Housing Week Keynote

well welcome to housing week everybody I'm Greg winter I'm executive director of opportunity Council we are a Community Action Agency based here in Bellingham and we are one of several sponsors of housing week and I'll say more about that in a minute we're delighted that you're all here this morning in our kickoff event housing week is a series of events that a group of people put together to build awareness and support for innovative housing solutions that create diverse and vibrant healthy homes for everybody in our community and we feel like now there's never a bad time to do this but now is really the time to have these important conversations and take additional actions that address affordability livability and homelessness so housing week partners and sponsors have a shared goal to increase opportunities for all people to have opportunity to live in neighborhoods that foster healthy lifestyles that's really if there's a mission statement for housing week that's what it is and I think you know it's a bit of an experiment to have an event like this I think those of us who came together to put this on anticipate we really want this to be an annual event and we want to build on this event and we intend to evaluate it after this week and see what went well what didn't what outcomes happen afterwards did this really result in actions and decisions that advance the mission so before we get started with our program this morning I want to thank the sponsors of housing week this year sustainable connections unity care Northwest culture and Community Land Trust our own organization Opportunity Council wacom Community Foundation Chuck in that Health Foundation United Way of wacom County the city of Bellingham wacom County Health Department Community Health Plan of Washington and Puget Sound Energy so thank you all everybody this morning we'll hear from our keynote speaker who I'll introduce in a moment then we're going to invite a panel of experts with unique perspectives to share they're going to share their thoughts about today's theme housing equity and we'll provide an opportunity for you in the audience to ask questions and engage in a dialogue with the panel members one more important thank you goes to mercy housing Northwest and the staff here for providing such a wonderful space for so many events happening this week so big thanks to mercy housing even even more importantly we should thank mercy housing for providing this terrific new housing resource for seniors in our community just one of the important populations that we should be planning innovation innovative solutions for right now of course ellinor apartments would not have been possible without the investment of local dollars from the Bellingham home fund that helps secure the majority of funding needed to deliver this service and rich facility to the community and none of that would have been possible without the support of Bellingham voters who showed up in a large majority to enact the Bellingham home fund so thank you Bellingham and thank you the city of Bellingham who's done a terrific job of administering this program and helping along with the nonprofit developers and the many other professionals involved in each one of the housing projects that have been developed or preserved through the home fund our local investment in high quality long-term affordable housing is more important than ever we've known that for a long time and it was made even more clear a couple weeks ago when an important but I think largely unreported event happened where an apport by Freddie Mac came out looking at affordable rental housing throughout the country and they determined through this really thorough analysis that just in the last seven years we've lost 60 % of rental units that are affordable to very low income families 60 percent it's it's shocking and it's something that really should be an alarm for us the combination of increasing rents and stagnant household incomes coupled with the increasing overall demand for rental housing and increasing construction costs have come together to really create this huge chasm between the demand for affordable rental housing and the supply so this comes at a time when we see further erosion in federal support for housing affordability and that's especially evident with the recent tax reform legislation which built into the current proposal has has really if it passes as it's currently Whitten written would really our country's ability to continue to produce the relatively small but important amount of affordable rental housing that we really need like Eleanor apartments ok enough with the doom and gloom there are some bright spots in our own corner of the world and our keynote speaker is one of them Nicole Macri was elected to the Washington House of Representatives in 2016 and she represents the 3rd 43rd legislative district of Washington she serves as vice chair of the health care and wellness committee and of the Community Development housing and tribal affairs committee she's also a member of the Capitol Budget Committee and a member of the Washington State Legislative LGBTQ caucus nicole has more than 20 years of experience championing progressive causes and issues around affordable housing homelessness human services and mental health she's been at the forefront of the housing first movement nationally and is a recognized leader in practical and effective solutions that end the homelessness of people living with serious disabilities I've known Nicole as an ally and a mentor for years an opportunity council we've sought the wisdom of Nicole and her staff as we've developed and continue to innovate housing solutions for people who have been chronically homeless and we continue to do that when one of the many lessons I learned from Nicole is the importance of perseverance isn't that right importance of perseverance when you're trying to provide housing solutions for people that many in the community largely misunderstand I'm pleased this morning we have the opportunity to all learn more about Nicole's perspectives as we kick off housing week Nicole Wow well thank you Greg and thank you everyone for being here what an amazing turnout for the first-ever Whatcom housing week this is amazing and it's really my honor to be able to kick us off today with a few words about what we mean by housing equity so I was struck probably like many of you as the weather took a turn the end of last week and and winter really hit us hard and early this year because every time the weather turns and we know winter is here and the rains start here in western Washington and the snow comes here up north from where I live and we even had snow down in in Seattle over this weekend and we know that too many people are struggling to stay in their homes and keep the heat on and put food on the table and we know even more people are struggling without any safe shelter at all and so the urgency of the work that we need to do to address the affordable housing crisis is big I'm going to talk a little bit about homelessness as that's an area that I have focused on for many years I'm going to throw a bunch of numbers out but I really want to set the context for where we are right now on any given night at least 21,000 people are homeless in the state of Washington and after many years of small but steady decreases in homelessness in 2013 we started to see some pretty dramatic increases and that's true here in Whatcom County and when I looked up the point in time count of homeless people here in Whatcom I saw a trend that's familiar to me because we've seen something very similar where I live in King County in 2008 the Whatcom point in time count counted 851 people who were identified as homeless in the most recent count in 2017 that number was 713 so that is a 16% decrease in about a decade's time however in 2012 the count was 493 people which was actually a 42% decrease from 2008 and has been climbing ever since that time there's some indication that we might be leveling off but we're currently in 2017 at 713 so why is this happening we know that the decreases in homelessness between 2008 and 2012 here in Whatcom County were not a fluke we know that Whatcom County has the longest-running and perhaps the highest functioning coordinated entry system in the state of Washington for addressing homelessness and really focusing the homeless response system on getting people back into housing in fact Whatcom County was one of very few here in Washington that practically ended veterans homelessness however we have seen the numbers climb back up the housing market started to get tight around 2013 and rents started to go up and so the work to assist people who are homeless and getting back into housing got harder and harder in the last 10 years the population of Washington has grown 19 percent however the number of housing units we have has only grown 14 percent and this housing shortage is what is driving really low vacancy rates across the state and driving up rents and all the while as Greg alluded to incomes have stayed relatively flat particularly for the bottom 80% of income earners so we know that the increase in cost of housing is the primary challenge driving our homelessness problem here across n across the state and in fact The Associated Press had an article this morning and that I saw as I was coming up here that is entitled I think it's tech boom and growing population drives rents up or something like that and it's feeding the homeless problem so you may have heard a statistic that for every $100 increase in rent homelessness increases 6% in metropolitan areas and 32% in non-metropolitan areas and that seems really to be playing out and we know that the decreased vacancy rates are what are driving the rents so right now the apartment vacancy rate in Bellingham is 0% that basically means that every apartment in town is occupied and it also means that rents are rising really fast experts say that a healthy rental market that stabilizes rents over time should see a vacancy rate of between 6 and 7 percent so we are far off from that below that you start to see pretty rapid increases in rents and above that when you start getting into double-digit vacancy rates and you start to see decreases in rent that make it difficult for landlords to cover the costs of operating apartments so we should be aiming for that kind of market equilibrium point of vacancy between 6 and 7 percent so I really want to focus us in on the challenges that we see are seeing are basically around the intersection of the you can see rates and rents and in order to address that what we really need to be focused on is creating more housing we looked at a number of other factors around what is driving increased homelessness and what we have found is everything brings us back to rent in fact statewide we've seen decreases in the factors that we know that often prompt instances of homelessness such as unemployment domestic violence or divorce and we've actually seen increases among Washingtonians in terms of educational attainment and even modest increases in mental health funding at the state level an alcohol and marijuana use seems to be on the decline one factor that we probably should examine more is around opioid use and opioid use is becoming a growing crisis across our state we don't quite have a handle right now on what the correlation between homelessness and opioid use is but what we do know is that opioid-related overdoses have remained relatively flat in Washington state which puts us in a far better position than many other states across the country but we know within that that heroin overdoses are up and prescription opioid overdoses are down it's a very dangerous trend and we know that many people are losing their lives because of it and we need to really focus ourselves on a public health response to that and while it may or may not be a factor that's driving increase homelessness it's fits with what we know and what I really want to focus on which is that the people with the greatest challenges in life are the ones who are least likely to get into the housing that's available and those who become homeless and remain homeless have the greatest challenges in finding and staying in housing and many of them mean ongoing support and we need to orient ourselves to that the creation of the housing that meets the of the folks who have the greatest housing needs so as Greg alluded to I've spent my life working on solutions to tough challenges like homelessness creating more affordable housing and addressing the needs of people living with mental illness and substance use disorders outside the legislature I'm the deputy director at the Downtown emergency service center in Seattle and I work every day still there at des C to end the homelessness of vulnerable people I'm also a longtime and active member of the board of directors of the Washington low-income housing Alliance and I've worked not only in the Seattle area but across the state to ensure that everybody has the opportunity to live in a safe healthy and affordable home I've done a lot of work nationally on the in terms of the housing first movement and I've helped to expand affordable housing and champion policies that protect renters and homeowners from discrimination so all I bring all of that to the legislature I was elected last November and these experiences working on behalf of people who've experienced homelessness on behalf of people who've been displaced who've been victims of ongoing gentrification and the district that I represent are the is the framework that I bring to the legislature I also am keenly focused on ensuring that we expand healthcare access for people and the intersection between housing and healthcare is becoming more and more clear to many of us a colleague once said something to me that I wanted to share with you all because it taught me an important lesson and I think it's really relevant when we think about housing equity she said to me in doing this work we must keep in mind that people are not poor because they lack our programs they are poor because they lack power when we start talking about how we build more equitable acts - affordable healthy and vibrant homes we need to keep that in mind while the programs and services that we have in our communities make huge positive impacts on real people's lives if we're truly committed to equity and who gets into high quality housing and in thriving neighborhoods it's imperative that we work alongside people who are currently or formerly homeless or who've been unfairly excluded from housing opportunities there are people who are and who've been have been for generations systematically denied access to housing and we must acknowledge that injustice we cannot ignore the way that people of color LGBTQ people single parents seniors people living with disabilities are disproportionately excluded from safety and prosperity in our communities including safe healthy and affordable homes so in order to create more equity in how people can access housing we must be intentional about undoing oppressions that have excluded people from housing and we must organize for change we have to Center the voices of the people who have been most impacted by the affordable housing crisis who've experienced these deep discriminations and inequities and we must support community organizing efforts that build power and that is happening and a lot of good ways I know here in Bellingham and we are certainly seeing it more and more in the community where I live in Seattle one good example is the resident Action project and I think we'll hear a little bit more about that from the panel it's a statewide project that supports people who have experienced homelessness or who have lived in subsidized housing and not only how to do effective policy advocacy but how to do effective community organizing to build power in my city in Seattle we've recently established a renters commission because like Seattle like Bellingham I would say Seattle it has a majority of the population who are renters I think in Bellingham just over 50% of households are renters and the renters Commission is a way a structured way for our local elected officials to get input about policies that impact people who are renting and most recently the housing for all coalition in Seattle has brought together longtime housing activists and with people who are most impacted by the crisis of homelessness and affordable housing shortages to influence city policy um you may have seen in the news last week that the housing for all coalition organized overnight occupation of our City Hall in lobbying for programs that address homelessness and create more housing so we organized but we organized for a purpose and that is to make sure that our public policies and public funding helps us set the future that we want to see a future where everyone has the opportunity to live and save healthy and affordable housing in vibrant communities to do this we need a lot of choices in the kinds of homes that we create we need homes of all shapes and sizes and this week I think there'll be lots of opportunities to hear about different kinds of housing approaches I'm gonna focus on a few but I'll say what we really need for those who are that have the lowest incomes are more ways in which publicly supportive housing can be created this helps protect people from the market fluctuations that really put their lives at risk and we have a good track record of doing that but we need to bring it to a much larger scale dedicated public funds like our state housing trust fund and local housing levies are what helped make this publicly supported housing possible and as Greg alluded to Bellingham's home fund passed in 2012 has exceeded all expectations it's a relatively modest property tax levy and you can just look around here and around town to see the several buildings that have been created with it what he didn't mention is that for every dollar spent from the Bellingham home fund seven dollars are attracted to invest in affordable housing I am confident that that those seven dollars would not be funding affordable housing if not for the home fund so renewing this we're coming up I think soon on the expiration next year renewing it is essential if we are going to really create housing at the scale that we need and housing that's affordable to people who are most in need of housing there are other things we can do and legislators are talking now about how we can help set a foundation for local communities to leverage the resources that we have available we have to figure out how we can make it easier to use public properties to build affordable housing and housing that's close to transportation jobs school and our health care facilities and we need to face the reality that decades of exclusionary zoning has resulted in some people being excluded from the most prosperous and thriving neighborhoods in our communities its relegated most apartment developments to low-income areas that offer the fewest opportunities for people to thrive and not only do we need to undo the exclusionary zoning laws that we have in many of our cities to really create a diversity of affordable housing options across all our neighborhoods we need to take a look at inclusionary zoning laws that require affordable housing in all new developments we're doing that in Seattle and it has been a relatively bumpy ride but it has been worthwhile and we're starting to see the results of that and in addition to regulating in affordable housing we must continue to find ways to incentivize residential housing developers to add even more affordable housing to the developments that they are creating and we need to make sure that our zoning laws are flexible enough that we can create a lot of housing really fast because that's what we need to do things like tiny home villages micro apartment buildings backyard cottages and basement apartments and existing homes community land Trust's limited equity cooperative housing communities we need to explore all of these policy options in order to build to the scale that we need creating more housing is the most important thing that we can do but we have to also make sure as we create more housing that people are able to access the housing that exists here's an example I want to give and I know this is a current topic here in the City of Bellingham let's say we help someone afford the rent by providing a rental voucher so I think most of you are probably familiar but for those of you who don't know a rental voucher is usually it's money usually sourced from the government that is paid directly to a private landlord so that a low-income tenant can be able to afford the rent and the tenants portion of the rent corresponds to their income to ensure that they pay no more than usually 30 percent of their income although that can vary and they can continue to afford rent over the long term so often we refer to HUDs section 8 housing choice voucher program as kind of the most well-known housing voucher program there are other forms of rental assistance that are often provided through nonprofit organizations so with that we fix the problem of affordability people can afford to pay the rent and we know I think just under two thousand people here in the wacom region depend on on housing vouchers in order to pay their rent but what happens when the landlord just unilaterally doesn't accept these vouchers what good is it what if they won't even look at a tenants background and assess whether or not they meet the other screening criteria they just shut the door and say no housing voucher accepted essentially the programs that we create to assist people in paying the rent become useless so I was really excited to learn that the Bellingham City Council is conceal a consideration that provides an apartment hunters protection around the source of income that they use to pay the rent and I think tonight maybe they are talking about that awesome that is so great and I have to say in my work in the legislature I am pushing hard that in 2018 we push and get over the finish line a statewide protection for source of income discrimination yes we will work on it and we can talk more about the landscape for 2018 in the legislature will have a clearer picture of that after tomorrow's election in Seattle we passed a number of additional tenant protections in recent months in the last couple of years to make sure that everybody has a fair shot at getting into housing and in keeping that housing Seattle elected leaders have put limits on the types and size of moving fees that landlords can charge and they've added new protection that allows tenants to pay their up front costs over time giving them up to six months to pay their security deposit and as many of you know getting that money to move in can be a real barrier to getting into an apartment n in Seattle we just passed the fair chat the fair chance housing ordinance which protects people with criminal backgrounds from being categorically excluded from the rental market so all of this is progress and as Greg said we have a lot to be hopeful about now it's difficult to get me up in front of a group of people without having me talk a little bit about housing first because I've dedicated much of my career to promoting the concept of housing first and this is so essential when we talk about access to housing that exists so many of you might be familiar with housing first as the name suggests it dispenses with the kind of age-old idea of trying to determine who is ready for housing or using housing as a reward for people achieving some predetermined clinical goals such as psychiatric stability abstinence for drug and alcohol use or getting a job we know that these outdated approaches have high failure rates and they perpetuate the false notion that homeless people prefer living on the streets to being in to say in safe housing housing first demonstrates that if we provide people opportunities for permanent housing without any preconditions and surround them with the support that helps them succeed we save millions of dollars and we improve quality of life not only for the people who move into that housing but for all of us in the community the organization that I work for outside the legislature the downtown emergency service center really helped to pioneer the housing first approach here in the Pacific Northwest in the mid-1990s and in the early 2000s and we started do research on the model to see how effective it actually was we partnered with the University of ten and what we found was that these approaches increased housing stability improve health and quality of life for the people who receive it and that it's far less costly than allowing people to remain homeless in fact housing first approaches saves us a millions of dollars particularly in hospital emergency room stays and jail expenses so the housing first approach now has been accepted nationally as an effective way to address homelessness particularly for people living with serious disabling conditions it's pretty simple a safe stable place to call home call home ends the dibbley debilitating chaos of homelessness and consistent assertive offers of help and support without coercion help people keep their homes stabilize their lives and re-engage with their communities I like to think that this story whenever I think about explaining what how housing first works in communities several years ago the five-year-old daughter of a colleague of mine made a hand-drawn sign for residents coming into a new housing first building that we had built the sign said with a little drawing on it welcome home stay as long as you want that's it five years old so simple she got it welcome home stay as long as you want and the stability of having a home becomes the foundation for so many good things to follow reconnection with family improved health improved work opportunities and on and on and on so while a lot of times we might think it's easier to say here's the program here are the rules abide by them and you can stay what we know is that that approach leaves the most vulnerable people literally out on the street and so we must turn our approaches to the ones that are most effective we also though approaches that are humane when we address the realities of people trying to survive outside including creating more welcoming shelter options for folks in Seattle the organization that I work for just opened the new navigation Center modeled on a program in San Francisco in many ways it feels a lot more like a European travelers hostel than it does a traditional homeless shelter it focuses on accepting people other shelters have traditionally excluded including people with app active substance use problems people who are unwilling to be separated from their partners or their pets and people who have a lot of possessions that they're unwilling to abandon or leave outside it has policies where people can come and go where they can access the kitchen to make meals when they're hungry and not when meals are served and it is has a focus on getting people back into permanent housing as quickly as possible I know here in Bellingham you all are talking about creating new shelter opportunities that are what we call quote lower barrier similar to the navigation Center and that I think is really important another thing we need to think about when we think about equity and justice and housing is how housing is integrated and interconnected with other community systems transformations we are trying to make so I know here in Whatcom County you all have been working on something similar as we have in in King County which is to divert people from incarceration through the work of the incarceration prevention task force and it's really heartening to know that this task force is really focused on the role housing can play in supporting the other goals of the task force including improving community safety and ensuring the most cost efficient criminal justice system that we have and I know the work of the local accountable communities of health is really looking at how we transform how we think about health putting on as much focus on what we call the social determinants of health like access to housing education fresh air living wage jobs as we do put on the healthcare delivery system like going to the doctor so I mention all these interventions to get you ready and engaged in the opportunities that we can talk about throughout this week I do want to talk a bit about what it really takes to embrace all these approaches that I've talked about number one I think we really need to understand that we all want to be healthy and safe no one prefers to be sick or living in constant danger this does not mean of course that we always make the best decisions for ourselves I know just today I went to sleep really late last night I woke up very early in the morning to get up here I drank far too much coffee and instead of eating the non-fat yogurt that I bought at the grocery store on Saturday I just grabbed some bread and jam and sweet stuff that I probably shouldn't have eaten so we all make choices that are not and necessarily in the best interest of our health but that does not mean we don't want to be healthy another thing that we need to understand is that people need freewill and we all crave self-determination and we need these things as humans almost in equal measure as we desire safety so people will make choices that protect their autonomy over their safety all the time and I think if you think for a minute you probably can think of a couple of examples where you yourself have done that it's really important that we dispel with these old ideas of people who are resistant to services who are choosing not to be safe and we really need to challenge ourselves to think about what it means to be truly anti-racist and focus on housing justice and how we think about creating more access to housing so all of us have an opportunity to move us towards this cultural shift for Greater housing equity we have to be open to creating new housing in areas that traditionally have not seen new development and we have to retell the balance toward protecting tenants in search of housing and from unwarranted evictions we know that evictions can harm family stability and can relegate kids to lifetimes of poverty we have to welcome programs that embrace housing first we have to stop asking who is going to be served in this building are they appropriate for our neighborhood and instead start asking how are you going to ensure that people's needs are met and that our neighborhoods won't be negatively impacted by this building we have to push for public policies and funding that incentivizes or requires approaches that we know work and that create more housing and while we support people in accessing housing we also must have a relentless focus on helping them really include in getting jobs building relationships and engaging in neighborhood activities we are learning more and more about the importance of social connectedness and people's ability to maintain their homes and improve their lives on their own terms and as I said before we need to Center people's voices impacted by a by excluded exclusion from affordable housing to really drive the kinds of housing solutions that support people's self-determine communities so you all have come here today to focus on issues of housing and I am counting on you to get some seriously big things done I know that together we can make sure that everyone has access to live in a community that thrives and that nobody needs to experience the dangers and indignities of not having a home and I know that through difficult conversations collaboration and determination and perseverance and I already mentioned that to one other person this morning when they said I need a tip I was like persevere with those qualities we really can succeed so I hope you all are geared up for engaging in conversations about how we can take action together thank you so much I'm looking forward to our panel discussion [Applause] and we'll engage in discussion in just a little while but first I'd like to invite our panel up here and so he'll Susan April Nick Adrian if you will start yeah and I can cut my story even shorter I'm sorry so I am the landlord liaison for the opportunity Council and I'm also committed a landlord here I have a lot of conversations with our local landlords about not increasing rents in or trying to prevent those evictions a couple of months ago I had a conversation with a landlord who was recently turning his properties over to a property management company and when the property management company stepped in mentioned to him you know you could be getting four hundred dollars more per rent per unit and I was like hah well that sounds very appealing and so he did which was going to displace a veteran that we had housed there on the Vash voucher who had been there for seven years as an excellent tenant no.10 related concerns so I had the privilege of calling the landlord and saying to him trying to convince him to not make this rental increase that this is going to displace a veteran outside of PAL earth back onto the streets potentially an outside of housing and after the conversation I had with him trying to convince him he very politely and kindly said to me I don't mean to be rude but why is this my responsibility and after he you know what Nicole said this morning I can only hope that when I think of housing that equity and justice that to me I think of community responsibility and ask all of us what kind of place we'd like to live in for me that's a place where we take responsibility for our other community members and I kind of shared that perspective with him luckily he was able to come to a compromise with me after some arguing and only raise the rent $200 which allowed me to make the exception for this veteran to say house but I think that really what we're asking ourselves especially here in America's make a shift in perspective of what do we value once again which in my my opinion is the ability for us to if we are privileged enough to have for yourself then give what you can to your community that's hard to follow thank you that's a it's a it's a great example so I'm April Barker I'm one of your City Council members I've been in office for twenty two months and found myself there very unexpectedly I mean I certainly made a decision that I would be running for office but it was never anything that I was thinking about as a young child as a graduate student as a homeowner so many of the different privileges that I've experienced so I think I'm gonna continue on with what you were talking about in and also with your theme of responsibility and I I come to meetings like this and I look out and I see many family faces and I see some faces that are friendly and whenever they're here and maybe not so friendly when they're in other areas advocating for things that are really important to them like their own house and exactly the neighborhood that they live in so it makes it very difficult whenever we say that we want to transform our built environment to reflect the values of trying to prevent climate change trying to make sure that people are housed trying to make sure that our children have equal access to public schools there's really this conundrum that we actually have to decide these values are extremely important to us and therefore the built environment must change and that means the very neighborhoods that you all live in have to change or we're just doing nothing and doing nothing is doing something so right now City Council we've been really trying but we're having a few things that are coming up but understand whenever you ask us to make changes and we respond with trying to change the very things that we can actually control a lever a major lever for your City Council is zoning is land-use we can we can beg companies to come here we can bring incentives we can we can try to make it better but a major thing that we can actually control is that land use and we've done it over time we've down zone many of the areas around this downtown core that we all believe in and we actually subsidize to try to make it better down zoning means we took it from being multifamily or dense potentially single-family down to some type of single-family probably mid to upper density so I think I'm saying all this because you all participate in oppression every single day of your lives and I know that's really hard to swallow but if you're gonna be advocating for the very people that many of you in here serve you need to be advocating in your life at home you need to be participating in all of those areas where you can actually help us make the changes that are there and I want to really commend some constituents too just recently I know the next door app is out there and I try not to read it but then I read it and if any of you know it you know that it just many times it's the home the people that are unsheltered they're the problem and and I just watched these rants and I remember just thinking like I wonder when a constituents gonna step in and just just respond and respond appropriately and they're starting to do it so those rants are starting to slow down and people are starting to bring us back to well jeez if if we we don't want to see the homelessness crisis then maybe we should talk about densification in our neighborhoods and opportunities in housing and maybe we should think about who gets to live on our street and if we want to take it a step further I'd say who do you invite over for dinner and when you have a big event who are you including in your circles and when you hire what are you doing to make sure that you're hiring the very people that you serve so with that I can get into some more things that the City Council is doing yes we are considering the source of income discrimination including within that limiting let's see increasing the time for more than 10 percent rent increase up to 60 days also increasing the time for eviction if sorry I don't want to see eviction Latvia people for termination of lease contract for no good cause so if somebody's done nothing wrong but you've decided you your son's moving into town and you you want to place them in that unit that will go up to 60 days as well today it's coming back to council it's a draft ordinance to ask for us to give further direction today I will report and so get ready we can really use your havoc osebo the planning committee this morning asked we're going to be asking the full council this evening to direct staff so our planning staff to look at what's called an infill toolkit so these are opportunities for not-not-not six seven storey apartment buildings these are cottage units these are quad plexes duplexes so going out and looking for a broader implementation of that infill toolkit in our single-family neighborhoods and if we want to talk about equity then let's talk about how we use our lands and we have some neighborhoods where 20% of the people are getting 80% of the land and there's only one housing type that's available there so let's really start having those conversations and I could really use your help because you're gonna you're gonna get a lot of that fear-based stuff and you're gonna walk out of here and somebody's going to tell you that I'm in the pocket of the developers or whatever interesting things will come up next but I think just remember where you're at remember to use your privileges where they are and really step in and make sure that you're not only educating yourself appropriately educating the people you serve and stepping into the conversation anytime that you can i'm susan marks I'm the director of the Bellingham Whatcom County Commission Against Domestic Violence and you know thinking before today and then listening to Nicole and now the other people speak I think the first thing that I thought of when Greg talked about this panel and then kind of kept coming back to me throughout the morning is it's great to have enough units of housing and also the unique challenge for victims of domestic violence is it doesn't matter how safe the structure or neighborhood or service of that home is they're not safe inside their homes and so I was thinking like that special need of survivors of domestic violence and victims and their children and how that often leads to this placement and one of things we know about domestic violence is its first of all leading cause of homelessness I'm sure that's not a surprise to anyone in this room and part of that is that fleeing for safety needing to leave your home there's also just all of the challenges that people talk about like having a rental history having maybe a clean criminal background check I'm having child care and a job all of those things are impacted by victims so even someone who may have never they may been extremely privileged to never experience any of those things can suddenly become housing and secure and state housing and secure the other thing that how you have actually learned as I've worked more closely with people in the homeless world and the DP world together is how I think it's what Nicole was referring to how we sometimes think people maybe make choices that we would not consider safe and victims of domestic violence often make choices to stay with an abusive person because of their lack of housing options we did several years ago we did a review of domestic violence fatalities in Whatcom County Greg winter was one of our panel members as lots of other people in this community and one of the things that was surprising maybe to us was that in all of the cases we looked at people were staying in a situation with abusive partner or ending up in that situation with that abusive partner because they were actually trying to keep safe from someone else there was no housing available so they moved to the partner because it seemed safer to be with that person than the unknown that can happen to on the street someone who kept going back to her partner's home because she could not take her child there was nowhere for her to go with her child so she kept going back to see her child and someone who had a creepy roommate and had her partner move in with her to keep her safe from that roommate that she was afraid would assault her and these cases have led to very serious domestic violence but even those serious domestic violence distance really give us insight to what lots of people are dealing with when they're in abusive scenario so I think those issues of just an individual safety and being able to move quickly and move somewhere to your children all the things we're talking about the other thing that came out from you Nicole when you were talking about power was one thing we know about victims semester violence it crosses socio-economic classes that crosses race across education lines and yet we also know that victims tend to be more there are more of them in lower-income communities there are more people of color who are making symmetric violence more people and LGBTQ relationships especially people who identify strands gender may become victims of domestic violence and that's relate to that power that's what domestic violence is about and so we have people who might have power because of all these other reasons Society has taken away their power and then there abusive partner kind of preys upon that and takes advantage of that and increases their lack of power so I just want to kind of throw that out my soapbox into this conversation is thinking about not only the unit's about how we help people move around in those units and be safe within those units and I think we're supposed to talk about opportunities one big opportunity that I know lots of different systems and lots of different disciplines are talking about is that the trauma-informed care practices and the practices of looking at the social determinants of health and I really that I see is like our big opportunity across across disciplines to look at the trauma people are experiencing and make sure that those houses are safe and remain safe or the people can move out if they are no longer safe good morning everyone my name is Nicholas Lewis my name is Jets Kadem I'm a council member for the elimination and I want to thank each and every one of you for coming here today this is a really important subject and it really makes a difference to people that are speaking throughout this week when they see a full room so thank you all for taking the time and taking this type of issue seriously the other panelists thank you for sitting here and sharing what you have and in the work that you do because I I don't know why Greg asked me to be here some new to this fit and joking about him but housing is something that affects everybody regardless of who they are it affects our family and I was elected to the council in 2015 for Lummi and when I ran I'm honest I didn't care about housing it wasn't my issue to address I didn't think nothing of it homelessness I didn't think nothing of and when I got onto the council one of the first things we did was we passed a law for the nation and it says if a home is tested positive for meth you're evicted within 24 hours no ifs ends our butts and I voted yes for that and I understand why I voted yes the homes that we build out there for our people we want to be safe as we all want our people to be safe for the children for everyone that calls that shelter that place home what I failed on was asking more questions we never tested before we had people that moved into a house that just recently that was already tested positive they didn't do nothing wrong but they were labeled after that and they were evicted for something they didn't do and the stories started coming back to me my people that I represent were getting mad and they said you made me homeless and I take that to heart you know one thing about hate saying being a politician but that's kind of what we're classified is but we lose common sense when we get to the seats that's what a lot of the people feel and that's what it started to feel like with me and not being true to the values that I was raised with oh and in our culture since the beginning of time we were social based culture let me for those though no accurate history had slaves we had high class we had poor class we had middle class but no matter what class they belong to nobody was homeless nobody starved everybody was taken care of regardless of who they were we took care of our people and there's a lot of examples that we lost our touch with that because when you look at the data here in Whatcom County Native Americans only represent two percent of the population but are over ten percent of the homeless population it's a big deal when those stories started coming to me I had to take responsibility and ownership and telling those people why I voted that it was a hard conversation I got a lot of gray hair with those conversations and shared a lot of tears with people for one of the things I realized I could do is that I did have an opportunity to do something to help to give back so it's December 6th last year we had a community meeting out in Lummi for our homeless population and they were again pointing the fingers and saying you did this you did this you helped to do this and there it was freezing I remember it was 19 degrees that night and they asked for a warm place to stay because their sleeping bags were wet with moisture they were turning it and sleeping a nice bag basically and I had to respond and there was thankful that we had a few other people there that were supportive of it we actually the tribe owns a few homes that were sitting vacant and what we decided to do is we literally took a crowbar to one of our own homes and I broke into a home to open a emergency shelter for our people right there on the spot and last winter I lived in the homeless shelter myself as an elected leader i sat with the people that were using drugs you know and and it was scary but I still believe everybody deserves a warm place to be when it gets cold like that and through that work we now have two homes that we use and three tiny homes and we have 50 people in those homes 50 percent are children under 16 when we talk about homeless it's that those children's face I see that's who I'm here trying to help because those are my future leaders those are your future leaders we just had two newborns born down in Seattle the other day and that will be six newborns we've had born in our shelter since this spring those are the people that we can do a better job of serving when you guys show up in force like this advocating for the greater good I know things are going to work out this April said it's difficult the policy lack of common sense it feels like we have sometimes is difficult to overcome but keep staying engaged keep showing up keep making your voices heard because it makes a difference thank you [Applause] thanks everybody for inspiring us and giving us a lot to think about and now it's your turn I've lost track of the time I think this event was supposed to go to 11:30 so if people have to leave at 11:30 don't be shy please do but I hope I don't think there's any reason why we can't stay longer sherry or Caitlin is there any reason we can't stay longer all right microphone is right here does anybody have any questions or thoughts or comments what I'm about to tell you is not because I want praise for anything but just to give you a slightly different perspective I am a veteran I am now also a senior giving special preference to veterans for housing does a disservice to all the non veterans I didn't put on a uniform to have any special privileges I put on the uniform because it was a method of giving back to the community to defend this country just as people who are doctors lawyers teachers so on and so forth so from what I would like everybody in this room to think about is that while veterans both combat and non-combat have done some particular things in their life they are no more and no less important than anybody else yeah what we need to do is concentrate on the one thing which is as all of you have said a safe affordable place for people to stay and whatever the reasons are behind why people are not in those particular situations can be dealt with but the issue is the homelessness itself it's not backgrounds right so there we go for right now hi my name is Meredith Murray and this is kind of directed at April if we change zoning and allow the ad used in the tiny houses and all that I'm all for that but what's going to prevent people from making them into vacation rentals and getting 100 and night rather than renting them to a local person I know this is a huge problem in big cities around the world and it's becoming a problem here I did a quick search of Airbnb the other night and found a whole home plus an Adu behind it on in the sunny land neighborhood on Airbnb and the owners live next door they're nearby but that could be rental housing for local people but they can earn a lot more you know I'm all for free enterprise but also I'm in favor of some zoning people putting businesses in single-family neighborhoods it just seems like those should be reserved for people living here rather than tourists I don't know you know I've stayed in Airbnb zits it's kind of a gray area it's really I know Paris is thinking abandon them because they're rentals for their people are going up you know out of sight for tourists and so something I hope the council is addressing so your Planning Commission currently has been addressing that and dressing that for quite a while and the one thing I can say and watching those meetings and you can go back to be the TV tenor or to the council webpage and be able to watch all of those meetings from the Planning Commission regarding Airbnb zand BRB OS the one thing that I've been hearing I think pretty solidly across the Planning Commission is that there is there's one use in the neighborhoods and that very first use is residential use and that is the the highest most important use and so as we do talk about this ability for some people to have upward mobility this opportunity to have business that's the secondary use and I have to say I've been very impressed with our Planning Commission and what they're looking at they they are considering right now what those rules will be and they've been quite conservative in those rules understanding that that that our very first first use of those neighborhoods as residents so I would encourage you to make sure your comments are known to the council as well as the Commission go back and you as planning staff might be able to give you a easy summary but we're looking at those and as your City I mean we're we're kind of poking at this bear from every direction so it is being considered that rent control is legal in Washington State I didn't know that but for example I mean I'm a renter been single for ten years I've been renting a good solid renter for ten years so my mom would given me as I moved to a bigger house this year so my little 1215 square-foot Columbia bungalow that I've been ready for ten years they were gonna raise my rent to fourteen hundred in July because they're gonna put a new roof on right I moved out and they're getting two thousand for that now and I'm they're gonna have revolving door people they got multiple people in there they're not gonna have a steady 10-year renter anymore taking really good care of it but hey it's their investment they can get you know there's no control we have to look at I mean Columbia has a very interesting history if you if you if you go up and down the streets you're gonna see large homes that have been cut into apartments there's a homes that have been that were built as duplexes and complexes small apartment buildings we allowed this we understood that people needed to live together have opportunity and they needed to be close to where their work was they needed to be close to schools and then at some point we came through and we said okay well these areas are now only going to be able to allow this one single type of housing missing we value this so much this is the one thing you're going to have and then we had these unintended consequences like what we have now is there's the push and so even that small bungalow we just saw one on Lynch Street last year a thousand square foot wasn't being well-maintained was was taken was demolished and a seven hundred and thirty thousand dollar house one one house very large could have been for for families that maybe could have bought their own unit for two hundred and fifty thousand but when we say we're willing to let that Box be built but that box can only have one family in it what are we saying what are we valuing and then what are the disproportionate effects of of our schools to that's a whole nother so thank you so nice taste yeah please stay stay connected need it I have kind of a scratchy voice so I apologize thank you for all being here my name is Catherine chambers and as someone who has had the privilege of assisting many homeless individuals get into housing and the privilege also of being able to be here in this place I wanted to say that I I think that that aren't in reference to what you said about power our next step has to be in addition to building places for people is determining ways that people in those buildings can be self-determined that they can that they can assist in how that place is run is really really important a lot of the people that I worked with that were homeless didn't want to go to a place that there were rules even though we say we have housing first we have rules and so the question to me is when you're low income does that mean you have to live with rules that you can't be self-determined of course you want to have a building or a community that can honor everyone in that community but that means that you have to include the people who live there in that determination so I just wanted to I'll go back and sit down when we offer opportunities to live in housing people accept those offers at rates nearly 95 percent at least that in the research that that we have done at the Downtown emergency service center and a lot of the work we need to do is around sort of breaking through some of these misconceptions about what's in the best interests of people morning my name is Hadrian Starr and I'm a certified peer counselor here through compass health and I actually have taken part in the services offered by the opportunity council because two years ago I became homeless through domestic violence and became very involved on a personal level what that experience is like and something that I learned about here in Bellingham is that the opportunity is for people who are experiencing domestic violence when they are part of the LGBTQ community are very very limited I identify as transgender and actually thanks to someone at the opportunity Council whose name escapes me when they did my homeless intake and I told them that I was transgender they paused and they asked me are you doing hormones have you had have you started transitioning and I said no and I was actually encouraged very quietly to continue to present as female so that I would qualify for the housing options that there were because otherwise there were no housing options for me and I have to say that that was very very hard to do I'm glad to say now that I'm not in that situation anymore but I work in a field where I see people who are encountering these same problems where there is limited opportunities and I can only help them so much in my field of work I can connect people to mental health services I can connect them to medical services but if there's not the stability of housing there and if the opportunity is narrow even more because of their gender identity or their ethnicity it's it's difficult and I want to thank you for acknowledging that and I hope that people continue to think about the intersectionalities that occur and how that's impacting people who need the help the most thank you and let me just say that I'm sorry you have that experience and I will take this anonymously back to my staff and we will continue to work on it and try to get better and do better thank you I'd like to add in one thank you for your courage and willing to come forward to speak because I think too often we we ask for input and it puts people at great risk and it's scary and I just recently attended a anti-racism training with the League of Women Voters and was just profoundly profoundly encouraged and I was I was just so thankful that the community's the people of color that attended that event were willing to do exactly what you just did I do want to acknowledge that racism when we talk about equity we're talking about affordability we're talking about equity and racism has to be absolutely at the forefront of that conversation and even when we look around this room in the lack of representation our children are far more diverse than we are and they're they're more likely to live in poverty because of that and I think I think we have to keep having that conversation over and over it's so easy to kind of wiggle out of and start talking about affordability or just say the words diversity so thank you and we do have to work on racism we do have to work on our very sordid and disgusting past of bellingham acknowledge that we are here on what was let me land it still is really and and also the things that have happened to so many different groups and I think with that I'll take this opportunity to say that we are predominantly white and we are staying extremely white as the nation is transforming around us and there's a couple of things that we can do about that and that includes housing that includes the way that we hire people that includes the way that we run our community but I will also offer if you stay extremely white while the rest of the nation is changing around you the Center for Poverty Law Institute sorry came down and talked to City Club and said be very careful because as you stay white and communities around you become more diverse we see increase in hate crimes and we see other white people that really want to live in white communities so we we it's a paramount and we do not have that I'm sorry that I didn't bring it up in the very beginning but thank you for bringing it up hi I would like to ask you wonderful people what you've discovered when you've looked at using the permit building permit process to have landlords building over X number of units dedicate a percent of those units to be affordable housing especially section 8 eligible housing and is there anything going on about rent control yeah okay great so as I think a previous speaker mentioned there is a statewide ban on rent any rents local rent stabilization policies that was enacted about thirty five forty years ago when when we were in a period where rents were climbing and there were conversations around local rent control policies uh landlord associate associations worked hard to pass a statewide ban here in Washington other states Oregon also has a ban on rent control more and more we are hearing voices not only from urban centers like where I represent in downtown Seattle but from around the state to pushing legislators to reconsider that ban I don't see it happening any time soon and certainly not in 2018 because that issue I mentioned about building power and who holds power in the state capital right now there are different models of rent stabilization policies that have been employed in different cities around the country with varying levels of success and it's so conversations are starting I just got a call this week from from our state employees saying they can't they're bargaining their contract with the state right now and for state workers who work and live in Seattle they can't afford to pay rent or buy homes in the Seattle district an hour and hour interested in in talking more about what a push for rent stabilization might look like passed and updated the comprehensive plan which is this guiding document that tells us where we can work within parameters and we did pass a policy that allows for the potential of inclusionary zoning that's the term that's used whenever we say you're building you know hundred units and twenty percent of them need to remain affordable at a certain area meeting income so that it was a big lift to just get in that comprehensive document and I think as we move forward with looking at how we change our zoning policies and as we encourage more development will have to be coming to that conversation I think what planning will tell you is there's there's ripeness in that moment of where we're where we can one have the the political will to get it done but then also be working within the development community to make assurances and understand understand the interesting intersection of profits and so there's you know once you once you do that there is an implication for the other units that are there too so it's a very interesting conversation we're still having it it's not something that's right at the forefront right now but it's certainly something that at least we have a policy place somewhere that if we decide to have that discussion we can does that tend to work in other communities has anybody you know around the country looked at around the country it does tell it along the back so when we're done here those of you that have time to you know move around and look at what else is here in these tables Paul Schiller who's back there somewhere brought this display that talks about the Vienna Vienna model of housing in Vienna Austria now I know that's a long way away but the inspiration that this provides where sixty percent of the housing is outside of the private sector and it's really directed toward the the housing goals of the community it's really inspiring and so when I think about inclusionary zoning and some of the proposals either in Seattle or what we try to do around the 2006 we weren't very successful they sort of nibble at the edges is in terms of the percentage of units that would be affordable so it would be nice to get somewhere in between what Vienna's done and the proposals I'm using Seattle it's what uh single digit percentages and so you know why don't we shoot for 50 percent thank you for the question hi my name is kelan and I'm here cuz this is she was really near and dear to my heart for a lot of different reasons I grew up in Bellingham and I went away to college and I moved back I went to Duke University and I also live in a house that I'm not even sure we're technically leaving living legally together and it's also in a way that I think is really contentious as in we are not related there's many of us in one home and I'm a huge advocate for community housing in that way I also grew up in a one of the largest homes in Bellingham on South Hill and so I relate to both ends of that spectrum I'm also here constantly on the edge of leaving Bellingham because I have a really hard time finding a job that gives me a livable wage and is a meaningful job I am an advocacy counselor Divi says the domestic um domestic violence and sexual assault services I'm trained as a professional mediator through the dispute resolution Center I have you know two degrees from Duke University and I work at Boundary Bay as the waitress because it's the highest paying job I can get in town right now I don't want to be doing that kind of work so I just wonder about the relationship in these conversations between livable wages meaningful work and affordable housing and just what's going on in that conversation and of someone like me I have so much privilege if I can't get a job that helps me live like sustainably in this town how the hell is anyone else going to so I just wonder what's going on that conversation interested to hear about I have a lot of a lot to say about the benefits of living in community and I understand like I said I understand that both ends of that spectrum so if anyone in the group is interested in talking to someone about that I'm open to that I just respond real quick I don't keep speaking about those things it's very important for everyone to be aware of I've got your back I help speak about that a lot our average wage right now in Bellingham is 1182 I believe and people work two point three jobs to afford yeah and it's a large part of our population yeah yeah so thank you it's good to see you can a couple of things on that so for those of you that don't know currently it's illegal for the Golden Girls to live in Bellingham because there's more than three unrelated of them this is yet again when we legislate for what we don't want we get real mired down and we decide well we don't want this and we don't want that and we're gonna legislate to try to control that and oh sorry it's um the girl girls for who don't you who don't know you can go to youtube probably and it's a group of you know older women who decided to live together in the same residence and they they were it's a television show thank you it's a television show yep you get Navas dale for v TV so that's something that's certainly gonna need to be coming up because we're seeing it now I mean what were the reasons thing I wasn't there when the reasons happened but was it because we wanted to control what types of relationships we're happening in a house was it because we wanted to control what income levels we're living next door to us was it because we wanted to control what your sexual orientation was I don't I don't know what the impetus for those were but they're they're laying there and we we get called out on them quite often with public comment well you have there's three on more than three unrelated people living next door to me do something about it and what we're seeing I think is also in our voucher community of its limiting being able to utilize all these subsidies to get people in to a community and then in our older adult community that are waiting longer to have children yeah you're breaking the law you know that there's something about it and wrong about that so it's gonna be coming up as well as as we talk about enforcement and those things as far as the economy is concerned I honestly in my deepest heart believe I mean we can do a lot of things to advertise and actually you know we just got I got chastised I mean because we advertised Bellingham way too much we make it way too exciting for people don't want to move here and we should stop doing that and I don't think we should I think we should still encourage people that we are a beautiful place we need to have these housing discussions but you know from an outside view are we a welcoming environment I think is a really good question and I think when businesses are looking at us we might project very progressive but if you're not from this community and you were to walk in and we were to spin you around and tell you to go out and walk and say you know how equitable is this community you would come back and say it is absolutely not so so I think yeah I think as I think there's a couple ways that we can do things and for me it's that let's change that built environment and I think we might actually see some of these companies these places really wanting to be a part of this community because we absolutely reflect everything that we believe so thank you and one other thing I just wanted to add is that giving you all these different intersections of my identity here it's like I've actually been really strongly considering going into building interested in being able to like you know rent how I rent spaces in this town granted in is sustainable and ethically I can because it's a really viable way to make money to live in this town to begin with so I'd really relate to the people in sunny land who have that house and living next door and it's like what do we do yeah so thank you so much thank you hi I'm a little shorter here um thanks for putting this on I think it's really important and also having a diverse panel I look around and I see I'm looking to see if there's any homeless people here and the image of homelessness people that you might consider homeless or people put in their minds as homeless is not here and that's not to say as an as a anything negative it's just that if we do look around probably the majority of people here have at least entertain the idea of being homeless in the pipe in the face of homelessness is changing which is also the idea of us and them needs also to change because it could be any of us for a variety of reasons and not all homeless people are have mental problems or are you know down-and-out some of us have had health issues or financial issues that somehow throw you between the cracks all that said I think one thing that was brought up about the raising of rents I wonder how much awareness and education for the community at large there is about the effect of raising rents because I do know that there are people that are heroes in their churches for what they're doing to help the poor and yet will put up their rents in my case it was a hundred and fifty dollars a month all of a sudden which could easily put you out also the effect of subsidies many the idea that the agency and the landlord can speak to each other but the tenant is not allowed to discuss it either with the landlord or be part of that conversation needs to change because of course that tenant is very directly impacted so I would encourage all of you to get on a campaign and let let people know the effects of these you know in what is as simple as an educational outreach that may already help to curb some of the long lasting problems I do have a couple other questions and one is what are the incentives for for example the housing authority to actually keep people housed it's a question what my understanding is is the incentives right now are to get people on lists some of which last two to five years as many of you know but not necessarily to keep them housed once you get on that list if you're fortunate enough after your long waiting time and whatever you have to go through you have very limited options as far as an timeframe as far as finding a place possibly that may not without market value amount of subsidy and of course with all the issues around working with agencies and the discrimination that happens there I'm wondering in the housing agencies that help is there an actual advocacy not a police but an advocacy that actually helps people through this process and also a very tangible incentive that the people who are get these housing or are fortunate enough to get in that system will remain in the system to my understanding there is no incentive the incentive comes from being on the list on the list of course is two to five years if for some reason you aren't fortunate enough to get offered that and then you cannot find that housing you will again get on that list if you apply which you're encouraged to do I believe but that does not mean that you will ever get housing the incentive is to be on the list and that needs to be considered I'm wondering if any of you might want to respond to that I definitely do as well okay so let's talk about community education there's a lot of misconceptions around housing and housing subsidy there's a lot of incentive for folks to get housed in stay housed with a zero percent vacancy rate that's very hard to achieve so I can't speak I don't wanna speak on behalf the housing authority who is here also but there is incentive for us to keep funding within our community to keep providing subsidized housing is to be able to use the subsidy the money without vacancy what doesn't allow us to spend that subsidy to use that subsidy and then we will lose that as a community that funding will go away so there's a lot of incentive permanent supportive permanent supportive housing in wacom County has an 86 percent success rate so a significant number of people that are being put into housing are able to stay there and maintain their housing and the housing authority is limited and what they're able to do they have to follow guidelines of fair housing and so they can people do get on a waitlist for a voucher there's a certain amount of time they essentially get 90 days to seek housing to find a place there's such a shortage yet again of housing that let's say we have 75 people that are receiving their housing voucher I don't said that's City Council I think that a day I'm forty or percent or more will come to me to help them look for housing that's another part of what I do is help cultivate and very more affordable housing options or convinced landlords to provide those housing options so there is an incentive what you're saying is that if for example the person gets housed there is an incentive to stay housed for the agency that put them there well so through object Opportunity Council we orchestrate coordinated entry and we work with partner agencies to provide subsidized housing and provide services with a lot of that housing there is because if we let's say we have a grant that will make a promise to the grantor I should say that will keep someone in housing for six months or longer if our outcomes for that if we're not providing the services that are necessary to help folk be successful in housing then as a larger country and as a state they're gonna look at our inability to provide effective housing that subsidy will be taken away from us maybe and sent to Chicago or somewhere else who is also experiencing larger populations of homelessness in there is who is there a third-party independent evaluator or is there anybody that would be if is a third-party independent review of that if I might exercise my authority as moderator that I just gave myself these are these are really important questions i I just want to make sure that we have other people get a chance to talk talk as well and but I also want to address your question and another way and that is through our experience not just at opportunity Council but also working with our partner and allied agencies like Northwest Youth Services Lydia place Catholic Community Services and others in our experience working with the Housing Authority the Housing Authority encourages us to help some of the people that are searching for housing using their assistance to provide case management assistance and housing search assistance and in our experience especially in recent years the Housing Authority has been very liberal in allowing people extra time to use that vouchers however and this is the kind of red tape that Nick hates we have to acknowledge that the way our society our the way our country rations Housing Assistance is is absolutely crappy it's terrible it's we dole it out in these little bits there's only 25% housing assistance available only 25% of the people who need and are eligible for housing assistance have vouchers potentially available and then as as Adrian said when we have a housing market like the one we have now sometimes we actually have those vouchers that are going unused which sets up this terrible problem where our community might lose that assistance overall if we don't figure out a ways to use it so what I really and and I'm not up here to try to you know defend the Housing Authority I really don't think they need defense but they're really working hard trying to get those vouchers to be used and our partnering with all of us to try to figure out how can we get help to people to help them search for assistance and even though as I said the vouchers there's not enough of them there's also not enough of that housing assistance help in housing search so we're trying to make the best that we can out of the scarcity that exists and the thing that one of the reasons why we wanted to assemble people here this week and today is to try to get people interested in becoming more politically active so that we can change what I describe as a terrible and crappy housing system in this country why I appreciate that and I also understand your your time constraint but I mean just I have no reason you don't have to defend anybody here I'm bringing up issues that might be helpful to think about what are the incentives are there any and are they very specific so that we all know what they are and is there an overseeing body that's independent to work against any sort of to work towards equity and to make sure there's no discriminatory practices going on with that go ahead in my community in King County we've dealt a lot with this so I see that the housing authorities are unique in that they play a dual role in our affordable housing system and homeless response system in that they are at once a major funder of housing resource and they are also a provider of housing and I think that they therefore have unique opportunities and how they engage and deal with these with these contradictions in what their mission is and what some of the federal regulation may be drives which is contrary to their mission of housing the most vulnerable or lowest income people in our communities so I'm glad to hear that there's some good relationship with the Housing Authority here and I would say it should always there should always be some natural tension in that conversation because all players should be pushing ourselves to maximising the benefit for those with the greatest need so I think the issues you're raising are really really important ones so thank you and unfree and also some specifics to highlight some of the challenges that we do see on the ground so thank you for that not to exceed my time but I would be remiss if I didn't add just one more thing which I'd like to just find out about and that is the idea of eligibility for monetary and non-monetary income and my understanding is that food and basic needs such as from the food bank or churches giving shoes or whatever is can be considered income basically creating a necessary choice between eating and having affordable or equitable housing I'm wondering if that how that is being dealt with or if that is something that is condoned question because I think what you're speaking about as it's not something that's applicable to receiving services through the opportunity console or a partner agency and sometimes it's not as they counted as income like if you're applying for housing subsidized housing or housing through the Housing Authority it's not counted against you so much but trying to account for how folk are covering the various parts of their needs so it's they're sundry items their laundry their food and stuff like that part of it I would also would attribute to trying to prevent fraud and trying to prevent people from not reporting income that they do have so that we don't have individuals receiving more assistance in different ways than what they shouldn't for their for their household so it's not it's being it's just a way to account for what is present but not to exclude them from services there's some really technical aspects of HUD regulations and I I just I know there are people from the Housing Authority here and maybe they could address kind of on the side when we were done here and we break and there's time to network so I just wanted to bring up the issue of housing for special needs and so not only do we have a housing crisis affordable housing crisis but especially for those with special needs so we went from Washington State wanting to get away from institutions and but yet there wasn't housing ready for them and so we're now seeing people that are 30 years been in the same place they've got all their established supports in place and their parents have aged and maybe passed on so they're now having to actually move out of wacom county they can't afford to live in welcomed County anymore so now they're going away to more isolated area and away from all the supports that are important to them so I just hope everyone understands that affordable housing for all makes more options available for those with special needs but when we're building some of these places you know like this is a senior home so I'm sure it's built with showers that can have bars and things like that think about the the modify ability you know and of these places that you know can the counter under the sink be removed for someone who has a wheelchair you know can they is there structure in the shower for bars we put in place are the doorways wide enough and so that way we're not just having isolated specialized housing but people with special needs could live anywhere and it'd be affordable so I don't know if any of you have looked into housing for special needs and may want to address any of that people with whatever kind of disability can live anywhere they want in housing and all they need to do is file a request for accommodation and reasonable accommodation so as long as you're asking a landlord to do something within the realm of what is feasible that's gray area and then those modifications to housing can be made and should be made and if they're not being made then that's a fair housing concern and a fair housing issue you'd want to file in Seattle well get this long wait lists - just like in any housing so housing shortage for everyone I also just want to in the legislature a number of us are looking at a number of incentives and regulations to deal with a lot of the issues that we're talking about including that what we call these boarding house rules these the fact that unrelated people can't live together how the state can drive some policy around that because we know it's difficult to go local community by local community but also we know that when housing passes from one generation to another when we have people living with disabilities who've been living with parents for a long time that often because the property tax they are really at risk of losing that housing and so are there structures that we can set up to for folks to keep their home and set it up in a way where if they're not able to fully manage the responsibility of that or the cost that we can mitigate against some of that those challenges so it's an important issue and I think what we're getting from this conversation is that isn't there's not one thing there are dozens and dozens of things that we need to be pursuing thank you for bringing that up and I'm gonna grab a hold of that that word displacement that you used and I want us to be very clear and intentional of what that means because I might get a single-family home owner saying well you're allowing these different things around me and I don't like the way that my neighborhood looks now and therefore I'm being displaced because I I have the privilege to move somewhere else versus the displacement that we're seeing in our families with young children who again make up that we're getting that far more diverse younger population we are seeing within our schools I live in the Birchwood community and I work within the schools there and we are working extremely hard with families supporting resources getting getting everything around them that they need and when they start actually improving we have no opportunity for them to move out of their situation it's like a four to five hundred thousand dollar single-family home with a half acre lot or live in a multi-family high-rise you know along Northwest Avenue and so and these are things that we need to think about and that displacement is what happens is even when they're once sometimes just because they no longer can afford but the displacement just in looking for further opportunity we see them leaving so we're seeing our diversity actually leaving Bellingham in some ways because these families are looking for opportunity and they're moving out to the county and many times unfortunate things because of the the greater demands on resources as you move out it's not as pretty of a picture as its painted and we'll see those families coming back even worse off than they had started so these are all very serious and important conversations that need to be talked about in that inclusion and equity of housing but that diversity and the opportunity of what for mobility in this community so thank you for bringing up that displacement thank you all for what you're doing to help people and work on affordable housing I work with elders and people with disabilities and I'm seeing a we're all actually in this business seeing a lot of shortage for housing for people who have significant care needs in fact people from our community are being asked to wreak locate to other places like Snohomish when they develop significant care needs because we just don't have enough homes that accept Medicaid for long-term care so I would love to send we have a shortage of caregivers so we need to work on congregate living situations for people with care needs and I would love to see the development of adult family homes within our community with affordable housing dollars it's a it's just a great community response to the needs that we have and it will I just think it's a great use of dollars yeah I would just second that and say you know Washington State actually has the number one best performing long-term care system in the country even though we ranked 35th in the amount of money we spend and so we have a really cost-efficient long-term care but a system but as more and more people are aging and needing more support and they're just are not enough places for people to go so I think leveraging the long-term care resource says that we can invest in things like adult family home and creating those homes in a way that responds to the needs of the people who who are most in need of those kinds of homes are important so we sometimes the local zoning that makes it difficult to set to site adult family homes and we also see challenges and that some adult family homes are just really not set up for the array of challenges that people have beyond just their medical needs or that people just don't want to live in an adult family home a traditional adult family home because either they can't do the things that they have historically done like drink alcohol or because they don't want to give up their all their income in order to live in an adult film so I think there's opportunities for us to think about new flexible ways to to cite those things so thank you for raising that and I'll just add that our senior population in Washington State is expected to grow by 70% by the year 2030 and we already have a shortage of facilities for people homes for people with care needs and shortage of caregivers so this would be a great solution for us I do want to say if you're not aware of it exactly what you said is we we have what's called a generational race gap and we have a lot of people moving into being elderly some who haven't saved who don't don't have the ability to have that retirement that ability and all kinds of other issues that are coming on to it and they're going to be very reliant upon our next tax base and this is the tax base that I'm talking about it's coming through it's going to be far more diverse racially than then we've ever seen in this country and if we haven't broken down all those systems like today if you're not going back into your organization's and saying how do we hire like what do we do what do I support in my house who gets to live next to me who gets to go to my kids school if you're not asking those questions we we are we are remiss we are just add the cost of long-term care in Washington is 258,000 over a lifetime so this is going to affect many more people than we expect I want to thank our panel and those of you who have stayed this long [Applause] [Music]

Channel: City of Bellingham, Washington

Views: 206

Keywords: Bellingham Housing Week

Id: oGMP81whhXM

Length: 104min 45sec (6285 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 07 2017