Update: Prop 1A passed in the February 2025 Special Election, with over 70 percent of voters voting in favor.
Tell me if this situation sounds familiar: My wife and I welcomed a beautiful baby boy four months ago, and suddenly the beautiful two-bedroom condo we’ve rented in Capitol Hill since before we had kids looks a little snug. We’ve looked around for something that could accommodate our new family of three and any future expansions, but anything that’s affordable is miles away from our friends and community and anything that’s in neighborhood close by is meant for someone with four times our income. What are we meant to do?
Our story — and the story of so many young families — is just one of many examples of Seattle’s ongoing housing crisis. The people most obviously and visibly harmed by high housing costs are those forced entirely out of their housing and onto the street, but high housing costs hurt everyone: seniors trying to age in place, service workers and middle-income people trying to get by, and young families like ours trying to find a place in the city to raise our kids.
The good news is that there’s something we can do about it. This Tuesday, February 11, Seattle voters have the opportunity to invest in a new form of housing development by voting YES on Proposition 1A.
Two years ago, 57 percent of Seattle voters supported the creation of a Social Housing Developer and gave it a mandate to build housing for people making up to 120 percent of the Area Median Income in Seattle. Now we have the opportunity to give this new developer the money to make it happen.
Proposition 1A would impose a 5 percent tax on employers who pay individual employees more than $1 million in total compensation. Your mom and pop business employing four people at $75,000 each? Totally tax free. Your hypothetical business paying 1,000 people $950,000 each? Totally tax free. A business paying a single person $1,000,001? They’d pay five cents.
Not coincidentally, the three biggest opponents of Proposition 1A are Amazon, Microsoft, and the Chamber of Commerce. They’ve put an alternative measure on the ballot (1B) that would divert $10 million a year in existing affordable housing funding to instead go to the new social housing developer. No new money for housing, just more tax avoidance from the richest corporations in our entire region.
A fully-funded social housing developer won’t totally solve our region’s housing crisis. No one thing will. We need to make it legal to build more housing in more neighborhoods across the city. We need to remove restrictive regulations that make it difficult to build housing in the places it’s already legal to build. We need to invest in affordable housing so that the least wealthy among us can afford to stay in the city. And, yes, we need the city to live up to its reputation as a progressive leader and build us a social housing developer we can be proud of.
I am proud that my son was born right here in Seattle, at Swedish Medical Center on First Hill. I want him to be able to grow up in this beautiful city, and stay here, if he wants to do so, without breaking the bank. I hope you will join me in voting for Proposition 1A this Tuesday.
Rian Watt is a local housing advocate. He rents on Capitol Hill with his wife, son, and two cats.
Ballots must be mailed or put in a special ballot box by 8 p.m. February 11.
