Bellingham General Election 2023

By using our public funding to help build permanently affordable housing. Bellingham is fortunate to have more robust local funding than other municipalities because we have created dedicated funding sources including the Bellingham Home Fund, a property tax which I sponsored and helped draft as a City Councilmember. It brings in millions of dollars annually. Bellingham spends $15 million dollars annually for permanent subsidized housing. We have tripled tiny home shelters during my tenure, with further to go. We will continue pressing our federal government to become better partners in the homelessness crisis by increasing funding for Section 8 vouchers.

The pandemic increased social problems in cities across the country. Bellingham was not spared. Growing numbers of people suffer from mental health crises, drug addiction, and homelessness. Theft has spiked, funding addiction.  We are responding with a comprehensive approach: quickly staffing up our police department through creative policies to both retain our police and recruit new members; working with state partners to help build facilities to offer treatment and mental health services; supporting a new more humane jail to address booking restrictions; and implementing a therapeutic court where people charged with crimes can get treatment. 

Bellingham’s top issues are home affordability, homelessness, public safety, converting to renewable energy systems.  We are doing the hard work of addressing ALL these issues.

On affordability: powerful market forces are creating an affordability crisis. We respond by creating more housing choices and new ownership opportunities. We create more homes, increase renter

Our unhoused residents need alternatives to living in cars and on the street: safe temporary shelters, secure parking for vehicles and preventive measures like rental assistance. I’d increase support for successful programs like tiny homes and explore new evidence-based solutions with lower barriers. I’d gather better data to assess the effectiveness of current programs, hire staff to secure more State and Federal funding and collaborate regionally with other leaders for coordinated action plans. We’ll pay for these measures with existing taxes Bellingham voters have enacted, enhanced lobbying for external funds, and strengthened partnerships with nonprofits close to this work.

Crime in Bellingham is increasing in certain neighborhoods and we must do more to ensure safety and wellbeing. This includes expanding treatment programs and diversion pathways using jail only when necessary. We should enact commercial and school protection zones, along with effective data collection and transparency. We must create adaptable plans based on outcomes while assessing the long-term structural impediments to advancing a vibrant Bellingham. We need a clear vision and a Downtown Activation Plan to transform the heart of our city into a place that creates jobs, drives innovation, brings people together, advances progress, and uplifts ALL.

As mayor, I’ll ensure that our top policy priority addresses housing needs across the continuum. We must invest in diverse solutions, from temporary shelter for the unhoused to affordable rental options and accessible homeownership. Actions I’ll call for include strengthening renter protections, streamlining regulations for affordable units, exploring innovative partnerships with local land trusts and borrowing successful programs from other communities. We should consider public development models and pre-approved designs. No single answer will make housing affordable, but achieving this goal will raise the quality of life for cost-burdened residents while providing a great citywide public benefit.

This past year, the number of homeless individuals in our community increased by 27%. The highest priority must be prevention. A majority of households in Bellingham are cost-burdened, with many vulnerable to losing their housing. Additional relief and protections are critical in the short term.

Ending homelessness requires a rapid investment in housing-first models, safe parking sites, and a full spectrum of services, including mental health, substance use treatment, and peer mentorship and training. The city should leverage more state and federal dollars, administer more funds locally, and carefully consider new forms of local revenue for the most critical and urgent projects.

Luckily, the pandemic spike in crime has sharply declined. However, critical public safety challenges remain. The city should invest in more street-level response, especially in programs experiencing the highest demand, including the Alternative Response Team and the Community Paramedics Program.

Public safety needs to be integrated into our long-term plans as well. Economic development, community-based services, and our built environment can proactively improve public safety.

The city is not building adequate housing, nor is it doing enough to protect cost-burdened retirees and working families who are at risk of being priced out of their homes and our city. When elected, I will be the only renter on the City Council, and I will bring much-needed perspective and urgency to make progress to solve this crisis.

We need to address the camps in the woods AND people camping in doorways, parks and RVs. The City must condemn the camp properties similar to the Aloha motel. The city should provide for urban camping and safe parking zones that comply with the Martin v. Boise decision. The City can fund this from current $6.1 million and ongoing revenue in the Affordable Housing Sales Tax Fund, which is specifically allowed for this purpose. Bellingham can purchase the property behind Walmart with Greenways funds through the condemnation process and then have a nice large wooded park in North Bellingham. 

Bellingham needs a two-prong approach. First increase funding for our police department to restore bike police and community policing. We can seek to deter crime as an initial stop gap measure. The longer term solution is to address root causes. Most of our jail population is impacted by 2 causation factors: homelessness and substance use disorder. We can then address the affordable housing crisis, by providing urban camping and safe parking zones. All of our problems are interlinked, but the solution to all is funding programs. We must not be scared to try something and adapt it to move forward.

Affordable housing is at a crisis. My plan is to bring back the Public Development Authority. This public corporation can build housing, utilize union labor through Project Labor Agreements and implement permanent affordability mixed with market rate units. Public development, because it doesn’t need the massive profits of developers, can then actually be sold to investors and put back onto the property tax rolls, with permanent affordability attached. As an accounting instructor and financial manager, I have the skills and education to address our area's needs by using the money and avenues that the city currently has or can restore.

Homelessness is primarily caused by an insufficient supply of affordable homes - not substance abuse or mental health disorders. So, the cornerstone of any strategy to reduce homelessness needs to be improving housing affordability in general. We also need a continuum of services to help support and transition individuals out of homelessness: additional emergency shelter options, tiny home villages, substance abuse and mental health counseling. The state legislature last year passed $63 million in new funding for treatment, recovery residences and Health Engagement Hubs – but remember the less expensive option is to prevent homelessness in the first place.

To improve public safety, we need to target the underlying causes of crime and incarceration - not reach for ineffective tools that perpetuate harm.

A community where so many people are desperate - rent-burdened and food insecure, living right on the edge homelessness - will naturally experience more property crime. Our neighbors are rightly upset to find their car window smashed or something stolen off their porch (like a toddler’s stroller, in our case). But punitive, law enforcement based responses address only the symptom; reducing poverty and improving housing affordability address the root cause, making Bellingham more stable and secure.

The lack of affordable homes is fundamentally destabilizing: increasing homelessness, substance abuse, and crime while undermining Bellingham’s economic health.

We need to remove regulations that constrain construction of market-rate and permanently-affordable housing and target resources that can rapidly scale up the number of affordable homes being developed. In published plans, Bellingham repeatedly identifies “single-family zoning, minimum lot size requirements, and restrictions on in-fill development” as the barriers preventing the creation of affordable homes – but our leaders do fail to remove them. Renters must be protected from extreme rent increases and negligent property management companies that allow dangerous conditions to persist.

Rehousing community members is much more expensive than preventive measures to keep people housed. The priority is to prevent future homelessness by focusing on the next generation and breaking the cycle of poverty. We must provide more units along the entire continuum of housing – emergency shelter, transitional housing, nonprofit and public housing, affordable private rentals, and home ownership. This will enable people to transition upward along the continuum and maintain stable housing.

The City of Bellingham can leverage funding through the Bellingham Home Fund, and partnerships with Kulshan Community Land Trust, Opportunity Council, Washington State Housing Finance Commission, etc.

Public health and safety are some of the top concerns of community members in Bellingham. Our community needs a new jail facility that provides behavioral health and substance-abuse treatment programs, supportive housing programs for recently released inmates and robust diversion programs to end recidivism. In the interim, our community must continue to increase staffing and services, prioritize community policing models, and support special programs like Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD), Ground-level Response And Coordinated Engagement (GRACE), Alternative Response Team (ART), Downtown Safety Ambassadors, etc.


 

Development of affordable housing is a top priority. As a community, I propose we utilize our Infill Housing Toolkit, implement HB 1110 and HB 1337, and adopt inclusionary zoning policies that mandate a percentage of all development is permanently affordable. In tandem, our 2023-2027 Consolidated Plan will include assessment of community development needs, analysis of the housing market for low-income households, and strategic goals to address priority needs.  Then in 2025, we will update our Comprehensive Plan to strategically guide Bellingham’s growth. In addition to policy development, I will identify partners, allocate funding, and support staffing levels necessary for implementation.

There isn't one policy implementation that will solve this problem. We need a range of short and long term approaches to get people into stable housing and keep them there. I am proud to be one of the drafters of The Big Lift, which is a framework built for policy and budget implementation. Leveraging the existing dollars in the Economic Development Initiative, the Home Fund, the county allotment to end homelessness, the city’s general fund, and programs like the Medicaid Apple Health and Homes program, we have what we need to stabilize and house people in this community right now.

What we are doing right now isn’t working. It is clear that the city needs to direct more resources immediately toward crisis stabilization, mental health services, and most importantly, housing. Putting people in jail becomes a revolving door of homelessness, job loss, destabilization, and sometimes more crime, usually property theft, because people do not have what they need to survive. But it doesn’t solve our problems with crime long term. Working on stabilizing our community with desperately needed services will cause crime to go down way faster than prioritizing policing and jailing.

Safe and affordable housing is the foundation of a healthy and sustainable community. People who work here should be able to afford to live here. This has to be the number one priority right now. Getting unhoused people into housing, and also focusing on creating permanently affordable housing with all new developments, stabilizing rent, providing assistance for seniors whose property taxes are going up, meaningful code enforcement, and creating opportunities for equity building and cooperative ownership are all things that we can do right now to address our housing crisis.

Continue to build affordable housing and behavioral health provide services for those that need them. I've developed two affordable housing funds over the last decade, but we need more help from Olympia. That's why I'm working with our state representatives  to make sure State Housing Trust Fund dollars come to Bellingham.

The City has gradually added police officers, started a beat cop program, hired security and an ambassador program as well as a graffiti abatement program. We need to address the root causes of crime which now largely have to do with fentanyl addiction and associated thefts and behavioral health issues. We can do this by added treatment capacity locally and partner regionally, which I have already begun. 

I talk with voters on doorsteps every day and the number one issue is public safety. We need to greatly expand our investments in behavioral health at the City, County and State level. I work closely with colleagues at all three levels and have a proven track record on co-creating programs like LEAD, GRACE and the Alternate Response Team. Go to respondwhatcom.org to learn more.

Housing and shelter.  Bellingham passed a home levy, and the council approved the Affordable Housing Sales Tax. We should shift  funds earmarked for low income housing to expand our low barrier supportive shelters   and prefabricated tiny homes. To fund affordable housing, I support City Council at Large candidate Russ Whidbee’s goal of reinstating our Public Development Authority to fund workforce housing through bonds. We can partner with Kulshan Land trust to use city parking lots to use the air rights for permanently affordable housing as we build the infrastructure on the first floor that we need for an expanding city.

Bellingham has a shortage of police officers and had to cut units that made community policing our standard. We cannot meet our call volume and have to triage response. Our local crumbling jail currently has booking restrictions for only the most dangerous offenders.  We need to focus on accountability for crimes and supportive services to reduce recidivism. We have expanded our incarceration diversion programs, yet we need to dedicate more funding towards mental health, addiction treatment, and reentry housing. This expansion will need funding from the state. Advocacy and strong budget oversight will be required to increase needed services. 

The availability of affordable housing is extremely limited. With yearly rental spikes exceeding 10%, our renters are being priced out of living in our community. Until our state lawmakers change the laws that prohibit rent control, we have to legislate where we can. I proposed inclusionary zoning and expect our consultant’s study to form legislation early in 2024.  I also support hiring a dedicated planner to work with our non-profit housing developers to help expedite plans and to identify (and eliminate) barriers to maximize builds.  We also need to reinstate a Public Development Authority to help fund more housing.