Last week Seattle's Office of Housing released its long awaited inventory of low-income housing. There were some startling findings including a dramatic and continuing loss of low-income housing in our city.
In just the past two years we lost 800 units to demolition and more than 3,200 units to condominium conversions, helping to drive vacancy rates down and rents up. More homelessness and even longer waiting lists for our city's limited supply of subsidized housing are the consequence.
For all the lip service to "affordable housing" and "ending homelessness" we hear from city government, one might have expected the Office of Housing to sound the alarm and issue a call for immediate action to stem this loss.
But not this administration. Last week at a meeting of the City Council's Housing Committee, Adrienne Quinn, director of the Office of Housing, was asked by councilmember Tom Rasmussen what she'd learned "that was new" from the Low-income Housing Inventory Report. Ignoring the growing crisis for those with incomes at or below 40 percent of median income (about $25,000 per year), Quinn stated that it was a "surprise" to her that "people at 80 percent of median income (about $50,000 a year) can't afford to live in Seattle" and are "leaving the city."
Ms. Quinn purported to prove a shortfall of units in our city affordable to those around or slightly above 80 percent of median. Of course this would justify Mayor Greg Nickels often-stated agenda to eliminate obstacles to more density while providing more incentives and subsidies/tax breaks for housing priced at these higher income levels. The mayor euphemistically calls this "workforce housing."
We find no basis for Quinn's conclusion of a flight of households at 80 percent of median or a housing shortfall for this group.
In the first place, Quinn's data is drawn from the 2000 census and represents a snapshot in time rather than a trend. When we compared the updated 2005 census to 2000, it showed no such out-migration of households at 80 percent of median. The percentage of Seattle households at this income level dropped slightly by about one or two percentage points since 2000, but so has the percentage of households with incomes between 30 and 40 percent of median. On the other hand, the percentage of households with incomes above median increased significantly.
For a more accurate picture of who can or cannot afford to live in Seattle and the rest of King County, consider the 2006 King County Housing Benchmarks Report.
For 99.5 percent of households countywide with incomes at or below 30 percent of median, there is a shortfall of affordable units. What this means is that those 73,390 households are paying more -in most cases much more - than 30 percent of their income on housing.
For the 25,800 households in King County between 30 and 40 percent of median, there are 30,730 units priced at their income level. However, they must compete for that supply with the 73,700 households in the lower-income category. So that leaves a cumulative total deficit for this income group of 68,460 affordable units.
On the other hand, note that there are huge surpluses of housing affordable to people with incomes above 60 percent of median, including a surplus of 101,020 units for those at 60-80 percent of median.
So don't tell us there is a shortage of housing for folks in the 80 percent income category or that they are leaving our city in droves. It's just not true.
We know, given the rising price of home purchase, that it's difficult for anyone below 100 percent of median to buy a house or even a condominium. But as the county's chart shows, there is an ample supply of rentals for this group. Not so for those below 40 percent of median.
It was bad enough that Quinn downplayed and even overlooked a growing crisis for those at lower income levels, especially in light of a net loss of about 2,000 rentals city-wide since 2005 as noted in the Low-income Housing Inventory Report.
But to lament the hardships of the moderate-income category when a tsunami is breaking over the heads of our low-income residents is galling indeed. This selective focus on the data reveals your intent to promote the mayor's agenda.
If Nickels has his way, we'll give away even more of our public funds in tax breaks for developers and subsidies for the less poor at the expense of the truly poor. The City Council will gladly enact more upzones aimed at promoting still more high-end and mixed-income development regardless of its irrevocable impact on the physical and social character of our communities.
No matter that such development has set in motion speculative forces that have caused the loss of several thousand low-income units due to conversion, speculative sale and demolition.
We'll be told we're sacrificing our lower-density neighborhoods for the social good. But note that it's never higher-end single-family neighborhoods that get upzoned or luxury apartment buildings that get torn down so that bigger, taller buildings with more units can be put in their place.
The people displaced by increased density are the very people in whose name the density is promoted. And it will be even worse if the poorest are kicked out so that the less poor can have publicly subsidized homes in their place.
Of course accelerating levels of growth make this city less livable and less desirable. But by displacing the poorest of the poor, this growth means more homelessness as well. It makes a mockery of this city's Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness.
The city's "housing agenda" should first be directed toward preserving what remains of our low-income stock. Otherwise we'll continue to spend tens of millions to add low-income subsidized units, taking one step forward, but then three steps back.
John Fox and Carolee Colter lead the Seattle Displacement Coalition. Reach them c/o editor@capitol hilltimes.com.[[In-content Ad]]
