King County Council District No. 8

No one in our community should feel unsafe calling 91. Public safety should not be defined by punitive systems; it’s taking a holistic approach and addressing the root causes of why our Black residents disproportionately end up in the criminal legal system in the first place. We know that state sanctioned violence against marginalized communities has gone on for far too long, and we cannot continue with business as usual — people's lives depend on it. Excessive abuses and dangerous policing practices are why the Seattle Police Department was under a federal Consent Decree. In the time since, we’ve continued to see callous, dangerous, and deadly behavior from SPD with little to no accountability. This is unacceptable, and shows us that safety—and true public safety—starts with us, working together in community.

We must continue to create progressive policy that pursues healing from trauma that many in marginalized communities hold, centering their voices, and ensuring they are not only at the table, but defining what the table is in the first place. I will continue to build on this record of allocating resources into community-driven public safety and services that ensure healthy and thriving communities for Black and Brown residents. I have prioritized health, safety, and well-being over investments in systems that have proven to cause disproportionate harm to especially our Black and Brown communities. I am proud of our accomplishments towards stronger communities, but there is much more to be done to reverse harm caused, invest in community solutions, and move funding upstream to invest in public safety and infrastructure that saves lives. Here are some of the divestment strategies and investment approaches to healthier communities that I will continue to build on:

● Funding additional outreach workers, case managers, and firefighter first-responder teams through Health One to shift social services away from armed law enforcement, creating now 3 units across the city.

● Redirecting $14 million in community investments to increase capacity for youth-focused diversion programs and community-led public safety programs.

● Funding for case management and supportive services through JumpStart housing investments to ensure housing stability by addressing barriers such as mental health, substance use or ongoing physical health.

● Prioritized $60 million for black-led organizations and community of color representatives to allocate to upstream investments through Participatory Budgeting and community-driven directives to address violence, housing insecurity, mental health, education and income security.

● Adding more crisis counseling to support first responders’ mental health as they are often the first to show up to care for our elders and most vulnerable, and see trauma every day.

● Providing funding for organizations who provide harm reduction materials to street-based sex workers and drug users.

We need to uplift community-based organizations and community-based services through contracting, funding, and having an active role and voice in not just providing social services but also identifying what those needs are and how they are best addressed. When creating solutions and alternatives to meet community’s needs, folks in those communities know what works best. Community-based organizations have the trust and partnership with community members to help deploy resources and to know what else is needed.

Serving in public office during the time of this moment of racial reckoning and global pandemic has brought even more urgency to my push for transformational policies to protect front line workers, prioritize affordable housing and stability for working families, many of whom belong to the BIPOC community, to ensure access to jobs that are not at the expense of workers’ health or our environment’s health. My goal is to include BIPOC community priorities at the policy making table so no one is speaking for another community, and to direct funding into the hands of those affected because they know best how to serve their needs. A healthy community is where residents feel safe, empowered, and have the resources and infrastructure for self determination and protection from harm. To invest in our community’s health and safety, we must work to expand the capacity of community solutions that move us away from past harmful policy and a reliance on the criminal legal system. It requires deep investments in upstream restorative community-health oriented solutions and away from our reliance on the criminal legal system. We must decriminalize poverty, homelessness, and addiction. I am so proud of our accomplishments towards stronger communities, but there is much more to be done to reverse harm caused. Creating progressive policy that pursues healing from the trauma that many in marginalized communities hold, means centering their voices, and ensuring they are not only at the table, but defining what the table is in the first place. I will continue to build on this record of allocating resources into community-driven public safety and services that ensure healthy and thriving communities.

The importance and the vulnerability of the public health system is on full display since the pandemic hit our region. Public safety is public health—and we can address this through progressive policy. This includes vulnerabilities in our systems due to gaps in resources and services for behavioral health as we see more people with compounding health crises experiencing homelessness and a lack of places to care for them. King County is the jurisdiction with purview and oversight of the public health system and behavioral health, which directly impacts folks safety and wellbeing. My priorities are to:

● Increase funding and support for Public Health Seattle/King County to have a stable workforce and adequate resources necessary to address our compounding health crises today and the possible public health emergencies of the future.

● Address gun violence, youth violence, interpersonal violence as the public health crisis that they are by supporting local communities and jurisdictions to have direct and early investments.

● Increase access to care by investing in behavioral health services and workers, support human service providers who care for those who are experiencing homelessness or living in supportive housing by creating wage parity and creating career ladders into public health service.

These investments are more important than ever, as we see the shadow pandemic of isolation and depression compound the public health crisis of addiction and the looming global pandemic. I will bring my commitment to creating a healthy community for all as the central pillar of my service to King County residents.

I support King County Executive Constantine’s commitment to close the King County jail and his plan to redevelop that space to better suit the needs of our workforces and community. A primary goal for this redevelopment should be to add public gathering space and green space around affordable housing and supportive housing. It’s my goal as we approach redevelopment projects, or any new development projects, that folks aren’t harmed and crises are exacerbated. I think this vision of a campus can be done regardless of the final Sound Transit decision on 4th Avenue.

Eliminating jails deaths begins with keeping promises made to eliminate the harmful and deadly King County jail. Since 2019, 17 people have died in King County’s jails, 14 of those deaths were in the King County Correctional Facility in Seattle. Earlier this year, King County was sued by the ACLU of Washington for having violated a 1998 settlement which guaranteed access to medical care and other basic needs. This is simply not okay, and it’s certainly not the way to keep communities safe or reduce harm and/or violence. I support Executive Constantine’s promise to close the jail, saying, in part, it was no longer fit for its purpose.

Jails are not a place for rehabilitation; it’s a place where harm gets reproduced and it often can leave folks in worse conditions than when they entered. We’ve heard from folks on the ground that people are locked up for 23 hours a day and have little to no access to medical or mental health care. I will continue to learn from and follow the lead from folks on the ground engaged in the daily work of harm reduction and transformative justice. There have been a number of proposed solutions to help mitigate the crisis in the jail that I support, including prohibiting law enforcement from arresting people who are experiencing mental health crises and to stop penalizing mental health crises. Approximately 95 percent of people in the jail are there because they cannot afford bail with 38 percent being Black—despite the fact that Black people make up only 7 percent of the county’s population. Instead of perpetuating harm and racist carceral punishment, we can invest more into the health and wellness of our community through better funded mental and behavioral health services, accessible care, ensuring people are paid living wages, affordable and supportive housing. We’ve seen this prioritized in the recent Proposition No. 1. Crisis Care Centers Levy—and we need to continue to invest in things that make up true social safety nets so folks aren’t left alone or left to fend for themselves.

One of my campaign priorities, and a top budget priority, will be expanding affordable housing throughout our region. Although we have made important progress building more units of affordable housing over the last four years, our housing supply has not caught up with the growing population and the growing need for more affordable and missing-middle units.

By the year 2050, our region needs around 418,000 new housing units. Right now the average cost of a home is just under $800,000. With the support from Jumpstart, we will now have at least $135 million a year for the next 20 years dedicated to building housing and investing in development and acquisition to create and refurbish new units.

I will continue to be the leader that will build bridges between housing advocates, businesses, labor, and King County communities to put those dollars into action to provide greater housing stability across our region. With my proven track-record of collaboration and record delivering on housing investments, we will make progress on safe, stable, and affordable housing for all by:

● Building faster and with greater urgency by expediting permitting to build more housing, especially for Built Green standards and those who apply community benefit agreements and high workforce/labor standards.

● Working in partnership with local jurisdictions to rezone to allow for building a more inclusive, equitable, affordable city by permitting and promoting diverse housing options, especially in high-opportunity access areas close to grocery stores, schools, transit options and parks.

● Providing renter and small landlord financial help through rental assistance, small landlord supports, and other rent-stabilization efforts to prevent more people from losing their home in the wake of the pandemic and due to the ongoing housing affordability state of emergency

● Spending and authorizing new funding for strategic housing acquisition including purchasing multifamily buildings, apartments, hotels to allow for diverse, affordable housing options.