Seattle voters received Prop 1B campaign mailers riddled with lies about social housing. Don’t be fooled. Vote for Prop 1A.
Last Friday I was dismayed to find I had received a shiny mailer full of lies about the social housing ballot initiatives in Seattle. I suppose that social housing’s backers should be flattered that their opponents couldn’t come up with much in the way of real criticism and had to resort to dishonesty instead. But it is still sad to see this kind of duplicity happening in our own community, not just at the federal level.
I was also sad to see that my mayor, Bruce Harrell, was featured with a giant picture and a supportive quote. It is, however, a fitting way to cement his already lackluster legacy when it comes to the housing crisis he has done so much to create and so little to address.
Why they lie
I should not have been surprised by the mailer. The money behind it includes the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, which often acts as a puppet for its biggest member, Amazon. Amazon, you may recall, is the source of the Trump family’s biggest known bribe to date. Other big corporate and real estate interests piled in as well.
But before I debunk, it is important to understand why these folks are so interested in spreading disinformation. It is 100% because they want to prevent us from taxing the richest among us at a rate remotely resembling how much we tax the poor.
What the ballot is about
Last year, Seattle passed a “social housing” initiative by a wide margin that created a public agency dedicated to building mixed income, permanently affordable housing. This will allow us to provide housing that is affordable to a broad spectrum of the workforce that is left out of the Seattle housing market. This includes teachers, firefighters and nurses, bus drivers and baristas, caregivers and grocery workers, as well as those in more dire financial need.
Because of rules laid out in our city charter, social housing advocates could not legally include a funding mechanism in the previous initiative. And since this city council is so hostile to social housing, House Our Neighbors had to lead another citizen-driven initiative this year to get this funding measure on the ballot. This is now known as “Proposition 1A,” which would enact a modest nickel-on-the-dollar payroll tax (paid by the employer) only on individual compensation over $1 million a year. The first million bucks in earnings each year is free as far as this tax is concerned. This means most companies are exempt, unless they boast million-dollar compensation packages. Proposition 1A would raise about $50 million annually dedicated to creating mixed-income housing.
Now, if the world were a better place and not filled with such mendacious deception, we would simply vote “Yes” or “No” on this funding initiative. But the city council and their puppeteers at the Chamber knew they would lose that fight. Seattle is a Democratic city, and progressive taxes are broadly popular in Blue America (and somewhat even in Red America). They needed a Mitt Romney option dressed up in blue attire.
So they created Option 1B instead – what I like to call the “gaslighting option.” 1B is there to assure you Seattle’s right wing loves affordable housing and taxes, because look, they put $10 million a year into social housing.
But if you look just a tiny bit closer, you will discover that 1B is nothing but a hostile distraction. Proposition 1B gets rid of the mixed-income model. And even more galling, in a reverse-robin hood maneuver, it takes that $10 million away from other affordable housing for folks that are even more cash strapped. It is designed to pit working people against one another to fight over the scraps.
Perhaps I should call it the “let them eat cake” proposition?
This is the essence of why the big companies want 1B. It doesn’t cost them anything–it just moves money around in a way that is designed to bamboozle voters into thinking they are supporting affordable housing.
Debunking the specific claims in the mailer
The mailer claims “we support affordable housing–that’s why we support proposition 1B.” But if that is the case, why are the corporations that funded this mailer stumping for the option that, if passed, will kill this attempt to invest more in affordable housing? They conveniently fail to mention this.
Next, the mailer falsely claims that the people who put this social housing developer in place said there was no government subsidies necessary. We are supposed to be scandalized that they are asking for money now.
But the authors of this mailer surely know that before the bill was passed, its backers said social housing would require tens of millions in revenue. In fact, before the developer was even passed into law by voters in 2023, the Seattle Times complained that social housing’s supporters “say the Seattle Social Housing Developer may also come up with a ‘progressive revenue source’ on its own and put it to voters directly.” Right after that election, The Stranger also reported that various politicians weighed in with their ideas about how to provide the funds as well. Likewise, The Urbanist’s endorsement of the authorizing legislation stressed the plan to follow up with a progressive revenue source.
If social housing’s backers were claiming that we wouldn’t need revenue, why did our two main newspapers of record – one supportive and one hostile to the social housing initiative – both report at the time of the bill that the backers were claiming we needed revenue? Why would these big corporations make this false statement, and then attempt to spend a quarter million to buy this election by spreading lies to our mailboxes?
They know it is false, but they have a reason to think it might feel true, so they went ahead and printed the lies anyway. They knew it might sound true because social housing backers did say that the higher income rents subsidize the lower income rents, which prevents the need for ongoing rent subsidies. They never said buildings would materialize out of thin air. But all these corporations needed was a kernel of truth upon which to build their deceit. And for some reason, Bruce Harrell was willing to put his face on this pack of lies.
The mailer also claims that only 3% of the units will go to low income people, but that we were promised 12%. This is false. The current financial model shows 53% of the units meeting the federal definition of low-income housing.
The people behind this should be sanctioned for such deliberate deceit. Trumpist disinformation has come to Seattle, folks, courtesy of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.
It is also worth noting that the Housing Development Consortium, which represents almost 200 affordable housing developers in the region, supports Proposition 1A. So does the MLK Labor Council, which represents tens of thousands of workers in the region. Almost every local Democratic legislative district in Seattle also endorsed it.
There is more misinformation – for instance the mailer is shot through with claims about a lack of accountability and transparency for the social housing developer. This too is fake.
The social housing developer is subject to the normal rules of any voter-backed agency and voter-funded initiative. It has a voter-approved board structure. Accountability mechanisms are baked into Initiative 135 legislation, “The Public Developer shall, at any time during normal business hours and as often as the City Council or the State Auditor may deem necessary, make available to the City Council and the State Auditor for examination all of its financial records, and perform audits” (Section 9). Also in “Safeguarding of Funds – The Public Developer’s funds shall be deposited into a depository acceptable to the Mayor and be otherwise safeguarded pursuant to such instructions as the Mayor may from time to time issue” (Section 2).
What they mean by “a lack of accountability” is that they won’t have the power to defund it. Just last year, they pulled the strings and got the mayor to cut the statutory requirement for corporate tax funding to go to affordable housing and rerouted it to their pet projects. They do not want the people to usurp what they see as their power. So they waive their hands and call their own power “accountability.”
It is sad to see Harrell bow and scrape before these corporate bosses to appease their fury over such a small tax to fund something Seattle desperately needs. But on top of this, last year when the vote came up for social housing, his office refused to comment saying it was against Seattle’s election rules for the acting Mayor to weigh in. Now he “strongly urges” us to vote for this one.
Was he lying to our faces last year? Or did he decide the law doesn’t matter?
What a way to cap off four years of defunding affordable housing, foot dragging on market-rate housing, and higher and higher rates of homelessness.
Don’t fall for this BS.
Vote yes and vote Prop 1A.
The Urbanist Elections Committee endorsed a Yes and Yes on Prop 1A vote, as well. Be sure to vote by February 11. The Urbanist is hosting a meetup with House Our Neighbors at 6pm Monday, February 3 focused on Prop 1A.
Ron Davis (Guest Contributor)
Ron Davis is a consultant that helps early stage companies take new technologies to market, specifically, products and services that improve the world for workers and citizens. He's on the boards of Futurewise, Seattle Subway, the Roosevelt Neighborhood association and the University YMCA, where he fights to make Seattle a more just, inclusive, green, walkable, city. He has a JD from Harvard Law School and lives in Northeast Seattle with his wife, a family physician, and their two boys.