Each week on The Newsfeed, host Paris Jackson and a team of veteran journalists dive deep into one topic and provide impactful reporting, interviews and community insights from sources you can trust. Each day this week, this post will be updated with a new story from the team.
We sat down with Seattle’s 58th Mayor, Katie Wilson, roughly two months into her new job, after being a longtime progressive organizer.
Wilson is a newcomer to elected office – a significant political shift, and now a key decision maker in one of the fastest growing U.S. cities that boasts nearly 12,000 city employees and nearly 800,000 residents.
Prior to being Mayor, Wilson co-founded the Transit Riders Union, a democratic organization that successfully pushed for expanded transit access, minimum wage increases and renter protections.
“It's amazing now to be in this position where I have this great team in the mayor's office. And to really feel that I'm in a position with that team to do things that really move the needle for people's quality of life. And it's just a different part of the picture, I think than being on the outside as an organizer, And, you know, always pushing and being like, here's the thing that people need. We're just going to push and push and push until we get there. And now, being the mayor, feeling that I have kind of a different set of levers at my disposal to get things done,” Wilson said.
Wilson is leaning into her coalitions and community building as she weighs some critical decisions.
“How important it is to have, people in organizations and movements on the outside that are doing that pushing right? And providing that perspective on what the community needs. And also, creating that public support that really makes hard things possible politically,” Wilson said.
During the campaign one of the biggest criticisms against Wilson was her inexperience running a large organization. Following a narrow victory against incumbent Bruce Harrell, Wilson is being put to the test.
Seattle has a high rate of unsheltered people. Wilson says it’s one of her administration’s top priorities to tackle the complex problem.
During the mayor’s State of the City Address she pledged to bring open 1,000 emergency housing units before the end of the year and 500 before the FIFA World Cup.
“We are moving rapidly to accelerate expansion of shelter and emergency housing. I signed an executive order a few weeks ago to basically get our city departments aligned and moving in that direction. Your question, where are we going to find the money? So we've been, combing through the city budget, looking for places where, we can use funds for basically for their intended purpose, but kind of like shift a little bit to really put everything together in the right way, so that we can, open these new units. We have found some funding in the city, in the city budget for this. We are also going to be working with [City] council to allocate some additional funds. And then we're also working with philanthropic partners to raise money, for kind of the capital side, of actually standing up new units,” Wilson explained.
This interview was conducted on February 24, before Wilson announced three pieces of permanent legislation to construct those 1,000 emergency housing units to fruition that are largely tiny houses.
