The Seattle Renters Commission (SRC) accused Mayor Bruce Harrell and the Seattle City Council of “ongoing neglect” that not only “hampers” the commission’s work but “insults” the communities they aim to serve. For eight months, Harrell has failed to release $50,000 in funds to convene a new tenant workgroup, and the Housing and Human Services Committee has failed to appoint members to the commission, according to two public letters from SCR. The mayor and the council have not responded to their letters.

SRC Co-chair Lydia Felty said officials need to communicate any good reason for the delays, or else they leave renters to wonder why the City would disempower tenant advocacy in City Hall while the council eyes rollbacks to renter protections.

The SRC provides information, advice, and counsel to various City departments, monitors the enforcement and effectiveness of tenant laws, and advances policy proposals. 

“It’s really hard to feel like the city council or the mayor view our commission as anything more than performative,” Felty said in a phone interview. “They can show us off in concept but deprive us of our needs and make us powerless to actually advocate for renters. Renters deserve a strong voice in City Hall now more than ever.”

Harrell and Human Services Committee Chair Cathy Moore did not respond to my request for comment. 

Spare Some Change, Sir?

The SRC sent the Mayor a letter on June 5 to express their “frustration and concerns” about the delays to a new tenant workgroup promised during budget negotiations last fall. He has not responded, according to SRC. 

Last year, Council Member Tammy Morales and former Council Member Teresa Mosqueda passed an amendment to allocate $50,000 to the Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections (SDCI) to convene a workgroup that would help establish a new office dedicated to enforcing current tenant laws and establishing new ones, according to the text of the amendment. The workgroup would consist of three renters appointed by the SRC, two eviction defense attorneys, and two tenant organizers.

According to the SRC letter, the commission started the process of appointing the three renters to the workgroup in February, but the commission’s Department of Neighborhoods (DON) liaison told them to pause the appointment process until they “get a greenlight from the Mayor’s Office or City Budget Office” (CBO). That greenlight never came. The lack of action, the commission wrote in June, is unacceptable. 

“As unpaid volunteers committed to serving the best interests of Seattle renters, we refuse to accept a mere symbolic role as a commission in name only, devoid of the power to effect real change,” SRC wrote. “This delay has not only impeded our ability to fulfill our responsibilities, it’s a disregard for the democratic process.”

The City appears to be tightening its purse strings in anticipation of a tough round of budget negotiations where the mayor and the council must eliminate a quarter-billion-dollar budget shortfall. Felty said no City official has raised the deficit as a reason to delay the $50,000, but advocates have accused Harrell and the council of skimming off programs, particularly those supported by progressives, to balance their budget without imposing new taxes on the corporate interests that bankrolled their campaigns. 

The Mayor’s Office, CBO, SDCI and DON did not respond to my request for comment. 

Pick Up the Pace, Moore

In an August 5 letter, SRC demanded immediate action from Council Member Cathy Moore’s Housing and Human Services Committee to address the “long-overdue” appointments to their commission. Moore has not responded to the letter, according to SRC. 

SRC is supposed to have 15 members, but right now they only have five. They have approved five additional members but need Moore to put the appointments on her committee agenda. 

With just five members, the SRC has a quorum of three, so if three members talk to each other without calling an official meeting with 24 hours notice, they could be in violation of the Open Public Meetings Act. That hinders the commission’s ability to tend to its duties. 

Moore seems more friendly with landlords, as she invited them to air their grievances in a committee meeting last month. And, not to be petty, but the committee used to have “Renter’s Rights” in the title before the new council took over. 

SRC also expressed concern that the delayed appointments have excluded Black people from the commission. SRC emphasized the importance of hearing the perspective from Black commissioners given Seattle’s history of redlining, gentrification, and displacement of historically Black neighborhoods.

“The Council’s lack of engagement shows a misguided view that the SRC is a formality that can be ignored, rather than a valuable collaborator in addressing these critical issues for our community,” SRC wrote. “This dismissive stance is detrimental to the effective governance of our city.”

If the City does not respond to SRC, Felty said the commission will get “louder and harder to ignore.” 

Hannah Krieg is a staff writer at The Stranger covering everything that goes down at Seattle City Hall. Importantly, she is a Libra. She is also The Stranger's resident Gen Z writer, with an affinity for...

9 replies on “Seattle Renters Commission “Powerless” to Advocate for Tenants Due to “Ongoing Neglect” from Mayor Harrell, Council”

  3. @1 asks the relevant question. The answer isn’t comfortable for The Stranger. Literally everything the past councils have done in the name of “protecting” renters have had the impact of making things worse and more expensive for renters. There are some things they could do to make things better for renters, like get out of the way of housing development, but The Stranger would object because a developer somewhere might earn some money.

  4. If the City does not respond to SRC, Felty said the commission will get “louder and harder to ignore.”

    That’s their action plan? To yell louder at people who won’t listen to them???

    How about sending them an e-mail in ALL CAPS? That’ll really get their attention!!!

  5. I am a tenant manager at a lower-end property managed by a small, family-run company. They are decent people – they want to provide good service to tenants. They never enforce late fees or NSF fees. Deposits are low and there are no non-refundable move-in fees. When people get behind, they do well more than the minimum required to help them catch up. I have been strongly in favor of Seattle’s renter protections. I’d say I’m still in favor of them, although now that I have some insight into the landlord side, I see that they often don’t function as intended.

    I recently listed two apartments and they were both rented by people who applied before seeing them. This is a primary way that higher-income, tech-savvy people get to the front of the line due to the First-in-Time ordinance.

    The difficulty in evicting people has been a huge burden on this property. My supervisor used to be willing to “take a chance” on people with lower credit scores and less-than-pristine histories. Sometimes these renters work out great and sometimes they don’t pay a dime after the first month’s rent. It is now so difficult to get the latter type out that he doesn’t accept them anymore. And in my experience, tenants who don’t pay any rent are about 500% more likely to let their pets piss all over the apartment. The management company recently paid three different tenants thousands of dollars each to voluntarily leave. Then it costs thousands more to repair the damage they left.

    Nobody gets “a chance” anymore. In my early years with the company, rent increases were minimal for good tenants. Now it’s 9% a year. And that’s still not enough to compensate for the average of 15% of tenants we have who don’t pay anything.

    This is only anecdotal. But not all landlords are evil. These laws tend to penalize the better ones, and the evil ones will always find ways to get around the intent of the law.

  6. Wow Hannah, this is not complicated.

    You incorrectly state, regarding the $50K voted for UNANIMOUSLY during the 2023 budget deliberations,:

    “…a new tenant workgroup promised during budget negotiations last fall… Last year, Council Member Tammy Morales and former Council Member Teresa Mosqueda passed an amendment to allocate $50,000 to the Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections (SDCI) to convene a workgroup…”

    NO! This was not a “promise” and it was not an amendment passed by two council members.

    It was an unencumbered (without proviso) appropriation of money voted on unanimously by all nine council members. The mayor has no right to withhold or redirect that money.

  7. I might support The Seattle Renters Commission if housing providers were also included in this work group, but without everyones full participation, I don’t see how it can be helpful, and in fact appears to have done more harm than good.

    Over the last 5 years, the Seattle City Council has enacted dozens of new ordinances that taken together, significantly increase the risk to the small housing provider while increasing their costs. The result is an ongoing departure of rental housing as the providers (landlords) sell and leave the market. These homes typically become owner occupied, rather than continuing as rentals. According to the latest data from Seattle’s Rental Registration and Inspection Program, Seattle has had a net loss of 3,050 properties and 9,759 units since May 2021. During that time, just 27 rental units were added to the market. I imagine we would see the same loss of rental units county-wide.

    While designed to help tenants, the rules and ideas suggested by The Seattle Renters Commission and passed by the Seattle City Council has made rentals less available and more expensive as property owners and landlords take measures to secure and protect their property.

    While the author of this article and the Seattle Renters Commission resent the inclusion of housing providers into the discussion of rental housing, one ignores them at risk of losing more rental housing and making it even more expensive in the City of Seattle.

  8. @6: Have you some meddlesome plot to use the SRC to grind one of your axes, just as you previously tried to use the Seattle Human Rights Commission (SHRC) to interfere in police-oversight matters?

    (https://southseattleemerald.com/2022/04/29/breaking-scao-tells-human-rights-commission-not-to-seek-amicus-status/?amp)

    If so, I hope your efforts collapse into the same hilarious farce the SHRC became:

    https://southseattleemerald.com/2022/10/14/breaking-human-rights-commissioners-including-co-chairs-resign-en-masse/?amp

  9. Hannah, your claim “not to be petty” is hilariously tone deaf right above your own tweet starting out “Landlord whine sesh”. You take petty pot shots all the time.

    “The workgroup would consist of three renters appointed by the SRC, two eviction defense attorneys, and two tenant organizers.”

    ^^That is so whacked out, but it shows what this is really about. These people lost their privileged gatekeeping access to power & they’re sad they have to learn to share now.

    I always wonder about the renters these “tenant advocates” completely fail to advocate for. They’ll never talk about the people whose violent neighbor threatened staff & vulnerable residents, terrorized everyone while free “eviction defense attorneys” AKA tenant lawyers fought to keep them where they can do the MOST HARM. Or the ones who find out that the new “renter protection” laws REALLY protect the person causing the MOST problems in their building and reward bad behavior.

    Talk to anyone who’s been unfortunate enough to live next to one of these folks that drive away the people who are just trying to live in a nice community & feel safe in their homes. Or the ones who can’t get an apartment because they’re not fast enough to be FIRST every time, no exceptions to help you because Sawant’s crew made the penalties so vicious. Or who can’t find an apartment because so many nice mom & pops sold when they couldn’t afford the high risk these laws put on them.

    $50K to pay for 7 “volunteers” to do even more harm & give us LESS rental housing in Seattle. The mayor is absolutely right to prevent that from happening.

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