The Holiday Apartments on E John (Image: Community Roots Housing)
A panel of housing providers including representatives from some of the largest developers of low income apartments and an independent small landlord will come before a Seattle City Council committee Wednesday to explain continuing challenges to providing affordable units in the city and calls for more resources to help including a better response to drug use and violence in the buildings, solutions for non-payment of rent, and more help for developers trying to finance new projects and the maintenance of existing properties.
Wednesday morning’s meeting of the council’s Housing and Human Services Committee chaired by North Seattle representative Cathy Moore will include Michael Seiwerath of SouthEast Effective Development (SEED), Andrew Oommen of Community Roots Housing, and Ayda Cader, a landlord from Moore’s District 5.
According to the presentation for the meeting, the session will focus on issues far beyond the challenges of zoning that are hitting affordable housing providers of all sizes. At the forefront, according to the presentation, are the costs of the opioid and fentanyl crisis. “More drugs are being used in our buildings – creating health risks for residents and staff,” the deck reads. “Increases in violent and criminal behavior in our buildings put the whole community at risk.”
The assembled providers say they are having to act as first responders in their buildings as Seattle Police fail to respond adequately to 911 calls and it can take from six to twelve months to evict a dangerous resident from a building.
According to the presentation, providers also face challenges around costs as wage increases and soaring insurance premiums are eating up funding. Meanwhile, pandemic-era “non-payment of rent remains unprecedented,” the panel says.
While Wednesday’s committee meeting will not be tackling specific legislation, the panel presentation will also discuss solutions. The providers says providing better response for 911 calls and better prosecution in the courts can help address safety concerns while the city needs to do more to help provide financing to providers to create new housing and maintain existing properties. The city also needs “better tools to open a dialogue with residents who have stopped paying rent,” the providers say, and “swift eviction proceedings for individual engaging in violent behavior and threatening the well-being of their neighbors.”
The discussion comes as Seattle debates changes to its grown plan and zoning to allow more density and development of multifamily and affordable housing in more of its neighborhoods.
You can review the full presentation (PDF) here. Wednesday’s meeting begins at 9:30 AM. You can learn more about the session and how to view the proceedings here (PDF).
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Maybe if they reduced the paperwork burden they’d have a bigger pool of good tenants applying..
most of these operators are representing nonprofit, income-restricted, rent controlled subsidized taxpayer-financed-and-supported properties that cater to tenants who could never pass a background check in a market rate apartment application. It doesn’t matter how much paperwork there is because in most cases the tenant has a social worker doing it for them anyway.
The problem though is all the behaviors and problems that makes these people unable to get into market housing is still an issue for the nonprofit providers. Eventually they have to either figure out how to make the tenant shape up (and if they do, awesome lets have more of that please) or that tenant has to go for the benefit of the rest of the residents and the stability of the housing provider.
Evicting problem tenants is not easy at all in Seattle, historically it has not been easy. Solutions to this problem tend to violate renters rights and thus the continuation of problem tenants. Also some people were housed during covid and needed more than just a place to live, they needed drug treatment and a social worker and therapy. But any help is help. But we will see now that the Supreme Court made it legal to criminalize homelessness. We are in difficult times.
Gee, it’s almost like “local small landlord” control over an essential utility such as shelter (and specifically affordable shelter)–which as a concept is completely diametrically opposed to the entire material reason for why one would even choose to become a landlord as their “profession” in the first place–is wildly inefficient and unappealing as a business model.
Surprising.
Public housing and housing first policies are your only solutions people…
Its amazing how expensive it is to build a “public” housing unit compared to what you can buy a private market unit for even at todays ridiculous prices.
And the most efficient housing provider of all is the live-in mom-and-pop who occupy one unit and live onsite at a small complex. No commuting or travel expenses for maintenance calls, mowing the lawn doesn’t take any more effort than it would for a SFR, same thing for much maintannce not any worse than a large house except more kitchens and baths. That owner will probably have a lot of long term tenants paying somewhat under market and they will still be profitable and tax revenue positive for their city.
any such mom and pop is going to be handy and do a lot of repairs for no incremental cost. Public and Large landlords are going to spend $300 on a plumber every time a barbie head gets flushed down a toilet.
If being a landlord is becoming less desirable -with the documented and predictable loss of smaller rental housing properties – its entirely by design of those who were until recently in power in the city and are ideologically anti-private-property and anti-individual-financial-independence-for-any-reason and not an issue with the fundamental business model of you-produce-something-i-need-i-pay-you-for-it-by-producing-something-the-next-guy-needs.
Wouldn’t social housing buildings, where everyone pitches in for upkeep and maintenance, be more efficient than your idealized “mom and pop” building?
Your concept, that everyone is going to pitch in to address upkeep and maintenance, is pure dreamworld fantasy. And good luck with that model if you’re trying to deal with the tenants these providers are saddled with.
Working together has gotten humanity much farther than our most recent experiments with competition and more recently with hyper-capitalism… Perhaps it’s worth trying something different? This model that housing is a commodity that is provided along with services and other amenities is what has created a huge entitlement issue in the US and much of the world where they tend to think that someone else is going to fix there problems or there will be some magic technological solution around the corner from the next company that makes menial work unnecessary. The pandemic laid most of that farse bare and we saw that people doing real work were generally forced to keep working as is while the class of people reaping the most from this system and guiding it with their money were able to sit at home and “work”. It’s time to end the ~100 year anti-communist programs in the US to massively subsidize home ownership and start getting real about things like social housing that benefit the majority and not the fortunate few.
Can you please confirm that the tenants causing the issues in the above article would somehow transform into contributing members of the social housing society? Or do you somehow think social housing not would have these type of problems?
how is working together incompatible with capitalism? I produce something you need. you willingly pay me for it so you get that benefit, I get a benefit for my work, and you can focus on things that you do best. You sell or rent your skill/productivity to others and it all goes on. Money is just a medium that we all agree on for a representation of value so we don’t have to barter everything and because its a lot easier to store than giant carved stone disks.
Competition is a core aspect of capitalism no matter what ideal scenario you dream up…
Debt is the driver of activity, not money or “giant carved stone disks” whatever that is supposed to look like 🤣 For a long time that was just social debt (owing someone a favor or agreeing to a pact of some sort) but money and financial systems have replaced it over time for better or for worse. Some is as you say, more convenient to make transactions and carry, but it also makes it a lot easier to obscure decisions that people make around the costs and benefits of “economic activity” and thus you get things like tobacco, opioid, and oil industries that justify their products lethal impacts on society with projections that the dollars and debts will ultimately work in their favor…
So how different would social housing deal with violent, non-rent-paying, drug-addicted tenants like those described in this article?
The last 40 years have seen literally billions of people raised out of poverty. It’s the most remarkable 40 years the world has ever seen from the standpoint of elimination of human suffering. So no…I don’t think we need to “try something different” when we’re doing better than ever before.
The last 40 years has also literally seen billions of people born into poverty too, that’s a red herring argument at best.
I think Gazans and many around the world would have a very different viewpoint of “doing better than ever before” as our current point of (checking my notes here) verge of entering WW3, a fascist with antidemocratic goals with a decent shot at the presidency, several years in a row of the hottest global temperatures ever recorded and no end in sight to the looming climate change disaster… Sure, things have gone just great the last forty years, give me a break 🙄
NET billions moved out of poverty. BILLIONS.
If you think that’s simply a “red herring” then I suggest you find a conscience.
Please cite your NET billions and how you are defining poverty!
Our world runs on the exploitation of people and other animals, that has only been ramped into the highest of gears in the past century… Places around the world are awash in our toxic waste and dealing with global impacts of climate change.
no. a committee would have to be formed to manage issues, take input and maintence requersts from residents, determine if they are valid, immediate, or future work, then schedule for profit contractors to do it. ANY larger building has some kind of HOA, or professional management, or a leadership board of some sort. Nobody would do the work for free since nobody has an ownership stake. So any and all work would have to be hired out.
The situation I describe with an individual owner – they will just go fix anything of a scale they can handle, no meetings, no votes, no budgeting or bureacracy. Just get it done.
You clearly have not had to deal with many small landlords, or have just been very lucky. Most small landlords, particularly those that rent to the bottom half of income earners, do the bare minimum at best and it can be like pulling teeth to get basic things addressed. Seattle is the first city I’ve lived in where there have actually been protections and means for recourse when these things happens. Perhaps there needs to be adjustments and protections for small landlords too, but your little scenario is just wishful thinking for many.
Thank you for covering this topic. Seattle needs comprehensive reform of our hasty, flawed, ideologically impractical rental laws. Thanks to Kshama Sawant, Tammy Morales, Lisa Herbold and company, it’s quite a tangled Pandora’s box to tidy up. It will benefit the entire rental ecosystem if this council steps up to the task.
yes please. Why would anybody rent a SFR when there is 1) absolutely no enforceable limit on number of occupants 2) occupants can bring in others with no input or permission of owner at any time 3) If any of these people have kids or its cold out they can stay indefinitely without paying or even if they destroy the place willfully 4) you have to allow them in with 1/6 of a months deposit up front, max if they request it meaning you have no reserves for damage or unpaid rent ; and there is absolutely no recourse if they fail to pay the rest of their deposit 5) you have no idea if any of them are hardened criminals without becoming one yourself. 6) If it does come down to having to evict be prepared for the entire might of the justice system to be biased against you and for the process to take 1 year or more while you pay to house your non-paying tenant and for all your attorney and legal fees while the tenant gets free legal representation from people who ideologically hate you.
All of what you are listing covers why rents will continue to climb, which social housing won’t cover because it too will need to increase its rates to cover the same issues.
Evictions increase crime and violence, that’s it, full stop, whether they are legal necessary evictions or asshole landlords criminally wielding their control over tenants who have done nothing wrong
They lead to an increase crime and violence
This is not a political position, it’s a well proven fact, it’s thoroughly studied social science
Pick your poison, a burden on landlords by preventing eviction, or a burden on everyone including landlords via an in crime, violence, and suffering of people without housing, shit in the streets, more needles, more shouting and assaults in the streets through more evictions and homelessness
Evictions are also the only way to get your property back if you have a nonpaying or destructive tenant. Do you really think its fair to simply take property from one person to give it to another (effectively what you are suggesting if your position is to ban all evictions) ?
Do you think there will be ANY rental housing without ability to evict? Even public housing providers have to evict to protect the public’s property and other residents safety and security.
Laws need to be changed to get dangerous people out immediately. Also, some affordable housing buildings should require no drug use and immediate eviction if drug use happens.
I have to say it is very depressing to read about these problems and the tenant laws which perpetuate them. What the hell has happened to Seattle?