OPINION | Prop 1A: Good for City Workers, Good for All

Starting Jan. 24, Seattle voters will have a rare opportunity to do something meaningful about the housing crisis that continues to plague our city. Housing costs are increasingly out of reach for many people, including the thousands of City of Seattle employees represented by PROTEC17 who keep our city running every day. This is why we urge voters to vote YES on Prop 1A, which will generate an estimated $50 million a year to create the permanently affordable, publicly owned, mixed-income social housing Seattle desperately needs.

Today, many PROTEC17 members are caught in the middle of a housing market that has uprooted them from their communities and forced them to move far from the city in which they work and which they help to thrive. As the cost of living and housing in Seattle continues to skyrocket, compensation — even with strong union wages — cannot keep up. Yet City wages are also not low enough to qualify for low-income or public housing options. This is a gap that social housing can fill.

The Seattle Social Housing Developer (SSHD) was created in 2023 through Initiative 135, which was passed overwhelmingly by voters. The measure, by law, could not include the funding mechanism for social housing because state law precludes this from being included in a ballot initiative. Enter Prop 1A This brilliantly crafted, employer-paid excess compensation tax will create the opportunity to finally fulfill that voter mandate. This modest 5% tax will only be paid by businesses that have employees whom they compensate over $1 million per year. The revenue generated by this tax will be used to build social housing that is publicly owned in perpetuity (and thus free from market speculation), and available to a range of incomes. Most importantly, creating more affordable housing in Seattle will help bring down rents for all apartments, including those that are privately owned.

Social housing is a proven model that has been popular around the world for nearly 100 years. It is gaining popularity in the United States with successful implementation in Montgomery County, Maryland, and programs starting in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, and Rhode Island, to name a few. The SSHD is already well equipped to begin building social housing in Seattle under the leadership of CEO Roberto Jiménez, who previously led Mutual Housing California to become one of the top five most productive nonprofit affordable developers in California.

The shortage of affordable housing is only becoming more dire for City employees, particularly under the recent requirement that employees be on-site a minimum of three days a week, further exacerbating frustration with long commute times, significantly impacting quality of life. The simple fact is that too many PROTEC17 members — including social workers, engineers, utility workers, and transportation planners, to name a few — cannot afford to live in the very city they support, shape, and serve every day. Social housing can change this for working people and for everyone, and create a healthier, housed, and thriving city. Join us in voting YES on Prop 1A by Feb. 11 to make sure social housing is implemented successfully and robustly in Seattle.

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Karen Estevenin is the executive director of PROTEC17, a member-powered labor union representing over 10,000 public professional and technical employees across the Pacific Northwest. PROTEC17 members work in city, county, and state government, public health, and beyond to support the programs and services that our communities rely on every day.