AN ORDINANCE amending Ordinance 126237, which adopted the 2021 Budget, including the 2021-2026 Capital Improvement Program (CIP); changing appropriations to various departments and budget control levels, and from various funds in the Budget; and adding or modifying provisos; all by a 3/4 vote of the City Council.
The bill passes and the chair will sign it. Will the please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf? Item one will please read the short title of item one into the record. The Report of the Finance and Housing Committee Agenda Item one Constable 1200 19 and many audience 26 to 37, which adopted the 2021 budget , including the 2021 three 2026 Capital Improvement Program. The committee recommends the bill pass. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Consumer scanning. You are the chair of this committee, and I'm going to hand it over to you to walk us through the report. Thank you very much, Madam President. Council colleagues, thank you for all of your input on this item. Just as a reminder, this is our resolution that outlines the principles and our broad spending categories for the anticipated additional federal aid that is coming from the American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA. As Senator Bernie Sanders said recently in an interview on Democracy Now! This is the most significant legislation for working people that has been passed in decades, saying what this legislation does. He commented on the fact that this legislation advances priorities in this country that we have ignored for far too long, noting that we have the highest rates of child poverty of any major country on Earth. And this largest legislation expands tax credits and lowers childhood poverty in America by up to 50%. This legislation says that in the richest country in the history of the world, people should not be going hungry. The legislation passed by Congress provides help so that when moratoriums on evictions end, people will get the assistance they need to be able to stay in their homes, whether a rental unit or your own home. And the federal act more than doubles funding for community health centers. These are among other priorities. It is with great anticipation that the City of Seattle is looking forward to working with all of the residents in Seattle to allocate the funding to address the immediate needs that have become worse due to COVID and also address the underlying inequities that were present prior to COVID. The crisis of the pandemic has only exacerbated it and made worse many of the situations that families were living in, in poverty, or whether they were vulnerable communities or families who are living paycheck to paycheck, and the disproportionate impact, especially on women and people of color as a result of the consequences of COVID. I'm really excited about this resolution. It is the first of a few pieces of legislation that I know the Council will pass soon related to the American Recovery Act plan. But this resolution provides the backbone, the frame that we will continue to go back to as we allocate funding to provide necessary services both in the near and the long term, to recover from this crisis. The priority investments in this resolution are informed by policies that many in the community have engaged in deep conversations with the Seattle City Council on over the last year. This builds on previously passed legislation like the 2020 budget revisions like our Jumpstart Seattle COVID relief plan. The initial plan that we passed and the final one that was submitted as well, and it builds on the 2021 adopted budget all as key components as we look at items for immediate relief and flagging ongoing investments in the outyears. The resolution was developed with the following considerations in mind. First and foremost, data obscured. I'm so sorry, but I just realized that you're speaking to item two and we are on item one, so I apologize. You're so excited about this resolution that we weren't excited about. But yes, right over the first bill, I. Thought it was me. I thought I was off. Thank you. I thought I was going. To cry all that away for Bill two and I apology. I apologize to Councilmember Lewis. Yeah so I think. We're we're all. Equally excited. About council bill 120019. So I'm going to hand it back over to you to walk us through that one at first and if you'd like to defer to Councilmember Lewis, also happy to do that. Well, Councilmember Lewis, I appreciate your leadership on this. I will be very brief. Item number one, colleagues, is ordinance 120011. This does require a three fourths votes of Seattle City Council. So I'm equally as excited about this piece of legislation. I will note that it provides the 12 million appropriated needed for the non congregant shelter services, including hotel rooms, tiny house villages or enhanced shelter options for individuals experiencing homelessness and an increased risk for contracting COVID. Greatly appreciate the leadership of Councilmember Lewis and the Council President and the negotiations on this bill. And it comes to us after both receiving clarity and after a year of being in compliance and trying to be in compliance with CDC recommendations which require us to look at non congregate shelter options for all of those who are experiencing homelessness across our city. Councilmember Lewis, apologies for the delay and thank you again for your leadership. Councilmember Lewis, would you like to make comments on this bill as the prime sponsor? Yes. Thank you, Madam President, and thank you for your leadership. And in moving the ball along on this, in bringing all of the parties to the table, including FEMA, the city budget office and the mayor's office, as well as the key council stakeholders. Thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda, for co-sponsoring this and moving it expediently through your committee last week on a expedited timeline. You know, a lot has been said about this over the last couple of weeks, as we've discussed this in the news as a community, not just as a city government, that we make sure that we are aggressively pursuing every possible resource to make a impact on the really, really difficult issue that all of us see on a very daily basis of chronic homelessness in our community. Knowing that there are lots of things we can be pursuing with this federal reimbursable resource to mitigate the impact of this. Emergency, get people inside into a private, hygienic place with four walls and a door that locks where they can live with dignity and where they can be protected from the very real and rampant COVID pandemic. We know from some of the conversations this morning and Councilmembers Muscat and Morales and I know from our our briefings in Board of Health last week that despite a lot of cause for optimism, there is still a rampant virus out there that folks experiencing homelessness are more vulnerable to without having a lot of the places that we take for granted to be able to shelter in place in a safe and hygienic way from the unique challenges of the pandemic . This resource specifically will help the city to address that, to provide the kind of non congregate shelter that is essential for people who are 65 and older, people with co-morbidities, people with enhanced vulnerability to the disaster can take advantage of. I do want to note that this is a resource that is on top of other resources this Council has appropriated and put forward to provide more non congregate shelter. It is additive to the 300 hotel rooms that the council provided funding for last fall. It is additive to the 120 additional tiny houses that the council provided, as well as the 125 enhanced shelter spaces. That is 545 total aggregate spaces. The executive is still in the process of setting up in collaboration with the Council, and we should get a pretty big update on all of those assets in the April meeting of the Council. But in the meantime, we can be leaning in with this additional resource to take advantage of the generous offer from FEMA to 100% reimburse for certain expenses that meet their criteria that we have spent a lot of time really drilling down into the specifics of. And this legislation addresses that. One last thing I do want to say on this, just to make sure we don't forget, I know council president had indicated an interest in being added as co-sponsor. I want to make sure that we do that before the full passage. And I don't know if this is the time to signify as prime sponsor that that is absolutely very warranted given the key leadership role council president played in bringing this together. But I just want to close my comments by recognizing that. And with that, I'll turn it back over. Thanks for that concern. Lois, really, really appreciate it. I went I would like to have my name added as I cosponsored to this really important bill and I appreciate your comments. Customer Lewis following up on that. So I'm hoping that the clerks are listening. I'm sure that they are so that they can make sure that the record reflects my co-sponsorship. And I will wait for one of them to tell me that I need to see specific, more specific words if I need to. And happy to do that. Okay with that. We've added you as a co-sponsor. Thank you. Thank you so much, Madam Clerk. Really appreciate it. Colleagues, any other comments or questions on on Council Bill 120019. I'm not seen any more comments on this. I am really excited to be able to vote in favor of this particular council bill and the things that we think it makes a lot of sense based on what the Prime sponsor and and Chair Mosqueda just just mentioned. And I'm glad that we were able to find some much needed clarity on the policy position related to this bill from the federal level that really allowed us to move this particular legislation forward. And of course, there is no 100% guarantee of 100% reimbursement. But I think that any opportunity we can to get reimbursement, even if it's partial, is critically important to continue to protect those who cannot shelter in place from the devastating, deadly impacts of COVID 19. We know that it is going to take us a while to catch up to the demand and the need as it relates to vaccination. And we also know that when we're talking about hard to reach community members like those who do not currently have housing or are unsheltered, it's going to be even more challenging to deploy vaccinations into the community. And it's going to take us, unfortunately, a little bit longer because of the transitory nature of the population. So this hoteling strategy and other strategies that allow us to focus on non congregate shelter for those individuals who will continue to be at significant risk to COVID 19 is is going to be critically important for the city moving forward. So I appreciate and appreciate the the good sense here in advancing this bill. All right. I'm not seeing any additional comments on this bill, so I'm going to ask that the clerk please call the role on the passage of Council Bill 120019. Morales. Yes. Macheda. Hi, Peterson. Hi. So what? Yes. Strauss. Yes. Herbold. Yes. Suarez. I. Lewis. Yes. President Gonzalez I nine in favor and unopposed. The bill passes and the chair will sign it. Will the court please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf? Okay. Item two Will the clerk please read item two into the record? Agenda item two Resolution 31999.