Two years ago, the City Council’s Richard Conlin was crowing over what he thought was a 15-percent drop in homelessness, and foot-dragging on finding semi-permanent housing for tent city residents. Only 1,753 people were found outdoors during the One Night Count, he said, “a testament to the success of the Seattle community’s Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness.”
This year the One Night Count found 1,989 homeless people without shelter, up from 2012, and more or less erasing that 15-percent “drop.” That’s even though a tent city like Nickelsville, which flooded disastrously back in November, isn’t included in the count because tents are shelter. What are these numbers a testament to?
The original Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness stated that by the end of 2014: “Homelessness will be virtually ended,” and “There will be no need for tent cities or encampments.” Mike Lowry was governor, and Peter Steinbrueck was on the City Council. That doesn’t leave us a lot of time.
When KOMO News asked Real Change founder Tim Harris recently how the Plan was going, Harris said that the push to build permanent housing (5,100 housing units have been created so far, just over half the goal) was coming at the expense of shelter beds, and didn’t consider the needs of car campers, or take a position on tent cities. “We need to look at low-cost, effective ways of meeting the needs that are initiated by the homeless themselves and how can they work with them as part of the solution,” said Harris.
But the Council’s Tim Burgess finds in the numbers support for permanent housing. Looking over a 2011 study of more than 2,500 people, he found something close to an 80/20 distribution: “26 percent of these individuals stayed in shelter for a lengthy 180 days or more, accounting for a total of 74 percent of the bed nights used.” Nearly 40 percent of the total used shelter beds for 30 days or less, for just three percent of the total beds-per-night available. Concludes Burgess:
This important information shows policymakers that if we can develop approaches to transition the long-term users of shelters into more permanent housing, we would free up a lot of bed nights to serve an even greater number of people who might need only short-term emergency access to shelter.
“The longer one stays in shelter, the harder it becomes to move into housing,” adds Burgess, arguing that shelters need a “back door,” a process through which people who aren’t temporarily homeless can begin rebuild their footing in the community.
Burgess on density: “I have favored density in the right places, and I think that’s not trying to make people live in shoeboxes or throw away their car or whatever.”
Tim, can’t you see the solution is right in front of you? We don’t have to “make” people live in aPodments, but why are we not allowing them to live there? Take some time to look at the history of homelessness (Sightline did an excellent series on this recently), and you’ll see that when we banned small cheap urban housing (combined with closing down mental institutions) we created homelessness.
The next step down from a studio apartment shouldn’t be the street. It should be a smaller studio apartment, until you can get back on your feet. Yes, permanent subsidized housing can and should play a role too, but why are we banning market solutions?
I don’t know about a ban, Matt, because I think smaller spaces for single renters is a huge undeveloped market, but on the other hand, I don’t mind the Council hitting pause while it figures out what the new regulations (if any) should be. A couple of things about aPodments in practice (as opposed to theory) bother me, the main thing being that they represent a hack of the city’s building codes, and secondly that they may qualify for tax exemptions for providing “affordable” rates in an absolute sense, while pricing per sq.ft. is more on the order of a luxury apartment. In response to the second part, opening up the market may be the answer, so that there’s more competition. But it seems fair to take a moment and ask what the particular impacts to a neighborhood are of putting up to 64 people on a lot that would otherwise have been a single-family dwelling.
A few points:
1. aPodments aren’t allowed in single family zones.
2. I disagree they’re hacking the building codes. They fit well under the intent of the law – allowing the practice of renting rooms in a house, and allowing developers to build buildings that are designed for this purpose.
3. By “impacts” to a neighborhood, people always seem to mean parking. But parking isn’t a construction code issue, it’s a street use issue – and one we’ve solved. I challenge you to find any street in a multi-family zoned area with ample free street parking. This “problem” has already been solved using parking permits and meters.
I don’t know why you’re concerned by the $/sf. If nobody wants to pay that, they won’t rent any units out and will lose money. The $600/month rent really just shows us how high of demand there is for this style of housing in walkable areas. It will drop as supply is built out. Besides, I challenge you to find any nice new apartment of any size for anything close to $600/month near our urban core.
Matt, I didn’t say zones, I said they were replacing homes. It’s significant shift in density, especially if you own that single-family home next door. I realize this is life in the big city — but a single-family home in this or that neighborhood is a huge investment for people, and it seems prudent to weigh the speed and scale of disruption.
I don’t think there’s any question that it’s a hack or “loophole” heretofore unused, so it’s probably not worth arguing that point. If it was the intent, it’s odd that I don’t see anyone at the City clamoring to take credit for their success. That’s a shame because rooming-style houses are quite useful, and it’s better if they are openly planned for.
I don’t particularly care about parking impacts, as it’s clear that car-ownership on Capitol Hill, for instance, was a dicey proposition before any of this.
I’m concerned about $/sq. ft. primarily in relation to aPodments tax exemptions for providing affordable housing, not in terms of what the market will bear. Disregarding everything else, aPodments demonstrate clearly that absolute price point matters more than sq. ft. for a segment of the rental market. If tax exemptions are being taken advantage of, it might be worth revisiting what kind of affordable housing qualifies. Otherwise, I expect that competitors will bring the price point down to earth.
“it’s odd that I don’t see anyone at the City clamoring to take credit for their success” Check out the density limits for lowrise multifamily housing. These have most recently been updated in 2010, through a 9-0 council vote. Note that rowhouses, carriage houses, nursing homes, congregate housing (i.e. aPodments), assisted living facilities, and accessory dwelling units are exempt from density limits. This is an important, deliberate change, and the council should be praised for this work. Of course they wouldn’t dare mention their hand in this, with our city being half full of anti-developmeent NIMBYs – some of whom live in multifamily zones and are shocked when multifamily homes are built next to them.
Ha! I thought that might be the case. :)