Sawant: Seattle housing crisis ‘not a question of ideology’ but of ‘reality’

As part of her fight for housing justice, Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant spearheaded the effort to stop “slumlords” from raising the rents of residents. The council passed the “Carl Haglund Law” Monday which protects tenants’ rights

Sawant told KIRO Radio’s Jason Rantz that it had previously been legal for landlords to raise rents even if they have they had pending housing code violations, such as mold or rat infestations. Some landlords allegedly did this in order to sell the property to developers — rising in value despite lowering quality. This way the property would more easily be sold when the time comes.

“Fundamentally, this is a problem not only in those cases where the properties are flipped over, but in general, as a human right,” Sawant said. “Imagine having to be a tenant who is following the law, paying their rent and yet living in conditions that no human being should be living in.”

“This is Seattle,” she said. “This is a wealthy city full of millionaires and billionaires. So just at a fundamental level, I think we as human beings should reject the idea that we should be forced to live in these conditions – whether your rent goes up or not.”

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Sawant clarified that this law won’t impact landlords who are following the laws of decency and not exploiting their tenants.

“This law is to make sure that tenants don’t have to depend on drawing the good landlord lottery,” she said. “We should have these protections for all tenants citywide so the bad landlords don’t get away with it.”

While Rantz says, regardless of ideology, most people can agree with stopping slumlords, Sawant’s other ideas for capping move-in fees are not as straightforward.

“What’s the balance so government isn’t going in too far to the side of tenants?” Rantz asked.

Sawant said that beyond the ever-heightening rent problem that is economically evicting some residents, many others struggle with move-in fees that can include more than $4,000 for first and last months rent, security deposit and other non-refundable fees.

“It’s not a question of ideology, it’s a question of reality,” she said. “What is the reality you face as a tenant?”

Sawant also said she supports the mayor and fellow council member Mike O’Brien’s proposed regulations for short-term home rental sites such as Airbnb and VRBO, to help reduce the skyrocketing cost of living in the city. The new regulations would cover all non-hotel bookings of 30 or fewer consecutive nights. Only people using the property as their primary residence would be allowed to operate short-term rentals year-round. Those who are not would be limited to 90 nights for the year.

“(The Airbnb proposal) may not be the most prominent mover-and-shaker but it will address a new problem that has arisen,” Sawant said of how the proposal could impact housing availability.

“Just like when the city council dealt with the regulations on companies like Uber and Lyft,” she added. “There was something new that had happened and we had to deal with it. … Similarly with Airbnb, we’re seeing sort of an explosion of problematic situations and we need to deal with that. But I also agree that’s not going to be enough in any way.”

Rantz also pressed Sawant on his belief that the city needs to start building up to create more housing availability. Sawant said she was open to the idea but would not commit.

“We need supply of a specific kind. We need supply of affordable housing units and that’s not going to happen automatically just by relaxing zoning codes,” she said. “I do want a dense neighborhood. I grew up in Mumbai; I totally support densely organized cities and walkable neighborhoods. But none of that is going to be useful if the units are not going to be affordable to working people.”

Sawant also said two other things should happen to secure reasonable rents in Seattle: knocking down the state’s ban on rent control; and government-run affordable housing. She said that she would be in favor of using the city’s bonding capacity to pay for the government operated affordable housing.

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