Am I correct in assuming Sawant has not yet even drafted her proposed legislation?

So, CM Sawant tells the Stranger about her proposed legislation, which has never gone anywhere, not even in recent years, when she has chaired the relevant committee. Instead of pointing out her complete lack of progress on this, her signature issue (!), and telling her to call them when she’s actually done something, the Stranger questions absolutely nothing she tells them, and dutifully pesters other Council Members, pretending all of this is somehow newsworthy.

@1: We’ve been over this in a previous thread. If by “drafted,” you mean like a sophomore’s midterm paper, then yes. (This is the definition the Stranger uses, for obvious reasons.) if you mean, “ready for a submission to relevant legislative committee for consideration towards maybe becoming a bill someday,” then the answer is “BWAHAHAHAHAHA - gasp! - yeah, right.”

@2 This doesn't even take into the account that rent control has never worked anywhere to increase housing affordability. It does quite the opposite and that is with the "watered down" carve outs that Sawant despises. Passing her version of draconian rent control will destroy Seattle's housing market. I've mentioned this before and its never ceases to amaze me how the progressives will double down on stupid. Sure it hasn't worked anywhere else but they just didn't go far enough. We need to try an even more extreme version of this bad idea. This does nothing to account for tax increases and new costs incurred due to city legislation such as new environmental standards nor would it encourage any new construction in the city by private entities. What this would do, and in my opinion is her true goal, is render any sort of private housing economically pointless so the only thing left would be for the state/city to step in and build government controlled housing. It's bad policy and any current council member or candidate that embraces should rightly be shunned by voters.

I'm a huge advocate of improving housing policy particularly for renters, but I sort of reluctantly have to agree with the haters that there truly isn't an existing model with a track record of actually improving the situation for the city as a whole in the long term. Rent control takes more units out of the market and makes competition (and thus affordability) even worse. Fewer units ultimately get built or rented out as a result, and we should be adjusting policy everywhere to do the opposite of that. Some people's individual situations could be improved, sure, but it's a regulatory and enforcement nightmare and there are better ways to expend that energy. Since this bill is associated with Sawant it won't go anywhere, but it's still unfortunate because some of the other good ideas this gets associated with like public housing and deregulation of new construction are also taking a hit as a result.

Kshama's just trying to raise her profile in advance of launching her podcast this summer.

“… the median apartment in Seattle rents for about $1,900 a month…”

No, that figure is for the arithmetical mean, commonly called the “average.” It’s the sum total of all monthly residential rents charged in Seattle, divided by the total number of residential units. The median — the rental rate at which half the units in Seattle rent for more, and half rent for less — is $1,500. (This suggests a few fancy apartments have very high rents, skewing the average to far above the mean.)

I understand the Stranger wants to use the larger figure to justify “gouging” rhetoric, but rents in Seattle are high enough already.

@2 Thanks, that is pretty much what I figured.

@3: “Sure it hasn't worked anywhere else but they just didn't go far enough. We need to try an even more extreme version of this bad idea.”

It’s a perfect ideology, therefore it cannot fail; it can only be failed, by not being applied with a rigor only true fanatics can bring. This time, they’ll mercilessly push it to the furthest possible extreme, at which point it Simply. Must. Work.

Likewise the Stranger’s version of Sawant, who to them is not a failed Council Member. To them, she is in fact a perfect Council Member. She was failed, by landlords, Republicans, and (above all) Democrats. Even after the voters in Seattle’s most liberal of all districts tired of her sketchy antics and filed to recall her, that was their problem, not of her creation, and the Stranger hatefully lambasted those voters for daring to use their constitutional rights. All of these are the failures, not her.

It’s been amazing to watch: an alt-weekly once known for irreverently humorous writing, slowly becoming a mouthpiece of unrelenting grey fanaticism.

@9 the irony of course is while they have descended into the muck of extremism anyone who has dared to push back and/or question their loss of prospective has been labeled a racist, fascist or any other ist on the list while being attacked by their rubes in these comments as trolls and haters. It's really been a fascinating thing to watch unfold.

@comments on how rent control policies are unfair and broken because they pretty much never allow landlords to match increases in costs over time - yeah make no mistake. That is intentional.

Step 1: collect underpants!
Step 2:
Step 3: fully socialized housing!

What's helpful about this article is that it makes completely clear what many of us have said for years: Sawant and The Stranger believe that Democrats are the real problem, not Republicans. When faced with a choice at the ballot box between Hillary Clinton and the worst president in the history of the country, Sawant and The Stranger preferred Trump. This was a catastrophically terrible decision that was wrong at the time and only proves to be worse with every passing day.

And yet Sawant and The Stranger act as though their political judgment should never be questioned, and it is others who make bad decisions, not them. The irony would be comical if it wasn't so tragic.

@15,

You're absolutely wrong. The Stranger categorically and unequivocally endorsed Hillary Clinton for President.

People who advocate for rent control are idiots.

@14- the missing Step 2 in your scheme is “large fraction of existing rentals are razed and developed into townhouses.” There will be no Step 3 because there will be far fewer rentals to socialize.

@6’s predictions are spot on. Landlords have already been forced by the first in time law to raise qualifications for tenants and a smaller supply of rental housing will continue that trend. There is no way now to protect yourself against problem tenants than to set very high standards.

@17- correct. Led by their Moron Queen.

JFC. I don’t know how hard it is for people to get the fact that laws that reduce the number of apartments available will harm renters, especially low-income ones.

@16: The Stranger endorsed Clinton only after Bernie told them to. Sawant slashed at Clinton all the way to the end — and the Stranger has never criticized her for it. (https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/dont-waste-your-vote-on-the-corporate-agenda-vote-for-jill-stein-and-the-greens/tnamp/)

housing as Commodity's
a Stupid way to house
human beings. were
it Wise would we
have hundreds
of thousands
living on our
streets?

and now that vulture capitalists
& multinational corporations
have joined the bandwagon
is the housing situation
gonna improve or just
get even more
shittier?

hmmm.

@20: I do not understand the Stranger’s obsession with having persons living in places they cannot afford. Even if the encampments were filled with “victims of capitalism,” who simply “can’t afford a home,” those would also be reasons to sweep the encampments. Seattle has become one of the most expensive places to live in the entire country; literally, almost anywhere else would cost less. A city is a living organism, which changes over time. Rent control is simply an attempt to freeze some housing costs and keep them artificially low. This can work for only so long before the wheel of time flattens it.

It should also be obvious that Seattle should be building many more housing units, not introducing new schemes to reallocate existing housing stock. Today’s luxury housing becomes tomorrow’s affordable housing, so if we want more affordable housing in Seattle’s future, we need to build more housing, of all kinds, now.

@21: If we could just give a home to every member of our homeless population, then everything would be all right, yes?

“In its heyday, the Red Lion boasted neatly made beds, plenty of event space, and even restaurants. Then during the COVID-19 pandemic, a fence went up and it became a shelter for more than two-hundred homeless people.

“In November 2020, the hotel went up in flames, and Renton Police arrested someone for arson.”

(https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/king-county-taxpayers-paying-roughly-330k-month-empty-hotel-renton/ZKZ7IE4QANDW3M2XUFJB55YBYU/?outputType=amp)

And who was that someone?

“Investigators said the 46-year-old resident of the room had made threats to burn down the building earlier in the day and was arrested by Renton police for investigation of arson.”

(https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/king-county-taxpayers-paying-roughly-330k-month-empty-hotel-renton/ZKZ7IE4QANDW3M2XUFJB55YBYU/?outputType=amp)

Housing first!

@13 - by mentioning property tax increases you have touched on the actual agenda of the Scarfed Mob. Once rents are capped and offering rental housing becomes so difficult that no one wants to be in the business, values of rental property will crash (perhaps taking the rest of the housing market with it). That will in theory make housing cheaper and less attractive as an investment, ("decommodifying housing") and allow all those hard-working campers to buy homes. It will also take care of the property tax issue. Never mind what it will do to the middle class whose wealth is tied up in the value of their houses.

@26: “Never mind what it will do to the middle class whose wealth is tied up in the value of their houses.”

Feature, not bug.