This year, I had the honor of delivering my 2020 State of the City address at the incredible Rainier Arts Center ? a place filled with creativity, engaged people, big ideas, and lots of love. It shows the power of partnership and the incredible things we can accomplish when we work together to make progress on shared goals.

This year, I discussed Seattle?s work to advance our shared progressive values and take important steps to address public safety, expand access to transit, and combat our region?s affordable housing and homelessness crisis. Working together, we have done some amazing things.

We invested nearly $1.5 billion in affordable housing to provide more housing options for people throughout Seattle. We created a Regional Homelessness Authority to make transformational, systemic change that will improved the lives of our most vulnerable neighbors. And we have recommitted to funding critical transit and transportation priorities by expanding transit service by 36%, and providing nearly 14,000 free ORCA cards to Seattle youth and Seattle Housing Authority residents.

And we?ve worked tireless to expand access to education and build lasting opportunity for our young people. I was lucky to have Anthony Garcia introduce me at my State of the City address today. Anthony is a Seattle Promise student who?s currently studying to transfer to a four-year school next fall where he plans on majoring in business.

Students like Anthony remind us of why we create programs like the Seattle Promise: Access to free, high-quality education makes a tangible positive improvement on our young people?s lives. That?s why I?m so proud that nearly 1,800 students have expressed interest in the Seattle Promise program for the 2020-2021 academic year.

In addition to celebrating the bold action we?ve taken to make our progressive values real in people?s lives, I also announced a series of new actions the City is taking to expand access to opportunity and invest in equity:

• Significantly expanding the Seattle Promise Jobs and Career Pathways Program to connect students with paid internships with local employers and the City of Seattle;
• Creating a Small Business Relief Package to streamline permitting process and reduce fees so that all of our small business can grow and thrive;
• Expanding the incredible, life-saving Health One Pilot, and implementing additional measures to promote public safety; and
• Preparing for a fair and accurate count of all our communities in the 2020 Census and ensuring Seattle residents can know their rights and be counted.

Because of our shared actions and commitment, I can tell you today the State of our City is strong and resilient. We can ? and we will ? continue to show what it looks like when progressives make progress.

In this era of division, we can show people how to can come together to do the big, hard things. We can show the power of kindness, love, and compassion.

You can watch the full video of the event and read my speech here. And if you have a moment, please write me at [email protected] and let me know what you think. As always, you can reach me on Twitter or Facebook, and you can stay up-to-date with all the great work we?re doing together on my blog.