A person fills ovals on a ballot. (King County Elections via Flickr)

Vote For Social Housing on February 14.

In an effort to compete with the Super Bowl and Valentines Day, Seattle has decided to have an election. On the ballot is social housing, specifically creating a new housing authority that will develop and own green, public, and perpetually affordable homes and use the money raised from rent to build even more. The Urbanist Elections Committee has supported the initiative.

In this episode, co-hosts Natalie Argerious and Ray Dubicki break down the point of the social housing plans, talk about the expectations for the new social housing authority, and take a look at the arguments that are being used against the initiative.  Of course this last part includes finding many different ways to describe the failure of The Seattle Times’ editorial board while dismantling their wafer thin arguments against I-135.

We want to know your thoughts, opinions, and plans for the next off-year, off season election initiative that Seattle should try. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.  

As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners.

Article Author

Ray Dubicki is a stay-at-home dad and parent-on-call for taking care of general school and neighborhood tasks around Ballard. This lets him see how urbanism works (or doesn’t) during the hours most people are locked in their office. He is an attorney and urbanist by training, with soup-to-nuts planning experience from code enforcement to university development to writing zoning ordinances. He enjoys using PowerPoint, but only because it’s no longer a weekly obligation.