While I’ve spent the majority of my career in education justice, I want to discuss housing first. That’s because it’s ridiculous to talk about economic mobility if people lack basic stability. I know from firsthand experience. I moved almost every year as a child and experienced disruptions in my attendance, grades and mental health. I see this every day in my community, where we have 2,000 homeless or near homeless students in Tacoma Public Schools alone. I was lucky to find stability, unlike many people of all ages in my own neighborhood. But luck shouldn’t be part of the equation.
The worsening housing crisis proves that decades of “market-based” solutions such as tax incentives to develop temporarily, marginally “affordable” housing don’t work. Many developers ensure that affordability isn’t required when selling their recently built properties. Others figure out ways to sunset requirements early, or ignore them all together once permitting is completed. The market has displayed time and again that it fundamentally can’t regulate itself.
The only way out of the crisis is by making massive portions of the housing stock permanently affordable, starting with overturning the statewide ban on rent stabilization. I’m excited by Senator Trudeau’s legislation in the last two sessions, but disgusted by the corporate wing of the Democratic party killing it. If elected, I promise to treat this like an organizing campaign. I’ll bring tenants to committee meetings. I’ll confront the cozy relationships between landlord lobbyists and elected officials, regardless of their party. We beat the landlords here in Tacoma, even after they outspent us three to one trying to undermine Initiative 1! We can beat them in Olympia, too!
But our solutions must go much further. We need unprecedented state investment to dramatically increase permanently affordable housing. The two best ways to do this are via a social housing developer and a public bank. A social housing developer could issue bonds, subsidize affordable units with market rate units, and democratize housing. A public bank could offer near zero interest loans not only to first time home buyers, but also single family homeowners who want to age in place and convert their units to rent stabilized duplexes or triplexes. This would expand density, bring along people that are often skeptical of infill, and preserve neighborhood character.
Finally, we need state enforcement capacity to take on real estate speculators, particularly the global private equity firms gobbling up single family homes, mobile home parks and apartment buildings in Tacoma and throughout Washington. I support creating a state department of housing. One of the department’s mandates could be tracking and confronting the developers and landlords to get around regulations by hiding behind shell corporations, which county assessors and auditors often lack the staffing or technology to address. A department could also identify and elevate best practices and systems, offer support for innovative social and low income housing programs, and more.
Of course, none of these things are a silver bullet. But they would have profoundly positive and lasting impacts on housing stock and social stability for a generation to come. If elected, I will not only legislate for these solutions, but organize and fight like hell for them.
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