Just as urbanists thought they had a deal to jumpstart stalled housing construction, it fell apart. We unpack the rise and fall of a proposed temporary break on Seattle's Mandatory Housing Affordability program, which taxes new development to fund affordable housing. Those tax dollars have all but dried up as building costs have soared and construction has stalled. Developers and density advocates argued a two-year partial fee pause could revive dozens of stalled projects while costing the city little to no affordable housing revenue.

But after weeks of backroom negotiating, Mayor Katie Wilson pulled the plug, siding with anti-displacement advocates on the left over the pro-development urbanist coalition. We ask what this reveals about Wilson's brand of urbanism, and whether "the Urbanist Mayor" label still fits.

Plus, Seattle and King County announced they're clawing back roughly $160 million in service contracts from the flailing King County Regional Homelessness Authority, effectively gutting the agency's core function. KCRHA was supposed to be the region's big fix for homelessness: one coordinated system instead of a patchwork of city and county programs. But KCRHA never delivered. We break down how years of leadership turnover, a structurally messy governance model, and a scathing forensic audit brought KCRHA to this point, and talk about what comes next.

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While Seattle celebrates hosting the World Cup, the city's unsheltered count just jumped 21 percent. What explains the increase? Can we trust the numbers? And why are we seeing shelter capacity shrink right when it’s needed most?

Also: Mayor Katie Wilson's "zero-tolerance" push in Little Saigon. Is this the same old policing playbook, or something genuinely new? Can a progressive socialist approach call for more policing? Our co-hosts do not agree.

Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.com

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.com

Support the show

Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.

Last August, an alarming, high-profile audit of King County’s Department of Community and Human Services’ spending on “high-risk” youth program providers found widespread problems and indications of potential fraud. So now, 10 months later, has DCHS been able to clean up the issues that led to the serious internal control problems the audit surfaced?

New DCHS Director Susan McLaughlin joins Erica and Sandeep (while David is away) to make the case that DCHS is back on track. The agency is now emphasizing “a culture of accountability,” McLaughlin tells us, and is implementing new supports for smaller community-based organizations to document their work. McLaughlin also expresses strong opposition to a recent proposal from King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski that would require the council to directly approve all spending under the county’s Best Starts for Kids program, saying his proposed approach would “have devastating impacts” by bottlenecking DCHS' work.

Going beyond the audit aftermath, McLaughlin tells us that she is confident that DCHS is ready to provide oversight of homelessness services contracts if County Executive Zahilay and Seattle Mayor Wilson decide to claw back those contracts from the troubled King County Regional Homelessness Authority (as they're rumored to be planning), and shares insights about what DCHS learned from the contentious process of siting its new Seattle crisis care clinic on Capitol Hill.

Send us a text! Note that we can only respond directly to emails realseattlenice@gmail.com

Thanks to Uncle Ike's pot shop for sponsoring this week's episode! If you want to advertise please contact us at realseattlenice@gmail.com

Support the show

Your support on Patreon helps pay for editing, production, live events and the unique, hard-hitting local journalism and commentary you hear weekly on Seattle Nice.