Big budget option for Seattle social housing surges ahead in early vote count

Assuming there are no dramatic changes in the ballot count, money for social housing will start flowing in Seattle this spring.

The housing itself could come online later this year.

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arlier this month, polling showed Propositions 1A and 1B, which represent two fundamentally different funding methods, were running neck-and-neck. The future of social housing seemed up in the air.

But as of Wednesday morning, Proposition 1A, which would give Seattle's Social Housing Developer a large capital budget drawn from a new tax on wealthy companies like Amazon, was passing by a margin of 15%. That's one point higher than the 14-point lead that created Seattle's Social Housing Developer (Initiative 135) in a 2023 special election.

Backers of the new tax estimate it could bring in $50 million dollars in its first year.

In contrast, the Seattle City Council's lower-budget version of a funding package, Proposition 1B, appears to be going down in defeat. With just 20% of the votes counted, it's possible that 1A's significant lead could narrow or disappear, though many see that as unlikely.

RELATED: Can Seattle's social housing program survive the February ballot?

House Our Neighbors, a group advocating for more funding for social housing, blamed poll results showing the two propositions in a near-tie on opposition spending by companies like Amazon and Microsoft, along with comments from Mayor Bruce Harrell.

The (apparently) losing measure

By the time Initiative 137, which laid out a funding plan for social housing, reached the Seattle City Council in 2024, the majority of councilmembers had grown skeptical of social housing. Former Councilmember Tammy Morales had been the most vocal supporter of social housing on the council and was in the minority on a new, more conservative city council prior to her resignation last month.

Councilmembers voted to push the measure, which became Proposition 1A, to the February 2025 ballot, rather than the high-turnout presidential election in November. And they placed alongside it their own funding plan for social housing: Proposition 1B.

Proposition 1B would have given the social housing developer a much smaller budget of $10 million annually, and drawn that money from the Jump Start tax, a limited pool of funds originally intended for affordable housing, but routinely tapped to fill holes in the city's general fund. Already, more traditional affordable housing providers must compete for what remains in that fund, making the newcomer — social housing — deeply unpopular.

RELATED: Why someone earning over $100,000 could qualify for Seattle’s affordable housing

City councilmembers also emphasized their financial oversight role, making funding contingent on the approval of Seattle's Office of Housing, which is answerable to both the mayor and the city council.

Proposition 1B also put much lower income caps on social housing apartments, undermining the financial model in which higher-rent apartments would help subsidize lower-rent apartments. This would have proven a significant challenge to the funding model for social housing in Seattle.

What's next?

The new tax, which levies 5% on companies like Amazon for every salary dollar paid to employees earning over $1 million annually, is retroactive to January 1, 2025. Those taxes come due at the end of each quarter. That means if Proposition 1A survives the full ballot count as expected, money would start flowing to the social housing developer this spring.

While the developer would need time to staff up, its CEO Roberto Jimenez has said the organization would be able to start buying properties quickly.

It takes years to plan, permit, and develop a new building. So the first we might expect to see new, custom-designed social housing buildings open for tenants in Seattle could be 2029 at the earliest.

But in the meantime, the social housing organization could follow a much faster course of action that could create social housing in Seattle by the end of this year:

1. It could buy existing "naturally affordable" apartment buildings that otherwise would have been demolished or had their rents go up. "Naturally affordable" refers to inexpensive housing, often due to deferred maintenance that helps keep costs low, that's subject to market forces because it's privately owned by for-profit landlords.
2. It could buy buildings that are already under construction, as was recently done with the Dockside Apartments in the Greenlake neighborhood.

The target demographic for social housing is people who aren't especially poor nor especially rich, yet cannot afford the high rents in Seattle.

As with all public development authorities, the social housing developer is still subject to oversight by elected leaders in Seattle.

While the city council can't tell the organization how to run its day-to-day operations, it can order audits and inspections, and has some authority to correct any deficiencies found.

But again and again, through initiatives, voters appear to be goading the council to give this unusual model a chance.

Note: This story reflects results of the ballot count as of 12 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 12. The most up-to-date results can be found here.