Title
A MOTION requesting the executive establish a regional workforce housing initiative and develop an implementation plan on options to utilize excess debt capacity to partner with housing agencies and housing developers to provide permanently rent-restricted multiple-unit housing.
Body
WHEREAS, King County established the regional affordable housing task force in 2017 through Motion 14873, with the charge to develop a recommended countywide affordable housing strategy, and
WHEREAS, the regional affordable housing task force's five-year action plan, accepted through Motion 15372, includes census data that showed that more than one hundred twenty-four thousand low- and moderate-income households in King County are cost burdened, with communities of color and renters disproportionately likely to be severely cost burdened, and
WHEREAS, the regional affordable housing task force's five-year action plan includes a goal to strive to eliminate cost burden for households earning eighty percent area median income and below, with a priority for serving households at or below fifty percent area median income, and
WHEREAS, in October 2020, the King County council adopted Ordinance 19179, imposing a one-tenth of one percent Health through Housing sales tax with the paramount goal of creating and operating one thousand six hundred units of affordable housing with related services, and
WHEREAS, King County currently has approximately nine billion dollars of debt capacity, and
WHEREAS, the King County council believes that people should be able to live close to where they work, which helps with climate, congestion, morale, and sense of community, and
WHEREAS, households are sometimes forced to relocate due to increased housing costs, evictions, or the loss of neighborhood community connections, and
WHEREAS, the King County council believes that people should be protected from displacement and should be able to stay in their home and community for as long as they choo...

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