5 questions: City council candidates in north Seattle

In August, we asked Seattle residents what they wanted the candidates for city council to talk about as they campaign for votes?

We received over 650 responses. Analyzing the data, it was clear that homelessness, housing affordability, and roads and transit were the biggest concerns.

Using these responses, we wrote up five questions for the candidates. Below are the unedited answers from District 5, which includes neighborhoods in north Seattle, from Magnuson Beach to Greenwood to Northgate.

Incumbent is Debora Juarez. Challenger is Ann Davison Sattler.

Debora Juarez

Homelessness and visibility: How will you address the unsanctioned encampments on city streets, underneath highways, and other public spaces?

Our city must address the unsanctioned encampments on city streets with compassion and strength to ensure public health and safety both for those living in the encampments and the communities surrounding them.

It is vital that housing and services are made available to people who need them and that the city conducts outreach with the right professionals who can guide people to indoor shelter, housing, and appropriate mental health, addiction services.

I support the city’s strategy to conduct outreach by employing the system navigators on our Navigation team, who can direct people to the appropriate services, including transitional housing.

In addition, we must also continue to fund the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program as a way to help direct people to services.

Homelessness and housing: What is your plan to find permanent homes for the homeless?

To permanently house the homeless, we must build housing. I supported the renewal of the 2016 Housing Levy, which doubled the size of the previous levy and which is publicly funding the construction of affordable housing now.

In 2018 I co-hosted an affordable housing charrette with Speaker Frank Chopp focusing on identifying public land in the Northgate neighborhood of District 5 for affordable housing construction.

I’ve also been a supporter of projects outside my district, including the Fort Lawton redevelopment, which will be developed to house many of our aging veterans, low-income families, and formerly homeless individuals and families.

I support the siting and construction of tiny house villages and rapid rehousing strategies but only with adequate services to move people into permanent housing.

I am a strong supporter of a new housing development called Clement Place, which opened recently on Aurora to provide housing for formerly homeless families.

I am a strong supporter of permanent supportive housing for individuals who require in house services. In addition to building more permanent housing for folks experiencing homelessness, there are other barriers to overcome.

That’s why I’ve been a proponent of supporting local non-profits such as Seattle Helpline Coalition which we supported with a grant of $575,000 in the 2018 budget, which provides financial assistance to prevent evictions by loaning money for rent and utilities.

It’s not enough to merely build housing for folks, but we also must have a strong safety net in place to keep people in housing and to prevent homelessness.

Addiction and mental illness, two of the leading causes of homelessness, can be lifelong struggles and therefore merit lifelong support.

Homelessness and drugs/mental health: How do you plan on addressing drug use and mental health treatment options for the homeless population?

Homelessness, drug addiction, and mental health can be intrinsically connected and must be addressed concurrently as well. I support the work of neighborhood-based organizations working to build relationships and provide guidance and support.

I have advocated for funding for organizations such as Aurora Commons that have a strong track record of providing services to those who are homeless on the Aurora corridor who are engaged in prostitution and who are also suffering from addiction, domestic violence, sex-trafficking, and mental health disorders.

Housing and growth: What is your plan to make Seattle more affordable and livable for low- to-middle income residents?

It’s clear that one of the biggest ways to make Seattle more affordable is to build more affordable “workforce” housing for low- to middle-income residents.

For that reason, I supported both the 2016 Housing Levy and the Mandatory Housing Affordability program, which changes zoning to allow for greater density in designated areas of our city.

To participate in MHA, developers will be required to set aside a percentage of new development for affordable units or contribute monetarily to build affordable housing.

Transit and traffic: Out of all the transportation options, which one is a priority for improvement?

My top priority since my election in 2015 has been getting District 5 residents access to the light rail as soon as possible.

I fought to include the 130th Street Station in Sound Transit III, I campaigned for Sound Transit III, and I now serve on the Sound Transit Board.

I’ve been working with community members to advocate for building the 130th stop to open with Lynnwood LINK light rail - which would be seven years earlier than currently scheduled. With light rail, commuters from North Seattle will be able to arrive downtown in just 15 minutes.

We predict that light rail expansions to the north end will inspire 40,000 commuters to elect to use this eco-friendly transit option instead of driving their cars.

In addition, while King County Transit was recently named the best in North America, that doesn’t mean that it can’t improve. In fact, our greatest challenge for our transit system is in meeting ever-growing demand.

Our system is struggling with overcrowded buses, demand for greater range of service, and more hours. A network of transit and light rail will enable people to live and work in Seattle without a car or with less reliance on a car.

Ann Davison Sattler

Homelessness and visibility: How will you address the unsanctioned encampments on city streets, underneath highways, and other public spaces?

No person should be living on the streets and outside in our elements especially as another winter is approaching. It isn’t safe, sanitary, or humane and we can do better. I want to push for a response to this humanitarian crisis that is proportional to the “State of Emergency” we declared in 2015. It’s time to start creating “Red-cross like” emergency shelter: removing barriers like keeping pets and family units together.

Temporarily having large scale shelters – as we would expect in place for any other type of large-scale emergency, is a critical and humane piece of our response that will save lives by making room for people living outside without safety or basic sanitation. This is a necessary step that has not received appropriate action from the current council while we work on permanent housing. My background in Relief Operations with the United Nations has uniquely equipped and motivated me to help turn these ideas into a working reality. I have several proposals for temporary, emergency shelters on my website, https://neighborsforann.com/solutions-for-seattle/ to help bridge this gap for what this response could look like and I would fine tune these ideas with my new colleagues on City Council.

Homelessness and housing: What is your plan to find permanent homes for the homeless?

We need more housing everywhere in the city and I think supply is the right place to target. I want to look into where the permitting bottlenecks are, look for incentives to bring in more affordable housing ventures, and make sure that if a developer pays the fee to not include affordable housing, that we actually spend that fee money effectively to create new housing options; or better yet, have them build the affordable housing we need and not opt out by paying fee.

Having more supply will lower prices; thus allowing us to have a bigger impact on getting more people into section 8 housing or other affordable housing. Other cities have many more housing options that could benefit our city, such as: studio or dorm style options that are much cheaper, or multi-room apartments made for larger families or larger groups of roommates who could benefit from sharing costs.

I want to work with non-profits that can build housing like Boklok--a partnership between IKEA and Skanska (both of which have a presence in the area) that has had great success in providing affordable housing in Scandinavia and are now expanding into the UK.

Homelessness and drugs/mental health- How do you plan on addressing drug use and mental health treatment options for the homeless population?

Addiction prevention & recovery is one of the top 3 issues I focus on in my campaign. We don’t have an accurate understanding of what problems people are facing and how many are facing them. Once we understand the number of people facing addiction and the number needing mental health treatment, and those experiencing both, we can direct funds to do something meaningful for those populations.

Mental health and substance abuse are very complicated and we must know this information so we can tailor the approaches to best help. These are also issues that we will need help from the county and higher jurisdictions to work in partnership with to provide more wholistic solutions. Additionally, our federal government has been providing money to states to help with the opioid crisis and I would fight to bring that money here to help us address the opioid issue and its overlapping with some homelessness.

Housing and growth: What is your plan to make Seattle more affordable and livable for low- to middle-income residents?

As I mentioned in question two, increasing supply is the best solution. We live in a free market and we make the best impacts when we work within it. I do not support rent control because they have been proven to make things worse. (New York has been actively trying to reduce their rent controls for decades because they caused problems.)

Our rents have been increasing at extremely high rates lately but history has shown that rent control takes away the incentive to create new housing or to even maintain existing housing. Supply and Demand shows that increasing supply will move prices lower so we must focus on ways to responsibly create housing as quickly as we can.

That can be through Boklok as mentioned above, creating single-room-occupancy units that have shared common areas, and incentivizing owners of vacant property, which holds our supply stock down and drives up housing costs.

Transit and Traffic: Out of all the transportation options, which one is a priority for improvement?

We need many types of transportation options here in Seattle. While mass transit is one of those we certainly need, in District 5 a major focus must be on making the mass transit accessible via sidewalks because they are severely lacking in D5.

Looking at a map of missing sidewalks in Seattle, it is clearly evident how far behind District 5 is from the rest of the city. It was annexed to become part of Seattle 50 years ago and yet it is still missing sidewalks in so many places, even near elementary and middle schools where this are big safety problems.

Having a safe place to walk gets us moving, is better for our environment and a great way to meet neighbors and build up local communities.

I have been called by residents to personally see many areas that have been neglected for pedestrian access, including many that prevent people with disabilities from safely accessing them. We have seen many pedestrian fatalities in D5 recently and this should be a major focus for making neighborhoods more livable for all of us.