The city’s new homeless survey, which surveyed about 1,000 homeless people, found that 41 percent of respondents worked in some capacity and 30 percent stated they could pay $500 or more a month for rent.
The survey is intended to help guide the city’s homeless services investments, including the $55 million more a year it’s asking taxpayers to approve through a new property tax.
William Foreman, known as Wildcat Willy at Nickelsville in Ballard, said he was not surprised at the findings. Foreman pointed to his own Social Security checks.
"I clear about $800 a month and about $100 in food stamps," he said. "So you could say close to $900, $880."
So KIRO 7 asked the city, “Why aren't these people off the streets and into affordable housing?”
“Well, I think $500 will only get you so far,” Jason Johnson, deputy director of the Human Resources Department, said. “I think it would be a challenge for anyone to find -- especially an apartment of their own -- for $500. What $500 might buy you is a shared room or some community or group housing.”
KIRO 7 pointed out to him that, according to the organization “Commute Seattle,” of the thousands of people who work in Uptown, Belltown, Denny Triangle, South Lake Union, Capitol Hill, Pike/Pine, First Hill, the Commercial Core, Pioneer Square and the Chinatown/International District, 45 percent of them commute from outside the city.
So KIRO 7 asked, while city builds more affordable housing, why not house people outside Seattle where it’s more affordable? Johnson said they are doing it, but, “what we know is that the availability of housing that’s affordable to individuals who have $500 to pay in rent is just not there. Vacancy rates are very, very low and we know that there is just not the affordable housing stock in Seattle.”
“Seattle and King County?” KIRO 7 asked.
“Seattle and King County,” he confirmed.
That's why the city is asking taxpayers to shell out another $55 million in homeless funding in a new property tax, which could help build affordable housing with the current housing levy.
But the challenge might be convincing people like Wildcat Willy to move, even to get a roof over their heads.
“What about Tukwila? A studio opens there,” KIRO 7 suggested.
“Where is that? Up north?” he asked.
“South.”
"It would just depend," he said. "There might be areas—I'm not denigrating those areas. I'm saying—they're not my country."
His sentiment illustrates just how complicated the issue is; many people who are homeless don’t want to leave their communities and friends.
Johnson said they are also barriers besides money. They may have been evicted in the past or have a criminal history, which make it difficult to find an apartment whose landlord will accept them. He said that is where the city steps in to try to find and connect them with housing that will fit.
Mayor Ed Murray’s goal is 50,000 new units of housing built or preserved over the next 10 years, with 20,000 of those units designated affordable.
Click here to read the full survey released on Friday.
Cox Media Group
