Why Is This Man Leaving the Housing Authority?
Yusuf Cabdi Says an Ambitious Effort to Rebuild a Housing Project on First Hill Will Result in "Shipping Poor People to South Seattle"
IN FRONT OF YESLER TERRACE Yusuf Cabdi stands in front of hundreds of town houses for lower-income tenants that will be bulldozed for mixed-income high-rise towers.
Yusuf Cabdi has dedicated his free time for the last five years to redeveloping Seattle's oldest and most central public housing project, Yesler Terrace. As a board member of the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA), the public corporation that provides low-income housing assistance for Seattle's neediest, the 40-year-old East African activist sat through countless meetings and talked to hundreds of Yesler Terrace residents and neighbors.
Cabdi's goal, he explains, has been to ensure that the 1,200 current residents could be relocated when their homes are razed and have the first right of return when new apartments are built on-site.
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The housing project has been home to some of the city's poorest individuals and families since it was built in the early 1940s (the residents currently make less than $13,650 annually or $19,500 for a family of four). But now that plumbing and sidewalks have decayed, the wood-framed town houses are set to be replaced with roughly a dozen towers, some up to 25 stories high.
With the final public hearing now complete, the Seattle City Council is prepared to vote in September to authorize the $290-million development deal. The scale is unprecedented: constructing a new 30-acre neighborhood in First Hill, featuring 5,000 new housing units with both low-income and market-rate housing.
Cabdi expected to be celebrating his hard work this summer. Instead, last week, he resigned.
"I no longer feel that SHA is living up to its mission of providing housing to the most needy families in our city," Cabdi wrote in a resignation letter.
Cabdi worries that SHA isn't planning to rebuild enough low-income housing at Yesler Terrace. As the city's population is rising and Yesler Terrace's population grows nearly tenfold with all the new construction, the number of low-income housing units on-site will decrease slightly (140 low-income units will be shuffled off-site but nearby). And by focusing on new housing for all income brackets, he says, SHA is accommodating those who typically make $60,000 to $90,000 a year while sacrificing the needs of a growing low-income population.
Cabdi warns that SHA's plan could result in "shipping poor people to South Seattle."
He isn't the only low-income housing advocate raising the alarm about the project.
More than 80 people testified on the final Yesler Terrace redevelopment plan at a City Hall hearing on August 8. Critics pointed out that the housing authority has not committed to replacing its 561 extremely-low-income units on-site (a modest number when considering more than 3,000 new market-rate units are planned). Nor has SHA made concrete plans to relocate Yesler Terrace residents once they're evicted from their homes.
"As of this moment, no such measure of accountability exists except the word of the Seattle Housing Authority that they will offer counseling and help to the tenants," Cabdi says.
Still more people are worried that SHA will make money off its private development deals on the site. This concern stems from SHA's plan to sell prime parts of Yesler Terrace to private developers for an estimated $140 million in order to fund the lion's share of its low-income housing.
"This [project] uses city funds to subsidize a megaproject that will be dominated by luxury condos," testified David Bloom, speaking on behalf of the Seattle Displacement Coalition. "It leaves less public housing on-site and a conspicuous loss of trees. It's a blueprint of gentrification of that area." Critics like Bloom argue that the plan would give the choicest views and locations to private developers. Meanwhile, 2,000 units of workforce and low-income housing will be pushed to the outskirts of the property—if they're built at all. "This is a 20-year process," Cabdi says. "SHA assumes they're going to make money, but that's only if they don't undersell [the land]."
But Michelle Ackermann, a spokeswoman for SHA, says the deals are sound. "We are comfortable with our economic and financial model that has been honed over the past four years by Heartland, a leading local real estate economics firm," says Ackermann, adding that an economist hired by the city concurred that "there were no fatal flaws with [our] analysis."
And city council members are raising concerns of their own, introducing 16 amendments to the Yesler Terrace legislation, many of which are being opposed by SHA. For instance, SHA is opposing an amendment that would require at least 94 of the 281 apartments for displaced residents during construction to be two-, three-, and four-bedroom units (to accommodate families).
Another amendment would limit the number of mid-to-low-income apartments (affordable to those making 60 to 80 percent of the average median income in King County) that could be located east of Boren Avenue—an area that's not part of the original Yesler Terrace site—to no more than 20 units. The legislation already states that no more than 140 extremely-low-income units (30 percent of the median income) can be located off-site.
"We don't want to create a concentration of low-income housing east of Boren," says Council Member Nick Licata, but SHA argues that the original Yesler Terrace site is an "artificial barrier" and that the housing authority needs to have the flexibility to build low-income housing where it makes the most sense (i.e., with shit views).
Finally, another amendment would force SHA to invest any excess funds from the Yesler Terrace land sale back into the project. "These are public funds," stresses Licata, who introduced it. "We do not want to see the revenue generated from Yesler Terrace being used in other locations."
But these amendments will restrict SHA's ability to create a "truly mixed-income neighborhood," according to Ackermann.
In his resignation letter, Cabdi called for the city council to appoint a third-party tenant advocacy group, such as the Tenants Union of Washington State, to ensure that tenants' rights are protected during the relocation and rebuild.
The council is expected to vote on the bulk of these amendments on August 19 and could pass the full legislation package as early as September. 
Development of this kind ultimately hurts more than helps. If we cannot afford this scale of development we should be working on a smaller scale, on a house-by-house basis to ensure that low income & working class people, and what's left of local flora/fauna (beautiful old trees) don't get screwed.
Also: not only are there not enough people to fill "market rate" units (what recession?), but low income and subsidized housing is too expensive as it is. Try being out of work from a low income job, getting on public assistance (what is left of it) and then see if you can afford the prices of what is considered "low income" housing ($650 and up).
Is Nick Licata the only Seattle Council member who can see that Seattle Housing Authority is not operating in the interest of its low-income residents?
The City Council should oppose the Seattle Housing Authority's plans and refuse to provide additional money to them that is or would be appropriated to other designated causes.
The Seattle Housing Authority should come up with a better plan, one that provides relocation assistance for all displaced tenants, and that actually increases the number of units for low-income housing. Yes, we have to address housing needs for moderate-income workers too, since this area has become so expensive for everyone. Just not at the expense of the neediest, most vulnerable residents.
Thank you to The Stranger for this article.
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Remember, this was low-income housing first.
There are those of us who believe that this area wouldn't even be re-developed if it weren't for the 'view', and given the opportunity to increase the density of the area, it seems pretty suspicious that the units aren't being replaced at LEAST 1:1!
Do poor people need views? Probably not but then, do rich people need them any more? At least if one has money, one can escape the city every so often. Travel, see beautiful sights. With that in mind, I think poor people are more in need of views than the wealthy. But, really, we all need beauty equally ... and we all pay taxes directly as well as indirectly.
To insinuate that poor people are not deserving of views is pretty callous.
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