González and frenz huddled in the (too short) shadow of the newly constructed affordable units across from Cal Anderson.
González and frenz huddled in the (too short) shadow of the newly constructed affordable units across from Cal Anderson. RS

On Thursday afternoon City Council President Lorena González and a group of supporters stood in the Station House plaza and laid out a broad, multifaceted approach to the city's homelessness crisis, which will close out its sixth year in November.

In her remarks González immediately lobbed a grenade drew a contrast with her opponent, former City Council President Bruce Harrell, before launching into the details of the plan she wants to initiate in the first 100 days of her administration.

"I am not here to point fingers at people in tents, or call for yet another study, dashboard, or app to study an issue that so many of us are already familiar with," she said. "Rather, I am starting now to bring all hands on deck to implement solutions for unhoused neighbors that start the moment I become mayor."

In general, she wants to speed up the process of bringing 4,000 people inside while tackling "root causes" by eliminating exclusionary zoning to juice housing supply, implementing stronger tenant protections to keep people in the housing they already have, and taxing corporations to pay for more affordable housing.

Here are the major policies I culled from her planned remarks:

• Rapidly assess encampments across all neighborhoods and quickly work with city staff and community service providers to identify people we can immediately help inside...

• Secure funding to rapidly build more permanent housing, with wraparound support services...

• Push for more wraparound services for people with mental health and substance use disorders, [and] skilled 24/7 crisis response teams (like Health One and Triage One)...

• Limit rent hikes, require several months’ notice for significant rent increases, and get rental assistance to Seattle tenants and landlords who need it most...

• Expand affordable child care throughout the city...

• Launch a universal basic income program and invest in skills and career training...

• Change outdated laws that prevent multi-family housing in 70% of Seattle’s residential areas...

• Increase and stabilize this funding for the Equitable Development Initiative...

The new plan basically mirrors the plan she released during the primary election, but she added a couple of larger programs such as an expansion of affordable child care, some kind of basic income pilot program, and a commitment to expanding the Equitable Development Initiative to create "more affordable housing with, for, and in BIPOC communities."

At the presser, she contrasted this plan with Harrell's plan, which has been... evolving.

When he's out on poverty porn tours or chatting with Pioneer Square business groups, he proudly says he lifts his plan from "Compassion Seattle," the charter amendment proposal a judge ruled out-of-scope. He's said he wants to clear parks of encampments and impose undefined "consequences" on those who "reject services" even when we know shelter doesn't meet everyone's needs. Last week he told the Seattle Times he wanted to build 1,000 units of something in his first six months. He also throws in a couple bells and whistles, including a creepy-sounding "heat map" of encampments and data dashboards to track progress and increase transparency.

In his efforts to help the homeless "transition from parks and sidewalks to housing and services," he wants to prioritize "areas that need immediate engagement, including school and park properties that are incompatible with encampments."

González said her plan wasn't to focus on tents. "Our focus is on people and their needs, and identifying...the places that are available for them to immediately go to."

Though expensive consulting firms say otherwise, Harrell also thinks we can solve the issue with some federal COVID relief dollars and philanthropy, which is another area where his approach differs from González's.

Aside from raising taxes on corporations, the wealthy, and potentially building on the state's capital gains tax (assuming it makes it through a court challenge), she mentioned the housing levy renewal as a possible vehicle to meet her goals of adding affordable housing and behavioral health services.

At 4 pm, the crowd was all reporters and the occasional skateboarder, though González did receive some feedback from the community. One dude heckled semi-coherently for half her speech, one counter-heckler shouted, "Shut the fuck up nobody wants to hear your shit," and at one point a passerby in a Canadian tuxedo raised her fist and said "right on, thank you" before continuing on her path through the plaza.

Next Wednesday, October 29, González and Harrell will face off in a debate about homelessness, so we should see some more contrasts and possibly areas of overlap drawn then.