Address housing crisis with transparency, accountability

The regional approach to homelessness and affordable housing in Seattle and King County is a mess. 

With future investments predicted to be in the billions of dollars, strong fiscal accountability is essential. At the same time, we must increase the amount of publicly subsidized housing. Currently, public funds to purchase housing are transferred to a range of not-for-profits, faith-based organizations and public development authorities. Once those funds are transferred, the public loses control. According to King County, using public funds to purchase or transfer property may, in some cases, only require the property be encumbered for 50 years, after which the new owners are free to do what they want with the property. There is no simple way to track these huge public investments to ensure that they continue to support subsidized housing.

Public investments in housing also produce rent. Where does that rent, minus reasonable expenses, go? Is the rent reinvested to produce more housing or diverted to other uses? The administrative oversight of these public investments including county and city governments and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority is highly Balkanized with predictable results. For example, the director of the KCRHA abruptly resigned while facing criticism from local housing providers. The KCRHA’s federally required Continuum of Care Advisory board, weighted heavily by those with experience with homelessness, was described as dysfunctional and had its scope narrowed by the KCRHA. The state auditor’s performance audit of Seattle’s homelessness programs found the city took corrective action in only five of 23 instances where poor performance was noted. Reports suggest elected officials respond to political pressure in funding programs rather than implementing good public policy. None of this is reassuring when investments will be in the billions of dollars. 

Turning to housing providers, the region has taken the charter school approach, where vast sums of public money are shifted to multiple organizations with limited to no public oversight. Only three of the 13 members on the board of the recently formed Social Housing Initiative are appointed by elected officials; the majority of the board will be those with “lived experience” — is this really the governance structure to manage hundreds of millions of public dollars? 

Meanwhile, the Seattle City Council is considering rent control — an intervention which will strongly discourage the private sector from maintaining or building rental housing and thus require even greater public investments in affordable housing. With Seattle residents already funding the response to the housing crisis at six times the amount of other King County residents, there is little incentive for elected officials to promote transparency and accountability.

Looking deeper into current projects, it’s hard not to want greater transparency. For example, the innovative reinvention of Yesler Terrace raises more questions than answers. Yesler Terrace, which includes 30 acres of irreplaceable land, is being redeveloped, exchanging 561 former affordable homes for a development of about 3,916 homes. Of these homes, 57% are market rate with the remainder producing some rent. How is the public to know whether this project maximized affordable housing or created a windfall for developers?   

Here are five steps that King County and Seattle could take to improve accountability:

∙ Create a countywide balance sheet, updated annually, tracking all housing assets.

∙ Reinvest all rent, in excess of expenses, in expanding the base of available affordable housing.

∙ Prohibit sale of public housing investments unless approved by an elected city or county council. 

∙ Conduct risk assessments of housing providers’ governance and administrative capacity before awarding public funds.

∙ Implement performance audits of housing projects to ensure that funds are well-spent and achieve a fair outcome for both the public and private sector. 

While some might say that the proposed $970 million housing levy can’t fail in Seattle, elected officials should be cautious in testing the public’s trust. In the 1990s, the Seattle school board lost the public’s trust and failed to pass multiple building levies. Failure to ensure accountability will jeopardize public support for future investments.