Call and Email your Councilmember to Say: Stop the Sweeps and Pass the HOMES Tax!

Hundreds of Seattle’s ordinary people – your constituents – spoke resoundingly, with one voice, at the budget committee public hearing on Nov 1st.

We told City Council to Stop the Sweeps and pass the HOMES Tax in this year’s city budget!

But it’s not only the question of the hundreds who were here in City Hall on Nov 1st. As you know, the majority of your constituents – tens of thousands of people – are being impacted by the crisis of the lack of affordable housing, and mo

re of our neighbors are being pushed into homelessness. Many who are housed today are one rent increase or one job loss or one health crisis away from becoming homeless.

This moral and political crisis demands that you act immediately.

Thank you,

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Hundreds of Seattle’s ordinary people – your constituents – spoke resoundingly, with one voice, at the budget committee public hearing on Nov 1st.

We said the inhumane and ineffective sweeps of human beings must stop, and that the millions of dollars currently being wasted on these sweeps be focused instead on providing services that will make things better for both our homeless and housed neighbors – case management and counseling help, healthcare-related services, trash removal, access to showers and portable toilets, sharps containers, expanded authorized encampments, and expanded shelter services.

We also said that we want the HOMES Tax to be passed. With a modest tax on the largest and most thriving of the businesses in Seattle, we can generate millions of dollars for affordable housing. Permanent affordable housing is the only answer to homelessness.

But it’s not only the question of the hundreds who were here in City Hall on Nov 1st. As you know, the majority of your constituents – tens of thousands of people – are being impacted by the crisis of the lack of affordable housing, and more of our neighbors are being pushed into homelessness. Many who are housed today are one rent increase or one job loss or one health crisis away from becoming homeless.

Just this Monday, the Washington Post published an article titled, Growing Homeless Camps Contrast with West Coast Tech Wealth. It is an indictment on cities like Seattle, which have created a haven for the wealthy, while pushing more and more people to the brink. The precariousness of affordable housing, the skyrocketing rents, means exploding homelessness.

This moral and political crisis demands that you act immediately.