Ten days ago, more than 800 people gathered for Mayor Schell's Community Housing Conference. Most of us were housing or homeless activists, neighborhood folks, non-profit housing providers, or funders of low-income housing. We were there, filling the rooms, questioning the presenters, making sure our comments were written down by the note takers. The conference was the culmination of weeks of smaller community meetings, where citizens participated to influence the city's housing policy.

The mayor's staff prepared a Housing Action Agenda--a working document, which was amended after each round of public comment. The latest version--draft #4--listed the mayor's original 21 recommendations, with new text highlighted so we could see the end result of all these meetings and the earnest attempts by citizens of Seattle to participate in the process. By definition, our comments were not supposed to challenge the scope or the underlying assumptions behind the original recommendations (e.g., adding or deleting entire sections). Instead, we were all to search for consensus, for just the right words to express the mayor's ideas. The charming atmosphere--that of a playful urban scene--let us all know what a good-natured process this was supposed to be.

So this was Paul Schell's good-faith effort to solve Seattle's housing crises. And the details? Build more housing. More specifically, help developers build more housing. How? Streamline permitting, upzone neighborhoods, add new tax incentives ... as though it was the difficulties of developers that were responsible for Seattle's skyrocketing housing costs. At one of the summit's workshops, a developer said: "I know people are concerned that if we decrease the cost of construction we will still get the highest rents. But that is not the only issue..." Geez, how dumb does the mayor think we are?

What we have here is a "developers' rights" agenda being disguised as an affordable housing initiative. Of Schell's 21 recommendations, seven will directly benefit developers, mostly by streamlining the permit process and upzoning to increase density (e.g., allow bigger buildings in residential neighborhoods, or all-residential buildings in commercial neighborhoods).

Of the other 14 recommendations, some are meant to support neighborhood plans, regardless of their effect on housing. Some are to encourage new funding mechanisms (e.g., banks should contribute more). And then there are a few recommendations about low-income housing. These include tax exemptions for rent-restricted properties (low-income housing advocates have been working on this for a decade), and (again) the promise to secure additional resources for low- income housing. Those resources, presumably, are to come from somewhere other than the city budget itself. And there's the recommendations to use public land for affordable housing--this has been in every public plan since the last time Schell ran for office 20 years ago.

None of the city's recommendations address shelters and the thousands of people that sleep on Seattle's streets each night. None encourage preservation of existing low-income housing, other than to buy it with money that does not exist.

Mayor Schell believes that if the city encourages private developers to build more market rate housing, the city will no longer have a housing crisis. In reality, it will just create more of the same old problems. Poor people will continue to be pushed out of the city, while neighborhoods will have higher density (more apartments filled with higher income people). The city will have more homeless, and the suburbs will have a higher concentration of the working poor, who will live there only until those "ring suburb" neighborhoods gentrify ... or until they too are priced out of the private housing market completely.

To face down this whitewash of a real crisis, Seattle's dynamic housing and homeless activist community met the challenge. SHARE erected their tents and attended the conference en masse. Ever ready for a photo op, the mayor brought them sandwiches for lunch. The Gang of Eight, a time-tested, battle-worn group of advocates and service providers, issued a counter report recommending shelter and low-income housing preservation. The mayor thanked us for our input.

The sophistication of the mayor's PR machine is unmatched by past administrations. Seattle has arrived; no more street fights with grungy poor people; now it's all slick co-optation. Confuse, smile, thank, and welcome public input. Mayor Schell's housing agenda is to help developers build, regardless of the affordability of the new housing, the displacement it will cause, or the effects on the character of neighborhoods.

Fortunately, our new friends in the city council are not likely to throw in their lot with developers to support upzoning and incentives that will result in displacement and unwanted density. There is hope. We also have a more capable and expansive housing and homeless activist community than ever before. And we now have something clear--if not slimy and persistently smiling--to fight against.

If you would like a copy of the Mayor's Housing Action Agenda call him at 206-684-4000. If you would like a copy of the Gang of Eight's counter report call me at 206-860-2034.

--Ginger Segal. Ginger is a long-time homeless and low income housing advocate and is one of the Gang of Eight.