SEATTLE — Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant plans to introduce legislation Monday that would ban residential evictions during the wintertime.
Sawant’s legislation would add to Seattle’s just-cause eviction law, which dictates the circumstances under which landlords can evict their tenants.
Under her proposal, “regardless of whether just cause for eviction may exist,” evictions would be prohibited “from November 1 through March 31,” according to a draft ordinance shared with other council members Friday.
Sawant, who won reelection last month, drew up the legislation in response to a recent letter from the Seattle Renters’ Commission urging the council to pause evictions. The appointed, advisory commission said a wintertime moratorium would “keep neighbors from being displaced to the streets during the months with the harshest weather and poorest living conditions.”
“Tonight, in this extraordinarily wealthy city of ours, thousands of people will shiver in the cold, be forced to sleep in cars, ride public transit or gather in overcrowded shelters,” Sawant said in a statement Friday, describing her moratorium proposal as a step toward “the humane approach to the homelessness crisis that voters have called for.”
Evictions disproportionately affect women and people of color, she said.
The council member said she would consult with Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes’ office on legal questions related to her proposal. Holmes spokesman Dan Nolte declined to comment, citing attorney-client privilege.
Mark Prentice, a spokesman for Mayor Jenny Durkan, said Friday that Durkan believes Seattle “must continue to work to protect tenants and build more affordable housing.”
“We will wait to see Councilmember Sawant’s proposal as well as legal analysis by the City Attorney’s Office,” Prentice said in an statement.
In response to a request for comment, the Rental Housing Association of Washington provided a statement from Delaney Wysingle, a Seattle landlord.
“Nobody should be without a safe place to stay during the winter — or any time of year,” Wysingle said.
But the city and the Seattle Housing Authority already have allocated money for rental-assistance programs that can prevent evictions and that don’t “put my affordable rental home at risk by asking me to cover my tenant’s housing costs,” he said.
There were about 3,200 evictions ordered across King County in 2017. More than 85% of Seattle eviction filings were for nonpayment of rent and in more than 50% of those filings the amount of money owed was one month’s rent or less, according to a study by the Seattle Women’s Commission and the King County Bar Association’s Housing Justice Project that analyzed 1,218 cases.
The mayor and council in September passed new laws requiring landlords to allow rent payments to be made by cash or check and to register with a city inspection program before issuing eviction notices to tenants.
Sawant pointed to a decision last week by the Durkan administration to delay the planned shutdown of a tiny-house village in North Seattle after critics said the move could force people onto the street during the wintertime.
“We just saw in the last three days the tremendous upwelling of public demand to stop cruel evictions,” she said.
