SEATTLE — A ballot initiative proposed by a new housing and homelessness advocacy coalition would establish a public developer that would create, own and maintain public housing in Seattle.
The Seattle Times reports the initiative filed Monday is known as “social housing,” essentially publicly owned housing that is insulated from private market forces and designed to be permanently affordable. This model is popular in Europe.
The coalition needs almost 27,000 signatures from Seattle residents to qualify for the ballot.
“This is kind of a referendum on all elected officials,” said Tiffani McCoy, advocacy director at Seattle’s street newspaper Real Change and co-chair of the coalition behind the measure, House Our Neighbors. “We’re very serious about solving the affordable housing crisis. We can’t wait another year.”
If the ballot initiative succeeds, it would create a public development authority, called the Seattle Social Housing Developer, which would be entirely separate from city or county government. The ballot initiative would create a renter-majority governing board to oversee the work and would establish a charter to determine what the authority can or cannot do.