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It?s been a hard year for all of us. Every day, we learn about more chaos from this White House and the other Washington.
The lack of national leadership has led to an intensifying pandemic, an economic downturn, a civil rights reckoning, and a climate crisis. These crises have impacted all of us in Seattle, especially individuals experiencing homelessness. Seattle's homelessness crisis has been years in the making, and its roots run deep, touching racial inequity, economic disparities, mental health treatment, rising housing costs, mental health, substance use disorder, and so much more.
As we embarked upon lasting, meaningful progress, COVID-19 has presented new challenges to our community and homelessness response. COVID-19 has led the City to take a series of additional steps, including creating new hygiene resources with closed businesses and City facilities, building new shelter capacity, de-intensifying and adding new health measures at some of our more crowded shelters, and increasing testing. ?
As we enter the second year of the pandemic in 2021, my budget focuses on making the necessary investments to protect our most vulnerable communities while moving more individuals off the street and into safer places. Following City Council?s decision to defund the Navigation Team and override my veto, I also put forward my plan to address unauthorized encampments.
Since 2017, the City?has worked to?transform our shelter system to provide 24/7 services and case management that more effectively transition individuals from homelessness into housing.?In 2017, the City had approximately 1,000 overnight basic shelter beds, 750 24/7 shelters, and 255 spaces at sanctioned encampments. Now, the City now?has?more than 1,500 24/7 shelters, 500 basic shelter?spaces,?and more than 300?tiny homes.?In all of the City?s shelters,?we have taken a series of actions to create new safety and health measures?including physical distancing.??
My 2021 budget proposes spending approximately $150 million to address our homelessness crisis, which includes support for 2,300 shelter beds and tiny homes, permanent supportive housing, sustaining hygiene resources deployed during COVID-19, and a new plan to surge shelter and housing resources for individuals living unsheltered. My plan increases?shelter?by as much?as?425?beds while significantly increasing resources for some of our City?s most effective programs for housing including rapid rehousing and diversion:?
- Leasing?up to?300 hotel units?
- Making?125 units of?enhanced, 24/7 shelter?available?
- Increasing rapid rehousing to?exit?231 households?from homelessness?
- Increasing diversion to?support?130?more?households?find safer places?
With our recent investments in affordable housing and permanent supportive housing, we expect 600 new units of permanent supportive housing to open in record time by 2021.
While I am hopeful that the City Council and I will find agreement on increasing housing and shelter resources, one area of continued disagreement is the role of the City to conduct outreach to unsheltered individuals and address the City's most hazardous encampments. Right now, we have thousands of individuals living in doorways, parks, and sidewalks, and many encampments pose public safety and public health hazards to both the residents of the encampment and surrounding community.
Over the summer, the City Council repeatedly to defund the Navigation Team as part of the 2020 budget without a workable plan for the City to address hazardous encampments. The Navigation Team includes City employees who work to provide shelter and COVID-19 resources, assist individuals with storage, conduct site inspections, provide garbage and waste services, housing and service referrals, and coordinate requests with City departments, residents, and businesses. The team has focused on outreach and services during COVID-19 response, conducting a limited number of unauthorized encampment removals?and only for extreme circumstances?since March. With the City Council?s decision to override my veto, the City is moving forward to suspend their operations.
Both in my budget and through legislation, I have proposed alternative approaches to outreach and engagement ? both in 2020 and 2021. ?However, I believe the City must play some role to coordinate and humanely address encampments across our City, and it is my hope that City Council will work with my office on this issue in the coming days. Our residents and businesses expect our City government to find solutions ? even when we may disagree.
As always, please continue to write me at [email protected], reach out via Twitter and Facebook, and stay up-to-date on the work we?re doing for the people of Seattle on my blog.
 
Following the Mayor?s 2021 Proposed Budget which includes $60 million in reductions to the Seattle Police Department (SPD) budget, the Mayor signed a new Executive Order to create a roadmap to transforming policing. The EO creates an accountable and transparent timeline to evaluate SPD functions and identify areas of police response that can be transitioned to civilian and community-based responses.
?The roots of institutions that have historically marginalized Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities run deep. In addition to reductions proposed by former Chief Best, Chief Diaz and me to the Seattle Police Department, my budget reflects a historic $100 million investment in BIPOC communities and continued investments in alternatives to policing. With 800,000 911 calls in our City, it will take thoughtful analysis and deliberate action to truly transform policing. With this Executive Order and real community investments, we?re committing ourselves to a rigorous, transparent, and community-led discussion on issues of policing and community safety,? said Mayor Durkan.
The Mayor?s 2021 Proposed Budget also creates a Seattle Emergency Communication Center (SECC) and a new Safe and Thriving Communities division in the Human Services Department (HSD). The new division at HSD will house all of the department?s safety programs, including the Victim Advocates unit which is currently transitioning from SPD to HSD. The SECC is the first step towards unifying emergency response across the City and addressing the goals of reducing dispatches for SPD and substituting alternate responses from other City departments or community-based organizations.
Click here for more information on the new Executive Order and recent steps to civilianize elements of sworn police response.
 Earlier this week, Mayor Durkan delivered her annual budget address and transmitted her 2021 Proposed Budget to the City Council.
Due to the ongoing threat of COVID-19 in our region, the Mayor delivered her annual budget address via pre-recorded video shared online and broadcast to the Seattle Channel. In it, the Mayor visits sites around Seattle that highlight the actions our City has taken to respond to COVID-19 and showcase our plan for the future. The Mayor?s budget address shares her priorities and investments in the 2021 proposed budget amidst a $300 million revenue shortfall for 2021. The Mayor?s goal with the 2021 proposed budget was to preserve City programs that center and serve historically marginalized communities and retain core City services to the extent possible.?
Mayor Durkan celebrated City Council?s?unanimous?passage of?a new minimum compensation standard for rideshare drivers.?Seattle is only the second City in the country to guarantee a minimum compensation threshold to drivers.?Under the ordinance, drivers for companies like Uber and Lyft will be guaranteed a fair wage that is at least the equivalent of Seattle?s large employer minimum wage plus reasonable expenses.?
The ordinance is the result of months of policy development, research, and direct driver engagement. The City engaged economists James Parrott from The New School and Michael Reich of University of California Berkeley?to?conduct an?independent?economic analysis to?recommend the?minimum compensation standard for the City.?That study by James Parrott of The New School and Michael Reich of the University of California, Berkeley?found that drivers in Seattle are making $9.73 an hour after expenses, well below the Seattle minimum wage.?In addition, the?City engaged directly with over?11,000 drivers?through focus groups, roundtables, and a telephone town hall, to hear what protections were most important to drivers.?
For this week?s edition of the Morning Read, we encourage you to read MyNorthwest?s coverage of the 2020 budget rebalancing package passed by the City Council earlier this year.
 ?As the Seattle City Council begins the months-long work of the 2021 budget process, there is still work to be done on the 2020 rebalancing package, much to the chagrin of Mayor Jenny Durkan.
Durkan opposed several aspects in the budget from cuts to Seattle Police to borrowing money to invest in community alternatives to policing.
The mayor had negotiated a compromise option, but instead the council voted to override Durkan?s veto. It was a move that left her no choice but to start acting on it, starting with the immediate suspension of the Navigation Team.?
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