Seattle's newly appointed Public Development Authority Board, tasked with overseeing the city's government-managed housing program for people who are homeless and without income, held its first meeting last Friday.
The board is part of the Seattle Social Housing Developer, created after voters approved I-135 earlier this year.
The initiative will use taxpayer funds to create plans for social housing, and funds for building and maintaining social housing will come from government bonds. Rent for social housing will be set according to what people can afford, with proceeds going towards paying off construction and operational cost and any excess profit reinvested into building new affordable housing.
Various entities in Seattle appointed the 13-member board, which includes self-identifying socialists, chronically homeless individuals, activists, policy wonks, big labor, and those who have been involved in Seattle's failed response to the housing affordability and homeless crisis.
Defund the police advocate and Democratic Socialist of America Councilmember Tammy Morales praised the board's diversity, saying, "This board represents a broad array of experience and knowledge, from lived experience of housing instability, homelessness, and accessing services in our current ecosystem, to public finance, labor representation, public policy, non-profit affordable housing development, social housing, and regional planning experience."
One board member, Ebo Barton, described himself as having "lived experience with being chronically homeless as well as professional experience working in permanent supportive housing along with supporting the gender diverse community of Seattle."
Katie Labret, a self-described "trans woman who lives in Seattle," said, "I have experience with working with youth, young adults, like, you know, the younger generation of us. I also have lived experience with being homeless as well and navigating the systems."
Devon Forschmiedt, appointed by the Seattle Renters Coalition, said, "Professionally I am a Head Start teacher, so I work with low-income and largely immigrant families. I have also had a lot of experience living in homes with, uh, unsafe conditions and poor maintenance and have that piece of lived experience."
Seven of the board members were appointed by the Seattle Renters' Commission, one by the Martin Luther King, Jr. County Labor Council, one by El Centro De La Raza, one by the Green New Deal Oversight Board, two by the Seattle City Council, and one by the mayor.
However, a recent report revealed that Seattle had spent nearly $1 billion on homelessness over the last decade, yet the number of people living on the streets continues to increase. Some council members, including Morales, have refused to acknowledge that the ongoing homeless crisis is a drug crisis and have even declined to criminalize possession.
Seattle's Democratic Mayor Bruce Harrell recently unveiled his Fentanyl and downtown activation plan to combat the city's massive drug crisis. The project uses gift cards and pickleball to incentivize people to seek treatment.
This is not the first time Seattle has trusted formerly homeless individuals with taxpayer funds. In 2021, a formerly homeless meth addict was appointed by Seattle Public Schools to remove a dangerous homeless encampment at Broadview-Thomson K-8 but was accused of using meth with the campers and using their housing vouchers as leverage to get them to comply with his demands.
Mike Mathias, who ran the self-created Anything Helps non-profit, stepped down amid allegations of mistreatment towards people living at the encampment. Mathias was accused of using funds from the non-profit to purchase meth for personal use and pressuring women at the camp to "hit" or "slam" him with meth.
He also allegedly harassed the women to change their stories, disabled the Anything Helps team email and application access, fired unpaid staff after they came forward with the allegations, verbally abused and threatened staff, and banned staff from all sites.
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