Budget, Councilmember Strauss, News, News Releases, Strauss, Top Story

Seattle City Council committee passes budget with historic investments in housing, public safety, and affordability 

November 20, 2025November 20, 2025By City Council News Releases
aerial view over Seattle downtown and beyond at sunset

The Seattle City Council’s budget committee unanimously passed the 2026 budget, making record investments in improving safety and affordability for working families.  

“From the start, I have said this budget needs to be about making Seattle safer and more affordable for working families. I’m proud that today, the Council passed a budget that does just that,” said Councilmember Dan Strauss (District 6), Chair of the Select Budget Committee.  

“We are making record-high investments in housing. We are doubling the size of our crisis response teams. And, while the federal government steps back from its most basic responsibilities, we’re stepping up to safeguard Seattleites by making stronger investments in food programs, immigration defense, and shelter. We are living in uncertain times, and this budget creates a roadmap to meet this moment,” said Councilmember Strauss.  

Background 

The Council’s Select Budget Committee has hosted 17 public meetings on the budget and received feedback from thousands of Seattleites since receiving the mayor’s proposed budget two months ago.  

It includes new, voter-approved progressive revenue (Proposition 1A and Proposition 2) that will help build more housing, protect city programs working families depend on, and backfill federal cuts to food programs, immigrant rights, emergency shelter and more.  

Budget Highlights  

A full list of budget amendments added by the Council and a more in-depth blog post outlining many of the proposed changes from the mayor’s proposed budget area available. 

This budget represents important investments from the mayor and all nine Councilmembers. Highlights include: 

Affordability 

  • Record-high investment in affordable housing: The budget includes a record-high $349.5 million in affordable housing investments. That is more than five times the amount the City of Seattle invested in 2019. That funding is in addition to voter-approved funding (Proposition 1A), projected at $65 million, for social housing. 
  • Keeping people housed: The budget includes $10 million for rental assistance and $2.5 million for tenant assistance organizations that provide services like education for landlords and tenants on the City’s regulations, outreach, and case management. 
  • Addressing homelessness: The budget maintains investments in existing shelter, while providing for $11.8 million in new shelter and emergency housing, $2 million more to help people living in their vehicles get into housing and shelter, $1.4 for programs supporting runaway and homeless youth that have had federal funding cuts, and $380,000 for additional outreach. It also creates a reserve of $9 million to address potential federal cuts to homeless shelters and pauses Seattle’s shelter expansion while the city, along with its county and state partners, work together on a plan to address those cuts.  
  • Fighting hunger: In addition to investments included in the mayor’s proposed budget, including doubling the City’s investment in Fresh Bucks and a $4 million surge to food banks and meal programs, the Council added an additional $4 million to address the federal food emergency caused by the federal government allowing SNAP benefits to lapse. The Council also allocated additional funding, including $375,000 to support food banks, $250,000 for hot meals for seniors, and $200,000 to support farmers markets in food deserts. 

Public Safety 

  • Drug treatment: In addition to investments in the mayor’s proposal, the budget now includes $1.25 million to expand mobile teams that help connect people with medications for opioid use disorder and provide follow up care through the ORCA POD program, and $150,000 to help low-income individuals who are exiting in-patient residential treatment. 
  • Seattle Fire Department: The final budget funds an additional 20-person recruit class and expands Health One. The budget also includes funding for an additional aid car to help firefighters respond faster and more efficiently to emergencies that do not require a ladder truck.  
  • CARE Expansion: The final budget preserves funding included in the mayor’s proposal to double CARE’s Community Crisis Responder Teams and hire additional 911 call takers. 
  • Seattle Police Department: The department’s hiring plan is fully funded, including the record-breaking 170-plus new officers the department plans to hire this year. Additionally, the Council amended the budget to fund additional mental health professionals to ensure each precinct can deploy a Crisis Response Team and invests more in the 30×30 program, which aims to hire and retain more women police officers. 
  • Community safety programs: The Council added around $2 million in additional investments in community-based safety programs, including $500,000 to support survivors at the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center and $500,000 for survivors of gender-based violence.  
  • Investing in neighborhood safety plans: Building on work we started last year, the budget puts $3 million for a new program that will focus on cleanliness, safety, and economic revitalization in Little Saigon and Lake City.  

Fiscal Responsibility 

  • Increase the size of the ‘Rainy Day’ Fund: The Council added $4.7 million to right-size the contribution to the Revenue Stabilization Fund, better known as the ‘Rainy Day Fund’ for fiscally sustainability.  
  • Shielding Seattle: The budget includes $14 million to protect Seattle from federal cuts. That includes $9 million dollars in a federal reserve to protect shelter and emergency housing funding under threat from the federal government, $4 million to respond the federal food emergency caused by SNAP lapsing, and an additional $1 million in reserves to address potential future cuts.  
  • Request a report on creating a road map to better address the city’s fiscal sustainability: The Council requests the Executive and Legislative branches create shared and easily understood definitions of the variables and factors that contribute to the structural budget deficit, to provide a clear ‘road map’ to fiscal sustainability. 

What’s next?  

The final budget has passed the Select Budget Committee. It now heads to a final vote at a special meeting of the Seattle City Council scheduled for 1 p.m. on Friday. If approved, it then heads to Mayor Harrell for his signature.

# # #