Hannah--thanks for late-day work, everyday. Appreciated!

This is an appalling outcome. Ninety percent of those evicted will become homeless. You think Seattle has a housing crisis now? It will get so much worse in the next month or two. I am deeply disappointed in the corporate tools on the Council who voted against extending the moratorium on evictions. They've had two years to come up with some solutions and they haven't done shit. Maybe they are hoping that poor folks will either move away or die on the streets, so they will be out of sight.

@2 a little melodramatic don’t you think? Seriously though what would change between now and Sept if they had extended it? The assistance fund has run out and if a renter hasn’t worked something out with their landlord after 2 years it seems unlikely they’ll ever do it.

On a side note we should call out the bs of Sawant. If she truly caress about the renters she would have voted yes on Herbolds amendment and continued working on another way to extend it beyond April 30. Of course she did not though, if she can’t have things her way than she is completely ok tossing aside those she is supposedly fighting for so she can maintain ideological purity. Why people continue to assume she cares about anything but her own brand really escapes me.

There is not going to be an eviction tsunami - the Housing Justice Project is politically charged and motivated to make such false claims. Read this article to see what happened in other cities. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-happened-to-the-eviction-tsunami/
And don't forget - there is 6 months' protection after the end of the eviction moratorium for non-payment. The only renters who will get evicted are those with lease violations besides non-payment of rent. If a renter could not pay rent, they should have worked with the landlord and been on their best behavior - not violate the lease in other ways. Yet, I know landlords dealing with renters who have a job but won't pay and also are violating their lease in multiple ways. The Housing Justice Project basically claimed they were lying and that they could evict - but eviction was only allowed for health and safety violations. Take a look at this video that shows how high the health & safety bar for eviction is: https://komonews.com/news/local/squalor-at-south-seattle-house-prompts-concern-anxiety-in-neighborhood

The real issue here is the city council doesn't want to take responsibility for paying the rent directly to the landlords. If they had, the renters would be happy and the landlords would be happy. There are renters truly in need - no doubt about that. But there are also renters who can work, are working and are not paying rent because they don't have to. The US Supreme Court decided a case in New York last year that stated that renters could not self-certify they could not pay rent because of covid hardship - because a person cannot be a judge in their own case. Seattle should do the same. In contrast, if the landlord does get any aid, there are strings attached including income level, only partial payment of the owing rent (so they have to accept partial payment and promise not to go after the rest in court), and the inability to evict for something like a year. Why isn't anybody reporting that? Perhaps this is the city council plan of getting rid of the biggest group of rental providers in Seattle, mom and pop landlords, so that the city can provide housing - socialism! Remember: nothing is free. "Free rent", "Free forgiveness of student loans", just means somebody else has to pay for it. As Margaret Thatcher said: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”

I trust that if we don't have a giant wave of evictions, the Stranger will report on that with the same frequency as they have been ringing alarm bells about the end of the moratorium?

Renters have had two years to come up with a plan.

If a renter can't figure out what to do after 2 years, then that is really their problem.

During that time there have been wide spread covid relief payments and all matter of rental assistance and support payments.

We have a "hot job market" and of course "$15 Now- lifting everybody out of poverty" and providing the "living wage for all"....

That is and has ever been The Stranger's position has it not? Well? What say you?

What is your excuse now.... Trump isn't in the white house and the congress and senate is democratically controlled.... as is every level of Washington State, King County and the City of Seattle.

The Stranger is in the minority when it advocates to extend the moratorium. Living in this bubble one would think the whole city is outraged that it wasn't extended but that is not true. Council knows how most constituents feel and most voted accordingly. That's democracy for you.

@ 10 I don't think the city council is even close to being "in touch" with the average taxpaying citizen in the city.

This is the city council's record

Defund the police - throw social workers at the problems and hope it works out okay
Allowing downtown to be pillaged, destroyed and doing nothing to support small business
Turning downtown streets into rabbit trails and bike lanes
Allowing rampant homeless to basically roam at will... while wasting millions in "so called homeless shelter schemes.
Crime - .....property, violent crime and gun violence is off the charts.
Pissing off large business which support the city, arts and provide real jobs
Allowing city property to become a launch pad of anarchist who destroy property and the city

This is the worst city council I've ever seen in 40 years and their agenda is antagonistic and completely bent.

There was a time when the city leaders worked with the business community and didn't allow a lawless landscape to prevail across the city.

Seattle has about 350,000 households about 50% are renters, you say 124,000 are behind in rent. are behind in rent, hmm thats 124/175 = 70% behind in rent?

"She said that in Auburn and Federal Way eviction filings nearly doubled after their moratoria ended. In Seatac and Des Moines, filings nearly tripled. In Redmond, filings almost quadrupled."

This is impossible to understand without context. If anyone from HJP is reading, it would be useful to post a link to this slide, or at least explain the relevant timeframe and the actual number of eviction proceedings.

So much pearl clutching by the Progressive Left! Here's the deal - if you haven't paid rent in two years, you don't plan on paying rent, or repaying rent. I wish there was a superhero that worked for landlords called 'Evictoria' - she would go around tossing indigent non-rent-paying tenants out on their behinds. Two years, they've had two years. At some point, you need to stop enabling these people - oh wait, sounds like we just did!

How is it verified that someone is not paying rent due to COVID hardship? We don't have infinite money to spend, so we really need to be helping those most in need. Also, we are in a homelessness emergency for closing in on a decade now, and everything that has been done and the billions spent have made the problem worse. Do not trust these progressives who say they will fix shit with more money. Doesn't work.

@ 16 It's not verified. Instead, the tenant submits "a declaration or self-certification asserting the tenant has suffered a financial hardship and is therefore unable to pay rent." http://seattle.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?FullText=1&GUID=0651D7FC-E708-40E6-8AFA-090008E8C4A4&ID=4427723&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

The US Supreme Court decided in August 21 that tenants cannot legal self-certify. What the Seattle City Council is doing is illegal - I hope they lose in the appeals court (Renters House Association v City of Seattle) and have to pay all the landlords back. Unfortunately, the tax payers will have to foot the bill. The City Council members should be removed from their jobs for illegally allowing self-certification because it just was "too much of a hardship" to provide documentation.
https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/chrysafis-v-marks/
The judgement:
If a tenant self-certifies financial hardship, Part A of COVID Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act (CEEFPA) generally precludes a landlord from contesting that certification and denies the landlord a hearing. This scheme violates the Court’s longstanding teaching that ordinarily “no man can be a judge in his own case” consistent with the Due Process Clause.

The emergency is over. Stop using it as an excuse. If the City Council just thinks that everyone who wants free rent should have free rent, they need to have the balls to say so. And then tell us how they plan to pay for it. And then they should not bitch when they get tossed out on their asses in the next election, because a majority of the voters (even in one of the most liberal cities in the country) won't stand for it.

To the author of this article, Hannah - there is another story here - please report on it:
I think the city council was worried about litigation against the city and that's why they didn't vote for the eviction moratorium, not because they had a change of heart. There was a city council meeting discussing past, prevent, future litigation just before their meeting but it was closed to the public. Go to 1:49:30 at the following link (the city council meeting you covered) and listen for about 4 minutes - Herbold talks about the lawsuits threatening the existing laws, including the ones Sawant pass that are clearly illegal (winter eviction, school ban eviction, some of the clauses in the "just cause" eviction): https://youtu.be/T9qtQUNapC0?t=6564