the last time you were before us in committee, I I had a few questions, but today I just have comments, very positive comments, and a lot of excitement for you.

Um this is just such an exciting moment, and I know that the community is thrilled to have you in this position and is ready to have your back as you step into this leadership role.

And my staff is trying to get some of those really cute signs that uh were present during the last meeting.

We'd love one of those.

Just to your face on a little popsicle stick is pretty great.

Um just given the breadth and depth of your personal and professional experience and expertise.

I can't imagine a better person for this role.

Um this city needs your leadership right now.

I'm grateful to you for stepping up to lead in this moment.

You have my vote, and I also offer you my support and encouragement as we work together to do big things.

So thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Rink.

Colleagues, any further questions?

Okay.

And I wanna, you know, we had some great public comment earlier today about the film uh community.

And I know just um two last week or two weeks ago, we had appointments to the film commission that were in uh the committee that Councilmember Rink chairs, and I know that that uh committee is tied to OED because as we know about the arts, arts are um an important part of our culture, but they're also important an important economic driver and engine, and so there's certainly a shared role between the Office of Arts and Culture, Office of Economic Development, and others.

That was my long preamble.

Um interim Director Wynne.

I wonder if I can turn to you to ask for your thoughts on um the film industry as part of the arts industry, and and I also will say, you know, I love when I get a chance to hear you talk about how arts function as an economic driver.

So I'll let see if you want to offer any comments on either of those two things before we head to a vote.

Excellent.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Foster.

And I'm there's my thoughts are spinning in a couple different directions.

One, I'm incredibly excited that you all will be hearing from some of our incoming Seattle arts commissioners and also our fantastic uh one of our fantastic co-chairs.

I love our commissioner energy now because they asked exactly what you just asked there.

Why are we not meeting more closely with other commissions, particularly at the intersection of arts and economic development?

Uh my response earlier was we we don't do this alone.

I don't take on the responsibility of this role thinking that I, as an individual, will be the answer to the arts and culture sector.

I need a strong uh Seattle Arts Commissioner base behind me.

We are reflective of the communities we serve.

What I've been able to hear through community engagement serving on uh Mayor Wilson's uh transition committee uh for arts, culture, creative economy.

We had several folks from the film community come to multiple bar lifting sessions.

And it starts with that listening, one in which uh the even the way that film has been split across our departments and asking that question of who do I go to?

Who's looking out for me?

Where are my needs met?

That's one of the many reasons I'm very excited to be able to work with interim director Yarsi and have the support of the mayor's office.

We need to get in front of creative economy.

We can no longer have this kind of ego war of well, this part is this and that is this, and I'm very excited that the mayor's office is so supportive in pushing Director Yarsi and I to bring our teams together to develop.

I know it doesn't sound like a radical place, but it starts with doing a memorandum of understanding so that we are accountable and we're laying out for the public to understand uh what where their tax dollars are going and what advocacy looks like, and also having that process in form uh what can we do so that we're not investing in uh partial policies or even partial real estate strategies.

Uh coming from the Office of Planning and Community Development, something that I am incredibly excited about is how we can locate arts and culture strategies into our real estate strategies.

Um much about film as one of the commenters, uh public commenters today noted, is about space.

So, how can we also think around our conversations of underutilized space, the changing economic factors around, for example, big box stores, uh, and actually use that as a creative economy strategy to attract different industries.

And we wouldn't be the first to do that.

There are so many examples of other U.S.

cities that rather than investing into, say, a specific technology, we can think about the incubation of an industry.

I'm very excited to be uh involved previously in my capacity to OPCD on the North Aurora planning.

There's so much opportunity as we think about Aurora and think about where uh what industry is actually as a high school student.

I worked for a as a production assistant off of Aurora for a not very good television show on PBS called BizKids that was some of the producers of Bill Nye the Science Kai trying to teach children about financial literacy.

Sorry, that was too much description to say.

That was a part of my experience of uh catching the bus, being a production assistant, and seeing this life that could exist behind these you know windowless big box uh spaces.

So I ask a dream, what would it look like to create a bespoke real estate strategy that can meet our needs of film but also meet our needs of community development and transformation?

I do believe that's possible.

Uh and it's time for film and other creative industries to also be brought to that table.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate that response, and I appreciate getting a window into your fantastic creativity, interim director win.

All right.

Um let's move forward so I can stop saying interim director win.

Um I move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointment 03471.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right.

It is moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of appointment 03471.

Are there any further comments?

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on the recommendation to confirm appointment 03471?

Councilmember Juarez.

Hi.

Councilmember Rink.

Yes.

Vice Chair Lynn.

Yes.

Chair Foster.

Yes.

Chair, there are four votes in favor and zero opposed.

All right.

The motion.

Y'all are quiet.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation.

Thank you.

The motion carries the committee recommendation that city council confirm appointment 03471.

The appointment of Amy Wynn as director of the Office of Arts and Culture will be sent to the April 28th, 2026 meeting of the Seattle City Council.

Thank you so much.

Um, and we look forward to seeing you then.

Um we will now move on to our next item of business, items two through five.

Will the clerk please read items two through five into the record?

Yes, agenda items two through five, appointments 03487 through 03490.

The appointments of Tara Beach, Ann Shakula, Mariana Martinez, and Ray Yang as members of the Seattle Arts Commission for terms to December 31st, 2027.

Okay, fantastic.

I would like to invite up to the committee table our four candidates, as well as Office of Arts and Culture Deputy Director Kelly Davidson and Seattle Arts Co-Chair Yung Kang O'Higgins, who will provide a brief overview of the Arts Commission.

Umce you all are settled, you are welcome to begin.

Um and it looks like we're getting those slides pulled up.

Um and as you do that, I'll say we're really excited, and it was uh a good um good opportunity for us to hear from interim director Wynne about the role of commissions.

It was like a great prelude into doing this commission appointments um and committee appointments, excuse me.

So I'm really excited to have you all here today, and we'll just say um in advance, thank you for your service.

Um I myself was a commissioner, not on an arts commission, but I think it's a really important way to engage with our communities and to make sure that city government has a strong bridge.

So I'm very grateful to each of you for your willingness to serve and we're getting those mics working, so we'll be at ease for just a moment as we get the technology set up.

Before I forget you'll be sorry I didn't ask you.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, this is it's on.

Do you want us to jump in with introductions at least?

We could get it.

Let's do introductions.

Well, that's a fantastic idea, Deputy Director.

Let's do introductions and we'll keep working on getting the technology going.

Why don't we um start down at that end of the table and then we can have Sage come over and help with that?

Sure.

Great, you get to start.

Um Hi, uh my name is Ray Yang.

I use uh David Pronouns.

Um I'm the uh director of equity diversity and inclusion especially initiatives for the National Art Education Association.

Um, but I'm a Seattle resident and uh I'm excited to um be part of the commission.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Mariana Martinez, I she, her hers pronouns.

I am the executive director at Centro Cultural Mexicano, which is a nonprofit organization that serves a Latino community across three counties, and I'm extremely excited to be here.

Hi, my name is Tara Beach.

I use she, her pronouns.

I am a lifelong Seattleite and currently on sabbatical.

Hi, my name is Ann Chukla.

I use she her pronouns.

Um I'm the measurement evaluation officer at Allen Family Philanthropies for our arts, youth and communities funding.

Thank you.

And I'm Kelly Davidson, Deputy Director of Arts Office of Arts and Culture.

Hi, and I'm Yoon Kango Higgins.

She, her pronouns.

I'm the co-chair of the Arts Commission and also the senior director of community impact and programs at Friends of Waterfront Park.

Thank you.

Scott, okay.

I think I think we're set here.

Can I drive?

I can.

All right.

Um, so we are here today.

We're very excited to have four candidates for the Seattle Arts Commission.

Um, Yun will talk a little bit about our process, um, and we will do a little bit of an overview.

Um, yeah, I'm gonna get over to you.

Yeah, so we're really excited to be at this point.

Um, we were actually uh we were presented with a short list of over 30 very highly qualified strong uh candidates for these four positions.

For the first time, we conducted a group interview process, so they went through um a few more layers than in the past of interviews, and so we're really excited that we can sit here before you today.

Okay.

I'm not sure our slides are fully following along, but I'm gonna do just a quick intro on Seattle Arts Commission itself.

The Seattle Arts Commission is comprised of 16 members who are community member volunteers appointed by the mayor and city council.

They support the work of the Office of Arts and Culture.

Commissioners include artists, arts professionals, and others with strong links to Seattle's arts community.

Seattle Arts Commission supports the city by advocating for arts policy, creating access for equitable participation in the arts, and fostering arts engagement for all residents.

There are three subcommittees of the arts commission, which are the Creative Placemaking Committee, the Cultural Investments Committee, and the Public Art Advisory Committee.

Next slide.

Okay, so about each of the committees, um, every member sits on at least one of these subcommittees.

The Creative Placemaking Committee or CPC works at the intersection of arts and creative economic development to advocate for place-based community investments and advise on the Office of Arts and Culture around issues of cultural space.

The Cultural Investments Committee, or CIC provides guidance and feedback on the Office of Arts and Culture's racially equitable grant processes and investment strategies, and advocates for equitable, accessible, and inclusive cultural investments.

And finally, the public art advisory committee, or PAC, serves to review and recommend public art projects and programs, develop and amend the municipal art plan, and advocate for percent for art projects and public-private partnerships.

The PAC operates, promotes, and supports the development of art in public places, including parks, libraries, community centers, roadways, bridges, and other public venues to enrich citizens' lives and to give voice to artists.

So now we're gonna introduce our candidates.

Ann Schoka is a senior measurement and evaluation officer at Allen Family Philanthropies with over 20 years of experience in the nonprofit sector.

She holds an MFA in arts leadership from Seattle University and a BEA in public communications from American University, and has spent nearly two decades working at the intersection of arts, culture, and community impact in the Pacific Northwest, including roles at the City of Seattle, an MEM consultant, and has taught courses in strategic planning and program evaluation in Seattle University's graduate programs and arts funds board leadership training program.

Her work spans program evaluation, organizational assessment, strategic planning, and grant making, and is grounded in a long-standing commitment to racial equity, arts access, and youth development.

Next we have Mariana Martinez, who's the executive director of Central Cultural Mexicano.

Mariana has dedicated over two decades leading organizations and creating positive change and is committed to closing the disparity gap at disenfranchised groups locally, nationally, and globally.

Two important aspects of her work have been her experience in local government, advancing inclusive policies and community advocacy, and her experience leading large-scale civic engagement initiatives, helping nonprofit organizations create more equitable and representative communities, citizen diplomacy, mobilizing the Latina vote, and helping develop emerging Latino leaders for congressional opportunities we have Ray Yang as a non-binary Asian American artist, educator, and advocate for the arts and social justice.

They spent time in a range of roles as a classroom art teacher, designing assessments and curriculum in art education, working as a teaching artist for museums and community centers leading outreach workshops and professional development, teaching graduate courses, and serving as an arts administrator within public schools.

They are currently the director of equity, diversity and inclusion and special initiatives at the National Art Education Association and have facilitated workshops, led affinity groups and trained with National Seed Project.

Okay.

And finally, um, last but not least, Tara Beach is a Seattle-based public affairs and nonprofit leader with more than two decades of experience advancing cultural investment, equity, and community engagement.

A lifelong Seattleite.

She spent nearly 20 years in the office of Congressman Jim McDermott, ultimately serving as district director.

Drawing on deep experience and historic preservation and cultural heritage.

She led the effort to establish the Wing Luke Museum as an affiliate area of the National Park Service, securing national recognition for Asian American cultural preservation.

She previously served as executive director of Spectrum Dance Leader and continues to support the role of arts and culture in Seattle's civic life.

So we're very excited about our new commissioners and the experience they bring.

And we're happy to answer any questions you may have if you want to.

Thank you so much.

First, let me just say wow, how lucky are we?

Um it's just such a pleasure to get to hear about the depth of experience that each of you brings.

Um and I feel really I said this as uh went up before we read your bios, but I feel really honored that each of you would choose to engage in public service in this way.

So I just want to express my appreciation for your previous work and for for all the work that's yet to come uh with this iteration of the arts commission.

So just really really want to express my appreciation.

Um colleagues, I will turn to you to see if you have any questions for our um appointees or nominees rather.

Councilmember Rink.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you all for volunteering your time to serve on this uh commission.

Thank you for being here in committee today, and thank you also for your work in community.

I just would echo what the chair just stated.

You all have been incredible leaders in this community, and so feeling very lucky that you all will be joining the commission.

Um, just uh a question for all of the proposed appointees.

And we heard this mentioned a little bit in the um appointment process for interim director um previously, but some discussion about you know what it means to be a working artist in the city and have a sustainable career in the arts.

And so um, I'm wondering if you can speak to a little bit what you believe the city can do to work towards building a more sustainable careers in the creative economy and arts and culture work, and how um you'd like to bring your advocacy for that to the commission.

Is that okay, you meet?

Do you want to start?

Sure.

Take so thank you so much for that question.

Uh I'll I'll hit I'll start.

Uh well, first is a privilege to be here, and I think uh volunteering your time or volunteering time, I think is it it's absolutely a privilege to be able to provide or give and contribute with our um skills.

But I think um this position is I see it as a bridge and absolutely a position where of advocacy ensuring that we are reflecting the communities that we serve.

So to me, we start with hearing the voices of the people that we serve.

So not just that we reflect the city or the population service, but we also that we who's at the table and how are we hearing what are we, what are we doing?

Uh, but as we heard earlier, I think the in understanding the intersection of different commissions, I think is priority because we can't do this alone.

So, as much as talent as we can bring at the table, I think it's important to work with different departments.

But but I would say at the core of you know, arts and culture is a door to um civic engagement and democracy.

So I do see this as uh an opportunity to not just listen but start start there and move into action.

We're not alone, so I don't think I think it's about how we can collaborate with different departments and how we can we how we can we ensure that our communities are reflected into the work that we do.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Um I feel very lucky to be sitting here in such uh esteemed company.

Um I think one thing that comes to mind for me as uh spending my career trying to understand and evaluate the impact of the arts is that um there's so many benefits that the arts have.

We heard um director when I guess um speak about economic drivers.

I think we all know anyone who has experienced the arts, there's certainly in our inner personal um benefits of participating in the arts, and then there's um community and cultural benefits.

And so one thing that I uh grapple with a lot is how to make sure that everybody has access to those benefits, um, understanding that the arts can impact individuals differently.

Um, and so what is that underlying factor that means you know artists can um can have opportunities to work in the communities where they live and that folks have opportunities to access art that is relevant and important to them and where the organizations that are supporting and kind of the the backbone that allows folks to be able to access those organizations or the um opportunities so um to me it really comes down to access and how do we look at barriers to access in the arts and break those down for for the folks in our community?

I think for me um having governmental experience as well as being the executive director of a nonprofit that hired um artists uh at Spectrum Dance Theater, we had our dance company our independent contractors.

And so, really thinking about um the artists as individuals and livability wages, and having also worked for uh single payrol health care champion Jim McDermott for as long as I did.

I really think about health care for artists because if they're not healthy, and if we are not taking care of them, they can't do their job.

And that if they're not doing their job, they're not making a living.

And the entire system is complicated, right?

And resources only go so far, but I think that if we really think about how to embrace the community as individual artists, embrace their work and really elevate them as true professionals as they are, is something that I think about quite a bit.

And so I'm really excited to be here with everyone and very excited for the uh leadership of uh incoming director Nguyen and thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Um, similarly, thank you so much for this opportunity and this chance to be able to serve the city and and work in the arts.

Um, uh, my background is primarily as an educator and as an arts educator, and I've worked as a teaching artist and in lots of different spaces, and so um, you know, with that in mind, I just think oftentimes about how um how artists are getting to connect with youth, um, and especially for many artists, they become teaching artists in order to be able to support themselves as working artists at the same time.

And so um, you know, where are the investments to be able to support those um artists educators, teaching artists, art teachers, however you want to call it or however you want to frame it, and um and really you know provide them the resources to be able to do the good work they're doing as artists, but also I do think it's so important that artists are being connected to youth, whether that's in K-12 communities or with families, because um, you know, there's I think such a misconception still broadly from our you know society around like artists as being starving artists and unable to make livings, and like there's just not an understanding of how artists and creatives actually work across all fields and all industries and create skills that are so important, so vital.

Um, and so uh yeah, like those those what are the investments that we can make as a city in order to support those um teaching artists and also classroom teachers who are teaching around the arts.

Thank you all.

I really appreciated the answers to those questions and so excited to move these appointments forward.

Thank you again for being here.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any further questions.

All right, fantastic.

And with that, we will move on to a vote on our appointments.

Clerk, can you please call the roll?

All right.

Oh, so wait, do I need to move it?

Sorry, I lost my page.

One second.

Um all right, with that, I move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointments 03487 through 03490.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right, it is moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of the appointments.

Are there any further comments?

Will the clerk please call the role on the recommendation to confirm appointments?

Councilmember Juarez.

Councilmember Rink.

Yes.

Vice Chair Lynn.

Yes.

Chair Foster.

Yes.

Chair, there are four votes in favor and unopposed.

All right, fantastic.

The motion carries.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The motion carries, and the committee recommendation that the appointments be confirmed will be sent to the April 28th, 2026, City Seattle City Council meeting.

Thank you, everyone.

We will now move on to our next item of business, items six through twelve.

Will the clerk please read items six through twelve into the record?

Agenda items six through twelve, appointments zero three four eight zero through zero three four eight six, appointments of Elizabeth Benham, Alana Diggs, and Sasha Wasstrom and the reappointments of Andrea Asshafu, Adora Blue, Liz Fight, and Sam Wolfson to the Seattle Renters Commission for terms to February 28th, 2028.

Fantastic.

I would like to invite the committee to the committee table, Laura Jenkins with the Department of Neighborhoods, who will provide a brief overview of the Renters Commission and Elizabeth Benham, one of the candidates.

Once you are settled, you are welcome to begin and let us know if you need any support.

I think you've got no slides today, is that right?

No slides.

Okay, fantastic.

Welcome, Laura.

Um and Elizabeth.

Okay, great.

Thank you so much, committee chair Foster and the rest of the council members for having us today.

Um I'm Laura Jenkins, uh, she, her pronouns, and I'm a civic engagement coordinator with the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, and I staff the People's Academy for Community Engagement and the Seattle Renters Commission.

Um, and I'm gonna provide just a little bit of background about Renters Commission and um then we'll get into more information about the new appointees.

So um to start off, though, I did want to just thank you, um, committee chair Foster and your staff for moving forward these appointments um so quickly and just really appreciate the partnership on this, and um also thank you to the mayor's office as well for moving forward their their appointments.

Um the City of Seattle established the Seattle Renters Commission in 2017.

The 15 member commission is responsible for providing information, advice, and counsel to the mayor, Seattle City Council, and departments concerning issues and policies affecting renters.

Um and also until operation of social housing begins, the renters commission also makes appointments to seven seats on the Seattle Social Housing Board as needed.

Um members of the commission must be renters in the city of Seattle at the time of their appointment and throughout their terms.

Um I do just want to note that for a prolonged period, there was a um there weren't appointments weren't moving forward for the commission, and so there was really low capacity.

Um, but in July last year, um there was a mass uh there was uh were a bunch of appointments that were able to be moved forward by the the committee and council at that time.

So thank you for that.

Um and since then the commission has really been building backup capacity.

Um and more recently, they've established some different committees um, which include um they have a partnership, partnerships and relationships committee, outreach and engagement, advocacy and policy, commission development, and then there's also an executive committee that's made up of people from each of those committees and the um two co-chairs as well.

Um, and one of the roles of those committees as they're being established is to also make recommendations around the $50,000 that um Council Member Warez put forward in an amendment last year um for a strategic plan by the end of 2026.

So that's some of their more like current work items.

Um they also establish from time to time as needed different work groups around um different topics where they may be interested in writing a letter or pursuing um researching uh a topic in in more depth.

Um so that's the commission's kind of current work, and then today we're bringing three appointments and four reappointments in front of the committee.

Um after Elizabeth speaks, I'll provide statements from two of the other new appointees who were unable to make it today.

Um, and then just wanted to mention that the four people who are being reappointed or who are up for reappointment um were people who were appointed last July as well.

So they were serving um terms that were vacant.

Um, and so that's why it was such a short period of time, but they were all interested in reappointment to the commission.

Okay.

Hello, uh, my name is Elizabeth Benham.

I'm a renter in District Three.

I've been in Seattle for uh about three years now, and uh I've moved every year, mainly due to unaffordable uh rent increases and just uh a plethora of uh hidden fees that seem to multiply every year.

So I'm fairly familiar with uh the Seattle rental landscape as a tenant, uh, but also in my professional work.

I'm currently uh an asset manager with the city's office of housing.

I work on the market incentives and land use side on the compliance side, so overseeing compliance for our buildings in MFTE, MHA, incentive zoning.

A lot of my time is reviewing leases, working with property managers on the ground, uh, and working with tenants uh at these buildings.

So I hear from tenants uh every day uh from across the city, market rate and uh and restricted units about the challenges they face, also with their own rent increases, uh dealing with hidden fees, uh dealing with lease terms uh and you know things around ratio utility billing.

So I feel like I have a lot of knowledge uh and insight that I can contribute to the renters commission uh anecdotally uh and help with some of their initiatives around um you know tackling those those junk fees and uh challenges around uh rubs and just generally protecting uh renters in Seattle.

Okay, and then I'll move forward with um reading the statements from the two potential commissioners who um were unable to attend today.

So, first is Alana Diggs.

Alana Diggs is dedicated to helping demystify renting for all Seattleites, especially those who are moving to Seattle and who are historically marginalized.

She views variety of language, genders, identities, and experiences as a strength of a neighborhood.

Alana has an extensive background in marketing and communications and has been instrumental in projects that have increased access to healthcare, funding, and economic opportunities to underserved communities.

She is driven to help boost inclusivity for Seattle renters who speak languages other than English and is dedicated to helping all Seattle renters understand their rights and access safe and affordable housing.

And Alana also added this piece that's from her perspective too.

Um while I wish I could be with you all today, at this moment, I'm supporting a good friend at a long anticipated wedding.

To my fellow commissioners, I look forward to meeting you and working together to make Seattle a more livable and communal city.

To everyone who had a hand in my appointment, I take this position seriously and hope to show that your trust in me is well placed.

And most importantly, to Seattle renters, I look forward to hearing from and serving you.

And then um the other potential appointee is Sasha Wasserstrom.

Um and Sasha, this is also from Sasha's perspective.

So I'm excited to serve on the Seattle Renters Commission because I believe the voices of renters must not only be heard, they must shape policy.

In Seattle, renters make up a majority of our residents and are constantly impacted by the whims of powerful landlords, how and powerful landlords.

Housing policy too often feels reactive, delayed, or disconnected from the urgency many of us experience month to month.

I am motivated to serve because I believe the commission plays a critical role in ensuring that renter protections are not symbolic gestures, but durable, enforceable, and responsive responsive to real conditions on the ground.

My background in public policy and coalition leadership has shown me how critical it is to bridge lived experience with institutional process.

I want to help ensure that renter protect perspectives are translated into clear recommendations, measurable accountability, and policies that reflect the full diversity of Seattle's neighborhoods and identities.

Serving on this commission would be an opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the future of a city where renters are not an afterthought, but central to how we define equity and stability.

I am thrilled to be joining this commission, and I look forward to all the great work that we will be doing together.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate it.

And I know um I know folks wanted to be here today, but sometimes it's hard to make it to council.

So I'm thankful for you for reading those statements on behalf of our potential appointees.

Um and I feel again very grateful that we have folks who are willing to serve and and thank you for being here today.

And I'm excited to get uh both your experience as a renter as well as your your, I guess you can call it lived experience, but your work experience as well.

So I'm excited for the depth and breadth of the knowledge that um is going to be represented on the renters commission with these appointments.

Um colleagues, I will turn to you and ask do any of my fellow committee members have questions.

Checking on Zoom.

Okay.

Oh, I do see questions on Zoom.

Okay, Councilmember Lynn, and then we'll go over to Councilmember Rink.

Um questions, but just so excited to uh and thankful that you're um we're willing to step up for this, Elizabeth.

And um, I know that uh your experience is gonna be super super helpful.

Um again, just super excited and uh was excited to see your resume that you're uh interested in uh Rubik's cubes and juggling at rock time and these are always something new.

Uh so anyway, thank you for stepping up.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Lynn.

Councilmember Rink.

Thank you, Chair, and and similarly, no no questions for today, but rather um I I when I saw you, I was like, I know you.

I saw you on the bus that one time, and we had an amazing talk about MFTE.

So that being said, so excited that you're bringing your expertise to the Renters Commission.

Um, and um I don't have any questions today just because I've really appreciated uh the engagement my office has been able to have with the Renters Commission, really leaning into what our commissions are set up to do, which is to be a body to go to for consulting on policy, getting direction, um, and just that further kind of engagement and perspective.

Um, having an active renters commission is so important because we are a majority renter city, and so just really excited to see these appointments go forward today, Chair, and again, Elizabeth, for you bringing your expertise to the Renters Commission is very exciting.

So thank you for being here.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you so much, colleagues.

Any further questions or comments um before we move this for a vote?

All right.

I move that committee the committee recommend confirmation of appointments 03480 through 03486.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay.

It is moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of the appointments.

Are there any further comments?

Will the clerk will the clerk please call the roll on recommendation to confirm appointments?

Councilmember Juarez.

Councilmember Juarez.

It looks like her Zoom may be frozen.

Let's move through and we'll come back to her.

Councilmember Rink.

Yes.

Vice Chair Lynn.

Yes.

Chair Foster.

Yes.

Right.

Yeah, she's still frozen.

Uh Chair, there are three votes in favor and no opposed.

Okay, fantastic.

The motion carries, and the committee will recommend that the appointments be confirmed and will be sent to the April 28th, 2026, Seattle City Council meeting.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Okay.

We will now move on to agenda item 13.

Will the clerk please read item 13 into the record?

Agenda item 13, Office of Housing Presentation on Stabilization Investments and Investments Dashboard.

Okay.

We have our committee, our committee, we have our presenters joining us at the table.

So once you all are seated, I will ask you to unmute and introduce yourselves.

And after you do that, I will go ahead and share some uh opening comments.

And we'll um welcome Councilmember Rivera.

Welcome.

Hi, Kelly.

How are you?

Madam Chair, the Councilmember Wards, your apologies.

Um keeps kicking me out.

I apologize for missing the vote.

No worries.

I we apologize, Councilmember Wars.

We were gonna come back to you, but we saw that you you lost uh, but what we still had quorum, so all good over here.

It's done it three times now, and I just don't know what's going on.

I apologize.

Okay, that's all right.

We'll check in with uh we'll send son a message as well.

We're just getting the table set up here in in chambers.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hi, thank you all for having us.

Thank you, Chair Foster and Committee members.

Nice to see you, Councilmember Rivera.

I'm Kelly Larson, Director of Policy and Planning at the Office of Housing.

I will have the rest of the team introduce themselves while we're getting settled here with our technical details, starting with Maria.

Good afternoon, Maria Deweys with the policy and planning team at the Office of Housing.

Afternoon, Madison Kramer, strategic advisor with the capital investments team.

Kate Allen, I'm with the Office of Housing Policy and Planning Team.

Rosie Joe, uh Director of Capital Investments for the Office of Housing.

So we have a great team of people here today to talk about a few things.

We have a couple of presentations.

Did you want to start us off, Councilmember Foster?

Please do.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Kelly.

I appreciate the moment we had there.

Um thank you so much and welcome folks.

We're excited to have you all here today, and we're gonna make sure we get those slides working well over there.

Um as we do this, I'll just make sure that my colleagues know how we're gonna approach today's presentation because the Office of Housing is coming today with lots of fantastic information for us.

So we are gonna start today with the SLI response, the statement of legislative intent response, and then we will pause the presentation for committee members to ask any questions regarding the SLI response.

And following that, we are gonna move back over to the Office of Housing so that they can um finish your presentation with the dashboard that we are really excited to see.

I got a little bit of a preview of that, so looking forward to that.

So we just want to make sure that colleagues are holding questions until OH finishes and to know that we've got sort of a two-part uh presentation today.

With that, a little bit more context.

The background of this presentation is in response to uh slide OH004 S-A, which requested a report on the 2025 operating stabilization investments as well as the 2025 debt restructuring stabilization investments.

So this presentation today is gonna cover sections one and two of that slide.

Um and the OH report on sections three and four are expected and due to council later on in the year by June 30th.

So this slide was in response.

I know Councilmember Rivera has joined us as she was sponsor of that statement of legislative intent, along with Councilmembers Hollingsworth, Kettle, and SACA, who were the other sponsors of the SLI, and several members who are no longer on council.

The purpose of the presentation today is to ensure that we have the information that we need as because we know that our affordable housing providers here in Seattle, as well as affordable housing providers across the country, have faced a growing debt crisis.

We are not alone in that as we've seen a rise in maintenance and operating costs, as well as challenges coming from the financing environment that impact our ability to build new projects.

And while that's complicated, we know that that slowdown of new projects also has an impact on providers.

I know that for me as chair of this committee, it's really important for us to hold a couple of challenging and nuanced things together at the same time, which is that Seattle continues to actually lead the nation and building new affordable housing units, and our Office of Housing continues to implement innovative strategies to work on lowering our housing costs, and yet still we have immense challenges that our providers are facing.

And it's critical that we work to find the right balance between new production, maintenance of aging buildings, and stabilization of existing buildings and providers.

And alongside that, it's important that we use a data-driven approach and that we are really clear and we have the a strong understanding of what's happening in our field here in Seattle, and that we are tuning into that as we consider any potential policy changes that we use that data to inform us.

So, with that, I am looking forward to this presentation today so that we can understand the investments that have been made, what we're learning from those investments, and then what we're gonna learn later on in the year with the um subsequent reporting that's coming to council.

With that, and now that we've got the slides up, presenters, I invite you to begin.

Okay.

This is work.

Yay.

Councilmember Foster, you provided such such an excellent overview that I do not need to I don't need to provide an overview so much.

But we're gonna be walking through with this great team of staff from the Office of Housing, an overview of the investments that we make at the Office of Housing around operating funds.

We'll then talk about the operating stabilization, the debt restructuring investments, and then take pause for questions based on the response to the SLY.

Then we will jump over to the housing dollars in action dashboard.

Operating funds have become a growing need for many of Seattle's affordable housing buildings.

The rapid increase in Seattle area incomes, largely driven by the highest earners who are homeowners, has impacted lower wage rent renters and their ability to pay rent.

These conditions are increasing the housing cost burdens renters are living with as the area's median income grows and continues raising the AMI rent chart that is used to send rents in affordable housing.

For many decades, rent revenue and fundraising were enough to cover the costs of operating most housing.

With increasing expenses, particularly insurance, utilities, and personnel.

This is becoming increasingly difficult.

Historically, the office has invested most of its funds to support the production of new housing.

This was a strong approach.

We were very behind, and we still are on meeting our communities' housing needs, but it did mean that OH is making a trade-off and not serving as the primary investor in operations or preservation.

With projects and organizations facing more challenges with increased operating expenses and significant capital needs, OH has increased its investments in operating and preservation activities and has also launched new periodic investments that bring more stability for tenants, buildings, and communities.

The work we're discussing today is a major body of work at the office this year and is also responsive to one component of a statement of legislative intent.

We often uh some of us are really focused on writing the report, but there is a lot of work that is done behind the scenes at the office and with our providers to make these uh dollars land in community, and that's that's what we'll be talk talking about today.

Uh the remainder of our response, as council member uh Foster mentioned, will be coming later in June, and that's addressing some longer-term forecasting and future investment strategies.

So we have an array of operating challenges facing providers today.

There are growing financial pressures from increased costs.

We have persistent challenges with this growing area median income and the resulting growth in housing cost burden.

We have ongoing difficulties with economic vacancy.

There are enormous shifting market conditions that are just continuing to change all the time.

We have seen a recent increase in overall new supply of housing, particularly for smaller apartments.

This impacts our entire a lot of our portfolio and uh has changed the way that leaseups are occurring and the way that buildings are performing.

So moving on to stabilization, we'll start here with an overview of what we have done.

For many decades, the office again provided minimal but consistent investment in operating.

Those were paid for by the Seattle Housing Levy.

For a long time since the beginning, we've been investing very minimal amounts but consistent steady amounts in operating and maintenance to support the capital investments that were made with the Seattle Housing Levy.

In recent years, the office has significantly increased these investments and operations, including OMS for permanent supportive housing.

At OH, we're always listening to our partners and monitoring our projects, and we've been engaged in stabilizing investments for several years now.

You'll hear a bit more about what we've done recently.

This slide can it provides some key details about OH's new and continued operating support, showing point in time investments in 2023 and 2026 across three primary OMS categories.

The Permanent Support of Housing Workforce Stabilization Fund, which launched in 2023 with the new Seattle housing levy and increased jumpstart payroll expense tax resources.

It intends to increase worker wages for folks who are doing some of the most important jobs in our city in PSH.

The PSH OMS line item is that basic ongoing funding that keeps the lights on, pays for basic staffing in support of housing.

We've been doing it for a long time, but it has grown in recent years, largely due to contraction of this type of funding from the federal government.

The city has stepped in to make sure that new PSH has been opening in recent years.

Finally, resident services provides funding for non-PSH affordable housing to pay for staffing and resident services that offer resources and support to provide housing stability for tenants.

Thanks, Kelly.

Once these grant funds were spent down, we heard from our partners that there was continuing need.

And in 2025, OH released 26.2 million in similar flexible funding for these types of operating expenses.

OH also recently released an RFQ for consultant contracts for 1.7 million to fund portfolio preservation planning.

And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment.

So backdated through December 2027.

Contracting is underway, and the first grant reports are due June 2026.

This slide shows a breakdown of the anticipated uses of US funding.

The largest share of the funds will go towards maintenance, rent assistance, and insurance, and a smaller share will go towards capital needs, security staffing, and admin.

Last week, the Office of Housing released an RFQ requesting qualifications from consultants to create portfolio preservation plans for a selection of the city's investment portfolio.

These portfolio preservation plans will assess the physical, operational, and financial performance of buildings in the city portfolio and identify steps needed to improve operations and help us determine whether future public investment may be needed.

These plans will help OH more deeply understand the needs of our affordable housing organizations by surfacing performance issues at buildings and establishing a clear timeline and strategy for addressing them through deliberate planning over the next five to 20 years.

We expect to have a roster of consultants in place by early summer, with the work itself beginning this fall in partnership with our affordable housing partners.

Together, these efforts reflect a multifaceted strategy to protect Seattle's affordable housing inventory and ensure its long-term viability.

And now I'll hand it over to Madison.

Thank you.

Again, I'm Madison Kramer with the Capital Investments team.

So I'm here to talk about debt restructuring loans that were part of our 2025 NOFA.

You may have heard of these also as stabilization loans.

So this is a new tool for the Office of Housing.

We know that more buildings are operating at a loss and at a scale that affordable housing providers cannot sustainably absorb.

So we got creative in response to trends we're seeing across the city, which Kelly touched on.

We limited applications to three per provider across new construction, building preservation, rehab, and debt buy down to give providers the opportunity to prioritize their greatest needs.

We received 13 applications for debt buy down in total, and of those, we ultimately awarded nine buildings.

In total, we committed 58 million for these properties.

So in reviewing all of these 13 applications, a number of consistent trends emerged, especially four.

Number one amongst them was that operating expenses had nearly doubled in the time between 2019 and 2024 for these buildings.

Applicants in particular noted that this was driven by insurance, repairs, security, and staffing.

Second, what we saw was that there's a growing mismatch between who buildings were designed to support and who they're actually serving.

Many properties targeted 50 and 60% AMI renters, but were now serving residents closer to zero to 30% AMI, many of them without their own rental subsidies.

So this reflects both structural factors, right?

In the US, affordable housing often is subsidizing construction rather than ongoing rents.

And that has been the case for over the last 30 years federally.

But it also reflects market dynamics, including residents with more housing options, having more choices across the city.

Applicants also in this round reported challenges responding quickly to safety concerns and criminal activity, which they reported was impacting retention of residents with more housing options.

The result of this was a widening gap between rental income and operating costs.

And so, third, more um more directly was the rental revenue has fallen considerably related to lower rents, also higher vacancy and rising unpaid rent.

Amongst the 13 projects, the average physical vacancy over a 12-month period was 87%.

Sorry, average physical occupancy, so 13% vacancy.

The average of unpaid rent that was over 30 days due was 119,000 per building, which is roughly equivalent to every single household of those owing just over 1,200.

In addition to the direct impact to project income, we also heard overwhelmingly that the staff and administrative costs to collect and enforce rent or support residents in navigating services so that they wouldn't fall behind had risen significantly.

And finally, we also had another uh trend of buildings that are aging and facing refinancing challenges, especially with balloon payments coming due and an inability to take on additional debt to cover repairs that are growing in need.

So to address these complex challenges is definitely not an easy task.

Yet in this round in this NOFA, we have gone big and also gotten extremely creative to make sure solutions match the unique problems for each building.

Ultimately, these investments avoid immediate risks of foreclosure and relieve pressures on providers.

These loans also allow deeper affordability long term and ensure the buildings can be maintained year over year.

At the same time, we are replenishing the operating reserves on these projects so they are resilient for whatever tomorrow's uh rainy days and unknowns might come.

And another important outcome to highlight here is that on several projects where the trends warranted uh greater temporary support for stabilization and cost savings, we also uh funded third party consulting capacity to come in and support there.

So, with this level of investment, the expectation is that we are uh is that we are solving for the biggest drains, supporting and incentivizing strategies that can be applied to the wider portfolio and giving providers breathing room to stabilize or reposition other troubled properties through other means, hopefully.

All that to say we know there is greater need to invest uh in OH's existing portfolio and are actively assessing that need, for instance, through the portfolio preservation planning that Maria talked about.

But that doesn't mean that we need to invest to this extent on every single one of uh the other thousands of homes that we regulate as affordable.

Uh so with that, you know, we've shared a lot of information, and I imagine you have questions.

I think we were gonna take questions now before we get into the uh dashboard discussion.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate the presentation today and the summary of the investments, and I know that we look forward to more information as you go through the rest of the remainder of the process, as we spoke about at the beginning.

This is a partial response to what was in the statement of legislative intent.

Um, and with that, I want to open it up first to my colleagues on the committee to ask any questions that you may have.

Uh councilmember Inc.

Thank you, Chair, and and thank you for providing this information for the continued work that you're doing at the Office of Housing.

It's greatly appreciated.

I know there's a lot of of questions too, just about um all of the ongoing projects that we have going on.

So, just as like a quick refresher, if you can just high-level walk us through kind of the stages of development for OH projects and approximately the timelines associated with those, that would be helpful in framing up this discussion.

So you'll see a little of that later on, but generally we have you know, projects start in application phase where they come to us seeking funds.

They have some amount of work that occurs before that, but then they come to us saying, we have a project, we seek we're seeking some money from you so that we can go secure other funds to make this project work.

So we have this whole section is kind of deemed pre-development.

Then uh the we award funds through our competitive round to launch projects into that period where they're seeking other funds so that they can completely finance project.

Projects go under construction.

The construction period usually lasts 12 to 24 months if everything works uh according to plan.

Then there's a lease up and stabilization timeline that can you know take some time, but again, 12 to 18 months.

And then they're in this period of operations that is uh can go for many years, hopefully, before they're coming back to us for preservation investments.

That's sort of the life cycle of a project, and you'll see some of those graphics later on during Kate's presentation.

Thank you for that.

Sorry, I for jumping the gun a little bit on that one.

Um, but I'm really excited to dig into again the dashboard portion of this presentation.

And I do want to acknowledge one point here, and I appreciate you laying out just kind of all of kind of the identified causal factors around why we need to take a focused approach on operating dollars for our buildings.

And one thing that I I know in my conversations with um tenants, there's there's a lot of confusion around what is also affordable.

And we talk about this term AMI and really what what does that mean?

And so I know you identified early on in the presentation around this rapidly increasing AMI um and how it's having impact on renters, but I'm wondering from an OH perspective can you have pat can you unpack what we're talking about when we're talking about you know why what's happening with AMI right now and from my perspective and and looking again at what's going on with our renter community, um, how that is translating to increased in affordability.

You bet.

So over a period of about five years, which is the period I'm most familiar with.

We haven't updated our numbers recently for this year yet.

Uh we've seen an increase of our area median income in Seattle 40%.

Our area median income sets the rent chart that all affordable housing providers use to establish their maximum rents, and those AMIs are used for eligibility purposes to qualify renters for certain types of homes.

So you heard Madison reference 50% and 60% AMI for a long time.

That has been sort of the meat of our investments that we're making at the Office of Housing in affordable housing.

Typically, permit supportive housing is below 30% of AMI, and most of those folks currently today are sitting on around an average of 11% AMI.

If you're on a fixed income, disability income, your income is incredibly low.

Many of those lower incomes have stagnated while the highest incomes are growing at very, very high rates.

So there is a disparity.

And when we apply the way that it works now, we apply all of those incomes into we put them into one category and the rents increase for the lowest wage folks at a rate that their wage is not growing.

So that is one thing that is happening.

When I first started in this work, folks living in supportive housing were closer to 20% of AMI.

So there's been a huge drop-off in where they land on the rent chart because of the growth of the highest income earners in the city.

Thank you for laying that out.

And do we have a sense of approximately where the average renter lays in terms of what their AMI level they're falling at now?

Yes.

The last time we ran this, we looked at tenure differently for homeowners and renters.

So our uh renter households sit around 75%, 70 to 75% of area median income as a demographic, whereas homeowners are much higher than that.

I don't want to guess at the number, but it's it's many percentiles higher than where the renters are.

So when we are establishing policy around rent limits, we should be working really focused on this group of renters alone and targeting our investments to that group.

More and more, that's what our team is doing.

There is a need to balance our investments such that we are still achieving our production goals.

And there is a need for larger family-sized homes in those higher income levels.

But as we've seen in many of the housing data charts that we've shared, the highest needs are in that uh it for the population of renters is below 50% of area median income.

That housing is the most costly to subsidize for capital and operating long term, and we need to keep doing whatever we can to increase production at those levels.

Otherwise, we continue to cost burden folks in some of these higher income rents.

And then we also need to think about this as we're you know, working through our other policy tools that we manage at the Office of Housing and land use and incentives.

Thank you for that.

And thank you, Chair.

Those are my questions for now.

I'm clearly excited for the second half of the presentation, diving to the dashboard.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Rink.

I appreciate that.

I'm heading over to Councilmember Lynn.

Thank you so much.

So good to see you all.

Um just one comment, uh, and then I do have a few questions, but in terms of um operating support and um I think of about our housing providers as sort of the safety net of of sort of last resort in many ways.

Um, in the case of, you know, when our communities' mental health needs or other, you know, when somebody loses their job, um, you know, our our housing providers are mission-driven.

They're not, you know, they're doing everything they can to keep people housed and they will make it work whenever they can.

And so as I see some of these operating, you know, support needs go up.

Um, to me, it's a sign that um sort of our our broad safety net, um, whether it's our mental health care uh system or our medical system or other safety nets are not working, and then it's falling upon our our housing providers.

Um, one thing that um we also talked or that you also talked about is a little bit this um thinking about our production, um, the the studios in ones.

You know, I know that um often in the past we talked about our housing production goals and we talk about units and that had some unintended consequences of sort of prioritizing studios in one bedrooms instead of family-sized units as we think about our housing production goals and um also thinking about you know not wanting to compete with sort of those those market rate units.

Um, how do we um uh update our housing production goals so that we are more people focused so that we're talking about the people served so that we're not disincentivizing uh the larger family size units um through our language and through our terminology of housing production goals.

We have been talking about this at the office a bit.

Um I think the biggest shift to be made is to move from a discussion of units and apartments to bedrooms and people, and that is we're we're sort of underway in figuring out how we make that move.

And that is we're we're sort of underway in figuring out how we make that move.

But I think in the interim, what we've done, and you can see this in our annual reports, is to uh better report out these outcomes on a per per unit and per bedroom investment so that we are tracking both and eventually hoping to move more so that we're really focused on investments per bedroom to incentivize.

We do want to see more family sized homes.

Rosie, I don't know if you want to talk more about the NOFA priorities as well and how we've kind of shifted those over the years.

Yeah, so the NOFA priorities, we've really um prioritize family sized housing as well as deep affordability, and we're trying to ideally do both, right?

We're trying to get um the uh 30, like 30 percent AMI units as well as uh two and three bedroom units in in the projects and for um many of the projects that we actually funded.

I um we had a good chunk of them, I think about 39% or so of uh the new production units are going to be family sized units out of the this past round.

So we are moving toward um putting online more family sized units, and uh and that is backed up and supported by the information that we have on the needs of Seattle.

Thank you.

And um, you know, one of your your slides talked about how um housing providers are serving deeper lower AMIs, even though they might be regged regulated at the higher AMIs, and you know, this kind of gets to that difficulty of the reporting of like who are we actually serving versus what is uh might be regulated.

Um and in terms of um again to me it sort of uh signals that we need to go uh a little bit deeper in our in our subsidies for these um and um to make sure that our uh providers can um especially um as there are oftentimes sort of unforeseen circumstances and changes um to make sure that uh there there is a little bit of buffer for um our housing providers.

Um how do we um if we're making these sort of shifts um whether it's in the the units or sort of the the subsidies um how do we do that while um also you know working with our housing providers who um you know they they have they go out and they buy properties, they design you know their permitting, their their design plans, um and I know there's a large uh pipeline, um sort of a back log that we're not gonna be able to uh you know probably produce as much as as we like, whether it's on the permanent supportive housing side or just the affordable side.

So how do we balance sort of um sort of our our thinking around new production, larger units, deeper subsidies with uh the fact that you know we have a lot of providers that um have a lot of uh pre-development costs, um, and how do we sort of make sure that they're not you know left holding the bag um based on sort of prior uh sort of um assumptions or goals that you know that that we had um in in this shifting market.

I'll start and then I'm gonna hand it to Rosie to um round out.

But when uh you have identified the new source for a steady operating subsidy, please call me.

This is a huge gap, uh, particularly in this time that we're in.

And there are questions being asked of us.

Would we be able to step in?

As you have seen in some of these uh recent presentations, the Office of Housing's investments in operating support have increased significantly over the last five years.

We cannot do it alone, uh, but we can do more if those trade-offs would like, you know, if if decision makers want to make those trade-offs, which we're typically talking, Rosie and I all the time.

Um, an investment in operating means uh not an investment in capital, and vice versa.

So we are always striving for balance at the office, having gone through the reauthorization process for the Seattle housing levy.

That's developing a spend plan is all about striking the right balance in uh you know, allocating funds for capital, both new production and preservation, operating support.

We s want to see permanent supportive housing coming through in this time we're in.

And you know, we are watching and waiting and planning for potential serious federal cuts, which will hit these operating budgets that we're talking about, and that will likely require some of the office's investments to come in to shore up the existing infrastructure that we have in place.

So there are a lot of needs, and we're always trying to balance our investments across these various categories and do the best we can with what we have, listening and responding to various interests and needs.

So I appreciate your question.

And I what I would say to how are we responding or at least considering the pipeline that uh our housing partners have already kind of established.

I would say first we kind of started our priorities with gradual changes.

It wasn't um uh dramatic changes, and we've kind of held steady for the past uh two or three rounds of the NOFA in terms of like where we where we are with our priorities, and we will continue to do so.

Um this past NOFA round was something that was different, and it was born out of necessity to really respond to what we were seeing um in our portfolio and and hearing from our housing providers.

So adding in the debt uh restructuring um uh bucket for lack of a better word.

Um I answer I anticipate that we will have to continue that for um at least the next two to probably three rounds of the NOFA um to make sure that uh we're being as responsive to uh the needs of our portfolio and also making sure that um the units that we have already put online can stay online.

I think that that is um one of our major uh priorities on to make sure that um the units that are there can remain online.

Um we are still also at the same time trying to move forward and uh um make sure that we are hitting our production goals and we're doing that.

And I'm very carefully like watching it, and I do believe that we will be able to do that.

But again, as Kelly said, moving the narrative away from units to bedrooms, I think is key to really delivering on what we um what we have promised and also um just uh and that's being communicated to the housing partners, and you know, more bedrooms need more subsidy, you know, or a deeper subsidy and and deeper affordability means also deeper subsidy.

So you guys you might see um that we have to put more into a uh into say a project than we have in the past, but hopefully when you kind of equal it out and see how many bedrooms and also with the affordability that we're delivering on, you can understand the choices and why we selected uh certain projects.

The exciting approach with these restructuring, the debt restructuring loans is that they're capital investments, but they're also operating investments.

They are stabilizing these buildings for a longer period of life so they're gonna operate more soundly.

And then the goal with the team is with the new production investments is that we are we are from the front end setting up those projects to succeed in a way that we maybe didn't before, with you know, more accurate current condition assessment and data-informed decision making.

So that's the goal.

These are all coming together at the same time, but c capital investments and operations can be very closely tied, and that's the really exciting thing about what Madison shared with you today.

Just one last comment.

Uh, just thank you so much for uh this incredibly difficult work.

I don't think um, you know, we've seen such a volatile time in sort of the affordable housing uh ecosystem and that just uncertainty just it creates a lot of difficulty, but um I think we're really fortunate to have such a strong team here that uh is responding to the moment that we have uh resources so that we don't see you know these large-scale failures that we've seen in other parts of the country.

Um so just thank you for for your hard work for your willingness to to be creative and to respond to the moment.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Lynn.

Um I'm gonna sure I don't see a question from Council Member Wars.

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, and thank you for being here, and nice to see you, Kelly.

Um a couple things, colleagues.

One I there's a couple conversations going on here.

One is about globally what our future investments should look like, and I appreciate the comments of my colleagues in terms of of what is needed in the market and what we're seeing now, um, what what the the city needs, which is more family and perhaps more affordable, even and we all know we're in the middle of an affordable affordability crisis and in the city, and there's a lot that we can say about that affordability crisis and what has caused that.

I do want to go back because Kelly, you and I have been uh working on this for some time now.

When I first got here two years ago, um it was evident that the housing providers were struggling, um, and part of that um had to do with um not being able to, you know, folks, there was non-payment of rent happening, and then there was a lot of public safety issues around these pro developments, housing developments, both leading to um a loss of uh revenue for these projects.

Um and when we gave operating stabilization funds at that time, our hope was to of course stabilize the projects, but at the time they were meant to be a shorter term strategy.

Um, and I look forward to seeing the longer term um strategy for stabilizing of the current units.

I will say that initially both the levy dollars and the um PET dollars for housing were predominantly for the creation of housing.

And then when I got here, um uh it was really clear that there was this need for operating um uh stabilization, and that is why council at the time gave these dollars.

And so, as the primary sponsor of this particular SLI, which is what we're talking about today, is the response to the SLI.

Thank you for responding to the slide, um, is really about what did those dollars go to stabilize, and then sort of what's been the impact, and then future looking.

I think there needs to be a robust policy conversation about stabilization, continued stabilization, because it's clear from the response to the SLI that that there is some need um uh and maybe more need than we initially thought on the uh stabilization, the the stabilization of the operating of these units.

And that has nothing to do with how big how big the we need these units to be in the future, um, and um how many of these units we need in general.

Um that's still yes, something that we need to grapple with, and we need to be really honest and transparent about the projects that we have to date, the housing that we've built to date, and what it's gonna take to make sure we don't lose what we have, and then also the idea had been that we would be more robustly adding units, not then having to go back and stabilize the ones that we had.

And so with this response, it's really clear to me that there's this huge need to continue this operating uh stabilization of the projects that we have.

And I feel that there's going to be a very need to be a robust conversation and some policy decisions about our um OH portfolio in terms of our ability to actually add new units while at the same time, what are we gonna do to operate the units?

So I hear from your presentation that that you're hiring a consultant or you hired a consultant to help with the preservation, I assume you mean keeping of these units.

Um but I do want to underscore that it was very clear to me from this presentation that the stabilization funds the the need was greater than at least what we initially thought when we gave some of these operating dollars to these units, um, and that both PET and levy money has been used toward stabilization of these units, which was not the initial intent of those investments.

Um and you're nodding your head.

So I feel like we could talk more about the fund sources when when you're ready.

Yeah.

If you would you like to do that now or yeah, we can do that now, Kelly.

Thank you.

Yeah, you bet.

So just just quickly on fund sources.

Um these stabilization investments are funded exclusively with jump start payroll expense tax, these operating stabilizations uh investments that are on this particular slide.

When we brought the 2023 Seattle Housing Levy before council and went through the full reauthorization process with the public and many partners, we did present a spend plan over the seven year period for the housing levy and for jumpstart PET and mandatory housing affordability, as well as all of OHS funds coming together.

We projected what we would be able to do with both new production, preservation, and operating.

And at the time that we brought that forward in 2023, we did project that jump start payroll expense tax would be heavily tilting toward operating investments.

We knew we were going to be making those workforce stabilization investments.

We knew we were going to need and had already started to make more OMS investments in a growing portfolio.

So uh we shared back then these very you know different pie charts to show the different types of investments that both levy and jumpstart were making, which are our two primary large fund sources right now.

And jumpstart's really leaning more toward operating supports.

So this is uh part of what was baked into the plan that we made in 2023 and is are expecting through the the full levy period, which ends 2030.

And it is true, these one-time periodic investments in stability were not anticipated in 2022 and 2023, and we're responding to needs, and we're seeing that there's a lot of need out there.

Yeah, I understand that, Kelly.

I just know initially when we did the levy and the PET, it was really envisioned that it would create more units than it would be stabilizing stabilizing units, and then quickly we saw, particularly with the in 2023, the PSH units needed the um operating and maintenance services um money, and then the workforce stabilization money as well.

And toward that, and on um slide eight, um, if we could go to slide eight, the twenty it's twenty twenty-three and twenty twenty-six, but I where did 2024 and 25 go?

Because I I think this is every year's big is every year, yeah.

We just have two points in time.

2023 is when the workforce stabilization fund launched, and then PSH OMS had been going since the 1990s for and the 80s actually started in 1986 with the Seattle Housing Levy, just gradually growing over the years as levies are added and more new projects were coming online.

But you do see a very significant jump from 2023 to 2026 for PSH OMS, and that's largely due to federal fund retraction and our PSH capital pipeline continuing to move forward, and in order for those buildings to open, the Office of Housing was the funder of last resort and came through to make sure that those buildings could open.

Thank you, Kelly.

So just to confirm 2024 and 2025 are in here, is not that there's funding just for these two years.

We can get the and then there's additional funding, which is that periodic investment, and this is the investment that I think realistically probably needs to continue.

So there's a policy consideration here as well, because these are operating dollars that were meant to be temporary but probably need to continue realistically, as I said.

Um though that has increased into 2026, I was here before uh this current administration, and we were already seeing the deep need for operating expenses.

So I want to be again very transparent about that because we need to be honest about what is happening, and we can't say that this just started in 2025.

This started before 2025, the need for operating stabilization.

So want to be really clear about that.

Um in terms of on on page nine, then the periodic investment.

I mean, it's really clear that um about 50 percent of the dollars, the PET dollars are going to stabilization, and that's what I say when I mean it is a deeper amount than we had initially thought of PET that would go to operating stabilization.

Um when we initially passed this, we did not think it would be that level, 50 percent of the PET investment would be going to operating.

I'm not sure it's quite 50%, but when we did put the levy through, we did assume close to 40%.

I'm not sure we're at 50% today.

We are, I'm pretty sure we're lower than that.

The majority of investments from Jump Start are still going toward capital new production, preservation, and the debt restructuring investments that Madison discussed earlier, which we all get, those are all considered capital investments, right?

Although there is an interplay with long-term operating success, they are capital investments.

I mean, and I so we can quibble about between 40 and 50 percent.

But at the end of the day, we're using a huge part of the pet investment towards stabilizing current units instead of creating new ones, which we know we need.

So this is what I mean when I say we need to be honest about what we're talking about here because it's gonna help inform our policy decision moving forward.

And on page 11, I also want to, for the public that might be watching now or later, is it strikes me as pretty a significant um 72% of the funding is going to maintenance, rent assistance, or insurance costs.

That is a huge percentage.

And when we say maintenance, can you talk a little bit about that?

Because there's different kinds of maintenance here.

And before you respond, thank you so much, Councilmember Rivera.

I want to remind you that we've got a second half of the presentation that we want to make sure that we get to today because we still have more slides to go to make sure that we get your questions answered, especially as the sponsor of the slide, but I also do want to make sure that we're tracking to get um through the second half of the presentation today.

So I'll invite OH to make a response, and then Councilmember Rivera, if I can just make sure that we prioritize the questions that you want to get answered in committee today, and then we'll make sure that we get anything that is not answered in committee today to your office.

Thank you, uh Chair.

Don't mean to take up all the time, but this I didn't know that this was coming today.

Um the department had not discussed with me this particular presentation or anyone else for that matter.

So this is my opportunity.

This was something that's really that was really important to the council members that were here when I put this in.

And it's really important for the public that's watching because this is a big deal.

I I agree.

And as I said, Chair, I want to get your questions answered.

So we'll turn to OH for this response.

I still have questions that I need to get to myself as chair of the committee.

Thank you, Chair.

Mario, do you want to respond to share some of the details around maintenance costs and urgent operating support?

Sure.

Um, so maintenance costs include things like unit turns when a resident moves out and the unit needs to be repaired.

Um really just we heard a lot about deferred maintenance through the applications for this funding.

Um it's also a simpler way to use the funding than something like rent assistance, rent assistance is very staff intensive to provide to work directly with residents.

So I think it was it might be showing up as the predominant category because it is easier to deploy that way.

Same for insurance cost.

Um I don't believe there are other funding sources to cover insurance costs that are so flexible like this one.

Um so we heard from providers that that was a strategy they were easy, easily able to plug in to that cost.

This is another area where um urgent operating stability sort of overlaps with preservation.

We have a lot of aging properties in our portfolio.

There are a number of deferred maintenance needs that uh sit in many of these properties and have been not attended to because of a lack of resources.

So you see overlap there with long-term capital needs and maintenance.

There's a lot of overlap, and improving our buildings is very costly.

So that's it's not surprising to most of us that that's a large category of spending in uh the UOS uh funding round, but we're watching it and making sure the the we were really very diligent across all the teams at the office that the preservation investments were separate and not duplicated within the urgent operating support investments, and same with debt restructuring, so that we're making sure to balance OH support across the entire portfolio for various needs.

But on the maintenance side, it is some of those units that need to be fixed.

Um those are sizable costs, and I say that because the providers, when they talk to us and we put these operating um uh funding in, it was to address some of that too.

So upwards of a hundred thousand for each um unit in some cases, not all cases.

So I just wanted to say that as well.

I will formally request that I get a briefing on the particular slide because like I said, I didn't know this was coming.

I don't sit on this committee.

And I really um would have appreciated the department flagging for me that this was coming, you were gonna answer the slide today.

And I would have loved to have had a briefing beforehand so I could answer all the questions and not have to take up your time chair here in committee.

So I'll formally request that so I can do that directly.

Council member questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Um, okay, I want to go to a couple more questions.

We're gonna be um colleagues, please let the clerk know if you're gonna have challenges with your schedule, uh, if we have any quorum challenges, because I do have a few more questions before we go into uh the final part of the presentation where we're gonna get into the um dashboard that you all have put together.

Um one thing I want to just make sure that we thread the needle on when we're talking about the combination of the operating costs as well as the the balancing the need for new housing construction is the complexity that providers have and and developers have in putting together their capital stacks because as we know, Office of Housing is a critical funder, and also we're not the only funder.

I know that many of our partners are relying on resources that come in from the state or come in from the federal government.

And it's my understanding that given the funding constraints in both of those places, um, there's an ongoing challenge with providers being able to put together a complete capital stack, and that that part of that influences some of the decisions that the Office of Housing needs to make.

And as we think about this complicated balance between investments in preservation that we're talking about today, we also know that any investment that we make in new construction will require partner funding.

So can you just share more about that context and how that is influencing decisions and the thought process within the department?

Yes.

So the Office of Housing, although our share of the the capital stack as we call it, or the sources that um it takes to get a project under construction, our share has grown.

However, we still depend on our partners or other public funders like King County and um the state um Department of Commerce through their housing trust fund.

Um we we have to do that all together, and we we coordinate um through the King County um public funders coordination.

Um we do that as well as um our projects uh utilize the biggest chunk probably um that they utilize or the biggest tool I'd say that they utilize in in these projects is the low-income housing tax credits.

Um that is um allocated through the Washington State Housing Finance Commission.

And so we also coordinate with them as well.

Um there are a lot of moving pieces.

Oftentimes we are the first ones in, um, and then the other funders come.

So it takes typically another round of funding.

So if we funded something, let's just say we funded something in 2026 this year.

They probably the project probably won't be fully funded and ready to go until another year.

So we're already saying, okay, in 2027, they're gonna get underway.

And then when you add a two-month uh two-year construction schedule, then now we're in 2029 when those units get delivered, and then they have the lease up, which can take anywhere from eight months, and that's like fast, um, to about 18 months, which is unfortunately more typical now.

Um now we're talking about we're already in like 2030, 2031, and we started in 2026.

So we're talking about four to five years later is when the full cycle we've expended all of the funds that we've committed to the project, they're on their way.

And so it looks and it appears sometimes that money is sitting there, but it's not.

It is it is committed, it is moving.

It just the development cycle takes longer than you would think to get through to full completion.

And Kate is going to be able to talk a lot about that, and you'll see that on the dashboard that she explains and how um, you know, a lot of it will be point in times, but you just have to kind of realize that depending on the stage, there's still a lot more work to be done and a lot more expenditures to be had.

Thank you for that.

And I I asked that question a little bit as a uh prelude to where we're headed, but I think it's also important because and I believe Councilmember, excuse me, Councilmember Lynn spoke to this previously.

Um, you know, for providers when they're looking at balancing their um their assets, part of that balance comes from that new development and that new construction.

And so when we see a slowdown in that new construction, we know that that also hits their stability.

And so I think that as much as we're sort of talking about these as these separate investments, I think they're very very much linked.

But it's also, I would say my belief as I'm looking at what's happening that the slowdown and new investment dollars is gonna have an impact outside of even Seattle's ability to deliver on our vision for investment dollars.

I want to go to a couple other things that I just want to make sure that are part of this conversation because we've talked about this in this committee before, which is the increased construction costs.

And I think that and I I want to say I know a lot of this again continues to be the stabilization report, but that is also linked back to that when we think about the balance of dollars that we are putting from PET from um the housing levy and others into the total number of units that we are trying to deliver.

Um, and so it's my current understanding that in order to meet those existing housing levy goals that we have, regardless of what we are doing on the operations balancing side, that we're actually going to need to be investing additional resources that come from PET.

Can you just speak a little bit to that?

I know again we've talked about that in that committee, but as council member is here, I want to make sure that we're daylighting that at the same time as these other important considerations.

Yeah, you bet.

So, as uh in response to a different slide that was uh primarily sponsored by council member Kettle, the Seattle Housing Investment Plan, we did uh provide an updated projection of how the Office of Housing's funds would flow through 2030 into meeting the housing needs that our city faces.

Um we started with the framework that was passed for the 2023 Seattle Housing Levy, and we updated that modeling for the Seattle Housing Investment Plan.

That modeling uh a lot of conditions have changed in a period of just a couple of years.

Madison helped a lot with that.

Um, you see, interest rates are different, tax credit pricing is different, operating uh expenses have grown, and the model changed quite a lot, such that in order for us to achieve our housing levy production goals, we estimate conservatively we would need approximately 300 million of jumpstart payroll expense tax capital investment over that period of time through 2030 to actually achieve those goals.

The levy won't be able to do it alone.

We're going to need some of our other local sources to get that done.

So that's that's in that response.

Uh Councilmember Kettle has requested another update to that plan this year, so we'll be bringing forward another response uh later on.

But it's significant because the costs have grown enormously.

And we do, you know, the the office is very committed to still maintaining investments in new production.

That's critical.

We have to continue to try to meet the needs that we face and address the needs of our aging portfolio and support operations.

We have to do all things.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Umbe a couple questions on this before we go to the last part of the slide presentation.

Um, I just when we're thinking about the information that you provided in terms of this funding round and the resource that went out around stabilization.

One of the things that I think is important or that struck me from your presentation when you talked about things that the buildings that you saw that had in common, and I believe you said most of them came online in 2020.

Um, and I know there were 13 applicants, nine funded, and I wanted to make sure was that most of the 13 or most of the the nine?

And then can you just speak to um why that uh timeline on them coming on maybe uh may have some significance.

I think my response to you was about the dashboard.

So that's all the investments that are currently in play, the majority of those have applied for funding from the Office of Housing since 2021.

Uh there are some outliers that are a little older than that, but Madison, I don't know if you can speak to the age of some of the stabilization investments.

Yeah, without knowing off the top of my head the the dates of each of the buildings, there majority, I think it's surprising, right?

How new they are.

Um, and I I think that points to a couple of factors.

One, how drastically different um operations were during the pandemic, um, right?

Buildings that were underwritten in like 2018-2019 um and then had to come online without having contracts in place, staff in place um to get everything up and going, just cost drastically more.

And also with LITEC buildings, there's um a real cost pressure to move people in quickly in order to execute and get your LITEC equity.

Providers have their buildings come online and need to lease up when there's not as much demand for those units.

So they move folks in quickly and might have changed their metrics.

So that led to buildings not really operating in the same ways or for the same populations that were assumed at original underwriting.

So those those are a couple of factors.

Um there's some basic human things too.

Uh I was working at a supportive housing provider in in 2020.

And to lease up a new building in a time when you can't get together in community and share food and build that those relations that help to make your home a home, it sets you off on a very difficult path.

So many of those buildings that opened in that period of time really started off with a difficult situation.

Folks really isolated, separate from one another, and just in a kind of an odd environment.

So folks are really catching up from that.

We're we're hearing a lot that there's folks are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel in terms of rent collections and improvement in operations, but there's still these structural issues that are not going away.

AMI insurance, you know, some of these really big personnel and materials costs that impact operations, they will be here for a while.

I Kelly, I especially appreciate that that last point.

Um, and I wonder if you can speak more when you say sort of seeing a light at the end of the tunnel and some of those changes, because I think this gets into some of the crux of where we've been over the last several years.

You know, I'm new to council, but I've been tracking this for a while, and I think it reflects some of the conversations that I've had with providers where we're seeing changes, but we also um we're seeing changes in in human behavior, but we are not seeing the structural changes, which is part of why it sort of indicates for the ongoing need for operational resources.

So I'll give you a chance if you want to say anything else about that, and then I'm gonna ask us to finish out the rest of our slides.

So the the major structural changes really are this income inequality and the growth of our AMI chart, which is just continuing on this pace.

It's it's very challenging for folks at the lower end of the income scale to keep up with these rents as they are growing at this rate.

So that is something we are really paying attention to at the office, but it is a structural change.

We think it's going to keep getting worse.

Insurance is a big deal.

Um we've been asked to look at this.

The state has been talking about ways to address the insurance need.

It's not typically something a jurisdiction takes on.

I see New York City's mayor is considering uh new investments in insurance for their affordable housing providers, so it's really interesting to watch and learn from them what could be possible.

We have you know third-party property management uh companies that are trying their best, and it's very, very difficult conditions out there to keep folks stably hired and employed in those jobs and um consistent practices in place on the ground.

So there's a lot of structural challenges we're facing, and we are trying to address those as well, but we do think that that requires ongoing operating support in order to keep stability for the residents and for the organizations for now.

Thank you.

Okay, those are my questions.

I'm gonna ask us to go through the remainder of the presentation so that we can see the dashboard.

Thank you.

You switch with Rosie.

Thank you so much.

Hi, um, I'm Kate Allen.

I'm with the policy and planning team, and today I'll be shifting years a little bit to talk about our new dashboard on housing investments.

Oh, it's not sharing.

I'm so sorry.

Okay, so as of last quarter, the Office of Housing had 865 million dollars of capital funding committed to constructing and preserving over 7,200 affordable homes.

To increase transparency and provide more frequent updates on these projects, we're releasing a dashboard to report out on project milestones.

This dashboard is also responsive to a recent statement of legislative intent.

Financing for affordable housing is complex.

Developing affordable housing is a multi-year process from project financing to building opening.

OH staff regularly communicate with partners and other investors to achieve timelines and maximize leverage of public funds.

Because this process takes time, it's not always easy to understand the progress that we're making.

OHRD provides regular reporting on these projects through budget documents, levy oversight materials, required annual reports, responses to city council requests, and other public reporting mechanisms.

With this new dashboard, we will consolidate this information in a single and accessible location with more frequent updates.

The Housing Dollars in Action Dashboard will be on OH's public facing website.

We will provide quarterly updates on OH funded rental and home ownership projects that we have committed funds to.

These projects include new construction and acquisitions from recent NOFAs and RFPs, the majority of which started in 2021 or later, as well as funds for preservation and debt restructuring to ensure homes remain affordable for many years to come.

The dashboard reports on the amount of funding OH has committed to these projects, both funds awarded and cash balances encumbered.

This funding comes from the housing levy, jumpstart PET, MHA, and other local and federal fund sources.

When a project reaches finance close, the project will stay on the dashboard for a year before dropping off.

The dashboard reports on project specific capital funds and does not include funds that are awarded to providers for portfolio-wide assistance like the urgent operating support funds my colleagues presented earlier.

This dashboard also does not include approximately 60 million dollars of operating funds or data about land use and market incentive tools like MHA and MFTE.

The dashboard is interactive, so you can explore the projects by neighborhood, council district, development stage, or investment type.

For example, we can use the dashboard to see what projects are in the pipeline or have recently opened in a specific council district.

Using the filters on the left hand side of the dashboard, we can select council district six.

The map that's in the center of the dashboard zooms in to rental and home ownership projects with OH investments.

To the right, we can see the total number of homes that are in progress, 348 here, the total amount of OH dollars in action, over 46 million dollars, and the amount these projects have drawn to date, around 27 million dollars as of the reporting period.

The bar graph in the middle of the dashboard shows the development stages of these projects.

We can see that in Council District 6, the majority of projects are in the leaseup phase with new residents moving in.

The bottom of the dashboard lists each project and key milestones, such as the date the building opened.

For example, St.

Luke's affordable housing developed by Bridge Housing is one of the buildings that's leasing up in Council District 6.

This newly constructed building opened at the end of last year with 84 affordable homes for Seattle residents who make between 50 and 60 percent of area median income.

We provided bridge housing a 16.7 million dollar loan for this project, and as of the reporting period, they had used just over 11 million dollars of this.

Soon this project will reach finance close, which is when the last portion of our development loan is paid out and the project will transition to a permanent mortgage.

If we look at home ownership projects in Council District 6, we see there are 40 permanent permanently affordable homes recently completed or in progress.

One of these projects is Finney Nest, which is expected to open in May of this year.

OH has almost $3 million committed to homestead community land trust for these homes.

As you can see from the photo, this project is very close to opening and has drawn over 98% of their funding as of last quarter.

We're excited to welcome new families to their homes later this spring.

One of these projects is Suite Grass Flats, a building we provided 19.7 million dollars to Chief Seattle Club to acquire.

If we use the investment type filter to look at where OH has preservation funds committed, we see that as of the reporting period, OH had over 30 million dollars reinvested to preserve affordable homes in the downtown neighborhood.

One of these projects is the Morrison Hotel operated by DESC.

OH has committed 18.9 million dollars to preserve these 190 units of permanent supportive housing to extend the life of these homes for our residents.

Preservation work will include upgrading the plumbing for all units, replacing outdated single pane glass windows, and transitioning from gas fire to electric heating and cooling for lower emissions and improved efficiency.

We are working closely with our city partners to make sure the dashboard meets the newest digital accessibility requirements, and we plan to publish the dashboard on the OH website by the end of April.

At that time, it will include updated data for quarter one of 2026.

Going forward, we'll make updates to the dashboard quarterly, approximately one month after the quarter end.

Again, this dashboard only shows projects that are in progress or recently completed.

It does not show all of the affordable homes our office funds or administers.

We are working on building more public facing maps and dashboards to show all of these homes, and we'll be excited to share more information when those are available.

Thank you for your time, and we're happy to answer questions.

Thank you so much.

Um, as always, I will turn to my colleagues on the committee first to see if you have any questions for the Office of Housing.

Okay.

I'm not seeing any questions.

Um I really appreciate this dashboard.

I think it's going to be a really important part of uh ensuring that we have transparency.

Um and I think it's also hopefully gonna help explain for the public some of what we talked about today in terms of why sometimes it takes a period of time for those dollars to go from committed to being fully out the door once a building is is leased up, given that uh the timeline it takes after we've made a commitment for our partners to get commitments from their other funding investors as well as the other housing tax credits in.

So I will just say I myself really appreciate the ability to see the phases of resources in this dashboard, um, as well as the ability to see when a pro where projects are by neighborhood.

I think that's a really exciting way for us to make sure that we are also tracking our own accountability on ensuring that we have investments in affordable housing across the city because we know that is really important to building a thriving city and a livable city is having those mixed income communities and neighborhoods.

So those are two things I'm excited to see from this tool.

Um I do see a question from Councilmember Rink.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you.

Very excited about this dashboard as a tool just to be able to visualize and see the status of projects is tremendously helpful.

Um in looking through, I did notice I mean, there's a lot of projects that are um in motion, um, but there are some neighborhoods that have no uh projects, thinking specifically about Seward Park, Magnolia, South Lake Union, East Lake, and much of Northeast Seattle.

So I'm wondering if you can speak to some of the geographic gaps on the map and how we can get projects moving in every neighborhood.

Go ahead.

Um thank you for your question.

Uh many of our um projects are responsive to applications that we receive.

So they um so a developer finds a property, they go through a little bit of uh you know due diligence, they say, okay, I want to uh develop this, uh, and then they put together a uh an application for funding to the Office of Housing.

And that's the application that we review.

We are constrained by the applicant applications that we get, and many of the applications you'll see are um it kind of falls right along where zoning allows for um denser or density.

And so just to answer your question, uh you can probably look at the comp plan, see the zoning, and see where um many of our projects are, and it kind of aligns right where um it's allowable.

The other piece is about affordability, so we typically try to get as much as we can with every dollar that we have.

Applications are competitive when they can bring forward more projects for fewer funds.

Land in those parts of the city that you called out is more expensive.

This is part of why we are excited about more proactive investments at the office in site-based development.

It's the exciting thing about Fort Lawton.

It's in a part of the city.

We have nothing.

We have South Park that's also kind of in an area that we don't have very many investments, but we'd like to see more.

So it's a great question.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Just wanted to, you know, tie the thread together between our comp plan work and the important work happening at OH.

Thank you all.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any further questions?

Okay, seeing none.

Um, thank you so much, OH.

Uh, this concludes the business coming before the committee today.

Um, and with that, we are concluding the April 22nd, 2026 meeting of the Housing Arts and Civil Rights Committee.

Our next scheduled meeting is on May 13th.

Thank you for attending.

It is 4 16 p.m.

and we are adjourned.