City of Tacoma Affordable Housing Action Strategy - https://www.cityoftacoma.org/government/city_departments/community_and_economic_development/housing_division/affordable_housing_action_strategy

• Tanisha Jumper, Media and Communications Director, City of Tacoma - tjumper@ci.tacoma.wa.us
• last time I was here I was in charge of phase 3.  I was frustrated we couldn’t get any traction on any of the work.  I realize there was not an immediate fix.  We split phase 3 into 2 parts – Daniel Murillo, Lauren  Flemister and I started working on an affordable housing action strategy.  We wouldn’t be able to move folks out of homelessness into housing without enough housing at the right price points.  I also do Tacoma 2025 ( https://www.cityoftacoma.org/tacoma_2025 ), where affordable housing is a priority.  Since we’ve done the strategy, the Mayor has convened other community mayors around affordability, which other communities are willing to engage in.  We want to expand the strategy with our surrounding partners – to make a dent in the affordable housing our entire community lacks.
• Daniel Murillo, Housing Division Manager with the City of Tacoma - dmurillo@ci.tacoma.wa.us
• I led the affordable housing strategy initiative.
• Want to lay out how we are thinking about affordable housing.  This is an organizational strategy.  It is a multifaceted issue that impacts many parts of the City of Tacoma.
• There is a growing affordability crisis – despite reports that things are leveling off, it is still a crisis.  If the market is not leveling off, it will continue to get worse.
• we embarked on a quick process – for government this was very quick – this City Council and the City has accelerated the process – although no steps were skipped.  We still had an active engagement process. – a quick but mature process. (unlike me, who is getting less quick as I mature… -ed.)
• We had 7 community meetings, 4 focus groups, and lots of other outreach. 
• We had many examples of issues – lots of voices of people affected by the housing crisis.
• Some Impressions from stakeholders in the interviews:
  • Tenant landlord relations
  • Households often have many barriers. 
  • Cultural competencies are lacking in the landlords and other groups (cultural competencies never seem like they should be hard until I accidently but my foot in my mouth and hope folks can appreciate intent instead of actual verbiage.  Being respectful of different cultures It is all about learning, and workshops and training are so useful, but challenging to make time for…I must do better. –ed.)
• Affordable Housing Action strategy uses a data-driven approach (a process after my own heart. –ed.)
  • Housing needs assessment
  • Analysis of short-term and long-term market trends
  • Developed a dashboard
• We still need to determine how to take these actionable steps – have done this analysis before, but need to do follow through with the action steps this time around.
• Of importance is the ongoing disparity between housing costs and the wages that are just not keeping up with rising costs.
• This is a broader, holistic approach. (holistic like Dirk Gentry’s Holistic Detective Agency? - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AYIN78A/ - a Douglas Adams novel worth reading if for nothing more than the bit about the sofa impossibly stuck in the staircase.  The sequel – The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul - is worth reading for the part about his scheming to buy a new refrigerator because his current one was so filthy he was unwilling to even open it. I listened to this as a book on tape back when there were actually books on tape, and it was one of those marvelous narrations that make the book like twice as good – and it was a good read to start with – if you’re into that sort of thing… –ed.).
• Housing prices have doubled over a period of time when household income only increased by 20%.
• That imbalance is shrinking, but it is still a growing gap.
• We are currently looking at an 8% growth rate.
• For every 100  low income households, only 27 of those households are not cost burdened by their housing –leaving the vast majority cost burdened.
• A significant portion of the community is overpaying for their housing – they don’t’ have housing affordable for them.
• Dashboard created to determine effect of policy ideas on housing market
• 4 strategic objective with 24 possible actions – with metrics to track progress.  How do we create a funding stream to address this – just have  around one million dollars of federal funding to support his.  This isn’t funding that we can always be sure of.  The 4 strategic objectives 
  • Production of new homes (address the lack of housing by building more housing – it’s so crazy it just might work. –ed)
  • Keep existing housing affordable and in good repair.  How do we keep seniors housed – folks asset rich but cash poor.  How can we keep folks in their housing
  • How do we help people stay in their communities
    • Expand tenant protections
    • Create resources for housing crises
  • Removal of Barriers to housing for people who often encounter them
• Estimated investment targets – if we do all we say we will do – we can serve 10,700 households over the next 10 years.  This can’t be only city money, must bring in private investment.  These are ambitious goals – but do give us a goalpost to move towards.  We need to move beyond ideas and have goals to measure our success
• Plan
  • Ongoing education and outreach
  • Keep, expand, and add new resources
  • Partner with local, regional, state and federal entities
• No concreate action as part of this plan, but it was adopted by the Council
• Next steps
  • Develop an implementation work plan
  • Convene a group of internal stakeholders within the City of Tacoma to map out a plan
• Take a look at the action plan - http://cms.cityoftacoma.org/cedd/housing/affordablehousingactionstrategy.pdf - and really digest it
• (The PowerPoint from the presentation is also attached)
• Martha – wow, this is just what we need.  I’ve been encouraged to take some of the women in our housing programs that face these issues – is it useful for us to bring folks with these barriers to the City council?  You as a staff know their stories, but do the City Council need continued education.  Tanisha – the Council is getting ready to do the budget.  $1.2M is proposed for the housing trust fund.  The Council work for the residents of Tacoma.  Residents coming to Council and presenting the need is important, and it can feel awkward for folks presenting because the Council doesn’t usually respond, but presenting helps the council to have the backing to make decisions
• Greg – how did we arrive at the $1.2M for the housing trust fund?  Daniel – Strategy has $1.8M.  That is from the consultant to do an initial capital investment in the housing trust fund.  It only goes so far – this is the first infusion of capital the City has made ever.  It doesn’t sound like much, but it is above and beyond what we’ve done in the past.  It is a down payment on this issue, and how we create a long term approach.
• Greg – you said this strategy addresses the organization as a whole – from a work force development perspective, the 98% housing increase and the 20% wage increase – is anyone working on the employment side?  Daniel – you’re right that this strategy is city wide – there will be efforts to look at the workforce side.  Community and Economic Development (CED) has the housing department – and it will manage the workforce development and housing work.  Workforce development will be an integral part.  The 2025 group is looking at how all the administrative strategies can align and how cross departmental teams can work together.  Right now, the City Manager has been supportive of the project, and has said that this is everyone’s work. 
• Larry – Will there be from the City manager a formal commitment to wrap this into the broader plan.  Daniel – this plan was received by the City Council unanimously – so it is the organization document on what will be done.  Larry – is there a real commitment to do all this?  Daniel – both the City Manager and the Mayor have expressed a commitment to me that this strategy is the driving force in working with affordable housing.
• David – is there a possibility any money will go to agencies for accountable recovery housing or agencies investing in funding to assist agencies acquire properties in the community?  Daniel – Any funding we get will need to be used in the City.  There are conversations looking at this regionally.  Areas outside Tacoma are engaging.  There is a call for additional resources to help people with the housing crisis or other issue they are experiencing.  We are allowed to support the acquisition of property.  We will initially focus on housing preservation opportunities – preserve affordability or bring it into the community stock.  This will be an opportunity that launches quickly
• Al – pages 66-72 (of the action strategy at http://cms.cityoftacoma.org/cedd/housing/affordablehousingactionstrategy.pdf )– there is a table with a huge number of possible actions – are the items underneath each heading prioritized?  Daniel – no, they aren’t in a priority order.  Al – you don’t mention people that pay a fee to be screened – is there a possibility there could be a provision for a single screening fee that would be applicable for all renters?  Would the law allow that?  Greg – and if not, ,why not.  Daniel – I don’t know the answer to that question.  I’ve heard that before and I understand.  We’ll need to be nimble and adjust when necessary – so that is something that could be included in expanded tenant protections – although I don’t know the details of the legality of that. 
• Al – I’ve heard that the city has a large number of City Owned parks – are you looking at that?  Daniel – yes, the use of those surface lands is a possibility.  We can use those surplus lands and not require market value and donate to a developer for a public purpose.  We are having conversation about how we can put that into our code.  Tanisha – there is a focus from 2025 we need to have complete communities and have access to parks.  In the past, we’ve focused on low income housing and didn’t put in gutters and parks and that wasn’t a good neighborhood.  We want people to have dignity and to live in nice neighborhoods – like where grocery stores and banks and such should be.  We try to balance all those things. 
• Greg – The quote about the cost of getting screening done is insane for our clients– it wouldn’t cost a lot to make some regulation happen, it would be a quick win, who do we need to talk to press this issue?  What organization in the city is the decision maker on this?  Daniel – Our tenant protections work is being handled by the Tenants’ Rights office in the Office of Equity.  I will speak with her about this and take ownership of moving it to her.
• Patricia – I thought phase 3 would be able to include tent cities.  I think that is an important step that the folks on the streets want.  Our group changed the regulations to allow it.  We thought that by removing the regulations that someone would step up to run it.  We need more shelter, but we don’t have funding to pay for it. 
• Sherri – is this phase 3?  Tanisha - phase 3 is still looking at the expansion of shelter beds in multiple different ways.  They are looking at increasing shelter beds by 100 new beds. Martha – that is phase 3?  Tanisha – we were working on tiny homes and container homes and they were all so expensive that no projects were getting any traction.  We needed something more comprehensive.  Council said they’d spend money and political capital on affordable housing, so Lauren and Daniel and I started on affordable housing, and human services took on shelter for their part of phase 3.  (the room was rather surprised by this news. ed.)