(Image: @cmkshama)
She has about 250 days to get it done.
Following Tuesday’s vote of the full Seattle City Council to implement a cap on late fees for renters — and hold strong on her original call for a $10 limit over a compromise $50 proposal — District 3 representative Kshama Sawant says more Seattle renters rights battles are still ahead.
“Socialist Alternative, union members, Workers Strike Back and renters mobilized & forced Democrats to reverse their effort to water it down,” Sawant tweeted Tuesday. “Now we need to fight for rent control and a full Renters’ Bill of Rights.”
CHS reported here on the council’s skirmish over the late fee cap legislation and a compromise proposal from pro-business Councilmember Sara Nelson for a higher $50 limit. In the end, the council voted 7-2 on the $10 cap with frequent collaborators Nelson and Alex Pedersen voting against the limits.
Once signed by the mayor, the new legislation will cap late rent fees at $10 per month, the amount put in place for tenants in unincorporated King County in 2021.
As for her drive for making progress on rent control and more pro-renter legislation in the city, the clock is ticking. In January, Sawant announced she would not seek reelection as her political group Socialist Alternative will set its work in District 3 aside to focus on the creation of a new national party to take on the “Democratic establishment” including the growing ranks of the Democratic Socialists of America.
“My council office will continue fighting relentlessly for working people right up until the final days of my term,” Sawant told supporters as she made her announcement early this year promising a vote on rent control before the end of her term.
The new legislative efforts come as property owners in the city say that growing complexity for Seattle landlords is squeezing out smaller companies and individual property owners as nationwide developers increasingly dominate the industry.
Everything you always wanted to know about Sawant’s rent control bid but were afraid to ask
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Sawant fights the right fights. Going to miss her.
Likewise. She’s my rep and she reps our area well.
I strongly disagree. She racks up moral victories for more affordable housing while driving housing developers out of the city. She makes it so hard to get rid of delinquent renters that landlords begin the eviction process much sooner each time a renter is late with rent. Her accomplishments are backfiring. Eventually, the only entity creating housing will be the government… at 3 times the cost and one quarter the speed. Homelessness will explode.
And that’s exactly her intent. She has been very transparent about her long term goal for housing, government owned and operated. I always laugh when people state her polices have unintended consequences. They have exactly the consequences she intended. Her policies are described as pro-renter but that’s not true as they actually hurt rental stock as you noted. They should be categorized as anti-landlord as her true aim is to create such a housing crisis that the only solution left is for the government to step in.
You’re very wrong. Sorry.
A lot of people think you’re wrong – maybe think about why that is for a bit.
Do the math. Government housing is ridiculously more expensive than privately built and operated housing. That cost will be borne by taxpayers and that will drive up property costs or sales tax even further. Seattle paid $23 million+ just to acquire 70 micro studio units on Capitol Hill, with no budget yet to run them. That’s $323,000 per person just to buy it! Now do that for 15,000 or more homeless and then for the half million low income folks and so forth. Are you cool with paying literally $ trillions for that? Name a few countries that have made that work and I’ll ask why you don’t live there.
Government housing is definitely not more expensive than private housing. Europe and Asia have them. Those apartments are very small but they provide a roof for the poor. Maybe the way the US does it isn’t economical but these aren’t fancy units and shouldn’t be expensive.
You describe Councilmember Nelson as “pro-business.” Does that make Sawant and the other members who voted against her on this issue anti-business? By your logic I think it does. So why don’t you start describing them that way in future articles. For example, Anti-business Councilmembers Andrew Lewis and Debra Juarez reversed their Committee votes and voted against the compromise measure they previously supported. I think that sounds great. Feel free to use it.
Yes, please. That would be helpful reporting.
People > Business.
Business = People.
Thanks for including the tidbit at the end about small housing providers being squeezed out. It’s a significant phenomenon that Seattle will eventually need to more openly discuss. Sawant, Morales and others want all housing to be “decommodified” right as the state legislature is finally approving missing middle housing legislation. With all the new regulations and an unabashed war on landlords (of any size) by local housing activists, renters will be finding even higher First-in-Time criteria and fewer choices, at a time when we need more diversity and availability of housing, not less. High-income renters will do just fine, though. And corporate landlords.
I believe I speak for many in saying “just shut up, Sawant, and go quietly into the night.” Fat chance!
You do not speak for many. As the “many” voted FOR her and won.
@Derek; 51.8% and 47.7% of a city council district *both* constitute “many” people.
Also, I voted for her, multiple times, and also want her to go quietly into the night at this point. I know I’m not unique in that.
20,656 people voted to keep her in office during the recall election. Seattle’s population is 733K so about 2.8% of the entire city support this. That is not many.
She barely won re-election. If her crew didn’t sign up countless vagrants to vote for her she prob wouldn’t have won.